In a recent podcast about venture capital investing, the speaker stressed on the need of a startup founder to be a good listener of the market. A founder needs to be attuned to what the market is saying so that they do not miss out on important signals and hence make course corrections when needed.
This thought me thinking about how important it is at an individual level as well to be “listening” to various aspects of your life. You need to seek out and be aware of feedback. Specially those which makes you a bit uncomfortable and you want to dismiss instinctively.
Some of the strategies I use to be a better listener
Listening to your body
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
– Rumi
This is a big one and the easiest to silence or miss. Its easy to start believing that the mind is most important and the control center and we need to lead through our minds. The body is always giving you signals. Only when you sit at peace with yourself and let the body surface, you realize how intelligent the body is.
I was learning contemporary dance a few years ago and it was frustrating when I ‘got’ a dance movement in my head but was unable to execute it. My teacher would then ask us to let the movement sink in and settle down in the body. And in fact after a week or so, the body would get the movement and you no longer would need to actually think hard about doing it.
Meditation helps in settling down all the incessant thoughts and techniques like body scan helps increase body awareness. And its not that you need to fix everything you feel in your body, but its more about letting your body be heard and acknowledged.
Listening to your internal voice
Our internal voice is our constant companion. It might be a bitter friend or could be our all season cheerleader and confidante. And the voice can take different tones just in the course of a day.
It might feel tempting to listen to our voice when its warm and uplifting and shut it down by dousing it in self hate or self doubt or shame other times. But it is important to hear to our internal voice fully and patiently.
It doesn’t mean we act on it or believe all that it is saying. But the mere acknowledgement and embracing it fully as something which is valid is the only way to move further. This gives us the opportunity to engage with it rationally, to examine its roots and do the right thing anyway afterwards.
Listening to others around you
This might come across as easy, trivial even. On the one end there are the physical aspects of being a good listener including keeping your mouth shut, not finishing off the other person’s sentences, really listening to the other person and not just waiting to interject or make a counter.
But the more nuanced and oft missed practice, is to listen with an open mind and compassion. We need to make it easy and inviting for someone to have a healthy conversation even when we know we might not like what they are going to say.
One such realization I have had recently is to really listen during those heated discussions and moments of conflict. At times that’s when people might give you a hint of what they are really thinking or how you made them feel. Now it might not all be true and its convenient to rubbish those signals as outbursts of anger. But there might be gold within all that mud, when examined carefully with a clear mind.
Conclusion
Listening to both internally and externally is really important. Of course the more information you get, the more you need to sift through the noise and pick the right signals.
But we need to be always attuned and willing to listen, else we might keep making the same mistakes until we ‘get’ the lesson.
And sometimes, the lesson is in obvious plain sight.
deepcontemplator 