You are either learning or you are right.
In my humble opinion, the single most important ability when it comes to building relationship with others, is ability to listen. People are often so surprised, when somebody gives them their full attention that they might tell you amazing things. Their hopes, their dreams. How the things could be if… And those conversations are truly fulfilling.
“When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.” — The Dalai Lama
Imagine that you are in conversation with your girlfriend. She is telling you that there is something wrong with your attitude. You listened to her objections and now is your turn to tell her how she is wrong somewhere in her argumentation. Or is it?
I see two options here:
(1) You tell her, what you already know and if you are more articulated in your speech than her, you probably win the argument.
(2) You ask further questions, while your ego screams:”What the fuck are you doing? You are right here!” and try to get her perspective on the problem and then you might learn something which you didn’t know before. This option is much more uncomfortable and humiliating than the first one. But what you get in return might be priceless.
Of course, this is much much harder to put into practise. My advice would be watching yourself closely in every damn conversation which you have during a day. For me, this is still big work in progress.
So, how your next conversation with somebody will look like? Are you going to listen and potentially learn something new or are you going to be right?
Thanks for reading. (And check my Instagram. I am building interesting audience over there :-))