Listening

I think listening comes easier for some of us than it does for others.  I’m not naturally a good listener; I’m a talker. But that doesn’t let me off the hook. I still need to be a good listener—and so do you. James 1:19 says: “My dear brothers (and sisters), take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak . . .” But what is it about listening that makes it so important? The benefits of listening  Well, for one thing, when we’re good listeners, we show compassion and concern for others. We make them feel special. We practice Philippians 2:3-4 which says “....Read more …

Jerold Panas is CEO of one of the nation’s premier campaign services and financial resource development firms, and recently wrote that listening is “the single most powerful ammunition in your arsenal of fundraising, marketing and selling skills. Best of all, it’s a talent that can be learned and acquired.” Q Place is jazzed by Panas’ insightful thoughts about listening and hope that they also will inspire you: It often shows an extraordinary command of the language to say nothing. There is no greater compliment to a person than demonstrating a keen interest in them. You do this by listening intently. We are...Read more …

This is Walk the Way. Brought to you by Q Place. I’m Jeff Klein. And I’m Pam Klein. I could not believe all the honking in front of my house the other day! That’s when I saw two cars, nose to nose, with traffic backed up behind both of them. It was school pick-up time – the time when our already narrow street gets even narrower as parents park their cars and walk up to meet their kids. Plus, there was snow on the ground, narrowing it even more. So I went outside. I wanted to negotiate a settlement. I...Read more …

  Give yourself permission to take just seven and a half minutes to listen to this TED talk given by Julian Treasure, who says right off the top that we’re “losing our listening.” A man who “lives to listen,” because sound is his passion, Treasure wraps up his short education on the art of listening, saying it’s a skill we can all master, leaving us with 5 ways we can all improve our conscious listening. Silence Spend 3 minutes of the day in total silence. Can’t find that anywhere? Settle for quiet. Silence and quiet can “reset” our ears. The Mixer In an environment where lots of...Read more …

This is Walk the Way, brought to you by Q Place, I’m Jeff Klein. And I’m Pam Klein. Someone who I consider a really good listener recently told me that asking questions and listening weren’t always intuitive for her. But a college class in journalism unlocked a whole new world where she learned that people actually want to talk, even when they think they don’t. Every person has a story worth listening to, but getting the teller to share it, just requires: asking open-ended questions. asking follow-up questions. and requesting more explanations. Good interviews require that the question-asker gives the...Read more …

This is Walk the Way, brought to you by Q Place, I’m Jeff Klein. And I’m Pam Klein. My summer book club just read a lovely novel about a French bookstore owner who sells books from a floating barge on the Seine river. But he’s gifted. Jean Perdu can literally prescribe just the right book for anyone to help mend their broken hearts and souls. Of course, the only person he can’t heal is himself, but you’ll have to read the story for yourself to find out more. Among all the things I enjoyed about this book, I found the...Read more …

Twenty years ago, psychologist Arthur Aron discovered that four minutes of looking into another person’s eyes could bring people closer. When I first saw the video that Amnesty Poland produced based on this theory, I watched it, mesmerized. The film experiment, conducted in Berlin, shows what happened when refugees and Europeans sat opposite each other and looked into each other’s eyes. The participants were ordinary people. The situations weren’t staged and the beautiful reactions were natural and spontaneous. A smile creeps across a mouth, a tear wells up, a heavy sigh is breathed, a greeting of hello murmured, and compliments, attempts at...Read more …

Some of the things she talked about, she had never told anyone—she said to me as we were getting ready to leave. My friend and I were having lunch together on a Saturday afternoon in our college café after working at a convention the college hosted for high school students. Our intent was to grab a quick lunch, leave, and get on with our own things for the rest of the day. But the opposite happened. We sat for more than four hours simply having a conversation. It started off casual. We talked about the convention. We talked about our...Read more …

This is Walk the Way. Brought to you by Q Place. I’m Jeff Klein. At one time, my friend, Mike, had a unique role working for the US army in Afghanistan. His job? Build relationships with the Afghan people. Mike says that for the most part, the army establishes outposts; and from the safety of these outposts, the soldiers will get in their tanks and head to nearby villages to access the level of suspicious activity. It is not their job to get out of their tanks. But because they never do, they can only report so much. “Getting out”...Read more …