The alchemy of............................

 

......................................listening:

To listen is to place oneself in relation with uncertainty, with not-knowing, with the unknowable. Alchemists knew this well: the process could not be rushed, outcomes could not be guaranteed. Listening likewise resists certainty. It asks for a suspension of control, a willingness to not know in advance what will emerge. This is why listening feels risky. It exposes the listener to alteration. One cannot listen deeply and remain untouched.

In contemporary life, we are trained otherwise. We are trained to capture, to categorize, to respond efficiently. Sound becomes data. Speech becomes content. The world becomes something to be processed rather than encountered, engaged only within fixed norms. Listening, in this climate, is easily reduced to a technique; active listening, strategic listening, optimized listening. But alchemy does not function this way. It does not optimize; it transforms. It changes the conditions under which something can appear.

Listening as alchemy suggests that attention itself is a material force. Where attention goes, matter behaves differently. 

via swissmiss

Ideology...................

 

A group of political activists were attempting to show the Master how their ideology would change the world.

The Master listened carefully.

The following day he said, "An ideology is as good or bad as the people who make use of it.  If a million wolves were to organize for justice, would they cease to be a million wolves?"

-Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom

Teachers.....................

 

     Everyone loves to teach, but rarely do any of us take unsought advice well, and even more rarely are we truly teachable.  Being teachable means being open to learn.  In order to learn, one must listen, and we learn to listen only if we know the most important thing—that we do not know everything, that we do not have "all the answers." . . .

In the long history of spirituality, those recognized as somehow spiritually "great" have consistently been called "Teacher"—they help others to learn, to become teachable.  Spiritual teachers (who are never "experts") do three things:  First and foremost, they listen.  Second, they ask questions.  Third, they tell stories.  Each practice reflects the acceptance of not having all the answers, and each teaches the essential truth of spirituality's open-endedness.

-Kurtz and Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning

Love.........................

 

........................................is paramount.

a voice inside................

 

A library is a good place to soften solitude; a place where you feel part of a conversation that has gone on for hundreds and hundreds of years even when you're all alone.  The library is a whispering post.  You don't need to take a book off a shelf to know there is a voice inside that is waiting to speak to you, and behind that was someone who truly believed that if he or she spoke, someone would listen.

-Susan Orlean, The Library Book

to absorb and consider................

 

     In today's world, the art of listening seems to be under threat.  Social media has trained us to believe that what matters most is what we have to say.  We're talking more than ever, broadcasting our thoughts to the world with every post, tweet, and status update.  But in this cacophony of voices, it often seems like nobody is truly hearing each other.

     We've become so focused on crafting our next response, our next witty comment, that we've forgotten how to listen.  We skim, we scan, we scroll, but we rarely stop to absorb and consider what others are saying.  We're more connected than ever, yet in many ways, we're more isolated, trapped in echo chambers of our own making.

     This is why the skill of listening—real, active, engaged listening—is more crucial than ever.  It's a skill that can set you apart in a world where everyone is clamoring to be heard.  It's a skill that can open doors, build relationships, and lead to insights and opportunities that you might otherwise miss.

-George Raveling, What You're Made For: Powerful Life Lessons from My Career in Sports

Knowledge.......................

 

Knowledge, he realized, "was obtained rather by the use of the ear than that of the tongue."

-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

smarts..................................

 

I make progress by having people around me who are smarter than I am and listening to them.  And I assume that everyone is smarter about something than I am.

-Henry J. Kaiser

Sounds like.......................

 ................................heaven on earth:

Conversation with real people replaces an imaginary life on social media.

People care about what you have to say and are generally interested in hearing different viewpoints without considering you an enemy of the state. Rather than using the pretense of listening as an excuse for what they will opine about next, their questions are sincere and thoughtful.

On listening...........................

      It all starts with the universally applicable premise that people want to be understood and accepted.  Listening is the cheapest, yet most effective concession we can make to get there.  By listening intensely, a negotiator demonstrates empathy and shows a sincere desire to better understand what the other side is experiencing.

     Psychotherapy research shows that when individuals feel listened to, they tend to listen to themselves more carefully and to openly evaluate and clarify their own thoughts and feelings.  In addition, they tend to become less defensive and oppositional and more willing to listen to other points of view, which gets them to the calm and logical place where they can be good Getting to Yes problem solvers.

-Chris Voss, Never Split The Difference:  Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It

the untold story............

 If we want to understand before we are understood, we must deploy what John Steinbeck referred to as "a good ear."  A good ear is one that hears below the surface.  Every text has a subtext, and it is usually the subliminal messages that have the most power and truth.  It is a rule of human nature that we often say what we do not mean.  We use words that are not true to how we feel.  We distort and hide and obfuscate, usually because we fear presenting the real us and being rejected for it.  Given this, if we want to be deep listeners we must listen between the lines to the silences, the emotions, the doubts, the deep-seated beliefs that influence a person's life, choices and self-image.  We listen for the untold story.

-Adam S. McHugh, The Listening Life

Easy to miss............................

     The phrase "still, small voice" comes from the King James Version's rendering of the "sheer silence" in the Elijah story, an interpretation that isn't the best translation of the Hebrew but that does represent well the nature of God's communication with us.  The sovereign King of the universe, to our surprise, does not often trumpet his message to his subjects.  God's volume knob is rarely turned all the way to the right; his voice in our ears is subtle, restrained, even easy to miss.

-Adam S. McHugh, The Listening Life

It's noisy out there.....................

      The phrase "still, small voice" comes from the King James Version's rendering of the "sheer silence" in the Elijah story, an interpretation that isn't the best translation of the Hebrew but that does represent well the nature of God's communications with us.  The sovereign King of the universe, to our surprise, does not often trumpet his message to his subjects.  God's volume knob is rarely turned all the way to the right; his voice in our ears is subtle, restrained, even easy to miss.

-Adam S. McHugh, The Listening Life: Embracing Attentiveness in as World of Distraction

Listen...................................

 When we try to convince people to think again, our first instinct is usually to start talking.  Yet the most effective way to help others open their minds is often to listen.

-Adam Grant,  Think Again:  The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

Sometimes............................

2.  If you have the power to make someone happier today, do it.  The world needs more of that.

5.  Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, and honest compliment, or the smallest act of love—all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

13.  The single greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.  Too often we don't listen to understand, we listen to reply.  Bring awareness to this.  And listen for what's truly behind the words.

15.  Sometimes it is better to be kind than to be right.

-Marc & Angel Chernoff, from their chapter 20 Morning Mantras to Start the Day Loving People (instead of Judging or Ignoring Them) in 1000+ Little Things Happy Successful People Do Differently

The times, well they have changed..........

"The Congress is ordinarily courteous and patient about listening to testimony, but gives not evidence of being willing to delegate any of its authority."

-Warren Weaver, Science and Imagination:  Selected Papers, circa 1959

Cooperation.......................

. . . cooperation begins with conversation:  asking intelligent and open-ended questions;  listening;  respecting others' opinions;  and understanding people's real concerns, as well as what opportunities they're most excited about and what strengths they have to contribute.

-Dan Sullivan/Catherine Nomura:  The Laws of Lifetime Growth:  Always Make Your Future Bigger Than Your Past

What if.....................................

     The question that drives this book is, how would our relationships change, and how would we change, if we approached every situation with the intention of listening first?  What if we approached our relationship with God as listeners?  What if we viewed our relationship with nature as one of listening?  What if we approached our relationships with our ears rather than our mouths?  What if we sought to listen to our emotions before we preached to them?

-Adam S. McHugh,  The Listening Life:  Embracing Attentiveness in a World of Distraction

Listening................................

Hearing, generally speaking, is one of the five senses, the one that centers on our ears and our brain's processing of the sounds it receives.  It is involuntary and momentary.  Hearing is something that happens to us.  Sounds force our attention, and we "obey" them instinctually through our body's responses.
      Listening, on the other hand, is something we choose.  Listening is a practice of focused attention.  Hearing is an act of the senses, but listening is an act of the will.  In listening you center not only your ears but your mind, heart and posture on someone or something other than yourself.  It is a chosen obedience, like soldiers falling into line the moment their commanding officer calls them to attention.

-Adam S. McHugh,  The Listening Life:  Embracing Attentiveness in a World of Distraction

We should pay more attention to McKinley.....

Few episodes in McKinley's career reflected more distinctly the man's political and managerial style that his leadership of the war effort.  Never inclined toward bombast or over take-charge exhibitions, he displayed his normal indirect methods of management—listening more than talking, soliciting opinions and advice from many sources while keeping his own counsel until it came time for decision making.  Nor did he allow himself to get waylaid by the minutiae of the war enterprise.
     Yet no one in Washington maintained a more detailed understanding of the big issues emanating from the war, and on one deflected him from his chosen path. . . . Perceiving clearly the political and military dangers in a protracted war, he moved aggressively to pummel the enemy and thus end the conflict as quickly and decisively as possible.
     . . . A British commentator named Henry Norman, writing in the London Chronicle, foresaw a new fate for George Washington's famous admonition to his nation, "Avoid foreign entanglements."  This warning, said Norman, now "ceases to be the compass of the statesman and becomes the curio of the historian.

-Robert W. Merry,  President McKinley:  Architect of the American Century, as Merry writes about the end to the Spanish-American War.