Keep Your Own Counsel

To be a good listener you need to NOT ListenWithYourAnswerRunning which is an AntiPattern. There are a variety of ways to get to this point if you are a congenital bad listener. One way is to keep saying to yourself -- "Isn't that interesting." Why is he saying that? This reflective posture will keep you quiet and put you in a reflective mood.

In the recent book "DontSweatTheSmallStuff and It's All Small Stuff", the pattern form is more or less followed and one pattern similar to this is to imagine that everyone is enlightened but you -- and you mentally think: What is this (enlightened) person trying to teach me! It is a fantastic way to begin to listen -- I am a really bad listener because I've always tried to be one step ahead and this is an extreme form of listening with your answer running. I am slowly learning to be a better listener and to "Keep My Own Counsel." --RaySchneider

In DaleCarnegie's book "HowToWinFriendsAndInfluencePeople" he explains how important it is to be a good listener. This includes not interrupting other speakers, waiting patiently until they have completely finished speaking. One of my own personal faults is that my mind races ahead of the conversation (the anti-pattern) and I jump in before the other person has finished speaking. --KentSchnaith

Part of this is due to personality or style differences. Some people prefer conversations with lots of back-and-forth. They speak in short sentences or sentence fragments, frequently interrupt, and don't mind being interrupted. They figure out what they think by talking about it. Other people prefer to think more before they talk, and then they give long orations. They don't like being interrupted. It is important to know what kind of person you are and what kind of person you are talking to.

This reminds me of how my Dad and one of his girlfriends spoke. He is from Georgia and speaks in somewhat of a Southern drawl while she was from New York and spoke quickly and curtly. She would often start to talk in the middle of one of his sentences because she thought that his pause meant he was done. Once she got talking he could hardly get a word in edgewise. I don't know how they ever communicated. --BrianRobinson

A problem I have with listening to orations is my short attention span/poor memory. By the time the speaker gets to the end of what they have to say, I've forgotten my response to something they said first. --RogerLipscombe

Steno responses. -- FridemarPache

Could you clarify that, please Fridemar? --rl

In order to keep a todo list of responses I use stenography (shorthand) to take written notes. Sometimes I even do my steno purely mentally, mixing stenography with mental graphics to support memorizing. -- fp