How I learned to listen better or what I learned from You’re not listening by Kate Murphy

You’re not listening was recommended by many people that I follow as one of the books that I should read for 2020. I was glad that I picked up this book, because I had always thought that I was a good listener, but then I realized after reading this book that I could be doing a lot more to be a better listener. Here is what I learned:

Deep listening is different than how we typically listen

A lot of the times when we are listening to someone (either a friend in conversation, a coworker, etc.), our attention is divided. We are sitting in front of our computer or we have our smartphones in front of us. Full attention is not provided to the other person. Why is this important? There is a lot of listening that happens not just with your ears, but also with your eyes and deep listening is a combination of hearing what the person is saying (content, tone and pitch), seeing their body language, facial expressions and hand gestures, and then figuring out how this adds up the overall message the person is providing. For example, you may be talking to a friend who just received a promotion at work, except that they don’t sound as excited as they should be and they may tell you and then have a delayed smile. All of these things would be…