Living in The Now Through Conscious Listening
I recently discovered Anyama by Naxxos, a speech on conscious listening by Julian Treasure at his TED talk.
Conscious listening creates understanding.
Since my discovery, I’ve been acutely aware (and practicing) of this exercise in listening. I’ve always believed that the greatest ally to me as a designer is my ability to listen keenly to clients or users to truly decipher what they’re saying. Unfortunately, it’s a practice I only exercise because I’m paid to. What if I did it all the time?
Today humans live in a world with an abundance of distractions so it’s become normal that quite often we’re in our own heads only grasping at what’s interesting or sharing it. You see when listening to the average speaker, only 25% of our mental capacity is at use. This leaves 75% unused that gives our mind the opportunity to wander.* I am especially guilty of this and chances are, you are too — tweeting, facebooking, etc.
Over the past week I’ve been aiming to listen consciously which means placing more than 25% of my mental capacity towards any given discussion at all times. Since most of my friends have the same interest as me this requires going out of my social circle of designers, entrepreneurs and geeks. A necessary requirement since most of my friends and I have the same interest.
Every human being need to listen consciously to live fully.
The beautiful thing about listening consciously is that it allows you to grasp nuggets of wisdom that are somewhat hidden, practically embedded into an otherwise uninteresting discussion. It’s the discovery of these wisdom that leads to meaningful conversations. Suddenly you’re proactive instead of nodding hypocritically, you’re jiving on a topic that you thought to be uninteresting. Most importantly you’re gaining wisdom that will be with you forever.
Connected in space and time to the physical world around us.
A recurring word in the song is ‘connected’ which to me is the most important function of conscious listening. The meaningful conversations that develops creates a connection through understanding because you truly are connected in a singular space and time. It’s this connection that leads to solving problems, innovating, finding your true love, creating friendships but most importantly gaining personal wisdom.
A world where we do not listen to each other is a very scary place indeed.
Now this piece is not an exercise in my knowledge on conscious listening. It’s rather a thought to share with friends who I expect to call me out on this should I not be practicing. Why? Because practicing this is no easy feat but a great step towards personal growth. Will you try it?
