Love, Listen and Learn

We are born into this world but never taught to love; we are social beings by nature but never taught to listen; we spent years of our lives in school but never taught to learn. And yet loving, listening, and learning are essential to life. They are critical elements in our lives and essential to who we are and the building blocks to highly effective communication.

Word’s a Reflection of Who We are

Unless you are a monk living in a monastery, committed to a vow of silence, we all have the ability to talk and hold a conversation. The average person speak about 7,000 words a day; that’s a lot of words. And whether you realize it or not, every word we speak is a reflection of who we are. They provide insight into our thought process and behavioral characteristics.

In his article reading people by the words they speak, Dr. Jack Schafer of Psychology Today states that word clues allow observers to develop hypotheses or make educated guesses regarding others’ behavioral characteristics. Simply put; people judge you from the way you speak. Our words are so important that Jesus Himself stated that every idle word that men shall say, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment (Matthew 12:36).

The Three “L’s” of a Conversation

No matter the occasion, situation, or circumstance, when speaking with people, you should do so with these three things in mind: You should talk with an attitude of love, listen with a sincere heart and be open to learning continuously. Someone once said that learning must travel the distance from head to heart, and it is within the heart that has its impact on you and others. I call these the three L’s of conversation.

Speak with Love

The first principle of a valuable, rewarding, and lucrative conversation is “Love.” When holding a conversation with someone, you should speak in love. How do you do speak in love? First, we must define love, and in my opinion, the best definition of love can be found in Bible and clearly defined by the author of Love, God. “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (I Corinthians 13:4-7.)

A conversation spoken with love reflects these characters and undoubtedly shows a genuine concern of compassion layered with empathy. It is conveyed in our expression, body language, and voice tone. And a clear sign that we are actively interested in what we are hearing and speaking. The Bible is also quite clear on our speech; Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you should answer everyone (Colossians 4:6).

The Bible instructs us to do everything in love (1 Corinthians 16:14); this includes speaking. It may sound simple, but you may find it difficult to put it into practice. However, this can be achieved through a conscious and concerted effort, but you will notice results rather quickly as soon as you begin to apply the principle of speaking in love.

Listening by the Numbers

The second principle is listening. We spend between 70 to 80% of our daily conversation communicating, with only 55% of it devoted to listening. We speak on average about 125 to 175 words per minute but are only capable of listening to about 450 words per minute. And finally, that your words only convey about 7% of what you are trying to say. The other 93% is communicated through facial expressions and the tone of your voice. Additional informaton on listening statistics and facts to include some interesting listening and health information can be found in Rebecca Lake’s article 23 Facts You Need to Hear.

Many of us claim to be good listeners, but in reality, we are nothing more than good hearers. Hearing and listening are two different activities; listening takes a heart effort, while listening takes a-head effort. See my article on “The Art of Listening” for more details on the difference between listening and hearing and becoming a listener that inspires, and how it drives success. Listening is so important that the bible even instructs us to be quick to listen, and slow to speak (James 1:19).

Listening with the Heart

We need to use our heart to listen first, and not our mouth to speak; not having the first word is not a sign of weakness but strength. Because it requires most of us to mentally focus our attention on others, physically posture ourselves to receive, and set our ego aside while putting others over ourselves. Sura Hart puts it this way “Listening is an attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another which both attracts and heals.”

The Art of Listening

If we are to master the art of sincere and genuine communication, we must first master the art of listening. Listening is not an easy skill to acquire, but once mastered you can change the world. The great children’s author Dr. Seuss once said that “To the world, you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world.” So why not give people your ears and not your mouth? It may make the world a difference.

If you are talking, you are not learning. Therefore, we must learn the art of listening. Because when you speak, you are merely repeating what you already know. However, if you listen, you may learn something new. And our mouths provide little to our development, but it is through listening, we will achieve our greatest growth potential. And this leads to our final principle, learning.

The Journey of Learning

The final principle is learning, which is essential to life; we all go through the process of learning. It is a continuous journey that begins the day we are born and continues until the day we die. It was Mahatma Gandhi who said, “We should live as if there is no tomorrow but learn as if we are going to live forever.” Today, I challenge you to look at learning as a journey that will take you from where you are today to where you want to be tomorrow.

“We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.” ~ Peter Trucker.

We Can Learn from Anyone and Everyone

Learning in its simplest form is the act of humbling oneself under the tutelage or guidance of another to gain knowledge of something that was once not known. The famous scientist Bill Nye said that “Everyone you meet knows something you don’t.” simply put, you can learn from anyone. Therefore, make every conversation an opportunity to learn.

The next time you are engaged in a conversation, actively listen and ask questions. Doing so will demonstrate that you are interested in what they are saying and provide you the opportunity to learn from or about the person(s) to whom you are speaking.