Embracing a Vision for Newness in 2008

This being the last day of the year, I thought I should inspire you with a vision for 2008: It’s going to be a marvelous year! I can see it. I can feel it. I personally sense new purpose breaking forth that will spill over into every area of my life. I hope that you are also experiencing the same. Life is so designed that we have periods of newness that allow us to expand ourselves in many different ways. Every day is a new day. Every month is a new month. The new period allows us to begin afresh and put aside the happenings of the previous period. As we inch into 2008, we have an opportunity to extend our destinies to another level as we build a legacy for future generations.There are three crucial keys that will allow us to experience the newness that the new year offer us. I’d like to share these in anticipation of the fact that many people will be making new year’s resolutions again. Enjoying newness comes in three steps. We need to be able to conceptualize, then visualize and finally materialize the newness.

Conceptualize

This begins with vision. One might even say the need to have a dream to pursue. It takes a lot of optimism to conceptualize a future that is yet to made manifest. The key is to really believe that you can make it happen and you have all the resources to pursue that which you desire. Conceptualizing means birthing ideas of what’s possible. This is crucial.

Visualize

Beyond conceiving the dream, you need to be able to see yourself walking in it’s fulness. To visualize is simply to form mental pictures or images of something. It simply means imagining yourself being, doing and having that which you are dreaming of. It’s using the power of perception to transform what you have conceptualized into a vision of possibility.

Materialize

Dreams and visions reach their full term when they are materialized. Nothing is more rewarding than seeing your ideas go from concept to reality. As you pursue newness in 2008, your goal is to do just that – transform ideas into powerful results. Embrace newness and bring fresh results into every area of your life. 2008 is going to be an awesome year!

Increasing Your Listening Skills

Every couple of days I get the privilege of speaking to kids at a local middle school. I volunteer as a character coach and visit local schools once a week to empower kids with ideas that can make them better citizens and winners in life. For the most part, the kids usually do very well, except for a few who normally seem to be in their own world.While it’s easy to pass judgement on kids for not listening, it’s also true that adults do the same thing. This can easily be seen in many of our corporations, families and places of public gathering. Listening is perhaps one of the most basic social skills but few people take the time to master the process of listening. One wag once joked that ‘we are given two ears and one mouth so that we can listen more and talk less’. Today, I’d like to look at the art of listening by way of an acrostic of the word LISTEN. 

How to Increase Your Listen-Ability Skills

One of the most painful things for a speaker is the realization no one is listening until when the speaker makes a mistake. The joy of conversation (or public speaking) is usually crucified by the luxury of half-listeners. Regaining the art of listening necessiates an ability to LISTEN. Here’s how:

Look at the speaker and focus on her words – This might seem as a very simple and easy thing to do but it’s among the top, most challenging skills for many people. Last week I was talking to a friend at the Global Center in downtown Cincinnati and she told me that she has always had a hard time looking at people during conversation. This is someone who works at a place where she rubs shoulders with dignitaries from all over the world! Some people choose to look over the speaker’s head. Eye-contact is essential to communicate a listening attitude.  

Indicate understanding by nodding affirmatively – I once mentored a teenager who had a huge problem with accepting my ideas. This was a really nice young man who had been brought up on the north side of Omaha in Nebraska. What I noticed with him was that, as adults approached him to speak with him, he would immediately go into a mode in which he would shake his head from side to side and look down at his feet. After lots of coaching sessions, he began nodding positively and that created a lot of room for him to start accepting my feedback.

Spot any distracters and put them out of your mind - We live in a society in which so much demands our attention. I’ve been in meetings where, all of a sudden, I’ve noticed my mind drifting away to other things that I’d rather be doing (well, some of the time the content - or was it the speaker? - may have been boring.) But really, that’s no reason to zone-out a speaker and go to lala land (lala is a Swahili word for sleep). When this happens we must consciously choose to put any distracting thoughts completely out of our minds. That’s the key to concentration, the glue of listening. 

Try not to think of what you are going to say next – My wife has a great illustration she normally uses when coaching people on their listening skills. She talks about this funny commercial in which there’s a lady being spoken to. During the entire time she is eating Doritos and has zoned out the speaker. This has been a huge area of personal growth for me in my marriage. I thought I had learnt all I needed about it from my mom only to find that I was still raw on this habit after I got married. Nowadays I have learnt to gain power over my thoughts and focus on the speaker, thanks to the two most important women in my my life.  

Engage actively by participating on your turn – The art of listening goes hand in hand with demonstrating an understanding of the spoken word. Active engagement might mean responding in a concise manner or taking notes that enhance your grasp of the content. Listening is not a one-sided activity. It’s dialogue. As you engage in dialogue, you need to be able to monitor your internal conversations. Internal conversation should be focused on the speaker, not on what you are going to say next. Healthy listening skills come from being able to enage with the speaker. It’s about connectedness that comes from each party’s ability to play their roles effectively.

Note key points and make it a point to remember them – Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, talks about an “Indian talking stick” that was given to him by Indian chiefs. According to Indian culture, listeners were not permitted to say anything until the speaker passed the talking stick to them. The talking stick was never passed around until the speaker felt completely understood. What a beautiful way to communicate the sacredness of listening! Actually, here’s a link to the video where Stephen Cover talks about the Indian Talking Stick. It’s a great concept worth grasping fully.

Let’s regain the art of listening. Better listening not only enhances your knowledge of the topic but also communicates respect to the speaker. The key to being a great listener is to LISTEN. As my mother used to say, “Listening is one thing; hearing is another”. Let’s listen to hear.