These are my takeaways from the book You’re Not Listening by Kate Murphy
- It is said that intuition, often called the 6th sense, is nothing more than recognition. The more people you listen to , the more aspect of humanity you’ll recognize, and the better your gut instinct will be. It’s a practiced skill that depends on exposure to a wide range of opinions, attitudes, beliefs, and emotions.
You get so much more out of interactions when you allow people the time and space to gather their thoughts. Embrace silence. It’s not awkward
Better to listen to how people feel than try to convince them to feel differently
The below are the quotes that didn’t make it to my top 3.
- People in long-term relationships tend to lose their curiosity for each other because they think they already know what the other person will say
- If you stop listening you will eventually lose your grasp of who they are and how to relate to them
- One can only speak for one’s self
- People want the sense you get why they are telling you the story, not so much that you know the details of the story
- Listening is a matter of you deciding you don’t worry about what to say next
- Not to expose flawed logic, but to truly expand your understanding of where they are coming from
- “why” tends to make people defensive like they have to justify themselves
- Using social media data to learn about human behavior is like learning about human behavior by watching people in casino
- Support response(Other-directed) instead of shift response(self-referential), open-ended questions instead of assertive questions
- How was work? Is just crossing out a some sort of checklist. it is not a real conversation
- Character is not something you are born with, they develop day by day through the choices you make, and that very much includes to whom and how well you choose to listen
- Self-centered conversational style more often speaks to deep insecurities, anxieties, or blind spots
