27 - How do I become a better listener?

10/23/21 • 2 min

Quora knows best - For English learners and others

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For the original article head over to https://qr.ae/pGxNmK

Transcript:

Imagine, if you will, that you are in a park, sitting on the grass with a friend.

Your friend is talking, and sharing with you something quite delicate, intimate. This is the kind of thing you want to hold so gently.

Dushka, he says. I suffer from terrible, insatiable hunger.

As he says this, you notice he is holding a sandwich.

I don’t know what to do about my hunger, he is saying. I will probably never encounter food again.

He puts his head down.

The sandwich is right there in his hand, and you can see it so clearly. The lightly toasted pretzel roll and thick ham slices. The generous spread of whole grain mustard. The unexpected, bright orange slice of butternut squash. Fresh arugula, for the peppery taste but also for the balance of color. It’s not just a sandwich. It’s a prize.

At this point, what I want to do, with urgency, with despair, is say “There is a sandwich in your hands! You are already holding everything you want! What is happening? How can you not see what is so clearly in your possession?”

What this makes me is a terrible listener. To him, his hunger is real, and I am denying his experience. I am being judgmental of his perception and his decision making. I am putting him down right when he is making himself vulnerable by sharing this hunger with me.

If you want to become a better listener, shut up about the sandwich.

quora.com

For the original article head over to https://qr.ae/pGxNmK

Transcript:

Imagine, if you will, that you are in a park, sitting on the grass with a friend.

Your friend is talking, and sharing with you something quite delicate, intimate. This is the kind of thing you want to hold so gently.

Dushka, he says. I suffer from terrible, insatiable hunger.

As he says this, you notice he is holding a sandwich.

I don’t know what to do about my hunger, he is saying. I will probably never encounter food again.

He puts his head down.

If you want to become a better listener, shut up about the sandwich.

Previous Episode

26 How do I read faster?

Quora.com

https://qr.ae/pGVlhG

Transcript:

I'm not an amazingly fast reader, but I'm faster than most of the people I know. My reading speed allows me to go through about 2 books a week (averaging 200 pages), and that's on top of a 15-credit summer quarter and a part time job.

Looking back, I've come to realize that the sheer act of reading every day was the single most beneficial factor in quickening my speed and enhancing my comprehension. In everything I tried, reading for enjoyment was the most substantial factor in helping me become a better reader. It sounds over-simplified and just like common sense, but it works. I would compare reading to a sport or playing music: practice improves your efficiency and effectiveness. Since we make use of our reading abilities daily, however, it's much harder to get out of shape or lose some of our capabilities. One of the best things you can do to read faster and think better is find some books that you really love and read as much as you can. For me, those books were pop-psychology, business, and self-help books.

As far as techniques go, I watched this short video a while back about how to read faster. It seems that most people don't move far past the stage that we learned to read in. Think back to elementary school: this was the time when you sounded out the letters and read aloud. I feel like most people continue to read this way by using their auditory/vocal systems to process words. The more advanced and much faster way has to do with using your visual systems. How is this distinction achieved? By a simple exercise. Find any sort of material to read and as you read, and as you read it repeat some sort of basic sequence. Count "1, 2, 3" or "a, b, c" repetitively as you read. What this does is separate what you say from what you see. It doesn't matter that you don't comprehend anything at first, just that you are practicing that separation. With enough practice, your mind should be able to automatically separate the two and begin using your eyes (not your mouth) to read.

I'd like to see what others think because I have very little experience with this and don't know if there's any scientific evidence to back what I said.

Next Episode

30 - How does one recover from failure?

www.quora.com

https://qr.ae/pGjufJ

Chris Ebbert Senior Lecturer in Industrial Design, Mid Sweden University

Transcript:

Realise that you may not be a failure in the eyes of someone else.

Here’s my story. I was 40, divorced, had left a life in New Zealand behind that had fallen apart in the most dramatic way possible, and was invited at my cousin’s house in Austria to a summer party.

As we ate barbecued things and drank local beer, dreams were swapped and future visions exchanged. My cousin is a sound engineer, struggling as a consultant, doing the odd gig in Vienna or Salzburg.

We talked about happiness.

And I heard myself saying, “maybe some day, when I am successful, I will know what happiness is.”

My cousin looked at me as if I was very, very drunk. And maybe, I was. And he said, “Chris; you are the dean of a French university, a Grande Ecole at that, in Shanghai. And you say ‘some day when you are successful’?”

That changed my world view.

I realised then and there that it depends very much on whom we ask whether we feel like failures, or not. All I had been able to see was how badly things had gone for me in New Zealand, and how the expat position in China really was only a gap filler till I would be able to find something to replace the life I had had in NZ. That that life in Shanghai was in itself pretty cool was somehow off my radar.

Perhaps you need to ask the right people? Try to understand what the average person’s existence on this planet is like. Success and failure are not quantitative values. They are dangerously subjective perceptions, and require some grounding in basic values.

So, stop comparing yourself to the wrong people. By comparing ourselves to stars or celebrities of some standing, we will always look bad.

Here is the full episode of My Fluent Podcast with Chris Ebbert reading out loud:

E56 - Do we have another personality in another language?

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/myfluentpodcast/E56_-_Do_we_have_another_personality_in_another_language.mp3