Listen to a person for 45 minutes, and blog about:
- listening tools used
- what was learned
- what was done well
- how I can improve.
I had the opportunity to talk to a friend of mine, from brazil, trough Skype. the conversation didn't actually reach the 45 minutes because he had to leave, but we made it to the 42 min. It was a very hard experience because my objective was to practice my listening skills, and therefore i had to make him speak. I guess the problem was that he is one of my best friends and he was really interested in my new life, since much has changed to my life and not much to his. I would say that in the first 30 minutes i managed to keep the focus of the conversation in his talking but in order to do that, I need to admit that i could not focus 100% in his talking since i had to keep thinking in how to ask questions that would make him keep talking. after those first 30 minutes, i could not find new topics for him to talk about. Although we kind of shared the 15 last minutes, it was when i could really listen what he was talking about.
I believe the tools i used were basically to make good questions. it was the one factor that made the conversation to don't be 'about me'. what i learned is, that there is much to learn about being a good listener, i guess, before this experience i did not even know what is to fully listen to someone. In brazil, its kind of 'polite' to cut the other's speech and talk even before they finished their idea, it kind of shows how interested you are in the conversation... but i realize know that this is the opposite from what a good listener should do. I have much to learn. i believe that what was done well was the effort i made to completely change the way i listen to someone, and the way i could focus the conversation in the listening, not talking : talk the least to insure i could listen. to improve, i should be more patient, and don't listen to what im hearing and already think in the response. to fully listen everything one has to say can contribute much more to our learning.
