# 5 Ways Listening Effectively Helps You Succeed Professionally and Personally | AUTHORITY by Medium

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMR2C1PfmuU

[00:10] I'm a former medical doctor, a learning coach and consultant, the co-founder and head of learning at I can study.
[00:14] And here are five ways that listening effectively can help you succeed in both your professional and personal life.
[00:24] Number one, listening is learning.
[00:27] If you can listen effectively, you can learn anything, anytime, anywhere.
[00:34] Years ago, I worked with a senior manager of a very large software company.
[00:38] And he used to struggle with learning to manage new projects.
[00:43] There was a lot to learn with a very short amount of time and some high stakes decisions that he had to make.
[00:48] And he was convinced that he had to sit down for long periods of time reading and writing things out.
[00:55] After just a couple of weeks of training his brain to process auditory information, he was able
[01:01] to drastically improve his ability to learn while listening not as good as his reading but he was able to then fit in two hours a day of extra learning through audiobooks on his commute to and from work and that's pretty good.
[01:19] number two listening well is The X Factor for teamwork once that manager learned to listen effectively he was able to extract more value from his meetings the types of questions he asked during meetings were more targeted and more focused problems that normally take weeks or even months to discover were identified in the initial meeting.
[01:41] he also realized that his Juniors tend to make a lot of mistakes but not because that they were incompetent but because they didn't know how to listen critically and ask the right questions and so because the leader knew how to drive the project more confidently the productivity of the entire team was upgraded.
[01:59] number three your brain likes
[02:03] having something to focus on when you listen with the right focus it helps your brain do what it's good at.
[02:12] I eventually had the chance to work with one of these Junior employees.
[02:13] one in particular stands out.
[02:15] his name was Dan a new graduate designer in speaking team.
[02:20] with this Mana drill I already knew that Dan's performance was substandard and Dan knew it.
[02:24] in our first consultation he said that he often felt overwhelmed and he never realized what questions to ask until he was halfway through the project.
[02:32] by learning to listen it gave Dan the tools to then demonstrate his lateral thinking and creativity and excellent perspectives that he had to offer.
[02:43] so much so that six months later Dan was given the responsibility to lead the client scoping meetings which is a big deal.
[02:53] number four communication is about connection and listening is not half of communication that's most of it.
[03:00] we've got two ears and one mouth but we should have 10 years instead listening well.
[03:05] builds Rapport and Trust.
[03:07] even after someone's finished speaking to you.
[03:08] they're now listening to see how you have processed what they have said and
[03:13] even if you do try to reflect and acknowledge what they've said that response can still come off as superficial or disingenuous.
[03:21] critical listening helps you to absorb what the other person has said acknowledge it and even contribute more meaningfully.
[03:29] and number five good listening takes effort and that effort makes you unique.
[03:36] listening effectively takes energy and concentration so for the people that deserve it that concentration is your gift to them.
[03:43] I recently attended a communication skills workshop and one of the greatest communication coaches alive bin Jang and one of the things that he mentioned was that generosity is about more than just time and money it's also about your energy especially in today's Busy World.
[03:59] it is so rare to find people that are generous with their energy so
[04:05] when you are listening to someone
[04:07] whether it's your supervisor or your
[04:09] significant other and hopefully they're not the same thing
[04:10] that energy that you are willing to give them is a gift to them
[04:13] a gift that they will appreciate
[04:16] and a gift that makes you rather unique