Listening--A 10 Part Skill.

When reading Listening is a 10 Part Skill, I was immediately drawn to the quote, “there is no such thing as an uninteresting subject; there are only uninterested people” (Listening is a 10 Part Skill, 4). This made me realize that whether you’re interested or not, there is always room to learn, to grow and to see different perspectives. Not many people would agree with this statement, but it would certainly be beneficial to agree with simply because it’s critical to never stop learning; we should always listen efficiently and want to learn more—“find an area of interest.” Another interesting point was to “judge content, not delivery.” This is true in a sense that a listener may judge a speaker either because they, A. do not like them in some way or B., find them incompetent. However, we should not critic them based on who they are or how they speak but instead, give the speaker a fair chance and listen to what they have to say. People judge a book by its cover far too often, making listening harder rather than being open-minded and trying to learn from someone. An additional tip I read was to grasp the main idea of the speaker and not focus on the individual facts; for this can lead us astray and cause us to memorize things rather than get the gist. I am a victim of this because I am an over-thinker, speak out of turn and tend to want to know every detail, as compared to the idea as a whole. Being flexible and willing to adapt is another important listening skill; if we are always a one-way type of listener, we cannot learn new tricks—we have to be willing to make a change and work on listening. One last thing I agreed with, because I have experienced it for myself, would be how the audience reacts. It’s true that when the listener is attentive or looks the part, the speaker feels more comfortable and can articulate better; this allows what’s coming out of the speaker’s mouth to be clearer and offer improved communication with his or her audience.