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Listen With All Your Senses
Dear Reader,
Recently I had two experiences, that I want to share with you, that really made me think.
The first thing was, I was on retreats with my McKay CEO forum groups and we went to the Okanagan, and for both of those groups our activity was a wine tasting tour. During the wine tasting tour what was really incredibly interesting to me, was the way these astute marketers in the wine industry get us to experience their wines.
When you get to the tasting the wine is presented to you at a higher level table, so it's at eye-level. You see this beautiful glass, and then they open up the bottle, they let you experience the bottle, they show the bottle, they pour the wine in front of you. You're encouraged to twirl the wine, to smell it, to see it, to experience the wine fully. And they ask you, what are your feelings, your emotions? What are your senses telling you? Very, very clever marketers.
The second thing happened to me when I recently signed up for an app called "Noom", because I want to shed a few extra pounds and I want to live a little bit more healthily. So I signed up for Noom and the psychology of this app, this whole system is incredible. They help you have more of a positive relationship with your food, and the one thing that they really warn against is that you eat mindlessly; for example, in front of the TV, or you're doing something else and you're just mindlessly chugging food into your mouth. That is a no-no and a habit that you totally have to break.
They teach you to sit down at a table, have a proper meal, have your food on the table in front of you in the plate and then look at the food, see the colors, smell the food, get all your senses involved before you start eating. As you eat, you're supposed to do this all the time - experience the food. This helps you to to feel full quicker and you're supposed to stop when you're 80% full. It helps you to have a better relationship with your food and it's a much more enjoyable experience.
So these two experiences made me think.
When we speak to people and we call it 'active listening', the theory is that you're supposed to listen to people at three levels. Level one is: what is my internal voice, what is happening, what's this telling me about the conversation? Level two is to listen to what that person is saying and put ourselves in that person's shoes, try and put ourselves there and see how we can experience it. The third level is to listen to the overall conversation, see above the conversation and see what's happening, see what's behind what's happening. So those are the three levels of active listening.
But then I thought, what will happen if I really start to listen with all my senses, to try and emulate what I do when I'm wine tasting, or I'm having a great meal, when I'm having a conversation with someone?
I tested it out with someone who came for a visit. I really leaned in as though, you know, when you're drinking wine, you're leaning in, or you're eating your meal, you're leaning in with full attention. I listened to the person, I looked at the person and I'm trying to use all my senses, my emotions, to smell, to listen, all of these things focused on the person.
This gave the space for the person to talk more, to become more vulnerable in the conversation. The conversation went to a deeper place.
I was placed in a much better place where it's kind of where you're experiencing their emotions and you're going with them on their journey. That put me in a place where their emotions became important to me. And the most important thing is, that in that place, you can be there for them, and once you start speaking, it's at a much deeper level.
So I want to encourage you: next time you have a really important conversation, try and listen with all your senses. Listen with your eyes. Listen with your ears. Listen with your nose. Even try to smell what's going on in there. Try to use intuition. Use everything. Only at the very last moment use your mouth, because you know, your mouth is not one of your senses.
I hope this helps. I hope it'll bring you as much joy as it brought us, when I listened more to this person and the person shared at a deeper level and our relationship went to a different level.
There you have it. Try and listen with all your senses and have a fantastic week.
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nicohuman.com
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