Who's More Important...The Speaker or the Listener?

It was our fourth scheduled session...like the other three, it felt like a doctor's appointment...



He drew blood...reviewed the tests and gave an opinion!



I listened and took notes!



At the end of our hour...he announced..."These sessions stink!"



"Do not schedule anymore of them..."



"They are a waste of my time and of your time!"



"Scheduled mentoring is a farce!"



I was crushed and he could see that! and he reeled back a bit!



"It is not that you are not worth mentoring...it is that doing it, like this, isn't working for either of us!" "A person can not schedule brilliance...it comes as a epiphany...a flash...when you do not expect it!" "Scheduling stuff like this makes it a chore rather than a perk!"

So ended our formal sessions...the strange thing is that from that point onward...I saw him more frequently and our talks were much more meaningful.

I have a voracious appetite for learning...It seems like...what goes in and combines with my grey matter...somehow always finds a way into some application! Perhaps I have been lucky and just had a chance to learn applicable stuff...I never really pondered that and won't waste my time trying to figure it out...it is just the way it is...

I was hungering to learn more from him...He was a unique teacher...

Sometimes he took a stance that he really didn't believe in to make you challenge yourself...

Sometimes he pointed out the utterly absurd characteristics of behaviors...just to make you see how stupidly you were behaving!

In a way, he controlled your learning environment...and constantly pushed you beyond your normal and comfortable learning style to make you a better learner as part of the experience...

One afternoon I found myself starving...not for food! I had just eaten! But for more insight and challenges! I hungered for him to talk and for me to learn! I thought about scheduling time with him...but that was out of the question...he made that perfectly clear to me!

He had so many great insights and brilliant things to share! It was an honor to listen to his words!

His thoughts, insights and experience...PRICELESS!

OK...enough rambling on that topic!

Over the short time that I knew him...I noticed an interesting behavior...he never had people come to him to listen to what he had to say...he always went to them...If a person went to him...he listened and seldom talked!

I learned an important lesson from that characteristic alone...

...a valuable one that needs to be learned by many, if not all people...

I wanted to know more about that behavior...so when he appeared at my door...I think he felt my intellectual hunger pangs...I asked him!

I laid out my observation and asked why?

He responded to my question with a question!

Who is more important (IN EVERY SITUATION) the speaker or the listener?

I answered..."why the speaker of course...they have something to say!"

"BEEP! WRONG ANSWER" he replied with a smile...

" I know...if a tree falls in the woods..." I countered!

"Trees don't give a hoot...wise old owls do!" he chided!

"OK...so what is your point?" I asked, "When you and I talk...you have something of value...and I learn from it."

"BEEP! WRONG ANSWER" he again replied with a chuckle, "Good thing this isn't baseball...one more strike and you'd be out!"

He took a chair in my office, leaned back and said, "Think about it this way...I have something to say...but you have a need for it...the need is more important than the advice" he told me..."For your sake...just in case this is baseball...I'll ask you no more questions...I would hate to see you out!"

"That is part of why I say that...but it goes significantly deeper...it is the subtle message that is sent when you expect people to listen to you..."

If you think that people should come to you to hear what you have to say...do you realize how condescending and self-absorbed that is? Do you realize what message is sent to the listener?

"You talk and people have to walk to you?" "That by the way is rhoetorical...don't answer it!"

"HOW SELFISH!"

"If you have something to say...go to them...not the reverse..."

"Having you come to MY mentoring sessions was more than a futile attempt at scheduled brilliance...it was the most humiliating thing ever...from your perspective..."

"You...coming to me...to listen and learn? I couldn't stand to see that message being sent! Most people do not sense it at first...but it eats away at relationships like a very subtle acid...and soon the "listener" has had enough and stops listening...altogether!" "I almost lost the Mrs because I would talk and she had to come to hear what I had to say..." "I am not making that mistake again!" "With no one!"

"People need to be sensitive to the "how" of things said...as much as what was said!"

"Communication is a very special gift...people do not treat it as the priceless treasure that it is...which is how it should be treated..."

"If you have something to say...start the conversation off by telling the listener how important they are to you...(without words...). Go to them...DO NOT BE SELF-ABSORBED and SELF CENTERED and CONDESCENDING and make them come to you! DO not EVER think yourself so important that others should run to hear what you have to say..."

"...when you do that...you are showing your true colors and the true value of what you have to say!..."

"What you say and especially how you say it...is a huge window to your soul! What does your actions show you to be?"

As he talked...I thought..."he does always come to me...that makes me feel good...but more important...it makes me listen...perhaps his message is even deeper than what he is telling me..."

Then I was brought back to the conversation with these words...

"...And going to your listener has more to it than just the right message...but we'll talk about that later...I have something to tell you..."

And I listened!