3 ways to improve your listening skills, for life and business

• Listening builds trust. When you listen first, you are demonstrating a little humility and giving your audience the gift of your time and attention. People notice and appreciate it.
• Listening saves time. There's a reason carpenters say, 'Measure twice, cut once.' Think about that.  There's a lot of wisdom in that line.
• Listening helps you see the future. In poker, inexperienced players broadcast their hands with ‘tells', physical changes in their behavior or demeanor that provide the other players with clues about that player's hand. The signals you give off with your body, are just as revealing as any words you speak. (More on that in a minute.)

So how can you develop this critical skill? Here are 3 practical ways, with degrees of complexity!

• Put down the screen: How many times have you been to a restaurant and watched a couple at their table, each staring at their phones? That’s nutty. Put away the digital distractions, give yourself and the other person the courtesy (and respect) of your full attention and enjoy the moment away from your screen.

Difficulty level: Easy.

• Check it at the door: reserve your judgements about who the person is, what they look like or what they are saying. If you are mentally judging a person’s words or appearance, in real time, guess what? You’re not listening to them, you are listening to yourself and your hang ups. Get over yourself.

Difficulty level: Hard.

• What was that? paraphrasing or the act of repeating what someone just said, but in your own words, is one of the best ways to confirm understanding. It sends a strong signal to the other person that you are listening to what they say and fully comprehend what they just told you.

Difficulty level: Medium.

One day, we were in our first discovery meeting with a potential new business partner.

As we were meeting, I asked the other person to repeat what they just said, since I wanted to absorb the information and confirm understanding.

Harmless enough, I thought.

There was a moment of silence.

Then after the pause, the other person sighed (no kidding) and said, ‘I don’t like to repeat myself.’

And right there, I knew where this meeting was headed.

What I interpreted was a bit of ego and a level of high handedness.

I know he was highly skilled, and I am sure he’s a good person, but with a simple breath (his sigh), the pause in his speech pattern and his verbal response, it was a deadly enough combination that snuffed out any further discussion.

The moral of this story? (Hint: Don’t be that guy.)

Listening is hard, no question.

But with a little practice, you will begin to see and learn things that were always there, but you failed to notice since you were so hung up on listening to yourself!