Focussed Listening

We listen to only 25% of our capability to audibly intake and process. Simply stated, we listen to only 25% of what we hear. Of that, we accurately process just over half.

For some reason, we assimilate audio stimuli less efficiently than any of our other senses. We react more strongly, for example, to pleasant or unpleasant smells than we do to pleasant or unpleasant sounds. If what we see conflicts with what we hear, we trust what we see.

Interestingly, women process audio stimuli better than men.

Any number of detractions can interfere with our accurately receiving important messages… including ourselves.

We think four times faster than the normal rate of the spoken word. So if someone is talking too slowly, or about something uninteresting, we eventually tune that person out. Our mind starts to wander.

No matter how hard we try to pay attention, sometimes we just can’t help it. Our brain is longing for stimuli that it can process more efficiently, and almost anything will do: remembering last night’s America’s Got Talent show, planning our next dinner party, anything!

Have you ever wanted to finish people’s sentences in advance of them? Sadly, once we are ahead of them, the chances of them totally regaining our attention are slim.

We’ll come back to this when we look at our presentation skills; but we all know the difference between a dynamic public speaker and boring one. Ever start to doze off at church if the sermon is boring?

Our problem is that what they are saying could still be extremely important. So here is where we start developing some of those strategic muscles. The first will be “strategic” listening.