Tip: Take some time now to ask yourself, what sounds stop you from working? From resting? From relating to your family, friends and colleagues? From exercising? From sleeping? From enjoying yourself?
Once you have that list, try the exercises again but this time ask yourself, what sounds do/could help you in all these things?
Listening is the doorway to understanding, and speaking is the strongest expression of ourselves in the world. We need to re-learn how to speak and how to listen. Helping you to achieve that is the mission of this book.
In this chapter, we start the healing process by revealing some habits that rob power from speaking and listening, and some forces in the modern world that are undermining or even threatening our spoken communication.
THE 4 LEECHES
Over the years, I’ve identified a set of very common emotional drivers that tend to suck power out of communication. I call them the 4 Leeches. Most people (me included!) have most, or all, of them in some form. I’m not suggesting they are bad, wrong or to be condemned outright; whilst it may never be possible to surgically remove them, the trick is to be conscious of them and not let them run the show. That, sadly, is what happens much of the time for many people. The result is simply loss of power and effectiveness. The degree of loss depends on the power these leeches have over you. If they remain in the dark, operating below the level of consciousness, they can become dominant character traits, severely compromising the ability to listen well and speak effectively.
The main reason for the negative impact of the leeches is that the underlying emotion giving rise to all 4 of them is fear.
Over the next few pages we’ll get to know all 4 leeches. Some may be minor or even non-existent for you, but I’m willing to bet you’ll identify at least one that has affected (or is currently affecting) your outcomes in life. As you consider the leeches and become conscious of their existence within you, their power will be lessened. Simply shining the light of mindfulness on them causes them to wither and lose their power. They grow and strengthen in the dark, and they hate that light!
LOOKING GOOD
We all like to look good. However, this basic human desire can often get in the way of our listening and our speaking.
“I know.”
Sometimes, looking good evinces itself in 2 simple words. The very first story in Paul Reps’s Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (a great compendium of Zen tales) is a salutary one for anyone who tends to use those words overmuch. Here it is as recounted in that book:
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
If I know everything, what can I learn? Absolutely nothing. A Zen proverb sums up this proposition nicely: “Knowledge is learning something every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day.”
Even without the use of the actual words, it can be very deflating to be around someone who is professionally impossible to impress. I remember a conversation at TEDGlobal in 2012 with communication expert Trisha Bauman that illustrates this very well. She moved to Paris and for a while thought that she had become inept at communicating her excitement at the sights she was encountering all over the city: every time she extolled the beauty of some landmark, her new friends responded with a shrug and words to the effect of “Of course.” It took some time for her to realise the issue was not with her; in that circle of people, if not in Paris generally, it was considered a loss of face to be seen to be impressed by anything at all. Being insouciant was being cool. That’s all very well, but it does dampen the fire of childlike excitement, so it clearly acts as a joy-kill. Joy is such a rare commodity in this world that it seems tragic to go around killing it.
Maybe you can relate to this aspect of looking good: stomping, or even delicately treading, on the naive delight of others in order to appear wiser, cooler or more experienced than they are.
Speechwriting
We may have other, more subtle ways of looking good that tarnish communication. In his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, Stephen R. Covey wrote: “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” I call this ‘speechwriting’: while that irrelevant noise (you speaking) is going on in front of me, I’m concentrating on composing my next brilliant monologue. This practice often produces the “anyway…” non-sequitur that blatantly ignores what was just said (but not heard) and moves the topic to a completely different place. This is a trait that often afflicts people in power, even though it is definitely not a good style of leadership: it demoralises the ignored party and can even be humiliating if others are present.
If you tend to do this, try devoting yourself to really listening, and trust that your voice will find the right response without you needing to compose, edit and approve your script in advance.
Competitive speaking
One step up from speechwriting is competitive speaking. You may know someone who practices this very potent form of joy-killing that’s all about looking good. I might enthuse: “We’re so excited to be going to Greece on holiday this year,” and the competitive speaker will jump in with: “Oh yes, I’ve been to Greece 6 times and I love it!” My feeling? Deflation. My little piece of joy has been made to look second-rate.
If you ever feel the temptation to indulge in speaking as a competitive event, remember the words of Lao Tzu, the author of the Tao Te Ching: “Avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.”
Embellishment
The word hyperbole comes from ancient Greek, combining 2 words: hyper (beyond) and bole (a throw). We ‘throw beyond’ reality to exaggerate for effect, as in “I’ve been waiting ages for you!” In the main, this is benign and both parties know what’s being done, but the habit of hyperbole can take hold of us and make right-sized words feel insufficient; this can in turn lead to a habit of exaggerating, which can itself be progressive and turn into lying (about which we will be talking more later in this chapter).
Language gets degraded if we frequently use words that are over-strong in order to impress. ‘Fantastic’ once meant strange or exotic, related to fantasy. ‘Amazing’ once meant causing wonder or astonishment. These words have long since been downgraded and are now almost exclusively used as synonyms for ‘excellent’; their differentiated meanings have all but disappeared. I often speak in the USA, where the habit of describing everything from a pair of trainers to a hamburger as ‘awesome’ is very widespread. But if a pizza is awesome, how do you describe a stunning sunset? The word has been devalued and its power lost. In another example, the prefix ‘super’ has started cropping up everywhere: it seems that being excited is no longer sufficient: we must be ‘super-excited’ now.
This diluting of perfectly appropriate words is a tendency to be resisted, I think; it’s a kind of verbal inflation that leaves us all impoverished as words lose their power and their meaning. Perhaps the fast-cut, multi-channel world is creating an addiction to intensity that drives us to use ever-more hyperbolic language. The cost is that many perfectly effective words are being diluted and our ability to express ourselves with precision is being diminished.
Exercise: Say what you mean
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