The Daily Grace: Now hear this.
November 15, 2013
By Cathy Monetti
November 15, 2013
It is the kind of thought that causes a shift, I think, a change in the way you consider something you’ve known all your life. Something that has been right in front of you forever but when you look at it in this new light you realize it is not what you thought at all.
Listen I heard her say.
Listen as if you don’t already know the answer.
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I would have characterized myself a pretty good listener, had you asked. In fact I’ve made a career of it. As a brand strategist, my job begins and ends with listening—hearing my clients when they describe their challenges and fears, opening my imagination to new what ifs, working within passionate teams that demand of each other the willingness to see same-old same olds in new ways. In fact, a primary mantra at Riggs Partners is Listen generously. We repeat it often.
So why did as if you don’t already know the answer come at me so fast? It made me realize that whether in a business meeting, at a cocktail party or in a telephone conversation with my daughter, what I often listen for is confirmation that what I am already thinking is accurate. How much I have missed, I now realize, because I let information pass me by, listening for an easier bit of perspective to grab onto—perspective that already matches my own.
Listen as if you don’t already know the answer.
How much bigger will the world become when I intentionally go about the business of listening from this empty canvas place? How rich and vast and colorful and interesting?
Listen as if you don’t already know the answer.
That, my friends, may well change everything.
The Daily Grace
The Daily Grace is the online journal of Cathy Rigg Monetti, writer and founder of Riggs Partners in Columbia, South Carolina. It chronicles the observations of ordinary days, in an ordinary life, and how extraordinary those days become when you simply pay attention. Follow The Daily Grace blog here , or via Facebook or Twitter.
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