{"id":32434,"date":"2023-04-19T20:08:22","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T03:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=32434"},"modified":"2023-04-19T20:08:22","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T03:08:22","slug":"priceless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/priceless\/","title":{"rendered":"PRICELESS"},"content":{"rendered":"

How many times have you found yourself towering over a little one who is begging for your listening ear?\u00a0 Daddy, daddy?\u00a0 Mommy, mommy?\u00a0 Mrs. Glei. . . ?\u00a0 Listening is a way to show respect and honor to another person.\u00a0 Kids \"\"<\/a>when they are or are not being listened to.\u00a0 When I think about how many students come to school, just wanting to be heard and the number of young adults who just want someone to listen, especially when they are deconstructing their faith, it raises my awareness to the priority of how to speak so that people listen and how to listen so that people feel heard.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After reading the book <\/span>How to Be Heard <\/span><\/i>by Julian Treasure, I have been thinking a lot about the four leeches of speaking and the underlying emotion that drives them. . . fear.\u00a0 As I coach teachers and staff in the public school setting, I have the opportunity to prepare and present professional development sessions.\u00a0 In my ministry context, I facilitate team meetings and trainings and engage in all sorts of speaking venues. I recognize areas in my speaking where the language I use has become degraded, as Treasure writes, \u201cLanguage gets degraded if we frequently use words that are over-strong in order to impress (i.e. if pizza is awesome, how do you describe a stunning sunset?).\u201d [1]\u00a0 So I have been doing a little archaeology of my speaking.\u00a0 I have been trying to consciously remove the intensifiers like \u201creally\u201d, \u201cvery\u201d, \u201csuper\u201d, \u201ccool\u201d or \u201cawesome\u201d.\u00a0 It has been very challenging, as the author stated it would be.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another leech, sucking the life out of my speaking (oops. . .an embellishment snuck in there), is competitive speaking.\u00a0 In a desire to connect and share stories, I occasionally will add a personal story. [2] In leading small groups, we encourage this form of engagement and encourage the sharing of stories as a way to get to know others.\u00a0 This particular leech may depend on the context of the speaking environment.\u00a0 Certainly, adding personal stories is crucial for some venues of speaking and not advised for times when someone is pouring out their greatest trauma.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the current work in which I feel God\u2019s pleasure the most, is in the area of one to one coaching cycles and one to one discipleship opportunities involving listening. From five year olds, college students or senior saints, I enjoy listening and have worked very hard at it.\u00a0 Much of my training as a coach has been in the area of listening.\u00a0 Eve Poole, in her book titled <\/span>Leadersmithing: <\/span><\/i>Revealing the Trade Secrets\u00a0<\/span><\/i>of Leadership,<\/span><\/i> compares listening to the visual effect used on movies referred to as \u201c\"\"<\/a>bullet time\u201d.\u00a0 It allows the audience to \u2018walk around\u2019 an event happening in slow motion.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The listener puts on a posture of listening, with eye contact being the first step.\u00a0 Poole admonishes leaders to give full attention and mentally \u2018walk around\u2019 to stay focused. [3]\u00a0 The ability to be an active listener takes discipline and practice, especially with the challenges of becoming easily distraction by all that the world has to offer.\u00a0 I recollect times when my kindergarten students were bursting with stories and information to share with me.\u00a0 This very important social skill is developed over time.\u00a0 When I taught Kindergarten, my kiddos practiced\u00a0 \u201cwhole body\u201d listening.\u00a0 1) Eyes looking.\u00a0 2) Ears listening. 3) Mouth closed.\u00a0 4) Body calm. 5) Brain thinking.\u00a0 Teaching skills like \u201cwhole body listening\u201d is one way in which young, growing listeners develop their listening skills.<\/span><\/p>\n

The challenge for myself, as a listener, is to be aware of the AGENTS of miscommunication in my listening, specifically the assumptions that are present when I am listening. If I live in a system that, by default, breeds delusion, then there are many things that I am wrong about. [4]\u00a0 Kathryn Schultz, author of <\/span>Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error<\/span><\/i>, states \u201cwhen we are aware that we could be wrong, we are far more inclined to hear other people out.\u201d [5]\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cListen to advice and accept discipline, <\/span>and at the end you will be counted among the wise.\u201d <\/span>Proverbs 19:20<\/span><\/p>\n

I concur with Julian Treasure that \u201cthere are billions of people on this planet who have never had the experience of being properly listened to – that is, when the other person stops their world for a while and devotes 100 percent of\u00a0 their time and attention to the act of listening.\u201d [6]\u00a0 What if followers of Jesus stopped their (my) world, for a while and simply listened, whether it be to savor, to hear silence or listen reverentially?\u00a0 I love that God\u2019s ear is attentive to me and that He engages with us through listening and speaking.\u00a0 It is a priceless gift.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to miss one word. In conclusion, consider these lyrics from the song <\/span>\u201cI\u2019m Listening\u201d by Chris McClarney<\/span><\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

When You speak, confusion fades<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Just a word and suddenly I\u2019m not afraid<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Cause You speak and freedom reigns<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

There is hope in every single word You say<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t wanna miss one word You speak.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Cause everything You say is life to me.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to miss one word You speak<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Quiet my heart, I\u2019m listening.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

PRICELESS!!!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1] <\/span>Julian Treasure, <\/span>How to be Heard: Secrets for Powerful Speaking and Listening <\/span><\/i>(Coral Gables, FL: Mango Publishing Group, 2017), 54-55.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2] Ibid, 54.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

[3] Eve Poole, <\/span>Leadersmithing: Revealing the Trade Secrets of Leadership<\/span><\/i> (London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2017), 87-88.\\<\/span><\/p>\n

[4] Bobby Duffy, <\/span>Why We\u2019re Wrong About NEarly Everything<\/span><\/i> (New York: Hachette Book Group, 2018), 17.<\/span><\/p>\n

[5] Kathryn Schultz, Being Wrong:\u00a0 Adventures in the Margin of Error<\/em> (New York:\u00a0 HarperCollins, 2010), 310.<\/span><\/p>\n

[6] Treasure, 91.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How many times have you found yourself towering over a little one who is begging for your listening ear?\u00a0 Daddy, daddy?\u00a0 Mommy, mommy?\u00a0 Mrs. Glei. . . ?\u00a0 Listening is a way to show respect and honor to another person.\u00a0 Kids when they are or are not being listened to.\u00a0 When I think about how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310],"tags":[2489,2713],"class_list":["post-32434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-dlgp02","tag-treasure","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32437,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32434\/revisions\/32437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}