Author: Don McMinn

Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable. –David Augsburger

It’s the greatest thought on communication I’ve ever heard. It will heal and deepen relationships. Master this mantra and you’ll do well in life; ignore it and you’ll frustrate yourself and others. Stephen Covey said, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

Listen first.

The “low-grade fever” of impoverished relationships is poor listening. All good communication involves dialogue—I will listen to you and I want you to listen to me. But who listens first? Choose to be the one who listens first.

People will be more inclined to listen to you once they realize you want to listen to them.

Listen with the intent to understand.

There is a difference between simply hearing (an auditory function) and really listening, which involves our intellect and emotions. Listening involves more than just being quiet. When conversing with another person, do you truly want to know what he or she is thinking and feeling? Listening begins as an attitude that is based on a genuine desire to understand what others are saying. It is a value to embrace, not an inconvenience to be tolerated.

Here are some suggestions on how to listen well:

• Some people struggle with communicating so sometimes, in our attempt to understand what someone is trying to say, we must “read between the lines,” interpret body language, and patiently try to decipher what the person is trying to say. While this seems to be an unreasonable demand (why can’t we just establish the basic rule of, “Say what you mean and mean what you say”?) it is often necessary if we truly want to seek first to understand.
• Concentrate on the speaker; do not be distracted.
• Do not interrupt, talk over, or finish the speaker’s sentences.
• Be patient. When the speaker pauses it does not necessarily mean he is finished speaking.
• While the other person is talking, resist formulating your response. At this point your job is to listen.
• When the other person has finished talking you may need to clarify what you think he said, to ensure you have understood him.

Share your thoughts in a rational way.

I will choose to listen to you first, but the conversation is not over until I have a chance to share my thoughts. My eagerness to listen to you does not diminish my desire and right, to vocalize my thoughts. I will work hard at crafting my words carefully and will communicate clearly because I want you to understand exactly what I am saying. First, I will respond to what you have just said, but then I may introduce a new topic.

The most basic of all human needs is the need to be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.

Click here to read about hinderances to listening.

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I’m a huge fan of setting goals. If you aim at nothing you will always hit it.

In 2015 I wrote four posts regarding setting and accomplishing goals:

• Set and accomplish goals
• Reduce large goals to doable units of work
• Do more
• Maintain a bucket list

I maintain a robust “bucket list” of goals that I want to accomplish before I expire. These items are, of course, in addition to normal everyday activities. This year I checked off the following:

1. Join Mensa International

Mensa is the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world, open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardized, supervised IQ or other approved intelligence test. There are around 57,000 people in the U.S. who have passed the test.
When I was in high school I took an IQ test and missed getting into Mensa by .5% and that has always bothered me…like an unfinished sentence.
So on May 16, 2015 I took the test and scored in the 99th percentile. Yeah.

2. Visit a country I’ve never been to before.

My goal is to visit 60 counties before I die. Mary and I have been to 43 and we try to add one new country every year.
On August 10-14, 2015 Mary and I went to the United Arab Emirates and enjoyed the mid-eastern culture, went to the top of the world’s tallest building, etc. We have plans to add two new countries in 2016.

3. Stand 30 minutes by myself somewhere on earth where it’s at least 130° fahrenheit.

While I was in the UAE I hired a car and driver to take me out into the desert toward Oman. Fortunately, the area was experiencing a severe heat wave. I recorded 132° on my digital thermometer.
I also want to stand for 30 minutes by myself somewhere on earth where it’s at least negative 30° fahrenheit. Perhaps this year…

4. Publish six monographs on the six soft skills I teach in the Lead Well workshop.

In September of this year I published Lifelong Learning: Why it’s more important and doable than you think
In 2016 I will publish #2 of the six: Signature Soulprint.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. —Mark Twain

According to Oceana, a nonprofit organization, sharks kill only about four people a year worldwide and only one in the U.S.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cows kill more than five times the number of people than sharks do. One research study reported an average of 22 deaths a year by bovines, typically due to stomping or goring.

Mosquitoes are the most dangerous; they kill 655,000 people each year, primarily in Africa, through the spread of malaria.

So why all the fuss over sharks?

Sometimes in life, we worry about the wrong things. Things that are large and have sharp teeth get our attention, but we’re often waylaid by less obvious assailants—we worry the most about things that endanger us the least.

For instance, we may inordinately worry about getting shot by a random shooter in a public area but ignore our daily intake of calories. We may obsess over being antiseptically clean—washing our hands often, using sterile wipes—but contaminate our minds by watching trash on TV.

Things that look menacing may not be, whereas some things that are invisible may be. We may cautiously avoid people with tattoos who drive loud motorcycles, but neglect getting a flu shot.

Sometimes, the mass media prompts us to focus on inconsequential issues. After all, they have to discuss something to fill up the required time and space, and they usually try to create a sense of emergency and concern regarding their topics, even banal ones.

Actually, I don’t see the advantage in worrying at all. Corrie ten Boom said,”worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength—carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”

But if you insist on worrying about something, at least worry about things that might truly hurt you. Forget about sharks.

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Summary
What? – If you must worry, at least focus on issues that might matter.
So what? – We often worry needlessly.
Now what? – Analyze what you are concerned about and make sure it is a legitimate concern.

Superstitious behavior comes from the mistaken belief that a specific activity that is followed by positive or negative reinforcement is actually the cause of that positive or negative reinforcement. It is the confusion of correlation and causality. —Marshall Goldsmith

Some people believe the silliest things.

• Samuel Johnson always exited his house right foot first and avoided stepping on cracks in the pavement. He thought that to do otherwise would be bad luck.
• While leading the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships during his legendary career, Michael Jordan wore his University of North Carolina shorts under his uniform in every game, thinking it would affect his playing.
• In Mandarin, Cantonese, and Japanese the words for “death” and “four” are pronounced the same, so in these cultures the number 4 is seen as unlucky.
• In Western civilization, the number 13 is deemed unlucky because there were 13 people at Christ’s last supper. Many hotels don’t label the 13th floor because some people won’t stay there; the floor numbers simply skip from 12 to 14.

I think we all can agree that this deep-seated irrationality is nonsense. Most of it just sounds nutty. Carrying a rabbit’s foot will bring good luck? There’s a relationship between astronomical phenomena and human events? Blow out all the candles on your birthday cake in one breath and you’ll get whatever you wish for?

Scientific tests of superstitions consistently debunk them. Yet superstitious thinking and behavior still pervades society.

Are you superstitious? Do you engage in superstitious behavior?

I doubt if any of my readers embrace the ridiculous examples cited above, but many of us may yield to more subtle forms of superstition that exist whenever correlation is confused with causation. Correlation is when two or more things or events tend to occur at about the same time and might be associated with each other, but aren’t necessarily connected by a cause/effect relationship. For instance, consider the following hypothetical situation.

A small town in East Texas hires a new sheriff, and a year later the robbery rate is down 50%. The city council assumes that the drop in crime is because the new sheriff is doing a terrific job so they extend his contract and give him a raise.

The problem is, while there is a valid correlation between hiring the new sheriff and the drop in crime, it is wrong to infer causation from this sequence of events. The crime rate may be down because the criminals, having already robbed most of the town’s wealth, have moved to another town that holds more opportunities. Or perhaps an aggressive home-security company has installed security systems in most of the homes and stores. So the new sheriff may or may not be the primary reason for the drop in burglaries.

The only way to prove causation is by a controlled experiment.

I doubt if any of us, in this age of science and reason, naively embrace obvious superstitions. But we may succumb to subtle forms of superstition when we inadvertently confuse correlation and causation.

[reminder]What are your thoughts about this essay?[/reminder]

Summary

What? – We often confuse correlation with causation. When we do, we succumb to a subtle form of superstition.
So what? – This can lead to faulty and unproductive decisions and behaviors.
Now what? – Analyze your life and eliminate superstitious behavior.