as humans we are hard-wired for language
from the moment of birth we’re listening
to the voices around us we pay close
attention to those who are speaking we
listen to their words we watch their
facial expressions we even pay attention
to the tone of their voice as newborns
we need to understand our new strange
wonderful world and we do this to a
large extent by listening to others
speak our parents bring us into the mix
of communication by telling us stories
and that helps us connect from the voice
to the printed word when we’re old
enough we go to school and our teachers
bring reading and writing into the mix
at that point we have command of the
four pillars of communication but we
don’t develop these skills very wisely
as we go through the modern school
system in fact our education is pretty
much out of sync with how we live and
interact as humans once we have just a
basic understanding of how to speak and
how to listen we move on to the reading
and writing skills of spelling and
grammar and in doing so we marginalize
our ability to truly listen to other
people as students it’s rare when we
river tod howard develop our own ideas
and how to present them and it’s even
more rare when we’re taught how to
listen to someone else’s ideas to truly
understand what it is they’re saying but
it wasn’t always this way if we go back
some 600 years to a school such as
Oxford University we would discover that
the only ones with books were the
teachers printing presses didn’t exist
in England at the time so students did
even have their own copy to study the
only way they could learn was through
listening or maybe by copying somebody’s
notes in class and maybe that was enough
to graduate but they wouldn’t have
understood very much true learning only
now if we go back even further still
with served as a school was the campfire
that’s where our ancestors learned to
share their wisdom
it’s where the stories of their humanity
were passed on to future generations
these were the first days of
storytelling and of story listening now
story listening may not be a term that
you’re familiar with but in the days
before writing was common that’s how we
had to communicate that’s where our
convenien came from our ability to tell
and listen to stories it’s how we made
sense of the world it’s how we connected
to each other in fact our survival
depended on our ability to understand
what we were being told and to ask
questions when we were unsure now we’ve
heard a lot about listening in recent
years in fact there’s a myriad of
descriptors seems like every week
there’s a new article coming out talking
about a new way to listen and each of
these does provide valuable insights on
how we can better listen to each other
to be more attentive to be more
respectful to be more empathetic these
are all things we should aspire to do
when someone’s speaking to us but
storing listening is a little different
story listening means moving beyond just
the meaning of the words and the
sentences it means trying to understand
the story that’s being told to us by
now a common problem that all of us have
when we’re trying to listen is the fact
that our brain is able to understand
words about three times faster than most
of us speak that means we have a lot of
excess brain cycles out there giving us
an opportunity to daydream or even come
up with our own story and look for an
opportunity to interrupt and take
control of the conversation this
happened to me recently when I was
preparing for this talk I would record
myself on my phone and then play my talk
back trying to listen to my own story to
see how I could improve it and within
one minute of listening I stopped paying
attention to myself I was worried about
what I was gonna have for dinner I was
gonna go walk on the beach did I put gas
in my car and I thought I was an
interesting guy that I guess not so much
but there’s a hidden opportunity in
having excess brain power it gives us an
opportunity to really stop and think
about what’s being said to really hear
the whole story to appreciate the fact
that the person speaking to us is really
sharing an intimate part of themselves
it could be something very painful for
them it could be a part of their life’s
journey we also have an opportunity when
we’re listening like that well to ask
questions not questions that are based
on judgment where we think we already
know the answer the questions that come
from this very interesting place from a
profound sense of curiosity from this
heartfelt place of empathy and most
importantly from a position of respect
now I got introduced to story listening
after I left the corporate world and I
started coaching speakers helping others
tell their most impactful story now a
lot of these stories were about
successes scientific breakthroughs very
upbeat but the stories that I learned
the most from were those that came from
a hardship in Redemption and from
struggle
and from transformation these were the
stories that really meant a lot to me
the point is that these are stories that
we can listen to these are stories that
we can learn from and in this learning
process we learn more about ourselves we
learn about ourselves when we listen to
others so there were three stories that
really resonated with me from people
that I’ve been working with the first
was a young woman from the Republic of
Congo she was just a baby when war
forced her family to flee from their
village they spent three years on the
run before finding a refugee camp and
that young woman and her family they
spent 13 years living in that refugee
camp they had to deal with a lack of
food inadequate medical care
there were also few opportunities for
education for this young woman after
those 13 years the relief organization
finally brought her family back to the
United States she was in high school
when I met her getting ready for her
graduation she was going to be the first
person in her family to graduate I spent
three months coaching a prison inmate
this was someone who had grown up on
this rough streets of South Central Los
Angeles he was a really smart kid could
have been an honor student
but his world was surrounded by criminal
activity and in a strange twist he knew
by the age of 14 that he wanted to be a
gangster and so he joined one of the
most notorious gangs in LA his life of
crime landed him in prison
with a sentence of a hundred and sixty
years to life
despite that he was able to craft a new
narrative for himself a future free from
prison
violence and in his own TEDx talk he
encouraged the audience not only to lead
a better life but to help others around
them who were struggling to turn their
life around I teach a class in
storytelling and one evening a student
walked in ready to talk about the sexual
abuse that she had suffered about the
excessive drinking that she had to turn
to to hide the pain and about the PTSD
that she had to deal with because of her
trauma it wasn’t easy for her to stand
up in front of the class and speak those
words it took a lot of honesty and
vulnerability but she understood that
her story could really help change
women’s lives women who had gone through
a similar experience so story listening
is not always an easy thing to do it
requires us to put aside our own
assumptions to move away from our own
conclusions that we already think are
there but it’s a process that can bring
richness to our life that can connect
cultures I know that in my case this
story listening has made me interact
with people in a completely different
fashion story listening is a way for us
to connect at a level deeper than just
understanding the words that are being
spoken and what I’ve found is that the
true power of storytelling happens when
we can share our story with others and
then we can become a part of someone
else’s story and the true power of story
listening lies in the fact that when we
can hear someone else’s story from a
place of compassion and respect in
honesty that their story can become part
of our own narrative our stories define
who we’ve been and who we are today
but also who we aspire to be in the
future so should our paths cross please
tell me your story I’ll tell you mine
and we can do some story listening
you [Music]
from the moment of birth we’re listening
to the voices around us we pay close
attention to those who are speaking we
listen to their words we watch their
facial expressions we even pay attention
to the tone of their voice as newborns
we need to understand our new strange
wonderful world and we do this to a
large extent by listening to others
speak our parents bring us into the mix
of communication by telling us stories
and that helps us connect from the voice
to the printed word when we’re old
enough we go to school and our teachers
bring reading and writing into the mix
at that point we have command of the
four pillars of communication but we
don’t develop these skills very wisely
as we go through the modern school
system in fact our education is pretty
much out of sync with how we live and
interact as humans once we have just a
basic understanding of how to speak and
how to listen we move on to the reading
and writing skills of spelling and
grammar and in doing so we marginalize
our ability to truly listen to other
people as students it’s rare when we
river tod howard develop our own ideas
and how to present them and it’s even
more rare when we’re taught how to
listen to someone else’s ideas to truly
understand what it is they’re saying but
it wasn’t always this way if we go back
some 600 years to a school such as
Oxford University we would discover that
the only ones with books were the
teachers printing presses didn’t exist
in England at the time so students did
even have their own copy to study the
only way they could learn was through
listening or maybe by copying somebody’s
notes in class and maybe that was enough
to graduate but they wouldn’t have
understood very much true learning only
now if we go back even further still
with served as a school was the campfire
that’s where our ancestors learned to
share their wisdom
it’s where the stories of their humanity
were passed on to future generations
these were the first days of
storytelling and of story listening now
story listening may not be a term that
you’re familiar with but in the days
before writing was common that’s how we
had to communicate that’s where our
convenien came from our ability to tell
and listen to stories it’s how we made
sense of the world it’s how we connected
to each other in fact our survival
depended on our ability to understand
what we were being told and to ask
questions when we were unsure now we’ve
heard a lot about listening in recent
years in fact there’s a myriad of
descriptors seems like every week
there’s a new article coming out talking
about a new way to listen and each of
these does provide valuable insights on
how we can better listen to each other
to be more attentive to be more
respectful to be more empathetic these
are all things we should aspire to do
when someone’s speaking to us but
storing listening is a little different
story listening means moving beyond just
the meaning of the words and the
sentences it means trying to understand
the story that’s being told to us by
now a common problem that all of us have
when we’re trying to listen is the fact
that our brain is able to understand
words about three times faster than most
of us speak that means we have a lot of
excess brain cycles out there giving us
an opportunity to daydream or even come
up with our own story and look for an
opportunity to interrupt and take
control of the conversation this
happened to me recently when I was
preparing for this talk I would record
myself on my phone and then play my talk
back trying to listen to my own story to
see how I could improve it and within
one minute of listening I stopped paying
attention to myself I was worried about
what I was gonna have for dinner I was
gonna go walk on the beach did I put gas
in my car and I thought I was an
interesting guy that I guess not so much
but there’s a hidden opportunity in
having excess brain power it gives us an
opportunity to really stop and think
about what’s being said to really hear
the whole story to appreciate the fact
that the person speaking to us is really
sharing an intimate part of themselves
it could be something very painful for
them it could be a part of their life’s
journey we also have an opportunity when
we’re listening like that well to ask
questions not questions that are based
on judgment where we think we already
know the answer the questions that come
from this very interesting place from a
profound sense of curiosity from this
heartfelt place of empathy and most
importantly from a position of respect
now I got introduced to story listening
after I left the corporate world and I
started coaching speakers helping others
tell their most impactful story now a
lot of these stories were about
successes scientific breakthroughs very
upbeat but the stories that I learned
the most from were those that came from
a hardship in Redemption and from
struggle
and from transformation these were the
stories that really meant a lot to me
the point is that these are stories that
we can listen to these are stories that
we can learn from and in this learning
process we learn more about ourselves we
learn about ourselves when we listen to
others so there were three stories that
really resonated with me from people
that I’ve been working with the first
was a young woman from the Republic of
Congo she was just a baby when war
forced her family to flee from their
village they spent three years on the
run before finding a refugee camp and
that young woman and her family they
spent 13 years living in that refugee
camp they had to deal with a lack of
food inadequate medical care
there were also few opportunities for
education for this young woman after
those 13 years the relief organization
finally brought her family back to the
United States she was in high school
when I met her getting ready for her
graduation she was going to be the first
person in her family to graduate I spent
three months coaching a prison inmate
this was someone who had grown up on
this rough streets of South Central Los
Angeles he was a really smart kid could
have been an honor student
but his world was surrounded by criminal
activity and in a strange twist he knew
by the age of 14 that he wanted to be a
gangster and so he joined one of the
most notorious gangs in LA his life of
crime landed him in prison
with a sentence of a hundred and sixty
years to life
despite that he was able to craft a new
narrative for himself a future free from
prison
violence and in his own TEDx talk he
encouraged the audience not only to lead
a better life but to help others around
them who were struggling to turn their
life around I teach a class in
storytelling and one evening a student
walked in ready to talk about the sexual
abuse that she had suffered about the
excessive drinking that she had to turn
to to hide the pain and about the PTSD
that she had to deal with because of her
trauma it wasn’t easy for her to stand
up in front of the class and speak those
words it took a lot of honesty and
vulnerability but she understood that
her story could really help change
women’s lives women who had gone through
a similar experience so story listening
is not always an easy thing to do it
requires us to put aside our own
assumptions to move away from our own
conclusions that we already think are
there but it’s a process that can bring
richness to our life that can connect
cultures I know that in my case this
story listening has made me interact
with people in a completely different
fashion story listening is a way for us
to connect at a level deeper than just
understanding the words that are being
spoken and what I’ve found is that the
true power of storytelling happens when
we can share our story with others and
then we can become a part of someone
else’s story and the true power of story
listening lies in the fact that when we
can hear someone else’s story from a
place of compassion and respect in
honesty that their story can become part
of our own narrative our stories define
who we’ve been and who we are today
but also who we aspire to be in the
future so should our paths cross please
tell me your story I’ll tell you mine
and we can do some story listening
you [Music]
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