Listen with passion

So often do we talk about speaking with passion, much rarer do we think about listening with passion.

Conversations are two-sided, they only work if one person is listening while the other is talking. Unfortunately, we tend to have a greater innate interest in making sure others know the smart, interesting and important things that we think than truly absorbing what someone else has to say. So I love this quote from Harriet Lerner:

Listen with the same passion with which we want to be heard.

If we all could do this routinely with our colleagues, friends, family, children, and partners I’d guess it’d make quite a difference.

I learned about it from Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead .