© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.

These pages contain the complete 2005 revised text of Building Yourself, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's guide to living the successful life.

Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
Building Yourself Table of Contents
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• Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say. Charles Caleb Colton (1780–1832)

Listening means projecting into the other person, taking the other person's point of view for a time, pushing aside what you might be so anxious to say. Listening is a very tough skill to acquire, especially if you're intelligent, quick‑witted, and dynamic—a leader. But the true leader only gains by learning to listen.

Try it sometime soon. Hear out someone who has a complaint about you, or with whom you differ strongly on an issue. Hear out the other side fully, in total silence, without thinking about how you'll respond, without forming clever answers, until the other person is fully and finally finished. Then thank the other person for their views. At that point, an answer is entirely optional.

Realize this basic fact about human beings: they don't act according to the rules of logic. Emotions rule them: pride and prejudice, vanity and fear. Logical argument, no matter how skillful, rarely wins the day. When you listen to people, you learn more than what they have to say, you learn what concerns and motivates them.

And you might discover through listening that you've been wrong. That's a wonderful thing, isn't it? On the one hand, you get to correct an erroneous notion and, on the other hand, you get a nice warm feeling inside when you realize that you have the maturity to admit error. Nice going!

Television and movies condition us to think in short bursts and “sound bites.” We're conditioned to expect instant gratification of our desires and instant answers to our ques­tions. We're accustomed to listen for a split second only and to interpret the lack of an answer within that short time span as a license to open our mouths. Reject this mindless condi­tioning while you still have time. Learn to live and think on a more human scale. Learn to listen; it's one of the most civilized skills you can develop.