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Stop and pause for a moment. What do you hear?

• Traffic? Isn’t it funny that some of us worship our cars, yet we don’t appreciate the noises they make?
• Tv? How can we focus on what we are reading and grasp it if we distract ourselves by leaving on the tv, which we can’t even watch while we read anyways?
• Music?Have you ever thought that the music you hear while reading can impact the way you perceive the words? Happy, upbeat music won’t cause you to respond appropriately to sorrow, yet sad, downbeat music can cause you to overreact to things with sad words causing greater sadness and happy words rubbing you the wrong way.
• People Talking? We may not be paying attention to the chatter as we believe we are reading, but part or our brain is observant and receiving the perceptible conversations and keeping us from focusing on what we are reading…like this blog post
• Silence? Isn’t it strange that the thing which has no sound is something we say that we can actually hear? Remember, the question was what do you hear. Even the lack of sound or noise impacts us as something we hear. We are just that used to audible input.

Okay, what’s my point? We are so accustomed to hearing things and having auditory stimulation that we don’t even realize how it affects other things. So much so that when there is silence, it causes people to become greatly uncomfortable. Have you ever been speaking to someone and then, as you can’t think of anything else to say you pause, and then they pause, and then there is that awkward silence that makes you feel really uncomfortable? Why is that? It’s because we have conditioned ourselves to the noise. It seems so strange without it.

In radio, they call silence “dead air.” It’s a definite no-no. It’s as if the world has come to an end if there are a few seconds of silence.

I think we need a lot more dead air in our lives. Especially in our conversations. I’ve been guilty of this at times, but one of the things I hate is when I see two or more people engaged in a conversation where someone asks a questions and encourages a response, yet the person responding never has a chance to fully respond because the asker of the question keep imparting their words into the discussion. Here is a huge pet peeve of mine. Have you ever had someone ask you how you are doing, then immediately go into what they wanted to say? “Hey, how ya doin’ I was wondering if you knew the way to San Jose and did you know that the dow dropped 700 points last Thursday?” Why ask me how I am doing if you really don’t care to hear an answer? If you’re going to ask, at least pause so I have a chance to respond! Wouldn’t a few seconds of dead air be appropriate here?

I spent most of my adult life in sales and marketing. At times it was very successful and very lucrative. However, at no time did I ever sell something to someone that wouldn’t positively benefit from the product or service I was marketing. I asked questions and listened to the responses on occasionally finding myself telling prospective clients that they would be better off without what I was representing at the time. I couldn’t do that if I didn’t listen carefully and try to assess their needs rather than keep speaking and forcefully presenting features and benefits even though the benefits may not be benefits to the prospective client.

When someone comes to you and needs someone to talk to, they may actually be coming to you because they need someone to just listen to them. Your words of wisdom may not be what they need even if they say that’s why they came to you. Maybe they just need someone to hear them out and allow the wisdom to be revealed in their own voice. how empowering it would be to let them know that they knew the answer all along and it just took someone like you to help them bring it to the surface!

When someone loses a loved one, do you always know what to say? Probably not, but ever notice how we always feel like we should say something? How about just looking them in the eye and letting them know it’s okay to grieve, embrace them and let them get a little emotional, then smile and let them know it’s all going to be okay?

Many times the things we can convey in silence are much more powerful and effective than anything we could ever say. Sometimes the true meaning and relevance behind what we read could impact us far greater if we turned off the noise and committed our full attention to what we were reading.

Sometimes, it’s not what you hear, but it’s what you’re not hearing that is important. Sometimes not hearing your own voice and listening to what is being said is more important.