Going from being a good listener to a great listener

I am not a naturally good listener, but I have tried to become excellent, so I have had to rewire my natural impulses. Mostly my inborn instincts were towards babbling. So the first step, of course, was to simply talk less, and pay more attention to others. Ask a question or two, and realize that if you try to talk about 25% of the time, you will end up talking 55% of the time, which is better than the default. However, this is not sufficient. When your approach to being a listener simply involves asking someone else questions, and pouring attention on them, there are limits to how well the conversation can go. This conversational style tends to feel like an interview, or, worse, like you’re a spy, searching for gossip or doing oppo research. You can achieve depth, but it doesn’t really feel like an alive thing, in the way that great conversations do. I’ve found that the next step in being a good listener actually involves shifting part of my attention back towards myself. You have to

I am not a naturally good listener, but I have tried to become excellent, so I have had to rewire my natural impulses. Mostly my inborn instincts were towards babbling. So the first step, of course, was to simply talk less, and pay more attention to others. Ask a question or two, and realize that if you try to talk about 25% of the time, you will end up talking 55% of the time, which is better than the default. However, this is not sufficient. When your approach to being a listener simply involves asking someone else questions, and pouring attention on them, there are limits to how well the co