Listening has been called the forgotten skill. Its part in communication is not generally recognised and is, therefore, hugely undervalued. The result of this is that we have little understanding of, and pay scant attention to, the importance of good listening skills.
It's little known - but well researched - that most people comprehend and retain only 25% of what is said to them. Which means that 75% of oral communication is generally lost, misunderstood or ignored!
Immediately after listening to an spoken presentation, the average untrained listener has heard, understood, evaluated and retailed half of what was said.
In less than 48 hours that drops by another 50% to final level of 25% retention or effectiveness.
Professional Listening takes place when someone who has been trained to listen actively gives the speaker their undivided objective attention.
The Professional Listener has relevant qualifications and many years' experience of working with people in therapeutic sessions.
Professional Listening is not another term for counselling or life coaching although some of the skills used in these disciplines may apply - but it's not a therapy either.
The Professional Listener's clients include people who need time and space in their lives to examine thoughts, ideas, problems and priorities, who may need confidence building or just time to let off steam in a confidential environment.
Working with the Professional Listener gives you the opportunity to allow your "unheard voice" to relax and talk about whatever it needs to - usually something that's very important to you. The Professional Listener can meet you in a comfortable, secure and confidential environment or in your home by arrangement.
The Professional Listener can also provide Executive or CEO support -please see the relevant page on this website.
When you meet the Professional Listener you know that he will be totally focusing on you, encouraging you to give a voice to your thoughts, encouraging you to clarify the thoughts that up to that time may only have lived in your head.
Hearing your own words and thoughts out loud can enable you to develop strategies for making progress in important areas of you life, define what's important to you and benefit from literally voicing your thoughts, ideas and concerns. When a counsellor works with a client they usually identify a point or event in the PAST and then through a series of meetings they work together to resolve and/or accept issues or events.
A life coach will work with a client who will define and agree goals to be achieved sometime in the FUTURE and through a series of meetings they work together meeting targets and moving toward the goals.
The Professional Listener works with clients who need to talk about TODAY'S issues who need to talk to somebody who will listen - not give advice, not interrupt, and not question what the client has to say. For more information send for the Professional Listening PDF from our Free Stuff page
Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force....
When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.
Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life...
When we listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other...
and it is this little creative fountain inside us that begins to spring and cast up new thoughts and unexpected laughter and wisdom....
well, it is when people really listen to us, with quiet fascinated attention, that is the little fountain begins to work again, to accelerate in the most surprising way. -Brenda Ueland
