Are You Listening ?

It's something we all need to improve, some of us a lot more than others, and it's something that has been getting increasingly worse as the years go by. Let's talk about it. This time on Wife's Thoughts. It's time for a virtual campfire sit down with Terry Weiss. Wilcome to Weiss's Thoughts. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Welcome back to another episode of Wife's Thoughts, our virtual campfire sit down brought to you by the find people at Purple Pit Studios and yours truly, Terry Weiss. So glad you decided to drop by for this installment of the podcast. I should say, and before we get started on this episode's topic, won't you visit the website? Please? Come on, I know you want to Wei'sthoughts dot com. Just spell my name right wysee. Go to White's Thoughts dot Com. There you can listen to each and every episode of this podcast. You can comment on shows right there. And while you're there, you know Mosey and around. Won't you leave me a rating? You can do it there or on your favorite podcast provider. I would truly appreciate it. If you want to reach out to me. I'm on x at Terry Weiss. You can look for me on LinkedIn as well, and if you want to check out the Weiss Thoughts YouTube channel, just search for Wis's Thoughts on YouTube. All that goodness and more waiting for you, okay, and also visit the Purplepitstudios dot com website as well. You can listen to some of the other shows that are produced there as well. Check out the blog Weiss Life all at Purplepitstudios dot com. All right, enough of min yapping about that before we start today's show, and it's going to be a good one because this is something I really have wanted to talk about for quite a while and I just wanted to gather my thoughts together and everything. But first, before we do that, let's uh yeah. It's that time again. It's time for the wordsmith Word of the episode. That's right, it's time to expand your vocabular knowledge, vocabular vernacular for your vocabulary whatever see I can speak. And this week's podcast episode wordsmith Word of the episodeitas say it again, oh Ai artificial voice, felicitous, felicitous, f el I c I t o us. It's an adjective. It means well chosen or suited to the circumstances, or it could mean pleasing and the fortunate. Well, let's shir it. In some sentences, it was. A felicitous decision to bring an umbrella as it rained all afternoon after a sunny morning. What about another example, the rain. On their wedding day ended up being felicitous as it made for a cozy indoor ceremony. And how about another one. Let's tell you it. Yes, the casting director made a felicitous choice in selecting the unknown actor for the leading role. And that's this week's wordsmith word of the Episodeitus felicitous f E l I c I t o us can mean well chosen or suited to the circumstances, pleasing and fortunate. Now you are in the know, as they say, And you know what, knowing is half the battle, isn't it? All right? Great, on and upward into the program as we mosey on along here. So what are you going to talk about, Terry this time on the Weiss Thoughts podcast. You know, I'm glad you asked, Terry. The art of listening, I think is kind of disappearing, especially in America. And I have noticed it across many, many regions, many different circumstances, many different scenarios. And this is what I mean by that. I think, especially especially here in the United States of America, in the year twenty twenty five, we are losing the fine art of just being listeners, good active listeners. It happens in business, It happens in personal relationships, it happens in interpersonal relationships. It happens just in general. I have encountered in dealing with, shall I say, certain business entities over the past few months and years, that a good deal of the time the other individual or individuals that I am dealing with just don't pay attention at all. I don't know. I don't think I am hard to listen to. I believe I am very articulate in my conveying of thoughts and communicating. I firmly believe I express my ideas in an organized manner most of the time. I mean not everybody's perfect, and I'm not trying to come off sounding like an ass here. Okay, let me breafast that I really am not. But I want you out there to think about this for a minute. Think about this in your own lives when you're interacting with a business or personally. But let's start with in a business setting where let's say you're calling a company and ask a question about a bill, or you're calling to get information. How many times do you have to repeat yourself? How many times do you have to clarify things or repeat and over again. Now, I know that certain organizations make you repeat things like for verifying an account, or you may be dealing with an individual on the phone or in person and this say, oh, could you just put for clarification? Would you please repeat that to make sure I've heard this correctly, or I input this information correctly into our system to search, or what have you. I'm not talking about those things we're excluding that. I'm talking about just in general speaking with someone VI over the phone, or even communicating over email or a text, you know, professionally where it just seems like, you know, the first few words or of the sentence, or maybe they get in, they're gone, man, you know, and it's really frustrating as a customer. I can tell you that to have to constantly repeat yourself. Now, I'm not talking about because what might be jumping into your mind right now is well, yeah, man, Terry, I know what you mean. You know, you call overseas and you get these people on the phone overseas and they don't understand you. I'm not talking about that. I am talking about just good old fashioned listening where you can understand the person and they can understand you, but they're just not paying attention. It's like I don't know if they don't care or maybe in this thirty second or less attention span society, we're breeding and continue to breed where we don't bother, you know, really getting that interpersonal one on one connection with someone and being what's called an active listener. And I need to improve my listening skills. I find at times too myself zoning out as it were, sometimes you know somebody, especially you know. And I can get this, and I can certainly understand this business people as consumers if we drone on and on, if we're just calling to find out what our bills do, and then I have to give you my life story from birth until now. I get that. I understand that because some people can be long winded, and I I know I myself have even been dare I say, being been accused of being long winded because just because I talked for a living, you know, and sometimes I feel that I talk too much. And my wife would tend to agree as she would, as she has told me many times, you never shut up got almighty anyhow. But I'm talking about when you call into a business you're trying to get communicate something, get information, get an issue resolved, or something, and you find yourself repeating yourself over and over and over. You know, what, what's your address, mister Weiss? Oh it's one two three any Town, USA. I'm sorry, could you repeat that? Yes, one two three, any any Town, USA. Did you get that? Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah? And then you go, you know, you move on further in your conversation. Oh what was that address again? Didn't you write it down? Didn't you type it in? You know, stuff like that just seems to be annoying. Or or if you're interacting on the other end of the line as a business person or maybe a customer service rep and you're getting information from a customer and they ask you something and you answer the question and then they say something like, you know, does that make sense? Or you know, is that the answer to your Oh yeah, that's the answer to my question, and then they go on blah blah blah blah, bit a little bit, a little blathering out about something else, or the conversation takes a different turn, and then they ask you the same question that you answered not even maybe three to four minutes or even five minutes ago. If you're on the phone with them that long, It's like, do we have a short attention span? Do we have short term memory loss? Are we okay? Listen? We have to listen to each other more. Socially, we have to listen to each other more. You're out with friends talking about you know, the movie you saw this, or that, you know. I think active listening skills are something that definitely can be improved upon by all of us. All of us, I'm including me in here as well. We have to learn to improve our active listening skills, because man, we all suck at it. Just to put it mildly, we do. I'm constantly having to repeat myself. I've had times too where you know, my mind wanders. You know, somebody's you know, yapping at me, and I you know, they say, hey, you know, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, all right, and usually wouldn't hear the right up in the inflection usually means a question, and I'll be like, what I might be thinking about the hockey game that I want to watch on TV, or you know, a boy, I shouldn't have had that extra chicken wing for lunch, or you know what am I going to do this weekend? You know, the mind wanders. So I think we all need to take a step back and really assess our active listening skills and ways we can improve them. And I and again I'm I'm throwing myself in this category as well, because nothing is more frustrating than not being heard or understood when you're trying to be and believe you are being clear and articulate, or nothing is more frustrating to be on the other side of the of the fence, as it were, and someone not listening, you know, when you're providing information and having to repeat yourself over and over again. And that also, I think creates a lot of conflict that's in the world too. You know. Now people might say politically and I don't really want to get political here, but you know, one side doesn't want to listen to the other and talk to the other, and this side doesn't want to talk to that side because they don't want to hear anything they have to say. They just shut themselves off and stay in their own tribe, and the other tribe liks to stay in their own tribe, et cetera, et cetera. There's always I think room as far as maybe politically and socially for some type of common ground somewhere. You know, it's not all one sided. No one has a no one has the carbe blanche on the truth or what have you or the solution. I mean, there's certain things, but very rare. We all have to learn to listen, be more active listeners with each other. I mean, what do you think about it? You know, send me, you know, get in contact with me. You can reach out to Terry at Weiss thoughts dot com again, leave comments on the show on your on the website at weis thoughts dot com you can leave a comment there as well. It can reach out to me that way or even on x at Terry Weiss. Just reference this show. You know, we're going to title it. Are you listening? That'll be the title of this episode of the podcast. Are you listening, and you know, lead some notes and let's start the conversation there. Let's see what happens. We all need to be better active listeners in our social life, you know social slash personal life, and in our business life as well. And I think it'll go a long, long, long way to helping solve the issues, and not only your personal and professional life, but maybe it'll go a long way to help solve the issues in the nation and who knows, even possibly the world. Hey, thanks for listening to the program today. I truly appreciate each and every one of you out there. And remember, to see a change in the world, you have to be the change in the world you want to see. It all starts with you, the person looking back at you in the mirror every morning. Remember to be kind to yourself, be kind to others. If you want to tweet at me on Twitter, it's at Terry Weiss. Stop by the website Wis's thoughts dot com just to make sure you spell my name right. Wysee Wis's thoughts dot com, and hey, leave us a positive and review on your favorite podcast provider. Won't you tell your friends, tell your family, tell your pets about White's thoughts, and I look forward to gathering yet again around the virtual campfire with you real soon. Take care,