In Order To Really Hear You Have To Really Listen

Major fashion mag. Thick, slick, glossy, monthly. One page shouts out. Tucked away between couture fashion, luxury chocolate, designer vodka and timeless watches. Shows me a hot recording artist enraptured by sound. The page asks me if I can hear the world. Reminds me I can’t. Tells me about a global initiative to raise awareness about the importance of listening. The advertisement calls attention to the consequences of hearing loss, that supposedly effects 10% of the world population. The initiative supports projects dedicated to helping hearing impaired people.

I’m one of them.  I’m losing my ability to hear. I need help. And I’m convinced it has to do with my inability to listen. My intolerances. My selfish attention focused only on me and my concerns. My reactions and my fears. I have no problem listening to the justifications for my self enclosure. My concentration is on me and my sounds. My preoccupation is on the sounds I make as they ricochet and multiply off the hollowed walled emptiness inside me.

In order to really hear what others have to say, I’d have to stop listening only to myself. In order to listen to the music around me I’d have to stop dancing only to my own rhythms and embrace life as a whole as my dance partner.

But for as boring as it gets, this only listening to myself, it’s safe. While it keeps me locked in - it keeps others locked out.

Be the problem. You’ll be the star of the show.

Problems. Solutions. They’re the superstars in our lives. Everything revolves around them. They can’t get enough press. We can’t read enough about them. Or give them enough of our attention. They’re all we think about. Take them away and what interest would our tabloid lives have? We’d be nothing. Nothing to ourselves, we suspect. Definately nothing to others, we’re convinced.  Who wants to be nothing? We need to be everything. Afterall a bad show is one thing, it can be turned around. A quick fix. A new plot. New characters. Re-drafted. Re-crafted. Re-funded. Re-promoted. But a nothing of a show, is a no show. No one shows up to a no show. A non-event is not life, it’s death.

What life would we have without our dramas? Dr. Suess’s cat without a hat? A rhyme without a verse? A verse without meaning? A meaning without reason? A reason without a cause? A cause without a purpose? An stage without a theather? A performance without an audience? No reason to even turn the lights on. No electricity. Death.

In most sought after high paying scripts, problem is the hero. Big time producers know one problem after another draws the audience. Problems are superstars. A great problem sell tickets. Generates electricity. Turns the lights on.  She, He, They, are the life of the party. The star. And the show must go on. We need our stars. Our hero’s. We need our audience. We need to the feel noise of applause on our skin and the heat of it in our ears. We need a cause. Our audiences need a reason to come back.

Solution. An afterthought.  A minor part waiting in the wings. An anti-hero. Or more likely the villian. Write solution a major role, give it a prominent voice and the problems go away. As do the bored audiences.

Our audiences have to have a reason to come back. Otherwise what value do we have? An empty hall ain’t no good to nobody. Everything we have, everything we’ve invested in, all that we are and all that we hope to become, we owe to the ever new problems we have to create.

We have to play to a full house. Our audiences have to have a reason to come back. We’d be nothing without them.

An Up & Coming Polymath Asks What Makes Angry People Happy

I became a better polymath today. I’m in love with that word. Just found it, hours ago. Was love at first sight. Honestly. Turns out this word doesn’t have a bloody thing to do with math, which I don’t love. Or anything in the least mathmatical. Not a thing. Which is what draws me to it with a mathmatical like percision, which I do love. Polymathic people are those that show great and varied learning. That’s me today. And you as well, now or later, if you can drop some of your preconceived ideas of how life should be and learn some of life’s simple lessons – so you can enjoy more of life, as it is.

Here’s a shortcut to becoming a great polymath. Look around at any situation that you may be in front of and questioning its value or relevance for you. Stop, before you judge the situation like you normally might. Hold on. Exhale. Step back. Drop your expected results. Drop your ideas about how things should turn out.  Inhale. Ask yourself this question; “What’s trying to happen here?” Then drop what you’re expecting to happen and pick up on your listening. If you’re listening is good enough, you’ll pick up the answer to your question. And the answer will surprise and thrill you. You’ll learn to see what is trying to happen through the event or situation your facing. And you’ll gain a valuable insight as to how you can grow and benefit from any situation. Once you can see clearly what’s trying to happen right in front of you and what’s possible to gain in the process, then you’re widening your learning and as a result, you’ll not only be better off because of it but, at the same time, you’ll be well on your way to being a first class polymath.

Here’s an example of how I increased my polymathic abilities today. Let me hear some examples you have.

I flew to a corporate conference room populated with tense, critical and angry people looking at me to blame problems on rather than solve them. In the middle of it all I found myself asking myself, ”What is trying to happen here?” I took a few deep breaths and simply watched the scene play out in front of me rather than jumping head first into the center stage of the power play drama unfolding before me. Here’s what I started to see. They more angry those around me got, the more angry I got. The more angry we got, the more all the anger levels in the room got and the hotter the climate within the room got. The greater the emotional temperature got, the more defensive everyone got, the lower the creativity got and . . . the further we all got away from solving the very problems that brought us together in the first place. As the anger heated up our productivity froze down. It was then I noticed something I hadn’t before. The angrier, the angry people got, the more happy they became as a result of their anger.

It was only when I asked myself again for the third time, “What’s trying to happen here?” did I realize I had my answer. It was there all the time right in front of me. As I withdrew into the background I saw the situation for what it was. Angry people aren’t happy with solutions. Angry people are happy generating more anger. And they become sad and frustrated when they can’t get what they want which is anger.

Anger generators look for power sources. They need ever-fresh, ever-ready energy sources. They rely on them. They depend on them. They need them to cling to, to hook up to and generate more anger from.

I became a way more powerful polymath once I learned that. I don’t want to make angry people happy by letting them make me angry. I’m not interested in being that quality of power source. It’s unclean, self polluting toxic energy. It won’t lead to better, cleaner and more profitable solutions. It won’t increase my creativity, my profitability or my value contribution – it’ll only perpetuate the problems and make me a part of the those – instead of the solution. And being a part of the problem isn’t going to make me any better or happier. Only being a part of the solution will.

It took a high powered corporate conference room and a group of angry people to push me to become more polymathic. I’ve learned a lot more than I thought I would in that handsomely cherry wooded panelled top floor executive conference room. Some very angry people mentored me today. They coached me to understand the dangerously contageous self polluting nature of anger.

And while I varied my learning today to include what makes angry people happy and how I have to drop out of that polluted scene, I still have a lot to learn about becoming a more integral part of the solution. Once I pick up that piece of the learning puzzle I’ll be well on my way to being an even greater polymath than I’ve come to be today.

What kind of polymath are you?

Hello world!

She is responsible for this hello. She suggested. Directed. Encouraged. He is responsible for this hello. He inspired. Pushed. Pulled. She and He moved me into saying hello. Not pushing. Or pulling, But by allowing. He and She know not to shout but rather to whisper.  She and He know how to say “hello” in such a way as to remind me how to say hello back, back into myself and out into the world. Hello.