You're Not Listening Quotes

“You’ve probably experienced the phenomenon when someone close to you (maybe your spouse, child, parent, friend, etc.) revealed something that you didn’t know when the two of you were talking to someone else. You might have even said, “I didn’t know that!” This likely occurred because the other person was listening differently than you previously had. Maybe that person showed more interest, asked the right questions, was less judging, or was less apt to interrupt.

Think of how you, yourself, might tell different people different things. It doesn’t necessarily have to do with the type of relationship you have with them or degree of closeness. You might have once told a stranger something you hadn’t told anyone else. What you tell, and how much you tell, depends on how you perceive the listener at that moment. And if someone is listening superficially, listening to find fault, or only listening to jump in with an opinion, then you’re unlikely to make any kind of meaningful disclosure and vice versa.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“It’s as if once you feel a connection with someone, you assume it will always be so. The sum of daily interactions and activities continually shapes us and adds nuance to our understanding of the world so that no one is the same as yesterday, nor will today’s self be identical to tomorrow’s.

Opinions, attitudes, and beliefs change. So it doesn’t matter how long you have known or how well you think you know people; if you stop listening, you will eventually lose your grasp of who they are and how to relate to them.

Relying on the past to understand someone in the present is doomed to failure. The French writer André Maurois wrote, “A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems too short.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“Coche’s answer was pretty simple: people in long term relationships tend to lose their curiosity for each other. Not necessarily in an unkind way; they just become convinced they know each other better than they do. They don’t listen because they think they already know what the other person will say.

Coche gave the example of spouses who answer questions or make decisions for each other. They might also give gifts that miss the mark, resulting in disappointment and hurt feelings. Parents can make the same sorts of mistakes, assuming they know what their children like or don’t like and what they would or would not do.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“You’re not listening!”

“Let me finish!”

“That’s not what I said!”

After “I love you,” these are among the most common refrains in close relationships. While you might think you’d be more likely to listen to a loved one than a stranger, in fact, the opposite is often true.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“Listening can continue even when you are no longer in the presence of the speaker as you reflect on what the person said and gain added insight.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“Research suggests that after people listen regularly to faster-paced speech, they have greater difficulty maintaining their attention when addressed by someone who is talking normally - sort of like the feeling you get when you come off an expressway and have to go through a school zone. Moreover, you lose your ability to perceive and appreciate nuance in conversation because things like tonal shifts, subtle sighs, foreign accents, and even voices made raspy by whiskey and cigarettes all but disappear when heard in double time.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“Inner dialogue fosters and supports cognitive complexity, that valuable ability to tolerate a range of views, make associations, and come up with new ideas...our inner dialogue influences and distorts what other people say and thus how we behave in relationships.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“To listen is to be interested, and the result is more interesting conversations. The goal is to leave the exchange having learned something. You already know about you. You don't know about the person with whom you are speaking or what you can learn from that person's experience.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“Everybody is interesting if you ask the right questions. If someone is dull or uninteresting, it's on you.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“Listening is about the experience of being experienced. It's when someone takes an interest in who you are and what you are doing. The lack of being known and accepted in this way leads to feelings of inadequacy and emptiness. What makes us feel most lonely and isolated in life is less often the result of a devastating traumatic event than the accumulation of occasions when nothing happened but something profitably could have. It's the missed opportunity to connect when you weren't listening or someone wasn't really listening to you.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“Seen as efficient and data driven, looking at what's trending on social media or conducting online surveys is largely how listening is done in the twenty-first century but the press, politicians, lobbyists, activists, and business interests. But it's questionable that social media activity reflects society at large.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“Polling proved a poor substitute for actually listening to people in their communities and understanding the realities of their everyday lives and the values that drive their decisions. Had political forecasters listened more carefully, critically, and expansively, the election results would have come as little surprise.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“The blowhard factor is in part responsible for ongoing political upheaval and divisiveness both in the United States and abroad, as people feel increasingly disconnected from and unheard by those in power.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“The ability to listen to anyone has been replaced by the capacity to shut out everyone, particularly those who disagree with us or don't get to the point fast enough.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“Done well and with deliberation, listening can transform your understanding of the people and the world around you, which inevitably enriches and elevates your experience and existence. It is how you develop wisdom and form meaningful relationships.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“In our increasingly disconnected society, people have gotten notably more conspicuous and vocal about their affiliations, particularly their political and ideological affiliations, in an effort to quickly establish loyalties and rapport. These affiliations provide a sense of belonging, and also the kind of guiding principles once provided by organized religions, which have correspondingly been losing adherence. Moreover, when people feel insecure or isolated, they tend to overdramatize and espouse more extreme views to get attention.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“What makes us feel most lonely and isolated in life is less often the result of a devastating traumatic event, than the accumulation of occasions when nothing happened, but something profitably could have.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“People describe me as the type of person who can talk to anyone, but it's really that I can listen to anyone.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“By listening, you acknowledge and embrace the world that is going on outside your head, which helps you sort out what's going on inside your head.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“To listen does not mean, or even imply, that you agree with someone. It simply means you accept the legitimacy of the other person's point of view and that you might have something to learn from it.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“[E]verybody is interesting if you ask the right questions. If someone is dull or uninteresting, it's on you.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“Seen as efficient and data drive, looking at what's trending on social media or conducting online surveys is largely how listening is done in the twenty-first century by the press, politicians, lobbyists, activists, and business interest”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“Indeed, the ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus said, "Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak".”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“Or the person could just be a jerk. People rarely are, though. Their self-centered conversational style more often speaks to deep insecurities, anxieties, or blind spots. Sometimes just by listening, they begin to listen, too—not only to you but also to themselves. And when they do, the conversation becomes more coherent, relevant, and responsive. The power of the listener is that you get to decide how much effort you want to put in and when you’ve had enough.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

“Also deadly are long questions that contain a lot of qualifying or self-promoting information: “I have a background in landscape architecture and am an admirer of Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed Central Park and is an underrecognized genius in my opinion, and I travel extensively and I’m struck by the enduring vibrancy and popularity of the great parks like New York’s Central Park and St. James’s Park in London and the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, so I’m wondering if you agree that we need to have more grand ambitions when we think about green spaces?” This was an actual question someone stood up and asked at a sustainable development forum. Don’t be that person.”
― Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters