Fact Finding

What is your story? Where does it start?

What happens in the middle? Where does it go wrong? What does it look like on the other side?

When was the last time you asked someone else about their story?

Are you actually getting their story or are you fact finding about how they succeeded and failed? Are you really digging into their lives? Are you waiting for your turn to talk?

I have yet to find someone who does not want to tell their story. Truly listening to someone else tell their story takes more than just showing up. You have to listen too.

Who’s story are you listening to?

–JT

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Wear Out Your Welcome

Recently, more and more, I have begun to notice some people wearing out their welcomes. Not in the sense of staying at my home too long. They aren’t leaving their laundry all over my floor or leaving their dirty dishes all over the place. The toilet seat has not been left up too many times and nobody is trying to use my soap. 

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Still, though, they have worn out their welcome. They have filled my head with too many of their words. They have worn my ears down with the sounds of their voice. They give their opinion when they are not involved in conversations. They are over involved and under requested. They input into every open moment. They have not earned the right nor have they been given the right to be vocal. Yet still, they continue to wear out their welcome. 

Every word becomes a little less valuable than the last. And still they wear on. 

They speak more than the others around them and they do not know that they are more than their fair share. No measure is taken of their input compared to everyone else’s yet still, they wear on. 

They have worn out their welcome in the ears of their listeners, their voice has become shrill, and their words are legos under bare feet. 

What are your words worth? How much more than your peers do you contribute to conversations? Are you an equal contributor to conversation? How often you wait for others to speak first?

Listening,

–JT

What We Talk About, When We Talk About Our Opposites

I have noticed people’s conversations with me can be somewhat polarized. Not generally referencing me, more in regards to talking about the things I like and endorse. For instance, I am an Apple user. I appreciate the Apple ecosystem. I like the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, iMac, Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, Retina Macbook Pro, and I’m sure one day, I’ll even have an WATCH. 

Not everyone likes Apple, their hardware, their software, their philosophies, or their mode of operation. 

It is good for everyone to not love Apple. 

They are not the product for everyone. 

Oddly enough, I might be able to argue, this country was founded by some people who didn’t exactly want to have one mode of operation for all people. I wouldn’t carry that analogy out too far, but it does begin the discussion of my greater point, we all march to the beat of our own drum. 

This is so good. It is good for me to march to the beat of my own drum and you to march to the beat of your drum.

I bring up the Apple versus Microsoft, or the Apple versus Android, or the Apple versus Rolex conversation because it is a great analogy for the greater conversation. The conversation revolving around the people I don’t disagree with. When someone brings up their opinions on Apple, I quietly nod my head, make noncommittal remarks, and generally try to steer the conversation away from technology. I don’t like talking with people who want to talk in terms of extremes.

I especially I don’t like having to listen to people who are going to build straw man after straw man and angrily set them on fire. 

These are the conversations and exercises in listening where I am most pained. I want to create conversations where we can disagree with one another and there is not baseless name calling or wide sweeping assumptions based on limited knowledge or zero experience. 

Perhaps, you cannot relate to the example I am using. Apple is too tertiary for you. You do not resonate with technology. How about the Ford versus Chevrolet debate or the Republican versus Democrat debate. Maybe the conversation is better suited for you to discuss religion in these extremes, perhaps atheist versus christian is the conversation you know better. 

In any of these conversations, I do not ask anyone to ever change what they think about the other side of the coin. I am more interested in how you talk about the other side of the coin. Do you talk about the other side of the coin as if they are intelligent people, products, or options? Or do you talk about them as if they are less valuable than day old popcorn on the floor of your town’s 

How do you talk about the people who march to the beat of a different drum than you do?

Listening & Asking

When I talk to people, I am work hard to hear what they have to say. I am also trying to figuring out how to drive people to a place where they need to go to find answers. We sit down, start talking, I kick into listening, analyzing, and problem solving and before long, I have an answer for the person. 

Then I stop listening and start convincing. 

Presenting arguments. Synthesizing answers. Preparing my discussion points. 

I do these things till they either agree with me or I can accurately believe I have thoroughly presented my point to them, they understand my point, and they simply disagree with me. At which point I either resume listening mode, rinse and repeat. Or, I walk away, in a friendly manner and allow them to go on their way without me. 

I think my method is sensible. And why would I not? I came up with it. However, my method makes a highly influential assumption. My method believes I have the answer and my answer is right, best, better, or most accurate. For me, my answer is right. My answer does not address the possibility of my answer being wrong for the person I am talking to. My answer is based on my experiences in my story. My answer does not address the experiences of the person I am talking to in their story. 

To say this in the simplest way, “My perspective is not their perspective.”

Ultimately, I need to start listening to people and ask them questions about themselves and let them do the work. It is not my job to do the heavy lifting, steering, driving, or answering. It is my job to ride along, ask questions, and be good company. 

When was the last time you sat down with someone who needed to talk and let them drive the car while you asked questions about the adventure?

Asking about the adventure,

–JT

Asking About Now

I went to see my counselor again. This time I was much more open-ended in my perspective and expectations. I had a small discussion of what I wanted to talk to him about, slightly prepared conversation about me overreacting at times. That was a good conversation and a portion of what we had to talk about. 

The majority of our conversation revolved around asking questions. Asking many questions. Good questions. The best questions really. Questions about where you are at. Right now. Not asking about where you are going or the future or what comes next. Asking questions about where you are at right now and allowing you to work through the implications of where you are at. That then will dictate where you go. Usually, this ends up being somewhat similar to where I think people should go. However, it is not for me to decide where people should go. What I must do is listen intently and ask questions about people and where they are at based on what they are telling me. I do love listening. 

Based on what I understand about the conversation, I get to listen, analyze, and ask. The hard part for me is going to be not asking and leading. Simply crafting masterful questions about where people are at in the moment and allowing them to lead the conversation to the next step to where we are going. Ultimately, I am listening to them as they are brought to a place where healing and wholeness is possible.

When was the last time someone asked you about how you’re doing?

When will be the next time you talk to someone about how you’re doing?

How well do you do at asking someone about where they are at, not where you think they should go?

Listening,

–JT

Speaking Well

The issue with finding my voice is, I have to never forget what it is like to not have a voice. To constantly fight to be heard. I have to remember to give a voice to those who do not forwardly speak out. Generally, not always, but generally, I think most people are more comfortable with speaking up on their own behalf more than I am. However, I have decided to choose myself, as I have spoken about before. I have to remember there are others who need to be chosen, who have not chosen themselves.

Obviously, I have not always chosen myself. In the times I was not choosing myself to speak and not choosing to have value, the situation I could best speak my mind is when I was chosen. When someone else saw my quietness and called it out. Someone else noticed my lack of contribution and asked me to add to the conversation. And I would add to the conversation, if I had anything to say. 

Through this process of being chosen. I came to notice a very striking pattern, I was never allowed to fully speak my mind in my turn. Usually, I would be cut off before I was done. I would land enough of a thought that someone else would choose to butt in and say their piece about whatever I was saying. They did not have to work hard to butt in either. I have a habit of leaving space in my speaking. 

Space. 

Room.

Thinking.

Breathing.

I put these things into my natural cadence of speaking. I put these things into my cadence for myself, my audience, and artistic nuance. There is no reason to always spew as many words as possible out as quickly as possible to share them with people so that they can be bombarded by you and your thoughts. 

Other people do not speak so that you can have time to think of what you are going to say next. As a matter of fact, you should be listening to what people are saying. 

Ahem, YOU should be LISTENING to what OTHER PEOPLE are SAYING.

Stop.

Think about this last statement for a minute. (I actually mean a whole minute. Take 60 seconds, set a timer on your phone or your watch. Think about what it means to actively listen to the person on the other end of phone, the couch, the coffee table, or the conference room. Do you actually listen? Or are you simply composing your next thought and preparing for your turn to talk?)

Go ahead, I’ll gladly wait.

…

Did you see anything about yourself? Did you notice anything?

When other people are talking are you preparing your turn to talk or are you actually listening? 

What if after someone finished speaking, you took a minute to think about what they said every time they finished?

What if you did not bothering thinking about what you think or feel about what someone else is saying and instead focused so intently on what they were saying you actually drew out of them more than what they were saying? 

Then, when they are done speaking their piece, you thought about what you had to say.

During the silence.

During the moment when you sit there staring at each other while you think, and they think about what they just said. 

How would your life be different if the person across from you is more important that what you are going to say next?

Silently,

–JT