Ray and I connected this week on our final coaching call to discuss empathic listening. I enjoyed my morning cup o' joe while Ray finished up his supper (13 hour time difference). I began our coaching call by asking Ray if he felt he was an empathic listener and his answer surprised me: He feels that as a teacher, he is a natural empathic listener. Essential to his job is teaching students to speak English as their second language. In order to truly reach out to the students, he needs to be able to understand them and listen to what the possibilities are behind the words they struggle to speak. Not just anyone can teach students a second language in their home country. Ray respects their culture; who they are as people. As a foreigner living in another country, he understands what it is like to struggle with a language. It's that understanding and the ability to place himself in another person's position that makes him successful in what he does.
His answer surprised me for a reason: I never thought of teachers as a group to be empathic listeners. It seems like such an obvious statement but when we have read and talked about this subject, I was always thinking of listening on an individual level. Now that I think about it, there are many professions that would require empathic listening: nursing, funeral home, political (I know, I know) and the list could go on an on. It would seem to me that if empathic listening was taught and ingrained in other professions (attorneys, customer service representatives...) the world just might be a better and happier place!
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