Let me expand on that.Īn occasional situation where someone says something but the intended receiver doesn’t properly hear them would fall into a category I’ll call “acute”, or “incidental”. The frustrating part of this can be simple at times, but gets more complex as it becomes habitual. The most common ones might involve someone we’ll call “Dad”, whose hearing is just fine, but who practises what some might call “selective listening”. Just long enough for me laugh (internally) and to note the story for an upcoming blog.Īnyone who has ever been involved with family businesses and the business families who run them, will instantly be able to relate some anecdotes about the differences between hearing and listening. The confusion was only felt on my end and it didn’t last long, thankfully. She was indeed willing to listen to me, in fact that was the main purpose of the call in this case, but she had difficulty with the first essential element of that, i.e. It took a few seconds, which seemed longer at the time, for me to realize that what she was trying to tell me was that she simply couldn’t HEAR me. She then repeated that a couple of times, seemingly louder each time, as typically happens when people with different first languages are trying to communicate. So now imagine if you will, the feeling in my gut when the first words I heard out of her mouth are, “I cannot listen to you”. Without delving too deep into the details, let’s just say that this person also wielded a certain amount of power over me at the time. I could hear her just fine, but she was unable to hear me.įor added context, this was a person I’d never spoken to before, although we had exchanged some emails around the scheduling of this call.

We were trying to get the call started, but the person on the other end was having some difficulty, because of a technical issue. This week’s “inspirational” incident comes from a Zoom call I was recently part of with someone from a European country where English is not the main language. Of course I always hope that readers get something from them too! When I’m also able to bring in some humour and unexpected language twists, writing them becomes even more enjoyable for me. They then become a platform that I use to try to tie in some lessons that are (hopefully) useful for families. Most of my blog posts are inspired by real life occurrences that get me thinking more deeply about what just happened.

I cant hear you