Some people are great listeners, I envy them! Some (like me) are way too likely to hear something interesting and immediately interrupt the speaker with what they want to add to the conversation. It’s a horrible habit. And I am making it a priority to fix it. It annoys me when I do it and I can’t imagine how exasperating it must be to anyone I am in a conversation with…..

I know I’m not the only one who has this infuriating habit, even professionals have it e.g. Charlie Rose would routinely interrupt his guests to add his two-bits which I found utterly annoying. But old dogs can learn new tricks. When he moved to CBS This Morning, he learned to listen and in the process, he turned into a much better interviewer on his own show. I’d love to know what training they gave him.

Mark Suster also has some great advice on how to become a better listener and why it’s so important for your business – as well as your personal life. He refers to non-listeners as Crocodile Salesmen: “Big mouth and no ears”  (always pitching, never listening!).

Suster’s favorite business (life) book — The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (by Stephen Covey) — includes listening as one of the 7 habits, “seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Per Suster, if you follow that mantra it will lead to more positive results in whatever you’re doing.

Listening has also been identified as a core soft skill for all entrepreneurs by smallbiztrends.com.

And finally, if you google listening vs. presenting, you’ll get 3 X as many results for talking vs. listening. I’m going to try to flip this around and make listening the priority:

• How to become a better listener: 327MM results
• How to become a better presenter: 947MM results