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Chapter 4
Listen ’til It Hurts
asked the director of a university language department to
name the communication skills that she had found most
useful in her work. “You have to love the people who work
with you, and you have to listen ’til it hurts,” she told me.
Hurts? “Oh, yes,” she said. “Listening is an intense process. It
requires a lot of discipline to make yourself pay attention to
another person and not to be thinking ahead of their words to
how you’ll respond mentally or judging them for taking too
long to get to their point. Sometimes it hurts, but you owe it
to the people you love.”
Her answer to my question came with no ...