Let me begin by sharing with you how I am feeling these days.
- I’m frustrated. “Ok, you may say, about what?”
- I’m frustrated at not being able to travel. “yes, we all are, I can identify”.
- I’m frustrated at not being able to travel as I am nearly 5,000 miles from home. “ok, that’s a long way”.
- I’m frustrated at not being able to travel as my three sons live there and I haven’t seen them since before the pandemic started. “Yeah, that feels tough”
Now these are minor examples, as each new piece of information changes things only a little for you the reader.
However, today I am simply sharing with you a lesson taught me as I learned to be a coach and to listen actively, and that is that “one more piece of information can change everything”. The crux of this is to listen with the intent to understand listen and listen so more so that you can fully understand what is going on for the other person.
I do always try to do this, but I also fail sometimes, I may listen just enough to make assumptions around the situation and then form and express an opinion. I did this at the start of this year in a relaxed chat with a dear friend around a subject I had no idea of the full situation. We were in flowing conversation and so I was only partially listening, then by forming and expressing a strong opinion on something before finding out that “one more piece of information” that mattered to them, I deeply upset my friend and so they have not spoken to me all year. I feel awful about it and hope I learn the lesson a little more this time.
Anyway, today sharing two past posts that may bring home the “one more piece of information” lesson. Each has videos in there so get a beverage of choice, sit down adn relax and enjoy, and perhaps anchor the learning.
A post written to celebrate the life of Chadwick Boseman. I wrote in it:
While we may learn a lot from those who process outwardly, we may never know what is really happening for those who process more inwardly.
This weekend when I learned of the passing of Chadwick Boseman, along with so many millions of others, I also learned that for the past four years he had been suffering from colon cancer, undoubtedly knowing for quite some time that it would most likely be terminal.
He had kept this information very close throughout, so the shock at his passing is so strong.
At this moment, I am reminded of an adage I learned from coaching mentors, taught to encourage to listen more before forming a thought or opinion: “one more piece of information can change everything”. I will redouble my focus on, as Stephen Covey put it, “listening with the intent to understand, not to reply“.
Do watch the two videos in the post, they take on new information with the one more piece of information that he was there with terminal cancer.
Three powerful commencement speeches
Back in the first year of this blog, I wrote a weekly post called “Movies with Meaning”, each time with three movie clips, with me noting a meaning I had taken from each one. If you like, follow this link and you can see all 50+ movies linked. Anyway, one week I did a post with a difference, each of the three video clips of a powerful commencement speech.
The speakers are: Steve Jobs, David Foster Wallace and Tim Minchin
First, to Steve Jobs and his Stanford commencement speech “How to live before you die“, giving three life lessons.
Steve Jobs was, unknown to the audience, fighting cancer that ultimately killed him a few years later. As he gave the third of the three life lessons, he said these words. Does the one more piece of information that he was dying change the impact for you? It did for me.
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
I’ll finish with a recommendation to watch the video in the post of David Foster Wallace’s speech “This is Water”. The entire video is about “one more piece of information on the people you may see in front of you in somewhere as mundane as a grocery store.
We don’t know what others are going through, but remembering there is always “one more piece of information” may help all of us be more empathetic.