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Work-Life Balance: Why Entrepreneurs Need Stillness

How to manage sensory overload and why entrepreneurs should just be still ... if even for a moment.

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The Lost Art of Listening

Will’s team taught us something even more important. Indirectly, it was another lesson about communication. We focused so intently on receiving and perceiving whatever Will was trying to communicate, that often we would become exhausted (in the early years). I’m convinced it was because of the patience and commitment that “actual” listening required from us.

And it was worth every second, every furrowed brow, every Advil. I fear listening is becoming a lost art. I fear we believe it’s too much work compared to the alternatives.

Have you noticed, in this social media age, that everyone wants to be heard?

But, how many of us truly want to listen, take the time to understand, or be patient? To actually hear what the other is saying – rather than simply pausing for our next turn to speak?

As psychologist, and MIT professor, Sherry Turkle said in a TED Talk:

Human relationships are rich and they’re messy and they’re demanding. And we clean them up with technology.

And when we do, one of the things that can happen is that we sacrifice conversation for mere connection.

Conversation is work. Relationships are work. Love is work. Listening – not just pausing – is real work. It’s rich, rewarding, messy, demanding, delightful work.

And it’s never been more important.

How do you manage to “stay still” in business? Let me know in the comments section below.

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Photo Credit: Americana Manhasset

Tim Miles is the owner of The Imagination Advisory Group, a communication firm that advises owner-operated companies. Follow Tim’s daily blog, The Daily Blur.

 

 

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