WEBVTT 00:00:07.655 --> 00:00:09.945 I would like to invite you to listen 00:00:09.945 --> 00:00:11.768 for the next few minutes, but perhaps 00:00:11.768 --> 00:00:15.687 in some ways you've never listened before. 00:00:15.687 --> 00:00:18.269 We have 4 communication skills in fact, 00:00:18.269 --> 00:00:20.879 two outputs and two inputs. 00:00:20.879 --> 00:00:22.888 And if you ask people in research 00:00:22.888 --> 00:00:24.710 which one is the most important, 00:00:24.710 --> 00:00:26.676 the vast majority of people say 00:00:26.676 --> 00:00:29.280 that the most important one is listening. 00:00:29.280 --> 00:00:31.514 If you ask a great salesperson 00:00:31.514 --> 00:00:33.680 what's more important in your sales conversation, 00:00:33.680 --> 00:00:35.241 is it speaking or listening, 00:00:35.241 --> 00:00:37.607 that's the answer they'll give you. 00:00:37.607 --> 00:00:40.437 In fact we spend up to 60 % 00:00:40.437 --> 00:00:43.759 of our communication time listening. 00:00:43.759 --> 00:00:46.713 Depending on the job we do, and what we do, 00:00:46.713 --> 00:00:49.205 in our families and so forth. 00:00:49.205 --> 00:00:51.900 And yet, we're not very good at it. 00:00:51.900 --> 00:00:55.184 Our listening comprehension is just 25%. 00:00:55.184 --> 00:00:58.857 Which means that 3 words in 4 that are spoken to us 00:00:58.857 --> 00:01:00.695 just disappear. 00:01:00.695 --> 00:01:03.545 I'm not talking about you, not this talk, 00:01:03.545 --> 00:01:06.281 but in general. 00:01:06.281 --> 00:01:08.356 So what is listening? Have you ever thought 00:01:08.356 --> 00:01:10.610 about a definition of listening? 00:01:10.610 --> 00:01:12.753 We take it for granted. 00:01:12.753 --> 00:01:17.893 I'd like to offer you a very broad definition of the word 'listening.' 00:01:17.893 --> 00:01:21.108 And I'm not talking here just about listening to somebody speaking, 00:01:21.108 --> 00:01:24.846 I'm talking about listening to the whole world around you. 00:01:24.846 --> 00:01:30.424 My definition of listening is making meaning from sound. 00:01:30.424 --> 00:01:32.397 All the sound around us. 00:01:32.397 --> 00:01:36.137 This is the process that I'm going to describe to you now, 00:01:36.137 --> 00:01:39.848 and there are 3 stages to that process. 00:01:39.848 --> 00:01:42.340 The first stage is a physical stage: 00:01:42.340 --> 00:01:45.387 sound waves hit your body. 00:01:45.387 --> 00:01:47.879 All over, you listen with your whole body, 00:01:47.879 --> 00:01:51.117 but in particular, they go deep inside your head, 00:01:51.117 --> 00:01:53.355 and the sound waves touch your eardrums. 00:01:53.355 --> 00:01:56.131 This is a very intimate sense: 00:01:56.131 --> 00:01:58.233 deep inside your head, you're being touched, 00:01:58.233 --> 00:02:00.032 all the time, by sound. 00:02:00.032 --> 00:02:02.325 In the second stage, 00:02:02.325 --> 00:02:07.610 that physical relationship is translated into neural activity, 00:02:07.610 --> 00:02:09.630 electrical activity in the brain, 00:02:09.630 --> 00:02:11.761 and we've just been hearing a great deal 00:02:11.761 --> 00:02:15.663 about the wonders of what goes on inside our skulls. 00:02:15.663 --> 00:02:20.169 In the third part of the process, 00:02:20.170 --> 00:02:22.599 mental activity takes place and that, 00:02:22.599 --> 00:02:24.774 I suggest, is when listening really happens. 00:02:24.774 --> 00:02:28.697 The first two parts of that process are really about hearing. 00:02:28.697 --> 00:02:32.749 So let's have a look at the mental side of the process. 00:02:32.749 --> 00:02:35.081 We use some good tricks in order to make sense, 00:02:35.081 --> 00:02:38.242 in order to make meaning out of sound. 00:02:38.242 --> 00:02:41.895 One of the most important tricks is pattern recognition: 00:02:41.895 --> 00:02:45.738 your name is the pattern that you’re most attuned to. 00:02:45.738 --> 00:02:49.160 But all of us have had the experience of standing in a room -- (ambient noise) 00:02:49.160 --> 00:02:51.768 where there's a cocktail party going on. 00:02:51.768 --> 00:02:55.477 And fighting to understand exactly what's being said, 00:02:55.477 --> 00:02:59.176 trying to extract signal from noise. 00:02:59.176 --> 00:03:00.952 That gets tougher as you get older. 00:03:00.952 --> 00:03:03.021 It's called the cocktail party effect. 00:03:03.021 --> 00:03:05.751 And I don't like going to parties so much like that anymore 00:03:05.751 --> 00:03:10.038 because I do find it very hard to hear what is being said. 00:03:10.038 --> 00:03:14.546 The second trick that we use in order to extract meaning from sound, 00:03:14.546 --> 00:03:16.189 is differencing. 00:03:16.189 --> 00:03:19.751 If I were to play this sound -- (pink noise) 00:03:19.751 --> 00:03:22.453 and leave it on for a few minutes, this is pink noise, 00:03:22.453 --> 00:03:25.110 it's a very flat-spectrum sound. 00:03:25.110 --> 00:03:30.100 If I left that on for a few minutes, you would actually cease to hear it. 00:03:30.131 --> 00:03:33.579 When there's a constant sound, our brains just suppress it 00:03:33.579 --> 00:03:35.474 and we cease to be conscious of it. 00:03:35.474 --> 00:03:37.980 That sound is used in offices all over the world 00:03:37.980 --> 00:03:42.599 to cover up bad sounds and people just aren't aware of it, 00:03:42.599 --> 00:03:44.714 until it stops of course. 00:03:44.714 --> 00:03:47.307 And the third trick that we use, 00:03:47.307 --> 00:03:50.072 or the third system that we use to extract meaning 00:03:50.072 --> 00:03:52.980 is a whole set of filters. Now these are important 00:03:52.980 --> 00:03:55.663 and I just want to give you a list of those filters 00:03:55.663 --> 00:03:59.840 so you perhaps become more conscious of them in your listening. 00:03:59.840 --> 00:04:04.849 It starts with culture: where you come from affects your listening. 00:04:04.849 --> 00:04:07.669 For example, I love the Finns, 00:04:07.669 --> 00:04:12.176 the Finns have a whole different relationship with silence to most cultures that I know. 00:04:12.176 --> 00:04:14.945 Their idea of a good night out is to go to somebody's house, 00:04:14.945 --> 00:04:19.625 sit for 3 hours in silence, and then go home. 00:04:19.625 --> 00:04:22.650 Finland is a very quiet place. 00:04:22.650 --> 00:04:26.751 Then we have language, the language you speak changes your listening. 00:04:26.751 --> 00:04:30.773 These are filters which cut down the sound that's bombarding us 00:04:30.773 --> 00:04:34.263 and just leave us with the bit we're conscious of. 00:04:34.263 --> 00:04:36.728 So for example in Sub-Saharan Africa, 00:04:36.728 --> 00:04:40.015 some languages use just finality 00:04:40.015 --> 00:04:43.596 to distinguish present, future, past, 00:04:43.596 --> 00:04:46.333 and to distinguish even good and bad. 00:04:46.333 --> 00:04:51.064 They don't have words for that, it's just the tone of voice. 00:04:51.064 --> 00:04:55.548 The values you hold, your beliefs about what's going on around you, 00:04:55.548 --> 00:04:58.880 and then of course your expectations, your attitudes going into 00:04:58.880 --> 00:05:00.657 a relationship with somebody for example 00:05:00.657 --> 00:05:06.471 and very much your expectations will change your listening for that person. 00:05:06.471 --> 00:05:09.222 And in fact, this is something to be very conscious of, 00:05:09.222 --> 00:05:14.241 because as our expectations about a person solidify, 00:05:14.241 --> 00:05:18.622 our listening for that person ossifies, it becomes fixed. 00:05:18.622 --> 00:05:22.566 And we take away that permission to change. 00:05:22.566 --> 00:05:27.207 So we don't hear the stuff they do or say that's different from what we're expecting, 00:05:27.207 --> 00:05:30.420 we only hear what we're expecting. 00:05:30.420 --> 00:05:33.532 And that's something to be very conscious of in a relationship. 00:05:33.532 --> 00:05:35.570 When I met my wife who's sitting down there, 00:05:35.570 --> 00:05:39.747 I promised her, "I will listen to you as if for the first time, 00:05:39.747 --> 00:05:43.412 everyday." Now I fall short of that very often, 00:05:43.412 --> 00:05:45.665 but it's a good commitment. 00:05:45.665 --> 00:05:47.626 I'm trying to be conscious all the time 00:05:47.626 --> 00:05:50.571 and give her permission to be different. 00:05:50.571 --> 00:05:54.344 And your intention is crucial with sound. 00:05:54.344 --> 00:05:57.473 I'm gonna talk about that a little bit more in a moment. 00:05:57.473 --> 00:06:01.204 And just in case you still think that what you hear is what you get, 00:06:01.204 --> 00:06:04.379 I'm going to give you some examples of cross-modal effects, 00:06:04.379 --> 00:06:06.596 that is one sense affecting another. 00:06:06.596 --> 00:06:09.977 This is an illusion, a well-known illusion, called the McGurk effect, 00:06:09.977 --> 00:06:12.817 I'd like to thank Professor Arnt Maasø for this example, 00:06:12.817 --> 00:06:16.300 what I would like you to do is to look at the screen, 00:06:16.300 --> 00:06:18.515 and tell me what this guy is saying. 00:06:18.515 --> 00:06:23.121 Man: Da da da da da da 00:06:25.511 --> 00:06:31.352 Man: Da da da da da da -- JT: Da da, yes? 00:06:31.352 --> 00:06:39.984 Now I would like you to close your eyes, and tell me what he's saying. 00:06:39.984 --> 00:06:42.731 Man: Ba ba, ba ba, ba ba. 00:06:42.731 --> 00:06:43.966 JT: He's saying Ba ba. 00:06:43.966 --> 00:06:46.531 Now open your eyes again and you'll hear "da da." 00:06:46.531 --> 00:06:50.016 You cannot counter this effect. 00:06:50.016 --> 00:06:51.931 Man: Ba Ba 00:06:51.931 --> 00:06:55.429 JT: So what you hear is not necessarily always the truth. 00:06:55.429 --> 00:06:58.157 What is the truth? It's interpretive. 00:06:58.157 --> 00:07:00.066 There's another well known illusion, 00:07:00.066 --> 00:07:02.931 which is that sound -- it's not an illusion, it's an effect -- 00:07:02.931 --> 00:07:06.245 which is that sound can affect other senses like taste, 00:07:06.245 --> 00:07:10.214 this is researched by Professor Charles Spence at Oxford University, 00:07:10.214 --> 00:07:12.098 who found that if you put headphones on people 00:07:12.098 --> 00:07:14.799 and boost the frequency 5 kHz, 00:07:14.799 --> 00:07:17.750 they actually relate that the crisps they're eating 00:07:17.750 --> 00:07:21.465 are 15 % crunchier in their mouth, 00:07:21.465 --> 00:07:27.072 because the sound of crunch has gone up, the feeling of crunch goes up. 00:07:27.072 --> 00:07:30.050 So the senses are affecting each other all the time. 00:07:30.050 --> 00:07:32.972 But we have a problem. 00:07:32.972 --> 00:07:36.712 The problem is we simply don't listen. 00:07:36.712 --> 00:07:41.135 And I'd like to suggest to you that that is a very significant problem. 00:07:41.135 --> 00:07:43.251 There are reasons for this problem, 00:07:43.251 --> 00:07:45.715 thousands of years ago we invented writing, 00:07:45.715 --> 00:07:48.755 before that, if you didn't listen, if you missed it, 00:07:48.755 --> 00:07:50.931 you missed it. 00:07:50.931 --> 00:07:53.247 Now, well if you want to go to sleep, 00:07:53.247 --> 00:07:57.580 in this talk, you can watch it on the TEDx Youtube channel afterwards. 00:07:57.580 --> 00:08:01.776 The premium on being present and listening is not as great as it used to be. 00:08:01.776 --> 00:08:03.136 That's the first reason. 00:08:03.136 --> 00:08:06.313 Secondly, I would suggest there's a cultural thing going on here as well: 00:08:06.313 --> 00:08:10.241 you may be familiar with the Chinese model that the duality of yin and yang, 00:08:10.241 --> 00:08:15.266 where yang is heat and light and sun and male energy 00:08:15.266 --> 00:08:17.391 and much outward focused, 00:08:17.391 --> 00:08:22.406 and yin is dark, moon, female energy, receiving, much quieter. 00:08:22.406 --> 00:08:26.839 Well if I substitute sound words for those two, 00:08:26.839 --> 00:08:29.910 I think you might agree with me that in our culture, 00:08:29.910 --> 00:08:35.030 we're much more fond of telling, than we are of listening. 00:08:35.030 --> 00:08:38.329 And that creates a world that looks like this, 00:08:38.329 --> 00:08:40.890 and sounds like this: 00:08:40.890 --> 00:08:42.618 (indistinct conversation noises) 00:08:42.618 --> 00:08:46.320 People telling, telling, telling, all the time. 00:08:46.320 --> 00:08:48.205 And it's not surprising therefore, 00:08:48.205 --> 00:08:51.204 that many people take refuge in this: 00:08:51.204 --> 00:08:53.346 (earphones displayed on the picture while music playing faintly) 00:08:53.346 --> 00:08:57.188 But there's an effect of that, a social effect of that, 00:08:57.188 --> 00:08:59.912 on the way that we are with each other. 00:08:59.912 --> 00:09:03.960 We take a public space, imagine any big public space 00:09:03.960 --> 00:09:06.447 it could be this theater, I hope not, 00:09:06.447 --> 00:09:08.408 I hope nobody's wearing headphones at the moment, 00:09:08.408 --> 00:09:12.352 but a train station, an airport, a train carriage, 00:09:12.352 --> 00:09:15.285 whatever space where we're with other people. 00:09:15.285 --> 00:09:18.219 We take that space, where for a long time 00:09:18.219 --> 00:09:20.317 we've been listening to each other. 00:09:20.317 --> 00:09:21.824 We might not be speaking to each other, 00:09:21.824 --> 00:09:25.108 but we're conscious of each other in our listening. 00:09:25.108 --> 00:09:25.108 but we're conscious of each other in our listening. 00:09:25.108 --> 00:09:30.004 And we are turning that space into this. 00:09:30.004 --> 00:09:33.166 Thousands if millions of little sound bubbles. 00:09:33.166 --> 00:09:35.299 They're called personal soundscapes, 00:09:35.299 --> 00:09:39.729 and this fragmentation of public and shared soundscape 00:09:39.729 --> 00:09:42.810 into personal soundscapes has got serious consequences 00:09:42.810 --> 00:09:50.066 because in this scenario, we're not listening to each other at all. 00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:53.317 We are also becoming short of patience. 00:09:53.317 --> 00:09:55.613 We don't want to listen to oratory, 00:09:55.613 --> 00:09:57.143 we want soundbites. 00:09:57.143 --> 00:09:59.496 We don't watch TV programs, we channel-hop. 00:09:59.496 --> 00:10:03.068 We don't listen to albums, we listen to tracks. 00:10:03.068 --> 00:10:05.007 We don't want to have conversations, 00:10:05.007 --> 00:10:07.720 we want to tweet or text. 00:10:07.720 --> 00:10:11.990 So our patience is getting shorter and shorter. 00:10:11.990 --> 00:10:16.020 And at the same time we're becoming desensitized in our listening. 00:10:16.020 --> 00:10:18.729 Our media have to shout at us 00:10:18.729 --> 00:10:20.920 in order for us to hear. 00:10:20.920 --> 00:10:25.248 And this level of desensitization means that we're finding it 00:10:25.248 --> 00:10:28.771 harder and harder to hear the quiet, 00:10:28.771 --> 00:10:34.076 the subtle, the silence. 00:10:34.076 --> 00:10:37.363 We are losing our listening in the modern world. 00:10:37.363 --> 00:10:40.720 And I think this is a message you're going to receive several times today 00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:44.535 in one form or another. How can we get it back? 00:10:44.535 --> 00:10:47.202 Well I'd like to give you some exercises to take away with you, 00:10:47.202 --> 00:10:49.612 these are kind of like being in the gym, 00:10:49.612 --> 00:10:51.703 the first one of these is this: 00:10:51.703 --> 00:10:58.391 (Silence) 00:10:58.391 --> 00:11:02.075 Silence is very rare in the modern world. 00:11:02.075 --> 00:11:04.493 I urge you to seek it out, 00:11:04.493 --> 00:11:09.372 and just give yourself a few minutes of silence every day. 00:11:09.375 --> 00:11:11.390 It re-calibrates, it resets your ears, 00:11:11.390 --> 00:11:14.150 it's like a sorbet in a good meal. 00:11:14.150 --> 00:11:16.111 It allows you to hear again 00:11:16.111 --> 00:11:18.672 freshly as if for the first time. 00:11:18.672 --> 00:11:20.172 That's the first one. 00:11:20.172 --> 00:11:23.226 The second one is a process I call 'the Mixer', 00:11:23.226 --> 00:11:27.084 where you can go into any noisy modern environment like this, 00:11:27.084 --> 00:11:28.214 (Noise) 00:11:28.214 --> 00:11:30.460 Familiar? 00:11:30.460 --> 00:11:35.081 and start to think: "How many channels of sound am I hearing?" 00:11:35.081 --> 00:11:38.091 How many separate sound sources? How many people's voices, 00:11:38.091 --> 00:11:41.374 chairs squeaking, barristers banging? 00:11:41.374 --> 00:11:44.135 You can do this in beautiful natural surroundings like this as well 00:11:44.135 --> 00:11:45.818 (water sounds and chirping birds) 00:11:45.818 --> 00:11:50.033 How many birds can I hear? The wind in the trees, 00:11:50.033 --> 00:11:52.281 How many separate ripples? 00:11:52.281 --> 00:11:57.381 It's a great exercise to improve the acuity of your listening. 00:11:57.381 --> 00:12:00.050 The third exercise is savoring. 00:12:00.050 --> 00:12:02.456 Like this guy savoring his cup of coffee, 00:12:02.456 --> 00:12:05.109 even the most mundane sounds around us, 00:12:05.109 --> 00:12:08.641 you can savor, if you really pay attention to them. 00:12:08.641 --> 00:12:11.480 This -- (engine noise) -- is my tumble drier, 00:12:11.480 --> 00:12:13.541 I recorded it before I came out. 00:12:13.541 --> 00:12:18.562 It's a waltz! One two three, one two three, one two three. 00:12:18.562 --> 00:12:21.676 That's quite groovy! I could put music on top of that! 00:12:21.676 --> 00:12:24.698 Or take another simple domestic sound like boiling a kettle. 00:12:24.698 --> 00:12:33.344 (Noise) 00:12:33.344 --> 00:12:35.180 Wow! 00:12:35.180 --> 00:12:38.975 So you can really savor even the simplest sounds. 00:12:38.975 --> 00:12:40.803 The next exercise is listening positions: 00:12:40.803 --> 00:12:43.388 have you ever thought of the idea that you could take up 00:12:43.388 --> 00:12:46.292 certain positions to listen from? 00:12:46.292 --> 00:12:47.715 This can change everything. 00:12:47.715 --> 00:12:50.277 I'm going to give you 6 and I'm positioning them as 00:12:50.277 --> 00:12:51.641 ends of the spectrum -- 00:12:51.641 --> 00:12:54.254 This is arbitrary, there are lots of listening positions, 00:12:54.254 --> 00:12:56.506 and I do urge you to explore your own -- 00:12:56.506 --> 00:12:58.693 So here are the 6 I'm gonna give you, 00:12:58.693 --> 00:13:01.868 The first is active listening. 00:13:01.868 --> 00:13:05.402 This is used in the caring professions a great deal of the time. 00:13:05.402 --> 00:13:08.792 What I hear you say is -- What you said is -- 00:13:08.792 --> 00:13:10.840 So I hear you say this. 00:13:10.840 --> 00:13:15.125 This allows the person talking to feel heard. 00:13:15.125 --> 00:13:19.700 And it's used in education, therapy, counseling and so forth. 00:13:19.700 --> 00:13:22.859 Very powerful in parenting. 00:13:22.859 --> 00:13:25.997 Second: passive listening. The other end of that scale, 00:13:25.997 --> 00:13:29.866 this would be the zen master sitting by the bank of a brook 00:13:29.866 --> 00:13:31.627 just listening to the water. 00:13:31.627 --> 00:13:35.670 No interpretation, no mental activity at all, 00:13:35.670 --> 00:13:38.451 just receiving. 00:13:38.451 --> 00:13:40.258 Two more for you. 00:13:40.258 --> 00:13:41.819 Critical listening. 00:13:41.819 --> 00:13:45.222 This is what you and I do most of the time. 00:13:45.222 --> 00:13:46.593 Is that right or wrong? 00:13:46.593 --> 00:13:48.154 Do I agree or do I disagree? 00:13:48.154 --> 00:13:51.083 You’re probably doing it now. 00:13:51.083 --> 00:13:53.030 It's a very interpretive form of listening 00:13:53.030 --> 00:13:56.174 and it's powerful in most of our modern situations, 00:13:56.174 --> 00:13:57.787 in business particularly, 00:13:57.787 --> 00:14:00.158 it's a very important form of listening. 00:14:00.158 --> 00:14:03.003 Best done consciously, though. 00:14:03.003 --> 00:14:05.013 On the other end of that scale, 00:14:05.013 --> 00:14:07.205 we have empathetic listening: 00:14:07.205 --> 00:14:08.905 this is being with a person, 00:14:08.905 --> 00:14:10.958 going on to their island, 00:14:10.958 --> 00:14:13.329 understanding their point of view, 00:14:13.329 --> 00:14:15.336 and not just letting them feel heard, 00:14:15.336 --> 00:14:18.600 but letting them feel understood. 00:14:18.600 --> 00:14:20.799 Empathetic listening. 00:14:20.799 --> 00:14:22.667 And the final two I'll give you 00:14:22.667 --> 00:14:25.199 are a slight gender stereotype, 00:14:25.199 --> 00:14:27.736 but the research does bear out 00:14:27.736 --> 00:14:30.907 that men and women listen in different ways. 00:14:30.907 --> 00:14:34.380 Men tend to listen in what I call a reductive way. 00:14:34.380 --> 00:14:37.161 That is for a point. 00:14:37.161 --> 00:14:40.211 There's an objective to a conversation between two men, 00:14:40.211 --> 00:14:41.911 he's saying to him, "I've got this problem", 00:14:41.911 --> 00:14:43.334 he's saying, "there's a solution", "thanks!" 00:14:43.334 --> 00:14:47.402 That's a male conversation. (Laughter) 00:14:47.402 --> 00:14:49.155 Women on the other hand 00:14:49.155 --> 00:14:52.300 tend to enjoy the journey, 00:14:52.300 --> 00:14:55.637 the destination's not so important. 00:14:55.637 --> 00:14:58.206 It's just being with -- look at the eye contact there. 00:14:58.206 --> 00:15:01.495 Men are genetically programmed in hunting, 00:15:01.495 --> 00:15:04.334 to be looking at the horizon as they talk to each other. 00:15:04.349 --> 00:15:05.987 We don't look at each other that much. 00:15:05.987 --> 00:15:10.024 Women, very much more eye contact, and it's expansive listening. 00:15:10.025 --> 00:15:13.001 This creates another conflict in relationships. 00:15:13.001 --> 00:15:15.041 If you're not conscious of it, 00:15:15.041 --> 00:15:18.932 men, be conscious that women may be listening expansively, 00:15:18.932 --> 00:15:20.032 and may feel cut off. 00:15:20.032 --> 00:15:23.185 If you say, "Yep, well, what's the point?" 00:15:23.185 --> 00:15:26.364 Women on the other hand, may not understand 00:15:26.364 --> 00:15:28.793 that men want to find a solution very quickly. 00:15:28.793 --> 00:15:31.384 It's not rude, it's just the way we tend to listen. 00:15:31.384 --> 00:15:32.706 But again, if you're conscious, 00:15:32.706 --> 00:15:34.821 you can adopt different listening positions, 00:15:34.821 --> 00:15:37.330 it's very powerful. 00:15:37.336 --> 00:15:39.887 Let me give you a little acronym 00:15:39.887 --> 00:15:43.570 which you can use in listening to other people talk: 00:15:43.570 --> 00:15:46.931 the acronym is applicable in any relationship, 00:15:46.931 --> 00:15:50.707 one of these will apply to all of you: 00:15:50.707 --> 00:15:52.514 several, probably. 00:15:52.514 --> 00:15:56.666 The acronym you can use is R.A.S.A. 00:15:56.666 --> 00:15:59.911 Rasa is a sanskrit word, it means "juice." 00:15:59.911 --> 00:16:02.227 It's also used in Indian theater 00:16:02.227 --> 00:16:04.661 to indicate an emotional state. 00:16:04.661 --> 00:16:06.958 So it's quite an appropriate acronym. 00:16:06.958 --> 00:16:13.908 RASA: it stands for Receive, that is to say 00:16:13.908 --> 00:16:17.762 make eye contact with the person who's talking. 00:16:17.790 --> 00:16:19.828 Look interested, 00:16:19.828 --> 00:16:23.542 lean forward slightly, and listen. 00:16:23.542 --> 00:16:25.215 Appreciate. 00:16:25.215 --> 00:16:28.506 That means little noises like "Hmm, oh," 00:16:28.506 --> 00:16:29.667 very important on the telephone. 00:16:29.667 --> 00:16:31.628 I'm very bad at this, 00:16:31.628 --> 00:16:33.497 on telephone calls, I'm regularly having 00:16:33.497 --> 00:16:35.423 people saying: " Are you still there?" 00:16:35.423 --> 00:16:37.569 (Laughter) 00:16:37.569 --> 00:16:38.684 So very important. 00:16:38.684 --> 00:16:40.784 Hhm, really! oh! 00:16:40.784 --> 00:16:42.637 It helps the person. 00:16:42.637 --> 00:16:46.237 Summarize: the word 'so' is very important in listening. 00:16:46.237 --> 00:16:50.475 So -- this -- So I hear that -- So -- 00:16:50.475 --> 00:16:52.099 Summarizing what I just said, 00:16:52.099 --> 00:16:54.908 and then asking questions: What do we do next? 00:16:54.908 --> 00:16:56.484 So what does that mean? 00:16:56.484 --> 00:16:57.721 So what'll happen next? 00:16:57.721 --> 00:16:59.921 It's engaged! RASA. 00:16:59.921 --> 00:17:02.999 That's a very good way to listen to anybody. 00:17:02.999 --> 00:17:05.514 I want to finish, just for the last moment, 00:17:05.514 --> 00:17:08.290 really that's been the phenomenology of listening, 00:17:08.290 --> 00:17:10.650 it's been the process, and how we can get better at it. 00:17:10.650 --> 00:17:13.345 I just want to open a little door to you 00:17:13.345 --> 00:17:17.096 to think about the ontology of listening. 00:17:17.112 --> 00:17:19.243 What would it be to be -- 00:17:19.243 --> 00:17:21.119 listening, 00:17:21.119 --> 00:17:23.481 not the source, 00:17:23.481 --> 00:17:25.493 and not the listener, 00:17:25.493 --> 00:17:27.901 but there's a thing in between us 00:17:27.901 --> 00:17:29.927 which is listening. 00:17:31.395 --> 00:17:32.525 Think of this: 00:17:32.525 --> 00:17:39.013 listening is what places us in space and in time. 00:17:39.028 --> 00:17:41.525 You're listening to this whole room all the time, 00:17:41.525 --> 00:17:43.103 little micro-sounds around you 00:17:43.103 --> 00:17:48.169 are placing you in a large group of people in a big space. 00:17:48.169 --> 00:17:50.457 And you do that all day every day. 00:17:50.457 --> 00:17:52.539 It places you in space. 00:17:52.539 --> 00:17:54.469 And very much in time! 00:17:54.469 --> 00:17:57.341 Because all sound has got time embedded in it. 00:17:57.341 --> 00:17:59.808 There is no such thing as a photograph in sound. 00:17:59.808 --> 00:18:01.891 An instant of sound means nothing. 00:18:01.891 --> 00:18:06.327 Sound is always in time, time is always in sound. 00:18:06.327 --> 00:18:08.534 The French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy 00:18:08.534 --> 00:18:12.061 said that sonority is time and meaning. 00:18:12.061 --> 00:18:18.194 Herman Hesse said music is time made esthetically perceptible. 00:18:18.209 --> 00:18:21.595 So if listening places us in space and time, 00:18:21.595 --> 00:18:24.443 really, listening is how we evoke the universe, 00:18:24.443 --> 00:18:26.834 how we evoke the physical world, 00:18:26.834 --> 00:18:29.518 and I should also mention the metaphysical 00:18:29.518 --> 00:18:33.671 because people tend to hear God a lot more than they see him, 00:18:33.671 --> 00:18:35.873 and whichever spiritual path you're on, 00:18:35.873 --> 00:18:38.619 listening and meditation and prayer 00:18:38.619 --> 00:18:44.801 is a very important aspect of that connection. 00:18:44.801 --> 00:18:47.021 Sound is my life, it's my passion, it's my business; 00:18:47.021 --> 00:18:49.412 I live to listen. I'm not asking you to do that, 00:18:49.412 --> 00:18:51.673 but I think I can turn that round the other way. 00:18:51.673 --> 00:18:57.126 and suggest that we must all listen to live. 00:18:57.126 --> 00:18:58.887 To live fully, 00:18:58.887 --> 00:19:02.591 to be conscious of this fantastic world around us 00:19:02.591 --> 00:19:07.169 and most important of all, to be connected to each other. 00:19:07.169 --> 00:19:08.562 Listen to live, 00:19:08.562 --> 00:19:10.886 and thank you for listening to me today. 00:19:10.886 --> 00:19:17.610 (Applause)