Welcome to Three-Peat Tuesday!
Building from my recent book UNBEATABLE! Seven Pillars of Personal Excellence, each blog will contain three P’s: Pillar, Principle and Practical, all geared towards nourishing you on your personal and spiritual growth journey.
Pillar
“Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions”-Proverbs 18:2
Principle
Health opinions. Political opinions. Financial opinions. Religious opinions. Football opinions. Experts are everywhere. You see it all the time. Whenever there’s an issue of national importance or global significance, it literally feels like your entire country has advice to offer.
In my home country, Trinidad and Tobago, we’re very good at this. It’s probably the same for your native land too. As welcome as expertise can and should be, there is a subtle danger. The one with the particular skill or experience runs the risk of being a fool. How? By refusing to consider what others have to say.
Foolish people like to hear themselves speak. Chances are, there is value in their words. However, when you are more concerned with getting your point across, rather than first seeking to understand the other person’s views, you’re being a fool in God’s eyes.
Stephen Covey captured this well in his bestseller The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Habit #5 was this: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” This reflects the wisdom of the Proverbs. Listen first. Listen attentively. Embrace other perspectives. If you’re in a group meeting, don’t raise your hand while someone else is still talking. Let them finish.
We must never outgrow the pursuit of listening with humility. As I said in my blog post “The Power of Truly Listening,” people genuinely want to be heard. It is only after hearing others out, that our opinions will have any credibility. That is true wisdom.
Practical
Try to go an entire day without interrupting someone who is speaking to you.
If you were inspired by this blog, please consider sharing it with one other person today. To learn more about these pillars of personal excellence, read UNBEATABLE! which is now available on Amazon in print and as an e-book.
