Listening: How to Unlock Growth, Connection, and Influence

Why Listening Is the Most Underrated Skill in Personal Development

Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash

When was the last time you felt truly heard? Everyone wants to speak, but few are truly listening.

We practice it the least, yet we do it all the time. We’ve been doing it since before we knew we were doing it. But that doesn’t mean we’re good at it.

If we’re honest, most of the time we’re more concerned with ourselves than with others. We’re busy planning what we’ll say next, trying to sound smart, or distracted by the noise around us. That’s why intentional listening is so powerful.

So what happens if you choose to listen deliberately?

Why Listening Matters

Listening drives of growth, connection, and influence and it is one of the most underrated personal development skills. It underpins everything else we value: confidence, communication, adaptability, leadership, and emotional intelligence.

When you truly listen, you:

• Strengthen relationships – People feel valued when they know they’ve been heard.
• Learn more – Every person has something to teach if you’re curious enough to hear it.
• Reduce conflict – Many disagreements escalate simply because no one feels heard.

It pains me to admit it, but I don’t always give my wife the attention she truly deserves, especially when I’m focused on something else or trying to wrap something up. But she can immediately tell. I’ve found it’s much better to stop and listen properly, or say, “I’ll be with you in a moment, sorry,” and then give her the attention she deserves. Bonus tip: if you ask someone to wait a moment, don’t be disrespectful. Make sure it really is just a moment.

The real secret to powerful communication isn’t how well you speak, but how well you listen.

Listening is also a foundational skill that strengthens many others. When you improve your listening, you’ll also improve your empathy, communication, leadership, and emotional intelligence. You can explore this concept in my post How Skills Compound to Accelerate Your Growth.

Don't Sleep on Listening to Yourself

Listening isn’t only about others. It’s also about yourself. Many people ignore their inner voice, dismiss their intuition, or push through life without reflection.

By “inner voice,” I mean the quiet thoughts, feelings, and instincts that guide your decisions and reactions, often before you’ve consciously processed them. It’s the part of you that notices when something feels off, or when you’re not being true to yourself.

If you struggle to engage with your own emotions, you’ll struggle to engage with others’ emotions.

That disconnect shows up in relationships, at work, and even in leadership. You can’t make others feel understood if you don’t understand emotions yourself.

If this is something you struggle with, I can say from personal experience that counselling is invaluable. It helps you hear yourself more clearly. You start to notice your needs, your triggers, and your unspoken feelings. That self-awareness makes it easier to connect authentically with others.

The stronger your connection with yourself, the deeper your connection with others will be.

For more on emotional intelligence, see WhyEmotional Intelligence Might Be the Key to Your Growth.

What Active Listening Really Is

Listening is often underestimated because it seems passive. But that’s a misconception.

• Hearing is passive – you register sounds.
• Listening is active – you’re fully engaged, curious, and open to understanding what’s beneath the words.

Think about it: if someone was giving you step-by-step instructions to solve a puzzle that would earn you a million dollars, you’d be listening with absolute focus. Every word. Every detail. You’d lean in and give them your full attention.

We all can listen that way. But most of the time, we don’t. We are passive. True listening requires deliberate intention.

Active listening is a conscious act. At its core, it’s simple. Focus on fully understanding what the speaker is communicating, including their words, tone, emotions, and body language.

You’ve probably heard that only 7% of communication is verbal, with 38% tone and 55% body language. It’s often misapplied and the exact percentages are debated, but it illustrates well that words alone don’t tell you the whole picture of how someone is feeling.

Too often, advice on listening is reduced to a checklist: eye contact, nodding, asking questions, paraphrasing. But when followed mechanically, those behaviors can make you come across like a robot. The truth is, when your intention is to genuinely understand, many of those signals happen naturally.

And their real purpose isn’t just to help you process the message. It’s to let the speaker feel understood, respected, and safe to keep opening up.

 

“To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well.”
— John Marshall

 

Most of us know what it feels like not to be listened to. You speak, but feel invisible. It’s frustrating. Sometimes it’s even painful. That’s the power you hold when you choose to listen. You give others the gift of feeling seen.

You’ve probably heard that only 7% of communication is verbal, with 38% coming from tone and 55% from body language. The exact numbers are debated, but this demonstrates that words alone don’t reveal how someone is really feeling.

If you want to go deeper, The Lost Art of Listening by Michael P. Nichols is a brilliant resource. It explores why we often fail to listen and how to rebuild that skill in everyday life.

How to Become a Better Listener

Like any other skill, listening improves with practice. Here are five techniques to strengthen it:

• Be fully present – Put away your phone, silence notifications, and give your undivided attention.
• Ask, don’t assume – Use open-ended questions to draw out deeper insights.
• Reflect back – Briefly summarize what you’ve heard: “So what you’re saying is…” and be open to correction if you haven’t quite captured their point.
• Listen with curiosity – Approach each conversation as if the other person has something valuable to teach you.
• Notice the unsaid – Tone, pauses, and body language often reveal more than words.

Listening also requires humility. It means setting aside your own agenda and being fully present with someone else. For more on how humility fuels growth, see my post: Humility: Your HiddenSuperpower for Success.

Your Listening Challenge

This week, choose one conversation. It could be at work, at home, or with a friend. In that moment, commit to only listening.

Don’t interrupt.
Don’t plan your response while they’re speaking.
Don’t jump in with advice.
Just be present.

Notice how the conversation shifts. Notice how the other person reacts. Notice how much you learn.
Afterward, take a moment to reflect: What did you notice? What surprised you?

 

Speak Less. Listen More.

Listening isn’t just a skill. It’s a game changer. It builds trust, accelerates learning, strengthens relationships, and increases your influence.
Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People remains one of the most influential books on this topic. It shows how genuine interest in others, expressed through listening, is key to building trust and influence.

It’s not silence. It’s presence.

So next time you’re tempted to speak, pause. And listen instead. You might be surprised at the doors it opens.