The Power Of Understanding

Listening to T.K. Coleman is refreshing and I couldn’t agree more with his sentiment on the power of understanding. Here’s an excerpt from one of his The Minimalists podcasts:

‘Sometimes we say things like, “I will never understand people who say this”. “I will never understand people who do that,” and we put that out there as if it’s a signal of nobility or virtue when in reality, it is a weakness and not a strength.

‘We should always strive for more clarity and more understanding, even about those things with which we disagree because that understanding puts you in a position where you can be empathetic.

‘Not for the sake of saying you’re empathetic but that empathy gives you influence because it allows you to speak to people not from a higher up place of being on the pulpit lording over them, but speak to them as an ally, as a person that is truly supportive of their success.’

I must add that developing the ability and exercising the willingness to first understand and then to be understood is a trait of intelligence. I believe this is the order of connecting with people – first, to understand and then to be understood – reversing this order to gain influence is simply a manifestation of an unhealthy ego.

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You’ll like to read this too: The Cost Of Lost Words

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