“When you talk you are only repeating what you already know. But when you listen you may learn something new”.
The Dalai Lama
If we all would just pause and stop repeating what we think we know, then we could begin to ask questions to discover the intention that is behind a given behaviour and the answer might just surprise you.
In human relationships we very often assume that we know the motivation behind a person’s behaviour and as such we draw conclusions based on incomplete information.
If we get into the habit of asking to uncover the hidden information, we can actually get to understanding this person so much better.
It is changing telling someone what you think, into questions, it is very often as the Dalai Lama says “when you talk you are only repeating what you already know. But when you listen you may learn something new”.
As you could read in my mini-series on the Meta-Model, our language is full of hidden information and it can sometimes be useful to put on Sherlock Holmes’ hat and play detective to recover some of the hidden information.
You can do this by asking the question when language is used like you are already supposed to know what is being said.
Not so long ago a friend of mine used the expression “in the end it wasn’t as I was walking around thinking it was”. So, I got curious and asked him what were you walking around thinking?
He laughed a little at the question. People are often surprised when you ask a question about statements that the other person is assuming that you already know, and then I got a much more specific explanation and I learned what he actually wanted to say, instead of me just assuming that I knew.
What would happen if the next time you come across a statement where it lies implicit in the sentence that you are already supposed to know this, ask a question? You may have some more fun and interesting conversations. You may also avoid conflicts. Or something very different may happen, try and you will discover.
The trick is not to begin your question with “why”, but to find alternative ways to ask the question. I will leave it up to you to discover if you get different results if you ask questions without “why”
I hope that you are as happy as you would like to be and be kind in your quest for information hidden in the languages, remember being kind is free.
Best wishes
Ivalo Kønig Okking
Great content! Super high-quality! Keep it up! 🙂