Listen More and You Will Learn More

Source: unsplash.com

I can learn more when I heard the story directly from somebody who experiences it rather than by reading any guide book to do something good.

Because by listening, I really know that someone's experience is real. Maybe because of that, I prefer to read a biography book from certain figure that shares the story of his/her life, moving from one checkpoint to another checkpoint on his/her life. It feels closer and more real to me.

●●●

Last Saturday, I just got a free business speech from one of my senior in college.

He just started his new business in Yogyakarta. As long as I know, since he's still in college, he's already started a business. So basically he likes to do it since a few years ago, strengthened by his educational background on management.

That conversation really gives me much new knowledge about starting a business, develop it, and keep competitive with the competitor. Indirectly, I also got advice not to rush when starting the business by using the strategy to launch our product/service step by step, by also evaluating the market response with our product/service.

By implementing that strategy, we can know which product/service that can really grab the market's attention, so by using that data we can decide the next strategy which can expand the market and develop the better business.

●●●

Last Saturday moment was not my only opportunity to listen and learn from the story of my colleague. A few months ago, I also got another opportunity with a different story, from my ex-colleague on the office. Now, he got an important role in their new office in Jakarta. We still keep a good friendship until now.

On that time he told me how big the challenge that he must face to revise the old system on his new office until he successfully did it and made a better change.

There are so many things that he wants to fix starting from making the work of his team more effective by implementing the "crazy" idea, that is changing the workdays become Sunday until Thursday, and make the Friday only for presenting the work result from that week.

He decided to do that because when the workdays still from Sunday until Friday, almost all of the employee lost his focus on Friday. They already thought about going home and meet his family in the hometown.

Another thing that he wants to implement is relocating the work location of his programmer team to the more comfortable and relaxed location. The result of that new idea can be seen in a short time. There is a significant change compared when still using the old work system, proven by the bigger number of achieved target in just a short time.

I believe, every day on the office, my colleague doing more than I can imagine that can make the change happened.

The point that I can learn from that story is, a change usually happened through an idea that was recognized as the impossible one in the first place. But, if we can get a good support to realize the idea, the change will happen. Another point that I learned is, if we can make a good mood in the work environment, the good work result will be easier to achieve.

●●●

That's a bit of my story about getting the opportunities to hear the experience of someone who keeps processing in what they are fighting for in their lives.

Basically, I really like to hear someone's story. There is something can never be replaced by chatting or talking using a smartphone, when we can meet and listen to someone's story directly. The story of how they can survive through every challenge that I may never face before, so it can expand my insight into many things I can apply to my lives in the future.

Listen more and you will learn more. We have more ears than mouth not without any reason. So we can use it to listen more rather than speak more.