Listening is greatly undervalued skill. Everybody talks about being a great speaker, but even more than being an excellent presenter, you need to be an excellent listener.

• Being a good listener is not only helpful, it is essential to respond well to what is asked of you,
• A good listener even notices what another person may not be saying
• A good listener is present in the moment, and because of that, extremely magnetic.

We spent a great deal of our time preparing what we are going to answer next so that we look good, so we sound intelligent so we’re snappy and fast. The sad thing is, listening skills have really gone out of the window, and with it find communication.

Is listening so important?

Listening skills are definitely overlooked and there are plenty of misconceptions about when and how to listen. Even when you are the one paid to talk and giving a presentation, you need to listen to your audience. If you have a break scheduled for 10 minutes from now and you hear them getting restless, wrap up and go for the break. Skills like that are what make a good speaker, great.

Do listening skills help with your job search?

You bet they do. I overheard two men interviewing a series of people for a mid-level corporate job. It seemed to me that most of the people interviewed were not answering the questions asked of them. I could see the interviewer’s eyes glaze over. At the end of the interview sessions, I asked the interviewer what was the single biggest thing that disappointed him about the people they were interviewing. Are you ready for this?

He said, “They don’t listen! No matter what I ask them, they go on and on about their qualifications, how perfect they are for the job, about what they expect from the job and they are not listening to me. What kind of employees are they going to be if they can’t even listen in an interview?” I have always remembered his answer. How does this apply to you? Let’s look at three scenarios.

Talking with your boss

Every situation benefits from good listening skills. It is especially important that you listen to your boss. Listen to what he or she is saying, listen to what is asked of you, listen to her tone of voice, read his body language and listen with all of your senses. Take your time before you respond. Squeeze your toes in your shoes two times at least, before you answer a question. Well thought out answers are so much more impressive than careless ones.

In a meeting

Listening well in a meeting saves an enormous amount of time. If you listen well you will also avoid misunderstandings. If you want to impress others around you – listen. You will impress them because you have really listened to the questions being asked, the problems brought to the table and you will have legitimate solutions –  all because you truly listened.

In networking

If you’re not listening to the people you’re speaking with, all you’re doing is blowing your own horn. To make fine music together, you have to listen to each other. If you’ve ever watched a jazz trio play or chamber quartet, you’ll see they are listening to each other and blending. Whether or not you listen to the people you are networking with will make a big difference in how they perceive you. It will also make a difference in how forthcoming they will be with any help. If someone’s senses you are truly interested in them, they will be far more likely to remember you.

Listening is the most essential element of good communication. Don’t forget to breathe, to think, listen, listen, and listen some more, and then speak.

There is a Chinese proverb that says, “To listen well is as powerful a means of influence as to talk well.” And I might add, it is essential to true communication.

Are you aware of how remarkable our bodies are and how unconsciously expressive we are? Have you noticed a small group of people talking to each other and one or two members of that group have their feet pointed not toward the group but away from the group. What you think that means? It means those people can’t wait to leave.
Did you know that if you hide your hands while you’re talking people may feel uneasy? Think about a board meeting and if someone keeps their hands underneath the table, something doesn’t feel quite right.

All of these examples happen every single day. We have live theater surrounding us every moment of our lives. I’ve got some field work for you. Start paying attention to the people around you; how they interact with you and how they interact with others. Start paying attention to your own body language and what our ancient limbic brain reveals about us. It is quite astounding.Let me know what patterns you start noticing.

I will write more in my next blog.

Are you a magnetic listener?  When you listen to someone else speaking, are you really listening, or are you searching your mind for your next response?

Most of us are guilty of not really listening to another person when they speak.  Truly listening to another person is an art.  So much of an art, that the business of life coaching has grown over the past 10 years from a startup to a valuable resource that most people know about, and have tried.

When you listen to another person, learn to use your eyes to listen, not just your years.  Observe the expression in someone else’s face.  Observe their body language, and be aware of yourl body language.

To be truly listened to, respectfully listened to, is one of the deep joys of real communication.  In a way, our world is brought to closer together by e-mail and IM’s, and texting, but let us not lose the art of simple human communication.

You will find people pay more attention to you and respond more positively to you when you listen well. You’ll find more personal and professional success by developing this all important and essential trait. Start now.

Have you ever asked yourself, “Is that all there is?” Do you have all the outward trappings of success and yet you haven’t felt simple joy in years?

I certainly know that feeling. I was backstage warming up for my first entrance as the leading lady in Cordoba, Spain and all of a sudden I had a very quiet, but stunning, realization; this is the last Carmen I was ever going to do.

My heart wasn’t in it anymore. Yes, I traveled the globe and sang in fabulous theaters, I was voted Woman of the Year in Italy, I dined with the Cultural Minister of China, I sang for the Queen of Thailand, the Sultan of Oman and was mobbed in Shanghai like a rock star — but I was worn out. What did any of it mean, and what did any of it matter?

I had traveled the world’s stages as an opera singer for over 25 years and finally realized I needed to explore a far more foreign and important place — me. After I removed all the masks, who was I and what did I want? What would make me happy? I had no idea.

Life coaching beckoned and I began ten years of very intense study and personal discovery. The tools I use in my practice now are the same tools that I used to uncover my purpose, my authentic self and my path into a more fulfilling life.

I love transformation; I live it and I guide and inspire others to do it. Even shows like Sell This House delight me because of the before and afters. My clients’ transformations top that by a mile!

I learned I had to put aside pleasing others and find out what pleased me. I learned I had to put the oxygen mask on my own face first before I could help anyone else. I learned the value of the word, “No.” I have learned to honor my process and my timing. I learned that I created my life script, and that if I don’t like the script, I have the power to change it.

Coaching isn’t therapy, it deals with your life now and what you want to achieve. Try these great coaching questions. Ask yourself these questions several times, never giving the same answer twice until you feel a rightness, a gut feeling – it’s an excellent exercise and your answers may surprise you.
• What do I want?
• What must I do to get it?
• How would I feel if I get it?
• Oh, so what I really want is to feel ________________.

Here’s an example: What do I want? To earn more money. What must I do to get it? Find a better job. How would I feel if I got a better job? More relaxed, not afraid of my bills. Oh, so what I really want is to feel financially free.

Life coaching is the greatest gift I have given myself. I know life coaching works and my own life coach is a supportive partner in my success. There is nothing more powerful than -
• the answer to “who am I?”
• uncover your purpose
• make peace with your present
• clarify the changes you desire
• design your vision
• take action
• be held accountable for your choices

With a life coach as a respectful partner, you will clarify your vision and take practical steps to make it a joyous reality. I teach what I have learned and experienced. If you are ready to make a change, get a life coach – it works!

A young colleague of mine, relatively new to the business of opera was finding it hard to balance her personal life with her professional career. She was newly married, so much in love and show business has no compassion for the artist, just for the end product — the production. Her mother died, and there was no time to mourn. I can only teach what I have learned, and what I have gone through.

In this letter to her I explored why being human is far more important than your job. I wrote this letter in 2000, two years before I decided to leave singing and at a time when I began to question everything about my life and career.

Be still and know – you are not your job. So much is talked and written about life work balance, I find oftentimes we need to be unbalanced for a time, to honor our life passages. If you don’t nurture who you are as a human on this earth, you won’t be good for any job, not as a sanitation engineer, not as a teacher, not as a brain surgeon – nor an opera singer.

My dearest Susan (the name is has been changed),
I just moved and am surrounded by boxes and construction. As the dust settles, your e-mail has stayed in my head. What I share now is my experience and we are each on our own path. Perhaps a little of what I say will give you new perspective.

You say you have found your career to be more of a struggle than you believe it should be. I felt the same and yet something kept pushing me on to struggle after struggle. Although I came to the Mecca of Opera in the USA, New York and did the requisite starving for six months — maybe I should’ve lived in a cave and starved longer so I could afford to pay a retainer to the best connected agent in the city and to the best publicist. I didn’t. Unless you have a tenor voice, spectacular or un, or a voice like the real mostre sacree, Joan Sutherland, Pavarotti, Caballe — you need that kind of ammunition, if the Fates do not smile upon you and grant your every career wish. Hindsight is always 20/20!

I have been in this business a lot longer than you, am very tired by the struggle and it’s no longer worth it to me. Yes, I wanted to sing at the Met and La Scala, but the fates decreed otherwise. I have simply let go of it all. Now, I sing something when it pleases me, and I’m asking the universe what else am I to do with the tremendous energy and love I possess. I’m exploring many avenues and have no idea where I may end up — scary, but exciting.

I have sung all over the world, I have met remarkable beings and affected many lives, but you know something? I affect the lives of everyone I meet, whether I sing to them or not. It is my soul that has worth and the voice of that soul, not the applause of a faceless crowd that was lauding a character I created, not me.

I have no regrets. This journey of mine has been about the growth of my spirit. I have become inner-directed. The need — the rapacious hunger for approval and love is gone. The approval and love radiates from within now, filling me with light and without effort sometimes illuminates the path of others as well.

I’m sorry to hear of your mothers passing; life always takes precedence over art. It’s real. The next time someone says the show must go on, ask them, “Why?” They may give you a lot of malarkey about bottom lines, but just ask again, “Why?” I sang in Spain the night my father died, why? Because they couldn’t replace me — what matters more?

The mourning of the loss of someone close to us is real and must be faced or the wound never heals and a deep scar remains. Take all the time you need to heal. As for your wonderful relationship with your husband, the world of show business doesn’t smile kindly on real love. Read Baby Doe’s words to her mother at the party in Douglas Moore’s, The Ballad of Baby Doe. True, all true. And even more true in this fake business where love is simulated 14 times a day, complete with heaving breasts and luminous eyes.

When you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything. Wait, let your heart, not your head guide you. Our hearts know with a deep and sacred knowing. Our mind should be the servant of that heart. Is singing right for you? Only you can answer that. The way will present itself – we often become so busy doing, we become human doings instead of human beings. Be still and listen to the angels that surround you. Ask them for help and guidance or they are powerless to act.

Sometimes we need to perch for awhile at the edge of the abyss, teetering this way and that, until we let go, and voilà! – our heart pulls us in the right direction. That direction is uniquely yours; take time, all the time you need. The answers, and your path, lie within you waiting to be discovered. I promise that is true.

We often become frantic with artificial deadlines. Have faith that your timing will be perfect. For example, the Buena Vista Social Club, the old musicians from Cuba discovered by Ry Cooder, from the ages of 75 to 92 are now playing Carnegie Hall and every other concert hall in the world. Bet they never thought that would happen! In perfect time, all things are possible.

Thank you dear one, for inspiring me to put into words part of my journey. I send many blessings and much love.
As ever,
Adria