If listening is so important, why is our focus so often on speaking?

We have speech competitions at school, not listening competitions.

We have speaker coaches, but very few listening coaches.

We practise pitching, but rarely judging.

I suspect that the best speeches are the ones that get you to listen. And the best speaker coaches are the ones that help you craft something worth tuning into, and the best pitches are the ones which grab attention.

But being attention grabbing doesn’t make what you have to say worth listening to.

Perhaps is we all learnt to listen more, better, we might hear more thing worth listening to.

Welcome to my little corner of the internet.

I believe that place matters.

Our connection to whatever little corner of the planet we find ourselves in, or choose to place ourselves on, matters.

I'm relentlessly curious and continually learning.

My interests are scattered across topics including property, strategy, acoustics, psychology, theology, systems theory, quantum physics and leadership. I read, listen, watch, and learn about whatever grabs my attention in the moment.

This is a learning experiment.

I come here to try to make sense of something I’ve come across, by writing about it.

I’m immersing myself in a new language.

I’m learning to speak Te Reo Māori, the language of the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand and one of our official languages. After spending 2020 studying, I’m figuring out how to keep the journey going outside the classroom.

You’re welcome to follow along.