I had come to believe that the act of being listened to was far more important than being in the documentary itself and could be transformative in people’s lives, because no one had actually ever listened to them.
David Isay on why he moved from making documentaries to StoryCorps.
When I travel, I load up my IPad with podcasts from my favorite radio shows. I can listen while I knit or crochet, so it feeds my need to be doing something meaningful with my hands and my head.
This morning, I sat down with my crocheted scarf project and an episode of On Being that all coaches should find interesting. It’s an interview with David Isay, the founder of StoryCorps, and the topic is “The Everyday Art of Listening”.
I was intrigued to find that this interviewer holds listening as a way to transform people’s lives and the conversations they have with each other. So much of what he shared is aligned with how coaches listen and why we listen, and affirms the transformation that we bring to our client’s by the gift of our listening and by bearing witness to their stories.
He also shares how he finds intense listening to be challenging and hard work, and something that he can’t do all the time and with all the people in their lives. This, too, should be familiar to coaches - it certainly is for me!
I encourage you to find a quiet moment to listen to this extraordinary interview.
http://www.onbeing.org - April 17 episode.
StoryCorps is a project that collects the stories of everyday people in audio recordings, which are stored in the Library of Congress. http://storycorps.org
