Shhhhh!

The art of communication is a priceless tool, but in order to be enriching it has to be shared. We'll focus on dialogs between people, not self talk today as that's a whole different subject! We're going to focus on a conversation where an individual gains insights that simply could not be achieved individually. Where people participate in a pool of common meaning that often times brings about development and change.

The important part of any process of sharing ideas is to drop your prejudices. You have to open your mind and the cloud of prejudice shapes what you see and how your going to act during this exchange of ideas. This is the only way you can grow to see how incoherent your thoughts have become through the act of a pre-judging. When you open yourself up to other possibilities a free flow of ideas can be exchanged and a pool of knowledge commonly forms. You can't achieve this plateau by defending your opinions! That's the death gargle to growth while sharing information. If you hold your ground on what you've come to assume the flow of dialog is blocked. Choosing adversaries as colleagues with different views has the greatest benefits!

This leads us to the real key in maintaining a great dialog, being a good listener! This reminds me of the old saying,"even a fish would have no problems if they learned to keep their mouth shut!" My father always used to remind me not to tell everyone everything I know, listen and learn. That was a difficult lesson for me as I always wanted every one to know just exactly how smart I was, which probably was my dad's point. There was no reason to allow everyone to know where my intelligence ended. Fortunately time and the ingestion of books have curbed that urge a little. I've learned to enjoy the benefits of dialog more than the privilege of attempting to be the smartest person in the room. Join me in learning from others, it's surprisingly entertaining and always enlightening!

God Bless!
Capt. Bill