Master trainer Tony Alessandra said it best: “Most people believe that if you can hear, you can listen -- and that's as ridiculous as believing that if you can see, you can read.”

Better tomorrows begin with better listening skills, it is where you begin on the way to a better future. It is also where you loose your way, if you don't recognize its importance. Listening is the prime way you empower your tomorrows. What it gives, you cannot buy with money.

In rational context, you do not hear with your ears, rather, you hear with the aid of your ears. Understanding what you hear is a process of conscious listening, which you perform based upon acquired habits, primarily from childhood.

Without some specific training, listening skills are forever childish, and inept. After rational illiteracy, incompetent listening is the second most costly deficit in one's social prominence; their regard and respect from others; parenting; all relationships; and one's worth in a business setting. As an adult, one should become aware of the very intimacy of conversation, as well as the reality that listening remains a weak element in social intercourse.

This much I can assure you: Once you learn the basics of listening in a rational context, you may be awed and amazed at the lack of listening skills in the most highly educated; even physicians as well as others whose effectiveness depends on listening skills, to say nothing of those around you who never quite make the grade to a better life.

Understanding what the other side is saying is as much a rational process as writing, only it is more important, as what you get from rational listening is the primary means to increasing your return on life. Remember that all you get in life comes from people; likewise, people can take from you.

Learning to listen rationally is a prime way to raise the value of your understanding and the one area that makes the greatest day-to-day difference. In fact, listening is more powerful than speaking.

Words convey a message. The tone conveys the true meaning or a greater meaning. At least 35% of meaning is given by the tone and over 50% is conveyed by body language. The trap is being caught up in the words (the 10%) and missing the meaning of a message of which is conveyed non-verbally. Also be absolutely aware that at this point in time, most people are not only rationally illiterate, they are profoundly so! Only when you ask “the meanings” of a random selection of any of the words they had just spoken, would they realize they either do not know, or had a vague assumption; nor would they recognize any rational terms used; know what “a rational term is,” much less “the factor value” of any of the critical ten or less key rational terms.

(6) Be aware of gender, as conversation is like a dance, and men like to lead. Men tend to be posturing, up or down, in relation to you and their conversations tend to be negotiations for status levels and somewhat toward who has the upper hand.

Women are more to seeing themselves as part of a network of connections and their conversations are often objective negotiations for closeness or support with their attitude more towards creating relationships.

(7) Your emotional attitudes, prejudices, memories of similar conversations, and past experiences are forever between you and your rational mind. The greatest enemy to you holding the supreme position, which is rational listening, is the human species' emotional knee-jerk reactions.

We are 100% emotional; our ability to rationalize is incidental. Everything you “hear” must first traverse these subjectively personal emotional landmines on the way to your rational mind. If you are not yet rationally literate, you will find the emotional aspect will often win; and I would caution your that after all, you should not be reading this, until you have read from the beginning, “How you do it,” and all that follows until you get here. And here is why that is so profoundly critical to you:

You can take shortcuts in many areas; this is not one of them. You are not wise to cut corners in changing your car's oil; you are beyond hope if you drive off with NO oil, or attempt to be the master over your emotions by faking rational literacy. Also, please understand that I cannot be of value to you if my concern is running a “popularity contest” to pander to you for the critical contributions required to keep oil in the engine bringing my service to you. With that said, the reality is that you are either rationally literate, or “average” as one of today's rationally illiterate citizens. Which, “on average” would not see the logic in sponsoring rational power to the masses. Not when they could spend the same resources on the next impulse item emotions “want.” So… here is what we are up against, which only rational literacy can empower you to manage:

“Self” lives in a room of mirrors and insists on being the “star” in all communications. Furthermore, that subjective aspect will never completely grow-up, so learn to manage it rationally, just as you would a child demanding a “treat” at the checkout counter. This requires being rationally literate, and is accomplished primarily by just being fully aware of that universal aspect of human nature.

When your self-image is in question, when polarized beliefs opposite your own are presented along with loaded words, power games, and “putting down” or criticizing, your emotional “hot buttons” are easily tweaked. Do not let others defeat you with your own emotions! When you realize you are having an emotional reaction, do the following:

(7-B) Consciously decide to rationally override the knee-jerk reaction, as ONCE YOU ALLOW YOURSELF TO FEEL THE EMOTION, YOU CANNOT THINK IT AWAY. Once you default to emotional reactions over rational response, “you're out!” Pick yourself up, “go to your room,” think about the utter futility of allowing a default to emotion, and be better prepared to not do the same thing again. Remember, regardless of how rude the other side, you cannot be defeated if you rationally master two points:

Second, you always win if you can take a perspective that is framed “in time” beyond that of your adversary, sometimes just a few seconds. Consider this: How many races are won by a split second, just by “a nose,” a few votes, or a bid of just a dollar more?

Emotion is still a child. What it wants it “wants right now,” unable to ration its shrill intensity of “wants” to any level other than instant gratification. Whereas, the rational can ration time to balance with logistics and get what it wants.

(7-D) Refuse to take whatever is said personally, subjectively. The dynamic of maintaining emotional control is the number-one challenge to the power of rational listening. In a pinch, think of the offender without their clothes, or whatever works for you. But do what you must as your emotions are your own personal monster (no exaggeration) from childhood, and it is up to you to keep it in its place. In social intercourse, the first person to default to a high level of reactive emotion is “the loser,” or, as one would say in the vernacular: the first person to “lose their cool is the fool in that duel.”

First, attaching visual images to key points is a primary way of storing information in memory. Second, repeating the message in your own words is helpful. Third, a later mental summary is another technique.

If you are being given something you are especially interested in remembering, hold your breath while that phrase is spoken. This is something you do, unconsciously, on occasions when something truly “grabs” your attention. Likewise, when you say something that the other person finds intently interesting, you can tell, as they will hold their breath.

One of my specialties is expertise in listening skills in casual conversation as well as at the highest levels. So I can say with complete assurance that, contrary to popular assumptions, listening skills are a vast subject. I have produced a complete documentation, as well as an audio master on listening that cover all aspects. At this time, however, Rational Power's budget is under funded and there is not resources the completed audio tract produced in a CD format, cassette, and printed form.

The draft covering this subject completely is far too long for posting here. The objective at this time is to give you the rational aspect, as a tool to give you a handle on this vital skill until funding is secured to allow full service.