We ALL need to work on effective listening. Yes, even you!

Most of us treat listening as a skill you either have or don't. It isn't. Effective listening is your natural style and active listening, multiplied by self-awareness in the moment. It is that second variable that no training covers. This newsletter unpacks the self-assessment paradox: monitor yourself too hard and you drift out of the conversation; abandon it and you're back on autopilot. Either way, you're not really listening. The fix isn't more effort; it's smaller, anchored check-ins tied to natural pauses already in every conversation. If you've left a hard conversation knowing you weren't fully in it, this is why.