"The Beauty of Listening" explores and honors the ever-challenging art and skill of listening. Inside these pages, you'll meet paper dolls and monsters, writers at work and words at play, and you'll find many open questions of perspective. While each poem tells its own story, the collection also tells a larger listening story. From thoughts on where listening begins to the evolution of words and communication styles, the story leads into the deep need for listening time, both inner and interpersonal. Inner listening is explored from intuition to where inner and interpersonal listening entwine, making self-awareness essential for truly listening to others. The final section, Last Words, includes an uplifting poem for paper dolls, the thoroughly unhindered perspective of a ghost, and a vision of the last printed page. "The Beauty of Listening" is a journey filled with moments of awareness, meaningful connections, humor, folly, and the gentle reminder that listening is not as simple as it seems.

Daily meditations taken from the works of an acclaimed novelist, essayist, and preacher who has articulated what he sees with a freshness and clarity and energy that hails our stultified imaginations.

A New York Times Bestseller “Each interview is a revelation.” —USA Today “As heartwarming as a holiday pumpkin pie and every bit as homey . . . what emerges in these compelling pages is hard-won wisdom and boundless humanity.” —Seattle Post-Intelligencer As heard on NPR, a wondrous nationwide celebration of our shared humanity StoryCorps founder and legendary radio producer Dave Isay selects the most memorable stories from StoryCorps' collection, creating a moving portrait of American life. The voices here connect us to real people and their lives—to their experiences of profound joy, sadness, courage, and despair, to good times and hard times, to good deeds and misdeeds. To read this book is to be reminded of how rich and varied the American storybook truly is, how resistant to easy categorization or stereotype. We are our history, individually and collectively, and Listening Is an Act of Love touchingly reminds us of this powerful truth. Dave Isay's latest book, Callings, published in 2016 from Penguin Press.

The boy at the centre of this book finds it hard to listen, and consequently gets into all sorts of trouble, such as getting lost in a museum and having to wear a really embarrassing pair of swimming trunks at a friend's party. However, he feels lonely and invisible when no one listens to him, so now he makes an extra special effort to listen, and finds that sometimes listening can bring nice things, such as ice cream!

"In Between the Listening and the Telling, Mark Yaconelli leads readers into an enchanting meditation on the power of storytelling. From personal meaning-making to school shootings, climate change, and immigration justice, stories help us connect to out human longings and deep scurrents of hope."--Provided by publisher.

Listening is harder than it looks- but it's the difference between business success and failure. Nothing causes bad decisions in organizations as often as poor listening. But Bernard Ferrari, adviser to some of the nation's most influential executives, believes that such missteps can be avoided and that the skills and habits of good listening can be developed and mastered. He offers a step-by-step process that will help readers become active listeners, able to shape and focus any conversation. Ferrari reveals how to turn a tin ear into a platinum ear. His practical insights include: Good listening is hard work, not a passive activity Good listening means asking questions, challenging all assumptions, and understanding the context of every interaction Good listening results in a new clarity of focus, greater efficiency, and an increased likelihood of making better decisions Good listening can be the difference between a long career and a short one

Over 55% of your day is spent listening; yet only 2% of us have been trained in how to listen. What is poor listening costing you? Do you rush from meeting to meeting, your head buried in the last conversation you had, without time to think of the next? Or feel frustrated with unproductive discussions where the loudest in the room adds limited insight and drowns out everyone else? We usually think of these situations as communication problems; that we have not spoken our needs correctly or clearly. Yet, conflict, chaos and confusion are the costs of not listening. Many communication and listening books say the most important person in a conversation is the speaker - not true! This pocket-sized guide will help you to reconnect with your innate gift of deep listening, to create the right space to listen to yourself before you listen to others. You'll learn to listen beyond the words that are spoken, to add context and meaning and listen in to what's not being said. Deep Listening will help you move from confusion and conflict to thoughtful, insightful and powerful discussions that will transform not just your work, but your whole life.