When Listening Isn’t Enough

Any idiot can take notes.

But if you want your voice to reverberate through people’s
bones, if you want to make an impression that matters, you have to be more than
a listener.

Be a translator, a courageous interpreter of the world’s
vagaries, adding facets, angles, new dimensions and refractions of light.

Be a craftsman, using the source code as inspiration to create your
own form of art that fires inspiration into people.

Be an imaginator, going beyond the literal to add insight
that has meaning that lives on after the moment.

Be a visionary, metaphorically disorganizing the common
sense of ideas and reorganizing them into uncommon combinations.

Be a noticer, discerning recurring motifs and unspoken
patterns that reveal the invisible curriculum of the conversation.

You will be missed when you’re gone.