CBS’s “60 Minutes” interviewed Maine’s Senator Angus King last Sunday. One of the responses to a question about his unusual status in the newly 50-50 Senate as an independent, tying himself neither to the Dems nor the Republicans, is his practicing “eloquent listening” to both sides of the argument at hand.
What a brilliant idea!
As I thought further about this concept, I recalled a past blog and see an application to your LinkedIn profile. You knew that was coming. Keep reading.
Almost 2 years ago in a blog post, I introduced you to “Read Aloud,” a function in Microsoft Word.
It allows you to listen to what you wrote, and I guarantee that you will want to make numerous changes once you carefully listen to what you have drafted.
I listened to the entire second edition of my book and it is so much better as a result. I also listen to my blog posts. Not surprised?
If you are having trouble getting your ideas across, need a little push to make changes to clarify, or just want to be sure your writing is the best it can be, you will appreciate Read Aloud.
Like Angus King, you will hear better if you use your ears rather than sweep your eyes across printed material. Your attuning your mind to your intended meaning will be better in the long run.
Try this: copy-paste your current LinkedIn profile, section-by-section, to Word, and use Read Aloud.
Make the edits, changes, or start from scratch using this great tool.
Eloquent listening to yourself is what your interested reader is doing when he/she reads your profile.
I hope you are getting engagement from LinkedIn (“I wanted to speak to you after reading your profile”).
If not, perhaps readers are not interested, and that tells you something, right? Then it’s time for more eloquent rewriting, and a lot of eloquent listening.
copyright Marc W. Halpert 2021 | All rights reserved marchalpert@connect2collaborate.com | linkedin.com/in/marchalpert
Being an “independent broker”, whose objective is to attain the goals of my clients, I must ask the right questions and listen eloquently to help discover the balance between what they want and what solutions can be offered. Reviewing and re-writing is essential for “attuning my mind to my intended meaning”. Many times, I write an “emotional piece” and after reading (listening) to it a few times, I realized that it was not an “intelligent piece”. Was I intending to say what I wanted to say or was I writing to say what they needed to hear? Yes, many time I need a little push to make changes to clarify my messages and today I discovered that “listening” does help. (cheers & applause) Make sure your writing is the best it can be, before pushing the “Post Comment” button.