I am reading this book, Adventures in Coaching: Unlocking the Power of Personal and Business Coaching through a Captivating Story.

On the chapter about Listening and Effective Questioning, I found the answer about selective hearing. What I mean by selective hearing is that you only hear what you want to hear.

True enough, according to the book, there are four (4) levels of listening:

First is superficial listening. It is where the person might appear to be listening on the outside but is really thinking about something else entirely and hardly paying attention to the speaker at all.

Second is conversational listening. It is often characterized by people sharing experiences or stories with each other. One person talks about a situation which reminds the listener of his own experience or something similar that happened to them. That person then replies with their own story or parallel situation.

Third is attentive listening. It is where the listener is really paying attention not only to what is being said but how it’s being said, too.

Fourth is emphatic listening. It is a kind of listening that is described as almost telepathic. It is establishing a deep level of rapport with the speaker which can lead to an intuitive sense of the person and clear insights into what they are saying.

How do you listen? What kind of listener are you?