1. Podcast #4 is now available! - 'Design Empowering Belief Structures':  Learn what an empowering and disempowering belief structure is, how you can identify your own disempowering beliefs, and what you can do to change the underlying beliefs that govern your life.  Listen or download here.
2. Would you like to be posted as a coaching/personal growth resource on my links page?  If so, my new link exchange feature allows you to easily request a link here.

Newly Published Articles!

Please read my most recent full length articles published on i-grow.net.  I've been adding about 10 new blog articles per month so remember to bookmark and visit i-grow.net often.  Here are the newest additions published since my last newsletter - Enjoy!

• 4 Qualities of Motivated People
• How to Change my Lifestyle - Lowering the Bar
• Growing a Blog Business - May 4, 2008
• Book Review - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families
• Being an Empathetic Listener - Skill #1 for Life Coaches and those seeking to Enhance Relationships
• Life Coaching and Personal Growth - A Demonstration of Abundance (Lets Exchange Links!)

Empathy is defined as:  Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives (dictionary.com).  Whether you are a coach or you are simply looking to improve your communication skills, when it comes to building strong, lasting and meaningful relationships, we all can benefit by developing our skills at being an empathetic listener.  

What exactly does this mean?  Simply put, an empathetic listener focuses their full attention on their counterpart.  An empathetic listener hears not only the words that are being said but also see's the way in which they are said.  They are concerned with truly understanding the situation, feelings and reasoning of their friend, co-worker, partner, etc.  Lastly, the empathetic listener demonstrates this concern and true caring in the way that they interact both verbally and non-verbally with this person.  

If I had to sum up what an empathetic listener does best in one sentence, it would be that they listen with their hearts rather than their heads.  As human beings we have been taught to and have an incredible capacity to reason, apply logic to, and solve problems.  In doing so we often miss the entire point when someone else communicates with us.  We default to our comfort zone, our ability to resolve and provide advice rather than to offer our ear.  As you can imagine, the more one educates themselves and develops their personal capacity to solve problems - without practicing the fine art of listening (not only to words but also for meaning) - the more difficult it becomes to communicate to the depths that someone might be longing for.  

Never fear - developing our capacity to be an empathetic listener is possible as it is a skill like any other.  If you long to have deeper, more meaningful, and open conversation, you can simply by becoming clear of what you want and practicing some simple steps.  If you are interested in hearing more about how to do this - read the full article at: Being an Empathetic Listener - Skill #1 for Life Coaches and those seeking to Enhance Relationships

Be Well;

Written by
Doug Nau; MBA, Certified Life Coach
www.coachforwellness.com, www.i-grow.net
Professional Life/Wellness Coach & Consultant,
Educational & Motivational Speaker