Aaron Huizenga on the importance of listening

February 19, 2026 By Aaron Huizenga 0 Comments

Turn-of-the-20th-century playwright Eugene O’Neill was quoted as saying, “God gave us mouths that close and ears that don’t. That should tell us something.”

Prioritizing listening over talking does not come naturally to all of us. Many of us are predisposed talkers. However, making a conscious effort to listen, and listen with the intent of understanding and not necessarily responding, can be a powerful personality trait.

When we listen, truly listen, we are taking a deliberate interest in the speaker – in them as a person and in them as an expert or a contributor to the sharing of information. When we listen, we are investing in the relationship between the two people. We are building that interpersonal bond and gaining knowledge from them. Listening instead of talking will allow you to gain the perspective of others. It allows you to collect information about situations, people and issues through a different filter than your own. When we close our mouths, we then open our eyes, our ears and our minds.

Think about this: Have you ever tried to understand something that you are reading while you are talking? Doesn’t work if you want to comprehend what it is that you are reading. The human brain is not set up to simultaneously speak and comprehensively listen at the same time. The language-processing portions of our brain create a bottleneck with the incoming and outgoing information. Solution: Shut your mouth. Simply take it in, listen for understanding.

Taking this one step further, we all know people we respect who speak very little but listen very well. Many of us will remember the television commercial from the early ’80s with the slogan “When E.F. Hutton speaks, people listen.” Thinking about that very simple phrase, wouldn’t you like to be that person? Taking it all in, listening and processing what you see and hear. Then, when you do have an opinion on a matter, everyone wants to hear it. Seems pretty powerful to me.

Give this theory a try until next month and see what changes. Then we will look at opportunities to speak with the specific intention of listening.

Let’s work on your upgrade!

Aaron Huizenga is East Division manager for Lakes Gas in Wisconsin. Reach him at ahuizenga@lakesgas.com.

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