Listen

A famous elegant woman I never met was Jacqueline Kennedy. Lucky for me I've read a lot of books about her. Most of the books are about her clothes, oh, the clothes. But almost all of them mention the fact that she was an excellent listener. Apparently she had a way of putting people at ease and getting them to talk about themselves, redirecting the inevitable focus from herself to others. (Perhaps this is why she has remained in the collective imagination of people like me who were not alive during Camelot; she has remained an enigma. There is always something to wonder about her.) So chances are, if I had met her, I would not have learned very much about her. But maybe I would have picked up some ideas on how to be a better listener.