On open and closed questions
It’s really interesting to study open and closed questions in more detail. Open questions (starting with why, what, how, who etc) allow a wide range of answers, whereas closed questions pretty much end up with a yes or no one. I spent years learning about the underlying rules of communication. I studied it in Polish, Hungarian, English and in German. Yet, I am now looking at all those learnings from a very different point of view: with the prospect of actively listening to clients while remaining empathetic too, regardless of my own opinions. It’s such a shift after years of blogging that sometimes I do wonder I can do it. But then I go back to the years of interpreting and translations – I worked in those each summer during my studies. And all of that active listening comes back. So today when I work with my fellow students on dummy situations, I am trying to make the most of my past skills in listening from the work with foreign languages. Because in order to convey a message from one language to another one needs to speak both but equally have a really good skill of listening. And by that, I mean body language, the tone of voice, mood, cultural influences, biases and all other aspects of a sent message. I am so glad I am able to make the most of my past studies and a lot of work in the field now. I have a lot of practice to do still, but at least I get the core principles.