So true!

I’ve written before about one of my favorite blogs and idea-generators, The Story of Telling and its author, Bernadette Jiwa.

Talking about how mobile phones and always-connected devices are changing each of us, she said this:

“Today, eyes down, earbuds in, thumbs scrolling, we are the losers. Our capacity to be interested is diminishing, as a result of our obsession with being interesting. We don’t know what we’re missing.”

The richest source for content on your show lies in the interactions you have with others, both friends and total strangers.

But that source requires you to be interested in other people, for starters, and to actively observe, listen and engage.

One of the reasons so many marriages fail is that one of the partners feels unheard, unappreciated, unnoticed.

We fail each other by being so self-absorbed.

Turn your phone off. Get outside your office. Go to any place where people gather — restaurants, parks, gyms, your kids’ soccer matches — and direct your attention outwards to all that is happening and being said around you.

Listen.

Find out what you’ve been missing.