Relationships

The American radio DJ Larry Elder hadn't spoken to his father in over a decade. From age 15 to 25, he avoided him, feared him and resented him. In Larry's mind, his father was cold, ill-tempered and cruel - a man who ruled through fear and violence. The childhood memories were dominated by the sound of his father's belt and the feeling of walking on eggshells, never knowing when the next eruption would come.

But at 25, Larry decided to confront him. He drove to his father's house with a list of grievances and a decade worth of anger ready to spill out. He expected a quick chat, just enough time to tell him what a horrible father he had been. What happened instead was an eight-hour conversation that completely transformed their relationship. Larry intended to confront his father, but instead, he listened. And in listening, he discovered he'd spent ten years hating a man he never actually knew. By listening, Larry was able to re-build the relationship with his father.

So how does listening actually build relationships? It works in two ways:

1. It makes the other person feel heard. When someone feels genuinely listened to - not just waited on to finish talking - they feel valued, respected, and seen. This creates connection, even when you don't agree with them.

   
   

2. It allows you to truly understand them. When you understand someone, you get a much clearer picture of who they really are. Misunderstandings get corrected. Assumptions get challenged. And the relationship shifts as a result.

Larry Elder's story shows both of these in action.

Larry arrived at his father's house ready to unleash years of built-up anger. "Why," he wanted to know, "were you so damn angry all the time?" But his father, Randolph Elder, didn't get defensive and argue. Instead, he did something Larry never expected: he told his true story.

For eight hours, Randolph talked about his life, something Larry had never asked about, never wondered about and never tried to understand. And Larry, despite his anger, listened and asked questions to understand more. He heard his father's full story for the first time: born to an illiterate single mother in the Jim Crow South, never knowing his own biological father, kicked out of his home at age 13, facing brutal racism in the military, raising three sons whilst carrying decades of unprocessed trauma.

As Larry listened, something in his brain shifted. The man he'd thought of as "cruel and angry" began to look different. He wasn't cruel - he was scarred. All those years his father was carrying pain Larry had never seen.

By the end of those eight hours, Larry didn't just reconcile with his father. He revered him. He wrote in his memoir: "I emerged not just reconciled with my dad, but admiring him, and realising that I had never fully known him or understood him."

This correction of Larry's misunderstanding of his father enabled them to enjoy a 35-year friendship that lasted until his father's death, all brought about by the power of listening.

Larry's story translates so easily into everyone's life, as we all have those relationships which feel strained, distant, or broken. But when you think about it, how much of that distance is based on misunderstanding? On assumptions you've never checked? On a version of the other person that exists in your head but not in reality?

Think about the relationships in your own life:

• Your partner who "doesn't care" about your stress → Have you asked them to describe what they're dealing with right now? Maybe they're overwhelmed too, and you've both been so focused on your own pain that you haven't listened to theirs.

  
  

• Your parent who "never supported you" → Have you asked them about their own life, their own fears, their own limitations? Maybe they were doing the best they could with tools you've never seen.

  
  

• Your friend who "abandoned you" → Have you asked them what was happening in their life when they pulled away? Maybe they were drowning and couldn't reach out, not because they didn't care, but because they had nothing left to give.

  
  

• Your teenager who "won't talk to you" → Have you asked them what "fine" actually means when they say it? Maybe they think you don't want to hear the truth, so they give you the answer they think you want.

In all these cases, there is an underlying misunderstanding with the other person, which can only be alleviated through asking questions and listening.

Now, the negative reversal of these examples is just as important. You may have people in your life who seem genuine and nice but reveal themselves to be malicious and manipulative once you develop a true understanding of them through asking questions and listening. The darker truth about listening is that sometimes what you discover isn't a good person you've misjudged - it's a toxic person who's been using your empathy against you. When you ask questions and pay attention to the inconsistencies, the evasions, the patterns that always benefit them, you might discover that your charitable assumptions were being weaponised against you. This isn't failure - this is clarity. In fact, it's perhaps even more important to the quality of your life to use listening to root these types of toxic people.

However, in both cases you need to exercise humility. You need to accept that your understanding of a person may not be factual - that you may have got it wrong. And that takes courage. It's easier to cling to your version of someone than to listen and discover you were mistaken. But that's where real relationships live - in the willingness to be wrong about who someone is.

Not truly listening to someone and not asking them questions is like looking at a house through a keyhole; you only see a tiny, distorted fraction of the room. Asking questions and listening with humility is like opening the front door and stepping inside, allowing you to see the architecture, the pictures on the wall, and the reasons why everything is placed exactly where it is. What you find you may or may not like, but you're in a better place now than when you were stuck peering through the keyhole.

If you'd like to discover how your listening patterns impact your relationships, and where misunderstandings might be creating distance, you can take The Listening Assessment. You'll get personalised feedback on how to listen in ways that build genuine connection and repair what's been broken.

P.S. Think of one relationship in your life that feels strained. Now ask yourself: "What don't I know about this person's story? What have I never asked?" That's where listening starts.