Five minutes with Bob · Posted by Bob · July 12, 2026

Good Morning 😀

Happy Sunday! I woke up to a beautifully unhurried Sunday. With no particular agenda for the day, I decided to spend a little extra time with my morning coffee. As I sat there, my mind wandered to a friend’s birthday gathering a few days ago. As I replayed the evening in my head, I noticed something fascinating. There were a few people everyone seemed drawn to. Conversations naturally formed around them. Then there were others who, despite trying hard, somehow ended up standing alone. Just then, a sentence my grandmother used to repeat came back to me. “Bob, there’s a reason why God gave us two ears and only one mouth.” I smiled. As a child, I thought it was just another one of her sayings. Today, I realized she was teaching me one of life’s greatest lessons about human relationships. She would always add, “Make it a habit to listen twice as much as you speak.” Looking back at that gathering, I could suddenly see exactly what she meant. The people everyone wanted to talk to weren’t the ones telling the most stories. They were the ones asking questions, listening with genuine interest, making others feel heard. The person who struggled to hold anyone’s attention had spent most of the evening talking about herself—what she had done, where she had been, what she had achieved. Slowly, people drifted away. Over my coffee, I realized something deeply human. Almost everyone enjoys talking about themselves. Their experiences. Their dreams. Their worries. Their victories. And if you are willing to genuinely listen, to simply lend someone your ears, you instantly become someone they enjoy being around. Isn’t that wonderfully paradoxical? To become a better communicator, you often need to speak less. Perhaps the greatest conversationalists aren’t the best speakers at all. They’re the best listeners. And here’s another interesting thought. When you listen more than you speak, you end up learning so much about everyone else, while they know very little about you. How you use that understanding is, of course, entirely up to you. What do you think? As you read this, does someone come to mind who might appreciate this gentle reminder? Perhaps today is a good day to share it with them. Until tomorrow, Bob