Tom Hanks has a Method for Being a Better Listener. Are We Surprised?
Hollywood’s nicest guy has an acronym for that.
“There is a thing that I do: W-A-I-T. It stands for ‘Why Am I Talking?’ . . . I wrote that down in a notebook that I keep to remind myself that listening, for me anyway, is a disciplinary art. I have to force myself to listen because I love the sound of my own voice and because I’m a movie star I’ve been infantilized by everybody I come across who says I’m just wonderful. ‘Look at you! You can stand up so good and you can eat with a fork! What a special, special, special movie star you are!’”
— Tom Hanks, The Washington Post
If you’ve known me for more than, oh, about five minutes, you know that I have a teeny tendency to get excited about ideas. Mine. Yours. It doesn’t really matter.
Something occurs captures my imagination and BANG I’m off like someone pulled my trigger.
It’s one of my quirks and I wouldn’t call it a bad thing, really. There are certainly worse things to get excited over. But I’m afraid that my excitability can sometimes be overwhelming.
Tom Hanks talked about the technique above in an interview about how he got attached to the Mister Rogers biopic A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and for some reason it made me feel better…
