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Because we are all born egoists, it was not given us to be inherently interested in others unless they have something that we want. So, the chances are that you are a terrible listener who only hears what they want to hear and only waits for a gap in the conversation in order to say what you need, so that you can get what you want. But hey, that’s OK. That description pretty much applies to 99.999998% of us. In fact, it turns out that most of us actually only listen with a maximum of 25% efficiency. So, why is that the case? Why does it hurt us so much to be such poor listeners, and how can we change?