How long could you survive without your car? Or even worse.... how long could you survive without talking?!?!?This is what John Francis did following a massive oil spill polluted San Francisco Bay in 1972. He gave up all motorised transportation and for 22 years, he walked everywhere he went hoping to inspire others to drop out of the petroleum economy.
Soon after he stopped riding in cars he also stopped speaking. For 17 years, he communicated only through improvised sign language, notes and his ever-present banjo. The environmental pilgrim says he took his vow of silence as a gift to his community because he just argued all the time.
Through his action of not talking, for the first time, he found he was able to truly listen to other people and the larger world around him, transforming his approach to both personal communication and environmental activism.
He realised that when listening beforehand, he listened to a point where he received confirmation that the person agreed with him. If the speaker didn't agree, he would stop listening and his mind would race ahead to compose an argument against what he believed the speaker's idea of position to be.
And so he wasn't really listening at all. When he realised this he felt as if he had been locked away half of his life.
"Silence is not just not talking" he said. "It's a void. It's a place where all things come from. All voices, all creation comes out of this silence. So when you're standing on the edge of silence, you hear things you've never heard before, and you hear things in ways you've never heard them before. And what I would disagree with one time, I might now agree with in another way, with another understanding. "
We can all relate to John's experience of 'listening' to some degree. I can certainly remember times when I have been guilty of nodding when someone has been speaking to me so that they will hurry up and finish what they're saying, so that I can put my 'twopenneth' in!
One of the gifts of coaching is that we learn how to truly listen and the richness that this has brought into my life has been enormous! I've always felt that I've been a good listener, but this has been heightened through the coaching skills. I now have conversations with people and recall not just the words, but the emotion in their voice and the body language they used. And this package provides me with so much information about the message the person I'm having that conversation with is trying to convey.
John Francis has given up his silence so that he can get his message across with regard to his environmental work. He silence certainly bore a message in itself and there is much on the internet about his life. But, on Earthday 1990, he realised that speaking again would enable him to further his quest in improving our environment.
He's now in the speaking arena and gives great motivational speeches. Click on the link below to find out more about his life and message.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlYJQ0psZYA
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