You can tell when someone is genuinely listening, versus *waiting for their turn to talk.*
If you are not listening, you do not know what is important to me. You are probably going to *tell me* something, rather than find a solution. Ick. Vom. No thank you.
If you listen, people will tell you exactly what they want. They will feed you the answers to the quiz (of life).
Listening helps me be amazing at my job. I listen to my clients, ask questions, and take notes. Then I apply what I learned about their goals / struggles / needs and deliver work that needs fewer revisions because I absorbed our conversation and let it shape the direction of the output.
Look: I made you a line graph!