“Simple Listening is beautiful book. Poetry. Not one spare word. Profound wisdom, clearly and gently offered. If you change one habit this year, let it be to listen simply.

- Dr. Jackie Acho, author of The Empathy Deficit Disorder

As Jack Ricchiuto writes in SIMPLE LISTENING, ‘What matters is listening simply, beyond judgment, listening to understand, so others feel deeply understood.’ This book is a vital roadmap for how to go beyond active listening and how to evoke your imagination in a way that provokes creativity in conversations and community. We need this book to help us resolve—not just solve—our planet’s and our society’s seemingly intractable problems.

~Scott Edward Anderson, author of Dwelling and Fallow Field

Ricchiuto’s prescription for “simple listening” is simply beautiful: “We now know that the quality of listening directlyshapes the quality of talking. Poor listening brings about poor talking. Good listening brings about good talking.” And his four levels of listening are simply brilliant.

- Thaler Pekar, Named global leader in corporate storytelling by the BBC and Smithsonian

Once again, Jack Ricchiuto is plumbing the depths of an ordinary, yet sustaining activity of our life together, this time the human act of listening.  Simple Listening leads us through the landscape of connecting to one another through listening, curiosity, empathy and compassion.

His timeless message is that our greatest gift is to allow another person to share their emotional reaction to a situation, without interrupting, criticizing, judging, analyzing or interpreting them.  I have not found another practice as powerful or as healing.

Jack’s book takes us through the powerful yet subtle dimensions of listening to help us become aware of this most basic avenue of understanding and being understood, of loving and being loved.  I highly recommend Simple Listening.

- Jim Kulma, Supervisor of Pastoral Care

It was with great excitement, that I read Jack Ricchiuto’s new book Simple Listening, and it did not disappoint.  As with all of the books written by Jack Ricchiuto I have read, Simple Listening provides a deeper understanding into a basic action we all do, while not complicating it, and instead, making it easier to practice in a much more effective way, generating more positive experiences. Listening for nuances helps us hear, without immediately triggering our natural inclination to judge, and opens up the door to more curiosity and wonder, allowing a deeper understanding which is what we all seek – to be understood. It also stimulates trust, as “trust begins to sprout and grow in every moment of understanding, every instance of shared details, distinctions and nuances.”   The book includes numerous tactics for helping to improve our listening and how more “Simple Listening” assists in eliminating barriers to forward movement in collaboration, working together and improving our relationships, as we begin to listen without filters and promoting our “rightness”.  Times, when I have felt the most excitement and energy in my work, is when, through better listening, “Mindflow” synergies are created and our “raised collective IQ leverages the group’s capacity to be optimally creative, realistic, mindful, discerning and aligned in action,” as Ricchiuto indicates in this book.  I intend to apply a number of the “simple listening” tips communicated to improve my own skills and increase my understanding of people I engage with.

- Connie Loden, Global economic development leader”