Listening is harder than you’d think

This week on Survivor we were presented with the connecting the episode to Chapter 7-Listening. Listening is defined as “the ability to understand, analyze, respect, and appropriately respond to the meaning of another person’s spoken and nonverbal messages.” This ability to listen, or lack there-of; was displayed most obviously with contestants Jeremy and Natalia. Jeremy had very valid information to share with his team about the trade they conducted with Jeff. Because he didn’t, his team gave up all of their comfort supplies for a bag of rice….and then his team won the prize of a delicious dinner which included beef. Jeremy was not expressing what he was thinking but his team might have not given him the inviting opportunity to do so. Natalia also clearly used the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) mentality. Although it seemed like she was being kind and looking over Baylor as a favor to Missy, she took the time to be excluded and gain trust with this opposing tribe member to help her get the inside scoop and strengthen her strategy before the merge. I look forward to watching the merge and discover if Natalia’s strategy was worth being on exile island.