THERE ARE PEOPLE IN YOUR life you don’t recall meeting because it feels like they’ve always been there. That’s where Cody Alan lives in mine. He’s one of those people who you feel like you went to school with . . . heck, he is one of those people you went to school with: friendly, relatable, likable, easy to be around, easy to talk to. He’s also one of those friends you have where, no matter how many weeks or months pass between seeing each other, you’re able to pick right back up from where you left off, simply by saying, “So, anyway . . .”
What makes Cody so good as an interviewer is his ability to make you feel comfortable. Although I’m sure he’s always well prepared, I never feel like he’s thinking about his next question. There’s always an authentic connection with him because he’s totally present. He pays attention to someone’s answer, then asks the next question within that answer. Cody is so easy to talk to that every one of our interviews feels like part of the same ongoing conversation about life, love, family, music. . . .
That comfort level stems from the fact that he knows how to listen. I mean really listen. Listening is imperative for growth, for connectivity, for being of service to someone else, for the creation of music and so much more. Sometimes listening is all that’s required—but it’s not necessarily as easy as Cody makes it look.
The ability to react openly to an environment or situation takes a kind of muscle memory, like a bird landing on a branch. It’s a complex maneuver, and if he thought too hard about how he’s going to land, he’d probably miss or crash into the tree trunk. In the same way, that listening muscle develops over a lifetime of caring and of having genuine curiosity about others.
To listen well you also need to slow everything down, to block out distractions and be in that moment, so the person you are speaking with is all there is. It requires patience to give someone the space they need to complete their thought and speak their truth. You need to be comfortable enough in those silences, those pauses, to enable the person you are listening to let out what needs to come out, without finishing their sentences or making assumptions.
To some degree, I think that level of patience is becoming a lost art because we don’t get many situations to work on it. We have the instant ability to access many things that interest us, whether it’s streaming music, surfing the web, going down rabbit holes on YouTube, or buying something online and having it delivered the next day. We’ve grown accustomed to instant gratification in so many areas of life that we’ve been deprived of the opportunity to learn patience. If you were to pray, “God, give me patience,” it wouldn’t just be given to you: you’d be put in a traffic jam or thrown into the line at the DMV! Patience must be learned.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to practice patience and listening with Cody. We’d just finished an interview session and were catching up on each other’s lives. I could hear in his voice that there was something significant he wanted to say to me. It was something personal, and I was deeply touched that he felt we were at a level of our friendship where he could confide in me. (Cody knows how seriously I take anonymity, and that I’d take anything he said to me to my grave.) I was also grateful that, with me, he knew he’d be understood, supported, and not judged in any way. I wanted to be a place of love and support for him, period.
Since then, Cody has gone on to reveal his truth to the world. He’s become a major part of Nashville’s growth as an inclusive community that is supportive of people as they seek to be their authentic selves.
What a great place to build from.
—Keith Urban