The Simplest Step to Transform Your World
Shut up.
No really, stop talking. Stop making your point heard. Stop insisting the world know what you’re thinking in every moment.
I am sure you have tons and tons of invaluable thoughts and even perfectly relevant stories you can share at any given moment.
In fact, I’ll bet that when you’re speaking with someone, things pop into your head that if articulated would benefit the other person immensely. You might even have a chance of solving their problem if you blurt out the solution banging around in your head that is screaming to be let out.
Having a quick, knowledgable, and experienced mind such as your own is powerful. Bravo.
But the truth is…you can go ahead and settle for powerful — I’ll be super-powerful, thank you very much.
One step to go from powerful to super-powerful.
I’ll give you the secret recipe to go from powerful to super-powerful right now.
Try listening.
Try silence.
Try taking a path other than the path of least resistance (which is simply blurting out your thoughts when it feels right).
Many of us are quite intelligent. We are in possession of quick tongues, the ability to rapidly synthesize our thoughts into solutions, and we are well-experienced in our own regard.
Therefore, we feel a desire to let the world benefit from our talent as often as we can.
We are powerful and our thoughts and recommendations should be taken seriously. Honestly, they should! Without a doubt.
But why settle for powerful when you can take everything to the next level and become super-powerful through listening?
Dr. Mark Goulston.
I met Dr. Mark Goulston recently. To merely say that it was my pleasure and privilege to make his acquaintance fails to convey how impactful his presence was.
Dr. Goulston did not use his incredibly successful career to impress me. He didn’t go on and on about the many lives he has saved or the companies he has helped turn around. He did not touch on the countless relationships he has revived and the marvelous marriages that owe their strength to him.
Dr. Goulston impacted me by listening. He listened carefully and when he spoke, what would have been powerful without his careful listening became super-powerful as a result of that careful listening.
After meeting Dr. Goulston, I immediately got my hands on one of his books, Just Listen.
One of the most powerful factors shaping Dr. Goulston’s incredible reach, influence, and success is his unwavering desire to listen.
There are few books that rise to the level of work by writers such as Steven Covey, Jim Collins, and Malcolm Gladwell. Dr. Mark Goulston’s book(s) rise to that level.
His experience with listening is unrivaled. I am finishing Just Listen with more applicable material than I can believe fits in the mere 220 pages!
I highly recommend this book!
Want to start changing your life today? Begin to listen more.
A lot of people struggle with WHERE to start when they realize they want to make changes in their life. We are constantly bombarded with advice and tips and tricks and hacks to change our life. So, where do we go? What do we do?
How do we start changing today?
Absolutely anyone can immediately implement this decision to listen more.
Therefore, why not make this your starting point for that change you keep waking up every Monday morning wishing for?
Why am I preaching at you? Because it works.
When you are not hearing the whole truth.
Consider this, when I am engaged in conversation with someone and an idea rushes into my head based on what the other person is saying, very rarely do I hold the idea at bay and continue to listen. I often break in as soon as I can and share the genius remark/idea/solution/parallel.
This is operating in hit or miss territory.
Who knows, maybe the person wasn’t communicating their thoughts perfectly and therefore my genius is far less relevant than I thought. It may not be my fault that I had the wrong idea because I was being given the wrong information (based on the other person’s incomplete communication) but it is my fault that I jumped in.
That was my choice.
Consider the same situation but instead where I hold onto my brilliant idea and wait a few more sentences (literally) before speaking. The odds of me discovering that my idea/solution needed tweaking or was not relevant at all are very high.
When you desperately want to make an impression.
Your input is not always as valuable as your silence. In fact, it is quite often the case that your silence is far more valuable than your input.
About a year ago I met the most interesting man in the world. I tried all my tricks and strategies to make an impression. I spoke eloquently and caught on to their deep conversational tendencies rapidly. I asked plenty of questions and clearly was the most engaged in the circle of admirers.
I was speaking the most so it was only logical that I would leave the best impression, right?
Wrong.
That person, let’s call him Geoffrey, explicitly asked me to leave them alone. After my continued attempts to get Geoffrey’s information and offer my service in whatever form his business needed, he explicitly asked me to leave him alone.
He told me to stop asking how I could contribute to his endeavor and that he didn’t need my help.
Go away please.
Your input is not always as valuable as your silence. In fact, it is quite often the case that your silence is far more valuable than your input.
Flash forward 12-months from that awful encounter.
Miraculously, I run into Geoffrey once again. My idol and hero! But things have changed this time around. I am no longer the same person I was a year ago. I have learned, among many things, to listen even when the idea/thought in my head is radiantly glowing and pleading to be let out!
Also miraculously, Geoffrey does not seem to remember me (thank goodness). So, I have a second chance. Here we go.
After awkwardly breaking into the circle of people speaking with Geoffrey, I immediately launch into making a lasting impression…! How?
I listen.
For nearly two hours I stood and only opened my mouth when a meaningful question was waiting to come out.
Listening showed me the one thing that no one else offered him.
Throughout the 1–2 hours that passed while I stood listening, many people cycled through the circle to come speak with Geoffrey. They offered business cards and business and were quite powerful and impressive in their own right.
Meanwhile, I stood silently listening and observing — asking questions every now and then to go deeper into topics that interested Geoffrey.
When the time came for us to part ways, I waited until I was the last person to shake his hand.
In order to show that I was listening I reiterated my interest in the follow-up email he promised to send regarding the technologies with which he was working.
And then I drove everything home with this:
“Geoffrey, I want to thank you for sharing about your various endeavors, I found them quite exciting and I look forward to learning more with the information you agreed to send later. Also, I want to let you know that I am at the beginning of my life and that therefore I have the one thing you do not have…”
At this point his face turned a mix of intense curiosity and humored annoyance at the fact I would be so audacious.
Without letting go of the handshake I finished with…
“…time. So if you ever need to call on an extra pool of time when your own runs low, please know that I would be thrilled to help as I can.”
He laughed out loud, shook my hand and assured me he would be in touch.
Fast forward several weeks, a lot of research, ideating, and reading later.
I hung up the phone dumbfounded.
Not only had I gone back and forth via email with Geoffrey regarding his ventures, I had just finished a 2-hour long phone conversation which ended with him inviting me to text him at any time should I want to talk and an open invitation for lunch for any time he comes through L.A.
Talk about a transformation.
What changed between the first encounter which ended in overt rejection, to the final encounter which sparked a life-long friendship?
I went from powerful to super-powerful and the most important change was my desire to listen.
We are not always as smart as we think we are.
We often know far less than we think we know.
We frequently understand a good deal less than what we think we understand.
We always stand to learn by listening.
No matter how powerful you are, you are not super-powerful until you learn to listen.
