Greg's Right FIT #442

Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week. 

In this issue: 

- Thoughts on Listening
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts on Listening

• Listening requires the listener to be silent. Being silent means the listener needs to be comfortable with pauses during conversation, often long pauses, to think about what is being said. 
• A tool to improve our listening is taking notes. We learned this in school, and it still applies as adults. A manager I used to work with would tell his new hires, "WSD! Write S--- Down!" He wasn't wrong. 
• Take note of what you listen to. A brain starting the day consuming headline news compared to a brain starting the day with music or positive messages experiences the same morning differently.
• Back-to-back meetings or events are challenges to listening well. Think about this the next time a Friday 3:30pm meeting is scheduled. It's hard to hear with the weekend looming. Prepare yourself. 

Being Human - The question for better listening

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." - George Bernard Shaw

The biggest challenge to effective communication, said a wise person, is the illusion of it. It's dangerous to assume the words we use to communicate with our listeners mean the same things to them as they do to us. 

It reminds me of an old joke. 

A dog went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote: "Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof."

The clerk examined the paper and politely said to the dog, "There are only nine words here. You could send another 'Woof' for the same price."

The dog replied, "but that would make no sense."

When it comes to better communication, an easy cheat is to take an extra beat and define what sound like key terms. A simple statement and follow on question like, "before I make an assumption and go off on a tangent, when you say ______, what do you mean?"

It's an easy way to listen better, and despite the appearance of unnecessarily extending a conversation, it will help you get more done in less time. 

Good stuff. 

Random Stuff

"I want the world. I want the whole world. I want to lock it all up in my pocket. It's my bar of chocolate. Give it to me now!" – V. Salt

As fortune would have it, I was lucky enough to spend some time at a friend's exclusive, expensive, fancy vacation property. I don't know if it counts as a peek into another life, but it got the wheels turning. I'm not on the path to ever owning something like that, so I'm not contemplating what my life would be like in their shoes. However, I am thinking about what it would be like to grow up with unlimited resources. 

In the days of catalogs, I can remember flipping through pages and pages of the Sears Christmas book. It was a book. Thick and full of things I just HAD to have. 

I remember the feeling in my stomach, yearning for the latest and greatest toys. A Happy Days pinball machine. An air hockey table. Or maybe drums. So many choices and in the end I would be lucky to get one. "We aren't made of money, Greg." 

But what if we were made of money? What if I could have had it all? What if there was no excuse for saying no? What if nothing stopped me from fulfilling my fantasies? I'd be different, for sure. Would I have turned nasty like Veruca Salt? Or benevolent like Richie Rich? 

One thing I can say with confidence is I was suggestible. If the headline said it, I thought I had a future in it. Like as an entertainer. After seeing a page with the headline, "Be A Ventriloquist: Steal the show with these Dolls that talk at your command." I remember this page. I could feel the warmth of the crowd after one of my shows. With no limits, I would definitely have Charlie McCarthy and Simon Sez ventriloquist dummies lying around.

Definitely one or more "Hugo – Man of a Thousand Faces" dolls. In pristine condition, of course. Like Francis in "Pee Wee's Big Adventure." Leisure suit. Slick backed hair. Cartoon villain. 

Yeah. A creepy rich kid surrounded by scary props. 

It's good to have limits. Some decisions are better left unmade.