Any Successful Person MUST Do This! | Simon Sinek

I think one of the essential skills of being a good coach is listening. This is a skill that is not taught in school, we don't learn it at home unfortunately, and we don't learn it at work. Listening is not hearing the words that are spoken. Listening is, I thought I was being original. Listening is not about hearing the words that are spoken, it's not being able to parrot back what somebody said to you. Listening is listening for meaning. You are a good listener, the test for being a good listener is if the other person feels heard. Say that again, write that down. Just take it out of the context of business. We've all had an argument or wanted to share our feelings with a friend or a loved one. Spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, you're sitting on the couch and you say something's bugging you and you say, can I just tell you something's bugging me, and they respond by trying to fix it, or they respond by pointing out the facts that may or may not align with how you feel. Well, that's impossible because this is what happened. What they're missing is you are not looking for them to compare the facts of what's being said, you just want to feel heard. You just want somebody to go, oh my God, that's really hard, yeah, I hear that, thank you for sharing that with me, that must be difficult, thank you, that's all I need. I'll give you a very funny example of bad listening. I used to date a girl who's an air traffic controller. Air traffic controllers are a breed unto themselves, and it's only about the facts. I woke up one morning, I had something in my eye, and I couldn't open my eye, it was hurting, and I'm flushing it out with water, and I couldn't even open my eye, and I have her come, I'm like, come here, come here, I'm like, look in my eye, do you see anything, do you understand anything? And she looks in, she goes like this, and she goes, there's nothing there, and then walks away. And I eventually, you know, whatever it was, I eventually was okay, and I went up to her, I was like, WTF, right? I'm like, I had something in my eye, you just walked away. And she's like, there was nothing there, so what do you want me to do? I was like, a little sympathy, she's like, well, that's not going to get anything out of your eye. Listening is standing by my side while I'm flushing it out with water and go, oh my God, that must hurt so much. Yeah, it does, thank you, right? That's listening. And if somebody can learn to listen, and now this is where it gets actionable, this is not me just waxing philosophical and telling funny stories about listening. My friend, Will Godera, how many of you are restaurant people? Have you ever heard of Eleven Madison Park? So at some point in New York City, Eleven Madison Park was the best restaurant in the world, right? Ranked number one. And Will believes in this, he was the former owner, he believes in this concept of unreasonable hospitality, which is going to what good services and then going way, way, way beyond. And one of the core tenets of unreasonable hospitality is learning to listen. And I'll give you an example that directly impacts your business. Most agents don't listen, and I'll give you an example. What do you do for your clients after they close on a home, right? It's very common, we've all bought a home too, right? Which is, you walk into this new home that you just bought as a buyer, and there's a bottle of champagne in the fridge, there's a basket of flowers on the dining room table. The same basket of flowers that you gave to every other client, same bottle of champagne that you gave to every client. Generic, not a number, it's just root. But if you were listening, while they were looking at all those homes, and they saw this one little room that was too small to make a bedroom, it was just sort of a stupid little nook, that nobody really understood why that room existed in the house. And your client walked in and goes, I could make this my yoga room. And that's the house they bought. Instead of putting a bottle of champagne in the house, this is what Will talks about, instead of putting a bottle of champagne in the fridge, why not put a yoga mat in that room with a little note that says, it's perfect, right? That's called listening. And every single time you go out, every single time you go out with clients, they are telling you things, they're telling you stories, they're waxing philosophical. They're telling you what they don't like and what they do like. The problem is you're listening to whether they like big windows, you're listening to whether they like the view, you're listening to whether they have two cars and they need three cars or whatever it is, but you're not listening to the reasons why. The why. You're not listening for the meaning. And that's, those are the little notes you wanna make that make someone feel seen and make someone feel heard.