What Great Listeners Do Differently By Travis Bradberry.

Listening is a bit like intelligence—most everyone thinks they’re above average, even though that’s
impossible.
And listening is a skill you want to be great at. A recent study conducted at George Washington University shows that listening can influence up to 40% of a leader’s job performance.

“The word listen contains the same letters as the word silent.” –Alfred Brendel

There’s so much talking happening at work that opportunities to listen well abound. We talk to provide feedback, explain instructions, and communicate deadlines. Beyond the words that are spoken, there’s invaluable information to be deciphered through tone of voice, body language, and what isn’t said.
In other words, failing to keep your ears open could leave you out of the game.
And most people really do believe their listening skills are where they need to be, even though they aren’t. A study at Wright State University surveyed more than 8,000 people from different verticals, and almost all of those polled rated themselves as listening as well as or better than their co-workers. We know intuitively that many of them are wrong.
Effective listening is something that can absolutely be learned and mastered. Even if you find attentive listening difficult and, in certain situations, boring or unpleasant, that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. You just have to know what to work on. The seven straightforward strategies that follow will get you there.
Focus. The biggest mistake most people make when it comes to listening is they’re so focused on what they’re going to say next or how what the other person is saying is going to affect them that they fail to hear what’s being said. The words come through loud and clear, but the meaning is lost. Focusing may seem like a simple suggestion, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. Your thoughts can be incredibly distracting.
Put away your phone. It’s impossible to listen well and monitor your phone at the same time. Nothing will turn someone off to you like a mid-conversation text message or even a quick glance at your phone. When you commit to a conversation, focus all of your energy on the conversation. You will find that conversations are more enjoyable and effective when you immerse yourself in them.
Ask good questions. People like to know you’re listening, and something as simple as a clarification question shows that not only are you listening, you also care about what they’re saying. You’ll be surprised how much respect and appreciation you gain just by asking good questions. In addition to verifying what you’ve heard, you should also ask questions that seek more information (probing questions). Examples of probing questions include things like, “What happened next?” or “Why did he say that?” The key is to make certain your questions really do add to your understanding of the speaker's words, rather than deflecting the conversation to a different topic entirely.
Practice reflective listening. Psychologist Carl Rogers used the term “reflective listening” to describe the listening strategy of paraphrasing the meaning of what’s being said in order to make certain you’ve interpreted the speaker’s words correctly. By doing this, you give the speaker the opportunity to clarify what she meant to say. When you practice reflective listening, don’t simply repeat the speaker’s words to her. Use your own words to show that you’ve absorbed the information.
Use positive body language. Becoming cognizant of your gestures, expressions, and tone of voice (and making certain they’re positive) will draw people to you like ants to a picnic. Using an enthusiastic tone, uncrossing your arms, maintaining eye contact, and leaning towards the person who’s speaking are all forms of positive body language employed by great listeners. Positive body language can make all the difference in a conversation.
Don’t pass judgment. If you want to be a good listener you must be open-minded. Being open-minded makes you approachable and interesting to others. No one wants to have a conversation with someone who has already formed an opinion and is not willing to listen. Having an open mind is crucial in the workplace where approachability means access to new ideas and help. To eliminate preconceived notions and judgment, you need to see the world through other people’s eyes. This doesn’t require you believe what they believe or condone their behavior, it simply means you quit passing judgment long enough to truly understand what they are saying.
Keep your mouth shut. If you’re not checking for understanding or asking a probing question, you shouldn’t be talking. Not only does thinking about what you’re going to say next take your attention away from the speaker, hijacking the conversation shows that you think you have something more important to say. This means you shouldn’t jump in with solutions to the speaker’s problems. It’s human nature to want to help people, especially when it’s someone you care about. But what a lot of us don’t realize is that, when we jump in with advice or a solution, we’re shutting the other person down. It’s essentially a more socially acceptable way of saying, “Okay, I’ve got it. You can stop now!” The effect is the same.
Bringing It All Together
Life is busy, and it seems to whirl by faster every day. We all try to do a million things at once, and sometimes it works out. But active, effective listening isn’t something you can do on the fly. It requires a conscious effort.


How do you know when someone is really listening to you? And how would you rate your listening skills? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.

KINGSMITH.

8 Unusual Things I Learned From Warren Buffett (plus the lesson I learned from the man who has beaten Buffet over the past 15 years)

In 2003 I really disliked Warren Buffett. Like, I personally hated him. After 9/11 he stated “We’re going to have something in the way of a major nuclear event in this country. It will happen. Whether it will happen in 10 years or 10 minutes, or 50 years … it’s virtually a certainty.”

Everyone on TV nodded their head. Why not. The man is bigger than Jesus. But listen, WB (we call each other by our initials when we whisper softly to each other) charges for insurance AGAINST NUCLEAR ATTACKS. If I were a door to door life insurance salesman you know what I would say to you? You can die tomorrow! Why not protect your kids just in case? And I don’t like when people, even Buffett, spread nuclear panic.

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But I forgave him. We hugged it out. Sort of. He never met me. And he wouldn’t pick up the phone the one time I called him. But I took a cab to his house. Hey, wouldn’t you take a cab to his house? If you could? I went to the 2003 annual meeting in Omaha. The Buffettpalooza. I think 20,000 people were supposedly there. No exaggeration. People got on line at 5am to get into the meeting. Krispy Kreme donuts were served on the line outside. Then, when it was time to go in, everyone RAN in order to get a good seat. But since they had just cleaned the floors everyone was slipping, falling, sliding as soon as they got into the building. It was exactly what would happen if everyone was running to escape, well, a nuclear attack. The night before the meeting there were some parties. I got invited by pretending to be “media”. I got a special badge. One guy had some numbers written on a napkin. “What do you think Berkshire’s ‘intrinsic value’ is?” he asked me. He had all the parts of Berkshire written on a napkin with numbers written next to them. If you didn’t know it, this is referred to as “back of the napkin” investing. I met another guy who told me a story. He bought 200 shares of Berkshire in 1976. The shares doubled in a year or so and he got nervous. So he sold 100 shares and used the proceeds to start a restaurant. The other 100 shares (assuming he still holds them because he told me he was never going to sell them) are now worth $18,000,000. So its safe to say that this guy I was speaking to is the world’s greatest investor ever. He bought 100 shares. Never had to even think again. About anything. He could’ve watched MTV and eaten nothing but Pringles for the next 35 years. And now he’s got $18,000,000 in the bank. But he has big regrets. Because he sold those other 100 shares on only a double. Oh well. We have some work to do here. Because its not easy to find unusual things about Warren Buffett. But if you didn’t notice the picture above, I wrote THE book on Warren Buffett. The one book that’s not even mentioned in the exhaustive list of books mentioned on buffett’s Wikipedia page. 1) House. I really did drive right up to his house in a cab. Here’s his house: It’s a 5 bedroom house he bought in 1956 for $31,500. Its one house among many on a normal suburban block. The guy next door to him might as well be worth $0 and his next door neighbor is worth $60,000,000,000.00 To me, that shows a lot of discipline. Every time in my life I’ve ever made money I would make the mistake of buying a home. Here’s a story about Buffett. He’s playing golf with a bunch of people and they all bet a dollar on a particular hole. Buffett won’t bet. “Why not, Warren?” they ask him, “you’re worth a gazillion.” He said, “I never break my discipline.” By contrast here’s the house of his bridge partner Bill Gates: 2) His worst investment ever. I asked this question on Twitter earlier. I said, “he lost his self-esteem and 20% in that order.” Everyone came back with very smart responses: Conoco Phillips, where he lost $1 bb (but not 20% of his net worth (not even 2% of his net worth) and certainly not his self-esteem). The Berkshire Hathaway business itself was a bust. But the stock zoomed and Buffett made the bulk of his net worth on Berkshire Hathaway. No, the answer is a Sinclair gas station he bought in 1951 with a friend of his. On the weekends he’d even squeegee people’s windows. But the Texaco station right across the street destroyed him. He lost $2000, when his savings was about $9600 at the time. He put a lot of work and love into that little baby and it all went down the drain. But that experience probably gave him the desire to have a more passive management style. A style he later mastered at Berkshire. 3) He was rejected from Harvard Business School. If you think about it, Harvard must have a pretty bad reputation by now. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg hated it so much that they dropped out. And the one time they could’ve landed the best businessman ever, they rejected him. Like most smart people, Buffett didn’t even really want to go to college. He started out at Wharton but then switched back to his hometown college in Omaha because he didn’t like it. Then, after being rejected by the best business school in the country, he went to Columbia. The reality is that people at the genius level (Buffett, Einstein, Gates, etc) have no use for college but some cases (Buffett) reluctantly go through the motions. 4) He was a victim of reverse anti-Semitism. When he originally wanted to work for his mentor Ben Graham, on Wall Street, Graham said, “no”. Buffett was shocked and asked why. Graham told him it was because he wasn’t Jewish. Graham wanted to save a spot in the firm for a Jewish person. To be fair, Graham was worried that Jews couldn’t be hired anywhere else on Gentile Wall Street so he wanted his firm to be Jewish-friendly. The key to success though is persistence. Buffett went back to Omaha but kept pitching ideas to Graham until Graham eventually hired him. Persistence is the only sure-fire method for obtaining success. 5) Adam Smith. Its useful to look at the history of the field you want to master. When I was trading for Victor Niederhoffer I saw that he had collected just about every finance book from 1800 on. So I started reading books anywhere from 100 to 30 years old just to see what people were thinking and how finance and trading had evolved. One book, “Supermoney” was by the pseudonymous “Adam Smith” detailing random adventures he had as a reporter in finance in the late 60s, early 70s. On one adventure he decided to visit a retired investor (the book was written around 1972) who was trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his life now that he had $20 million after shutting down his hedge fund. They drove around and had a rambling conversation. At one point they passed a furniture store and the investor pointed out the window, “I’m going to own that one day.” Obviously, that investor was Warren Buffett. But Smith didn’t know then that he was dealing with WARREN BUFFETT because he wasn’t in all-caps yet. And, in fact, many years later Buffett did buy that furniture store. I thought Supermoney was fascinating for its predictive abilities. How could Smith know that Buffett would be the best investor to profile? In the next profile after Buffett , Smith wrote about a guy who was sitting in a Swiss jail. If you screw up a bank in Switzerland you are going to jail, no get-out-of-jail free cards. What was this guy doing while in jail? Trying to write some fiction. That’s where the profile ends. Paul Erdmann went on to become the bestselling finance thriller writer ever. I highly recommend his novels. In any case, it’s a great chance to see how someone described Buffett before he became BUFFETT. I mentioned this to Pamela van Giessen at Wiley (see Why I Still Write Books Even Though I’ve Lost Money on Every One of Them) and she ended up republishing the book as a Wiley Investment Classic. I give myself full credit on that one even if she disagrees with me. 6) The SEC investigated Buffett in 1974-1976 for manipulating penny stocks. This was a serious charge. And Buffett takes his reputation seriously. And the reality is (I won’t get into details but Janet Lowe covers it here), he WAS manipulating penny stocks and he sort of admits it. But he had a good reason. He was buying a company and he promised a shareholder of the company that the price wouldn’t be lower than a certain number. So he made sure the price of the penny stock never fell below that number. Or something like that. If I got the details wrong, Warren, you can put a gun to my head and fire the bullet. Suffice to say, the SEC didn’t know what to do with someone like Warren so they slapped him on the wrist (some historical versions say “the face”) . He admitted nothing but one of his companies paid a $115,000 fine. I’m sure he was nervous his reputation was going to go down the tubes but he survived to live another day. 7) Zen. Its not so bad to pick up the habits of Warren Buffett for a week and try them out: No computer on his desk No cell phone He plays bridge 12 hours a week (I guess he uses a computer at home for this). Bill Gates is often his bridge partner. Try it for one week: no computer, no cell phone, play a game for at least 12 hours for the week. 8 ) Love. Ugh, I was going to do 10 of these but I’m getting tired. There’s a fun story about how he actually took over Berkshire Hathaway. It was more ruthless than anything JR Ewing would do. And I’m not going to mention the intertwining personal relationships he had. That’s well-documented everywhere. But I give him credit for being open, unconventional, and living the life that best suited him with the least amount of stress. As his daughter, Susan, says: “Unconventional is not a bad thing. More people should have unconventional marriages.” But, one thing struck me as interesting. The annual meeting is about eight hours long. I don’t recommend it to anyone. I can’t remember anything he said except one thing. Actually I remember something Charlie Munger (Buffett’s number two) said. Something to the effect that long-term you better bury all your guns and valuables in the backyard and at that point Buffett shut him up. But one thing Buffett said always stuck with me. Someone asked him, “How do you measure success?” And all 20,000 of us leaned forward to hear what the “magic number” was. But he said this: “I measure success by how many people love me. And the best way to be loved is to be loveable.” And that, to me was the most unusual thing about Warren Buffett. ➡ Warren Buffett is one of the greatest investors of all time, but since 2000, there is an investor that has beat him at his own game. While Buffett's portfolio has grown over 100%, this little known investor's has grown by over 400%! Click here to find out who he is and what he is looking at now.

5 Practices for Cultivating More Loving Relationships By Susan Cain.

If you don’t let me go to the movies today, I’m not going to love you anymore.”

So said my 5-year-old son, normally one of the more open-hearted humans you’ll ever meet. But he’s working out power dynamics right now. And he really wanted to go to the movies. So he pulled out the biggest guns he had: the firearms of love.
Because he is 5, this power play didn’t bother me a bit, and I responded with equanimity.
I think it’s easy for most of us to react calmly to children’s emotional threats. We know that they love us; we know they don’t really mean it, or at least they only mean it in the moment; and we know they’re just hungry, tired, or upset about something that happened at school that day. With our adorable children, it’s relatively easy for us to be the warm and mature ones—the guides, the sages, the givers of unconditional love.
So why is it so hard to do this when an adult pulls a grown-up version of the same maneuver: the silent treatment, the passive-aggressive jab, or the aggressive-aggressive interrogation? Might it be possible, in the face of such insults, to treat our fellow grown-ups with the same loving constancy that we give (most of the time) our offspring?
I thought about this recently when I came across possibly the most insightful passage I have ever read, by Alain de Botton:

“To the child, it feels as if the parent is simply spontaneously on hand to comfort, guide, entertain, feed, clear up and remain almost always warm and cheerful. Parents don’t reveal how often they have bitten their tongue, fought back the tears and been too tired to take off their clothes after a day of childcare. The relationship is almost entirely non-reciprocal. The parent loves; but they do not expect the favour to be returned in any significant way… Parent and child may both ‘love’, but each party is on a very different end of the axis, unbeknownst to the child.
This is why in adulthood, when we first say we long for love, what we predominantly mean is that we want to be loved as we were once loved by a parent…This is – naturally – a disaster…we need to move firmly out of the child – and into the parental position. We need to become someone who will be willing to subordinate their own demands and concerns to the needs of another.”

We enter into adult relationships, in other words, looking for the love we had---or wished we had---as children. But not only is this an impossible goal, it’s also the wrong goal. The right goal is to love others that way. The right goal is to bite our tongues and hide our tears for the sake of the adults in our lives—not all the time, of course, but far more often than most of us do. The right goal is to lavish our fellow grown-ups with love.
Almost none of us will achieve this fully, of course. But we can get much better at it. And striving to get there is the work of a lifetime.
Here are five ways to get better at grown-up love:

1. Love yourself first. Practitioners of loving-kindness meditation know this well. The practice always begins with cultivating a loving embrace of oneself. We project onto others whatever we feel about ourselves. If we’re harsh and self-critical with ourselves, we won’t let anyone else off the hook either. If we grant ourselves love and acceptance, we open the door to treating others the same way.
2. Exclaim over whatever is exclaimable in people. I learned this from my grandfather, who was forever marveling at other people’s attributes: their height, their wit, their athleticism—all personal qualities, for him, seemed to exist in order to be celebrated. I’m a more restrained person than my grandfather was, so I don’t come by this gift as naturally as he did. But I try!
3. Remember this: “There isn’t anyone you couldn’t love once you’ve heard their story.” (The quote is from Mary Lou Kownacki and is a favorite of my friend's Courtney Martin.) Imagine a man who has committed the most evil deeds. Now imagine his childhood. Perhaps someone abused him or showed him that he didn't matter. Imagine a boy crying softly in a corner, night after night, his tears never heeded except with an impatient shove. The heart softens even if it doesn't excuse.
4. You can’t control other people’s behavior—you can only control your own. Try to walk through the world with an attitude of calm warmth that remains steady, regardless of how others greet or treat you. When you feel threatened or provoked, take a deep breath, count to 10, and try to regain this posture. If counting to 10 isn’t enough, try removing yourself from the situation for a bit, and imagine yourself in a beautiful setting (whether a familiar lake at sunset or a distant land you’ve never seen) or in the presence of a loving, nurturing person (someone you know or an imaginary being---it doesn’t matter which). When you’re ready to engage, try to separate the substance of what the person is saying from your feelings of threat or provocation. (None of this is easy, of course!) For further reading on this topic, I recommend Emotional Freedom by Judith Orloff and Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson and Joseph Grenny.
5. Try not to judge others. There is a reason that non-judgment is at the heart of many spiritual traditions. Judging others is bad for your relationships and prevents you from embracing humanity with all its many flaws. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t notice other people’s bad behavior (or your own). But there’s a huge difference between observing and condemning. Judging is an act of distancing yourself from others—and from yourself. Observing can be done impartially, even lovingly.

Having read all this, don’t expect to actually get it right! Just as we forgive our children their misdeeds while exhorting them to do better, we should do the same with ourselves. And once you’ve eased up on yourself, you’ll find it easier to do the same with your loved ones.

KINGSMITH.
I hope you find these ideas helpful. I’d love to hear your advice for cultivating loving relationships!

This is Why You're Not Getting Promoted!

It is often people ask themselves some version of this simple question:

Why am I not getting promoted?"

Let's cut to the chase with some real reasons why and strategies to get over these hurdles. Keep in mind, successful strategies also appear in the form of what NOT to do.

You're too annoying

Yes. That is correct. You actually might be too annoying for the people who have the power to promote. Time for self-awareness and self-assessment. If you're getting annoyed by this paragraph, this may be true for you.

You're not annoying enough

Of course, this doesn't apply to the annoying people. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. This saying might be an old cliche but it is true. Make it known that a promotion is what you want, and work hard towards it. Show the decision makers and everyone else that you are the one for the job. Don't forget, being the squeaky wheel is an artform.  

The Owner is not your Cousin

There are so many times people don't get a promotion they deserve. Their skill-set, time at the company, attitude, and everything else are perfect for the job! One simple ingredient is missing, they aren't related to the decision maker. I have seen time and time again, that a promotion is given to a cousin or family member who might not be as qualified as you. Unfortunately, this is part of the game. Suck it up, move on, and figure out a different angle or position at the company you want.

You Gossip too much

Gossip might be fun, but it can bite you in the ass. This is a great way to set up bad karma. If you don't gossip to begin with, you won't have to worry about covering your tracks.

You are obsessed with the wrong promotion

Stop trucking through your job with blinders on. There are more paths to success than the one promotion you are focused on. Broaden your horizons and look for other opportunities you may be fit for. Think outside the box.

No one really cares about your Job Title

There are two types of people in the corporate world when it comes to promotion. The ones driven by titles and the ones driven by money. If you are the former, your Company loves having you. This might lead you to a promotion illusion. The Job Title looks nice, but you're still taking home the same money. Get flexible, get real, and start moving UP!

You Slept with the wrong person

If anyone tells you having an affair for the sake of a job is a winning solution, they are wrong. This is a short term solution, to a long-term problem. Even this business of "work wives" and "work husbands" is a bad idea. Keep your personal world at a distance from your business world, and you will increase your luck. Stay focused, stay strong, slam dunk your next promotion!

Wow, I'm exhausted, are you?

 

KINGSMITH.