In this classic book, the author provides an effective way of developing your social skills. His solution is simple: give people what they care about! And what do most people care about? Themselves!
He suggests becoming genuinely interested in other people; encourage them to speak about their dreams, ambitions, problems, preferences and opinions.
Most of us have an innate desire to speak about ourselves. We’re often listening to someone speak with an intent to speak, ourselves. We’re not truly hearing what they are saying, but merely waiting for our opportunity to reply .
We do this because we feel that our opinion about a subject will add value to their life – and this is possibly true. However, increasing our ability to listening can be much more effective than speaking.
Listening has two major advantages:
- you allow people to express themselves (which will make them feel validated, special, and extremely grateful), and
- you can learn a lot from things people say.
In order to be interesting to other people, we must first be interested in them.