Like, This is a Good One

One of the lessons I learned early on in my career as a Salesguy was that it was much more important to listen than to talk.  An incredibly difficult lesson to take to heart.  Our tendency is to want to convince another person of our point of view.  It is not a natural impulse to listen to their point of view.  I evolved in my profession so that I began to see how many times the other person was waiting for me to finish talking so that they could say what they wanted to say.  I learned that look meant that very little I was saying was sinking in so that my first best technique was to stop talking and start listening.  I also learned that most people are very uncomfortable with silence.  This is why you hear so many ahs and ums and you knows when people talk.  Even that second of silence is a killer so they have to fill it with a noise and if they keep talking they often gave me valuable information that I would have had to extract using some kind of powerful, turbo-charged suction machine. There's a new guy at our meeting who tosses in the nervous filler noise "like" many times when he, like, talks, at a, like, meeting.  He's trying to get his feet back on the ground and it makes him sound intellectually lazy.  He's a smart guy and he sounds, like, dumb.  I may have to say something to him.  I know, I know, I should keep my fucking mouth shut but I have a bit of influence over him and I can't help but think that this, like, might be a helpful bit of advice.

In one of my spiritual books the author was discussing how we can better deal with contentious people or just people with whom we have a differing opinion.  

Here were his suggestions:

1.  Look at the person's body language.

(Crossed arms?  Forget about it.  They're not receptive.  Backing away?  Looking off to the side?  Looking at their phone?  You're toast.  You've lost.  It's over.)

2.  Try to understand where they're coming from.

(I quit trying to explain the technical aspects of an infrared sensor to the purchasing agent.  And I didn't try to explain the cost/benefit analysis to the engineer.)

3.  Listen without planning your reply.

(Epically important!  If I'm thinking about my brilliant retort or quip then I'm not listening!)

4.  Express your opinion only after the person has finished talking, and only if they ask.  

(It goes without saying that they're almost never going to ask.  You'll be lucky if they, like, stop talking for a minute.)

5.  Notice your own attachments.

(Like, dude, if you don't buy a piece of my, like, stuff, I'm never going to make any, like, money.)

6.  Feel your own emotions.  

(If you're ticking me off then I'm tempted to come out swinging.)