The ability to understand people is one of the
greatest assets anyone can ever have.
It has the potential to positively impact every area of your life, not just the
business arena. For example, look at how understanding people helped this
mother of a pre-schooler. She said,
“Leaving my
four-year-old son in the house, I ran out to throw something in the trash. When
I tried to open the door to get back inside, I was locked. I knew that
insisting that my son open the door would have resulted in an hour-long battle
of the wills. So in a sad voice, I said, ‘Oh, too bad. You just locked yourself
in the house.’ The door opened at once.”
Understanding people
certainly impacts your ability to communicate with others. David Burns, a
medical professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, observed, “The biggest mistake you can make in trying
to talk convincingly is to put your highest priority on expressing your ideas
and feelings. What most people really
want is to be listened to, respected, and understood. The moment people see
that they are being understood, they become more motivated to understand your
point of view.” If you can learn
to understand people – how they think, what they feel, what inspires them, how
they’re likely to act and react in a given situation – then you can motivate
and influence them in a positive way.
[Except from Becoming a Person of Influence: How to
Positively Impact the Lives of Others (2006) by John C. Maxwell with Jim
Dornan. Published by Thomas Nelson Inc.]
Make understanding people your top priority today.
THINK BIG.
START SMALL. GO DEEP.
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