Throwback Thursday February 22, 2024

Hey, welcome to Thursday, February the 22nd 2023. No, it’s 2024. So we’re not throwing back to last year. 

It is February 22 2024. And in today’s Throwback Thursday message, we’re going back to 1989 to the book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in today’s lesson is Habit number five, that’s right, number five, and we’re talking about “seek first to understand and then to be understood.”

Now, there’s a story about this where a husband comes home from work, it could be a wife so ladies don’t get mad at me. But the story that was told to me was about a husband comes home from work. And he walks in the door and he says Hi honey, I’m home. What’s for supper? 

And the wife after having a hard day of taking care of the kids and cleaning house and the pets and trying to get things done is just in a really ungrateful mood and she’s like, I’m done. 

All you want is to come home and find out what’s for supper. You don’t even have time to ask me how my day was. 

I’m done. I want a divorce. shocked the husband’s now in reactive mode. And he’s trying to figure out what he could have done better. Well, actually, the wife could have done something better too. 

And again, you can flip the roles.

Don’t worry about that. 

The lesson is that instead of just reacting, if the wife had stopped and considered his question real quick and then responded instead of reacting; if she would have responded.

“Hey, that’s an interesting question. Why do you ask?” 

He could have explained:

Honey, I got a promotion at work today and I’d like to take you and the kids out to celebrate.

Now the reaction, the response would have been much better and they wouldn’t have been headed to divorce court. 

So today this week, see how you can practice Habit number five, which is seek first to understand what clarifying questions can you ask.

One of my favorites is hey, that’s an interesting question. Why do you want to know?

That works very well. For me. 

Another one that works very well is “Tell Me More”. 

That comes from the Ninja Selling book. And you can use either one of those to gather more information. 

And you’ll be able to understand why people are asking the questions that they’re asking. And then you won’t just be in a reactive mode, but you’ll be in a responsive mode, and you’ll be able to respond better to the initial question. 

So that’s Throwback Thursday for today, February 22 2024. And if I can be of service to you in any way, please give me a call 915-588-1850. That works for text as well. 

And for now. Thanks for watching, God bless you and make it a great day. Bye bye

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