Latest / Respark Your Life / EP360: Larry Easto – Experiential Learning

Transcript

EP360: Larry Easto – Experiential Learning · Respark Your Life

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Will you got the facts right but that ain't what i want and i said what do you want.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: He said an apology so sometimes we get involved in exacerbating non issues we turn non issues in the major issues.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: What we really want is a smile or a thank you or something but instead we get into some sort of conflict.
• 0:20
  Raymond Aaron: Hello, this is Raymond Aaron, New York Times top 10 bestselling author, bringing you Respark
• 0:26
  Raymond Aaron: Your Life podcast, the world's premier podcast to ignite the fire to allow you to live life
• 0:32
  Raymond Aaron: on your own terms.
• 0:33
  Raymond Aaron: Every single Thursday, I bring you a multi-millionaire world famous celebrity to teach you about
• 0:41
  Raymond Aaron: the most fascinating ways in order to live a far better life.
• 0:46
  Raymond Aaron: single Thursday, you just need to subscribe by hitting the
• 0:50
  Raymond Aaron: subscribe button. I'll see you every Thursday to re spark your
• 0:56
  Raymond Aaron: life. This is Raymond Aaron, with another I'm over 300. I
• 1:03
  Raymond Aaron: can't believe it. When I started I had one episode and I never
• 1:08
  Raymond Aaron: thought I'd have more than five. And here I am. Wow. And I bring
• 1:13
  Raymond Aaron: you stealth wisdom. What that means is people you'd never find out about on your own.
• 1:20
  Raymond Aaron: I mean, you know, all my super famous friends, Dr. John Gray, Jack Canfield, you know all
• 1:25
  Raymond Aaron: of them, but you don't know the people I bring you in Respark Your Life. And today it's Larry
• 1:32
  Raymond Aaron: Istow. He has over 40 years of experience in providing professional services as a lawyer,
• 1:39
  Raymond Aaron: a consultant, a writer, a trainer, and a coach.
• 1:43
  Raymond Aaron: The heart of his work lies in experiential learning,
• 1:47
  Raymond Aaron: and that's why this podcast is entitled
• 1:50
  Raymond Aaron: Experiential Learning, the principles of which he teaches
• 1:54
  Raymond Aaron: to help clients develop and apply their own solutions
• 1:58
  Raymond Aaron: to their issues and opportunities.
• 2:00
  Raymond Aaron: Preferring to empower clients to meet
• 2:03
  Raymond Aaron: and overcome their challenges
• 2:05
  Raymond Aaron: instead of telling them what they should do,
• 2:08
  Raymond Aaron: Larry endeavors to equip them with the right tools
• 2:11
  Raymond Aaron: to make informed decisions.
• 2:14
  Raymond Aaron: He has authored, get this, 47 books, eBooks,
• 2:18
  Raymond Aaron: and video courses since 1993, sharing practical strategies
• 2:24
  Raymond Aaron: for professional and business growth.
• 2:27
  Raymond Aaron: And at the end of my interview, he's got two gifts for you.
• 2:31
  Raymond Aaron: I'm very excited to hear his wisdom.
• 2:35
  Raymond Aaron: Larry, are you with us?
• 2:37
  Raymond Aaron: I am with us, I am with us.
• 2:38
  Raymond Aaron: - Okay, good. - Good to go, good to go.
• 2:41
  Raymond Aaron: - You heard my introduction, that's a lot to live up to.
• 2:43
  Raymond Aaron: Can you do it?
• 2:44
  Raymond Aaron: - It's scary, it's scary.
• 2:46
  Raymond Aaron: I didn't think you were talking about me.
• 2:48
  Raymond Aaron: I think you were talking about somebody else.
• 2:50
  Raymond Aaron: - Oh my gosh, it's me.
• 2:52
  Raymond Aaron: - Yeah, sort of again.
• 2:53
  Raymond Aaron: - Tell me, what is experiential learning?
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: - Well, it's funny, everybody,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: many people say experience is the best teacher,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: but nobody really tells us how to learn from experience.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: And about 20 years ago, I was working on a project
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: and I had the opportunity to take an adult,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: or a course in adult education.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: And it was all about experiential learning.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: And it was so simple that I just kind of built it
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: into my normal way of being.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: And it's just, I mean, it's almost embarrassingly simple.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Instead of just letting an experience go
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: when something happens, just letting it go,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: experiential learning is all about pausing
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: taking a look and thinking, what happened?
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Who did what?
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: What was the outcome?
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: And then reflecting on how could it have been better?
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: You know, what did I like?
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: How could it be better?
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Drawing some conclusions and here's the gem.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: How can I use this in my business life?
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Or how can I use this in my personal life?
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: So in other words, whatever happened,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: how can I take a lesson from that to that area of my life
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: to apply it to this area of my life?
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: So instead of, as I say, just letting experiences pass by
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: and examine, it's taking a time out,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: not necessarily immediately, but at some point,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: taking time out to really reflect on what happened,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: draw a conclusion and figure out how to apply
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: that conclusion in other aspects of our lives.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And when it's broken down that simple,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: it's, whoa, this is an amazing process.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that's what's about,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: and that's what I love doing.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a lifelong learner.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: I just love to learn.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: And so this has helped me understand how I learn best.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't learn from somebody
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: dumping information on me, I learn from doing.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: And this is the experiential learning thing.
• 4:46
  Raymond Aaron: - Now, if something happens that we evaluate as good,
• 4:51
  Raymond Aaron: like winning a lottery ticket
• 4:52
  Raymond Aaron: or finding a hundred dollar bill
• 4:54
  Raymond Aaron: on the sidewalk or something,
• 4:56
  Raymond Aaron: that's not where the learning comes from.
• 4:58
  Raymond Aaron: - The learning is from an experience that we have
• 5:01
  Raymond Aaron: that we evaluate as bad.
• 5:03
  Raymond Aaron: But we only myopically think of it as bad
• 5:07
  Raymond Aaron: 'cause it might be the best thing
• 5:08
  Raymond Aaron: that could have ever happened to us.
• 5:10
  Raymond Aaron: And I've had lots of experiences in my life like that.
• 5:13
  Raymond Aaron: And the question that I like to ask,
• 5:16
  Raymond Aaron: and I can't ask it immediately
• 5:18
  Raymond Aaron: when I'm in the midst of the bad news,
• 5:20
  Raymond Aaron: but short, as soon as possible after the bad event
• 5:24
  Raymond Aaron: or the quote bad event is over, I say,
• 5:27
  Raymond Aaron: "Why is this the best thing
• 5:29
  Raymond Aaron: "that could have ever happened to me?
• 5:30
  Raymond Aaron: "What is my sacred lesson from this?"
• 5:33
  Raymond Aaron: And is that what you mean?
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: - Yeah, that's part of it, that's part of it.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: For me, it would be a case of what factors contribute
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: to this being a negative experience?
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: What did I do?
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: How did I respond?
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: What were my actions in this situation?
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: And how could I have acted differently
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: to produce a different result?
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: So instead of doing the good or the bad thing,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: it's what did I do?
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: What triggered my response?
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: How did I respond?
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: How could I have responded differently?
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: So it's really pulling things apart.
• 6:10
  Raymond Aaron: - I think that what most people do
• 6:12
  Raymond Aaron: is look around for someone to blame.
• 6:14
  Raymond Aaron: - Oh, yeah.
• 6:15
  Raymond Aaron: - It was the truck driver, it was the wife,
• 6:17
  Raymond Aaron: it was the cheating husband, it was the kids,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: it was my parents.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: - Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, totally.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: It's just absolutely.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: And you know, that's interesting because
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: as a service provider, I learned very early in my career
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: not to tell people what to do.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Because if I tell them what to do and it works out well,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: they did it.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: But if it doesn't work out well, it's my fault.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: - Right.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: - So I learned to say, well, you know,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you coming here and I'll do what I can
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: to help you, but it's your issue.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: It's not my issue.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: And so it kind of keeps the boundaries there.
• 6:56
  Raymond Aaron: Yeah. Very wise.
• 6:58
  Raymond Aaron: Very, very wise.
• 7:00
  Raymond Aaron: Now, when did you first start noticing experiential learning?
• 7:05
  Raymond Aaron: Did you figure this out as a kid when you were young and big?
• 7:09
  Raymond Aaron: People said, what do you want to do when you grow up?
• 7:12
  Raymond Aaron: Did you say I want to be an experiential teacher like the earliest
• 7:17
  Raymond Aaron: earliest recognition?
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Interesting image.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: When I was young, I wanted to be a garbage man.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: (laughing)
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Said no, I didn't really,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: it wasn't until I took the course in experiential learning
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: that the pieces fell into place for me.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: I realized very early that I learned best when,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: as I say, when I was doing something.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: If somebody is talking at me, I get bored really fast
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: because my brain works faster than most people talk.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: And many of us are like that.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: It's not that I have an exceptional brain.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of people's brains move faster than people can talk.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I'm a fast reader, so I learn by reading quickly.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: But once I read, I'm saying,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: "So what can I do with this?
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: What's this all about?
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: So what?"
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, nice idea, but so what?
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: So fairly early, I recognized that I learned more
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: from experiential things than from being told.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: And when I reflect on it,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: it was probably my experience as a camp counselor,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: as a teenage camp counselor.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: You can't tell somebody how to swim.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: You can't teach them how to swim by telling them.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: You have to show them.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: You have to help them learn their leg.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: You have to learn their muscles
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: and move their arms and limbs.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: So you can't stand on shore on dry land
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: and say, "This is what you do."
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: You have to get in the water
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: and actually show them how to do it
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: and help their bodies experience doing it.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: So that's probably where I became aware of the importance of experiential learning in
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: it.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I remember so many times in university listening to lectures and they're going on and on and
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: thinking get to the point, get to the point, get to the point, get to the point.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Or alternatively, yeah, I know that.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Tell me something I don't know.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: And so I guess I internalized the whole experiential learning thing as a child.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: And again, I came from a fairly active athletic family.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: You don't learn to skate by having somebody tell you to learn how to do this.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: You get out and you do it.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: You get out and you fall down, you pick yourself up and you skate for a while.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Skiing, baseball, the whole thing, you can't learn that by being told.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: You have to practice, you have to actually do it.
• 9:44
  Raymond Aaron: Very interesting.
• 9:46
  Raymond Aaron: So give me a really exciting example of an actual person you coached and they came with
• 9:54
  Raymond Aaron: a problem, you didn't know about it in advance, you had no preparation except your wisdom
• 10:00
  Raymond Aaron: and you helped them enormously.
• 10:02
  Raymond Aaron: Give us a really good example.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I had a, one time it was a graphic designer
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: was having trouble with marketing
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: and he had decided that he,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the best way to market was,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: best way to market a service was to go to
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: networking meetings.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: But he was shy, he was an introvert.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: And he didn't, you know, he couldn't,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: he couldn't make the,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: couldn't make the traditional networking introduction.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: So I said, "Well, how are you when you meet somebody new,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: when you meet somebody you'd like to get to know?"
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: He says, "Well, we kind of chat about what we like
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: and chat about what things we do
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: and all those kinds of things,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: chat about books and movies and other kinds of things,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: find an absolute area of interest."
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: So I said, "So what's happening when you're doing that?"
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: And he says, "Well, we're building a relationship."
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: So then I said, "Well, why can't you do that with clients?
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: "Why can't you go to a networking meeting
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: "and instead of looking to sell your product,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: "why don't you go to a networking meeting
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: "with the expectation of meeting a friend?"
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: And he said, "Yeah, but I want them to buy from me."
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: And I said, "No, you won't.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: "You want a relationship with them
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: "that might lead to selling to them."
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: - Right.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: - So I helped him reframe networking
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: from a sales pitch to a getting to know people,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: exchanging information.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: And it worked out really well
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: because his business did exceptionally well.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: He's very personal, very quiet.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: And it was okay if people came to him,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: but he had trouble going to others.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: So when he reframed networking
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: as away from pitching and promotion
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: into building relationships, he was flying.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: And what's interesting there is,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: two things are interesting.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: One is he had a preconception of what networking had to be,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: and he was trying to be something he wasn't.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: >> Aha.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: >> So the learning lesson there is sometimes we build barriers for ourselves.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we put labels on things that cause us problems.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: The second thing is by reframing issues, it's a lot easier.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: So reframing instead of framing it as a pitching opportunity,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: it's, "Hey, I'm going to make some new friends."
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: It just made the whole process so much easier.
• 12:25
  Raymond Aaron: Very nice.
• 12:27
  Raymond Aaron: Now, I have a stereotype.
• 12:29
  Raymond Aaron: I know it's a stereotype, so it's not always true, but it's generally true, or I'll let
• 12:34
  Raymond Aaron: you answer it.
• 12:36
  Raymond Aaron: Men screw up in selling because they go right for the sale.
• 12:41
  Raymond Aaron: Hi, you want to buy a car?
• 12:42
  Raymond Aaron: Hi, you want to buy insurance?
• 12:44
  Raymond Aaron: And they forget to create a relationship.
• 12:47
  Raymond Aaron: Women create a relationship and forget to sell.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Yep, yep, yep.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's interesting because men, as men, we tend to be competitive.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's part of the male genetic pool, that we are the ones, the hunters, the fishers,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: the providers, all that kind of thing.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: So many men see sales as a competitive process.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: They win the sale.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's interesting.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: They grind the prospect, they grind the potential client down until the client says, "Yeah,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: okay, I give up.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: I'll hire it."
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Women, on the other hand, tend to be collaborators.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Let's settle down and do this together.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: And so they collaborate so well, they forget about closing the sale.
• 13:34
  Raymond Aaron: That's true.
• 13:37
  Raymond Aaron: Very, very nice.
• 13:38
  Raymond Aaron: I want another example.
• 13:40
  Raymond Aaron: Another example of how you help some poor person who just couldn't figure it out.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: This was one of my, and this is a favorite story of mine, this was one of my very early
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: clients as a practicing lawyer.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: And I don't know what your thoughts on lawyers are, and I don't know whether you know many
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: lawyers, but lawyers, young lawyers, especially in their 20s, late 20s.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: They're so smart, they just know everything.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: I was there, I mean, when I was 26,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: I knew all the answers to all the questions
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: that could ever be asked.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: And I had this very nice man come in,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: and he was a farmer,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: and he was having problems with one of his neighbors.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: And he was telling me about the neighbors,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: so I listened for a couple of seconds,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: and by the, yeah, I listened, I had the answer,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: and I just, as a courtesy, I let him finish talking.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: And he finished talking, and I said,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: "So, okay, here's the situation,"
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: And I repeated the situation to him and I said,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: "So what you want isn't da da da da da da da,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: some sort of a fancy legal solution."
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: And he looked at me and he says,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: "Well, you got the facts right, but that ain't what I want."
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: - Ah, ha ha.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: - Okay, and so I'm like a 26 year old lawyer
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: who knows everything.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: And in exasperation, I said, "Well, what do you want?"
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: And he said, "An apology."
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: So here I was, I had this huge,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I was gonna send a letter,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: we're gonna do this and blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: And all the man wanted was an apology.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: So, okay, we had a laugh about that
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: and he sorted it out.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: And in part of the conversation,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: I just said, "Isn't it great that we were able to come up
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: with a solution that worked for you
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: without costing you any money
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: and without any further problems?"
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: And he said, "Yeah."
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: And he said, "I was so upset about the issue.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: didn't realize that all I really wanted was an apology.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we get involved in exacerbating non-issues.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: We turn non-issues into major issues,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: when what we really want is a smile or a thank you or something,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: but instead we get into some conflict.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: He was a nice man and it was a phenomenal learning lesson for me.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: For me, the lesson I learned from that is with
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: every client, regardless of what role I was playing, my last question is, what does the
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: ideal outcome look like to you?
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: And that turns it back to them.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: So instead of me saying, these are your options, I turn it back to them for the final comment
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: in terms of what would be the ideal goal to keep me from saying, what you need is this
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: expensive legal service when what he really wants is a simple apology.
• 16:35
  Raymond Aaron: So it's not till you gave him the wrong answer that he was able to bounce off that and realize
• 16:41
  Raymond Aaron: what he really wanted.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Exactly, exactly, exactly.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: And because his feelings were hurt, there'd be words exchange and nasty words exchange
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: because his feelings were hurt, he wasn't thinking it through clearly.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: He was feeling his feelings were hurting, he wanted to lash out at this man.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: And once he had the opportunity of listening to my questions and hearing himself tell the
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: story, he realized, yeah, my feelings were hurt. I just need somebody to be nice to me.
• 17:09
  Raymond Aaron: So part of your lawyer job was to be a psychiatrist.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Well, that's generous. No, it's funny. This was in a rural community and I never,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: even though, even, yeah, I never really thought of myself as being someone learned in the law
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: and high and mighty. I was more of a wheeler-dealer and mender of broken fences.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: So there were so many disagreements. And especially in a community like that, it was
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: people that have known each other like forever. And so they had expectations of each other.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: And they really close relationships that I, as an outsider, didn't understand.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: So I kind of learned to really listen more carefully to what they're saying,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: what they're not saying and ask the right gentle questions.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: And so it's more facilitator than anything else.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: I think that most of us know the right answer,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: we just don't know the right questions to ask.
• 18:06
  Raymond Aaron: - What's the number one thing you learned
• 18:08
  Raymond Aaron: in your whole career as a lawyer?
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: - I think it's the importance of listening.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: - Aha.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: - I think a lot of professional advisors
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: are so used to being in the advisory role
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: that as soon as we hear a little bit of the story,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: we can pull out a solution to it.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: And as this was the case with this man,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the problem wasn't what he presented at the beginning,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: it came out at the end.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: And sometimes we jumped to conclusions
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: based on two or three words to start with,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: And we missed the real story later.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: So I think listening is probably the biggest thing
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: I learned and carried in every area of endeavor.
• 19:05
  Raymond Aaron: - Can I tell you a funny story?
• 19:06
  Raymond Aaron: - Oh, please do.
• 19:08
  Raymond Aaron: - Many, like almost 40 years ago,
• 19:11
  Raymond Aaron: I got a letter that I was elected
• 19:15
  Raymond Aaron: one of the top 12 best salesmen in North America.
• 19:20
  Raymond Aaron: I said, wow, I knew I was good.
• 19:22
  Raymond Aaron: I didn't know that.
• 19:24
  Raymond Aaron: And so I flew to this city in the state somewhere
• 19:27
  Raymond Aaron: and sure enough, there was only 12 of us
• 19:30
  Raymond Aaron: and we were chatting before the instructor came in
• 19:33
  Raymond Aaron: and yeah, everybody was in sales.
• 19:36
  Raymond Aaron: The instructor came in and said, okay, pair off.
• 19:39
  Raymond Aaron: We did, I'm gonna give you 10 minutes.
• 19:42
  Raymond Aaron: She said, one of you is the salesman,
• 19:44
  Raymond Aaron: one of you is the prospect
• 19:46
  Raymond Aaron: And the salesmen make up any product you want at any price and see if you can sell it to
• 19:54
  Raymond Aaron: the prospect.
• 19:56
  Raymond Aaron: So I figure I'm young, brash, I know everything.
• 19:59
  Raymond Aaron: And I created a solid gold Rolls Royce that never needs fuel, that always has a chauffeur
• 20:08
  Raymond Aaron: who never has to go to the washroom or take breaks or eat and is always there night or
• 20:13
  Raymond Aaron: day and it has no expenses whatsoever, no repairs or anything.
• 20:21
  Raymond Aaron: The whole solid gold Rolls Royce is available for sale for $1 and my prospect bought it.
• 20:30
  Raymond Aaron: We came back, I was so proud and I couldn't wait.
• 20:33
  Raymond Aaron: I was hoping she would choose me as the representative of all the salesmen so I could say how clever
• 20:40
  Raymond Aaron: I am and how proud I was that I made this glorious sale. And she said, "Put up your
• 20:46
  Raymond Aaron: hand if you're the salesman." Good. "I only have one question to ask you. Did you ask
• 20:52
  Raymond Aaron: your prospect what they wanted?" And all of us hang our head in shame.
• 21:00
  Raymond Aaron: Oh, yeah.
• 21:01
  Raymond Aaron: We just wanted to show how clever we were.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: - Oh, exactly.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: And yeah, that's interesting because not only is that true
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: of salesmen and lawyers and professionals,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: it's true of a lot of people.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of people are more intent,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: maybe because they're not secure, I don't know,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: but more intent on pushing their expertise
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: and on opening them to what's coming in.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Interesting story, I love it.
• 21:29
  Raymond Aaron: - 40 years ago, Larry, and I'm still embarrassed.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Well, no, it's experiential learning.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: It is a learning.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: It was a heck of a I had this story and I learned. Yeah.
• 21:43
  Raymond Aaron: My greatest joy from that story.
• 21:46
  Raymond Aaron: It was only 12 people listening.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: But now you're telling it on your podcast.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: So I'm sorry. That's right. Now everybody knows.
• 21:55
  Raymond Aaron: So thank you so much.
• 21:57
  Raymond Aaron: Now, you said you're going to give away not one thing,
• 22:01
  Raymond Aaron: But two things, not for a discounted price, but for free.
• 22:06
  Raymond Aaron: Let's hear it.
• 22:07
  Raymond Aaron: What are you going to give us?
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Today's free day.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Today's free day.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: I recognize when people take their time to listen to us talk,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: they're taking time away from their schedule and their activities.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: You're taking time away from something else they could be doing.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: So I want to thank them for their time.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: And if someone, if a listener runs a professional service business coach
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: consultant, lawyer, anything that you sell your services.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I have a book called "26 Ways for Service Professionals
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: to Get New Business."
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: It's available on Amazon, but don't go there.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's $9 on Amazon.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Go to my website and it's a free download.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: You just kind of click and there it is, no email address,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: no money required, no name required.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: And "26 Ways to Get New Business" is obviously
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: from A to Z, A to Z.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: So there's 26 ways to get new business.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: I think "Network" is one of the 26.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: So that's a fun book that I did some time ago.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: And the other one is a more recent book.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: During the pandemic, I wrote a book called
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: "New Beginnings, New Opportunities."
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: And the intention there was to help service professionals
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: survive the pandemic and thrive afterwards.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Well, since then, I've done some more books
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: and I've wound up with a whole bunch of new content.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: So I added the new content to the "New Beginnings" book
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: And that book is all about making the personal transformation
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: from where you are to where you want to be.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: And that's also free on the website,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: just go to the website and it's right at the bottom
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and there's a free book.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of a fun book
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: because it's a lot of experiential things in there.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: It's a book that somebody could do on their own
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: or they get together with friends and do it
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: as a study group or whatever.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: And I'm putting this into,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: I've got a new offer coming out shortly
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: I'll be putting the content into the book, into the new offer.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: But the book itself is a standalone free and I kind of like it.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: It was fun to do.
• 24:07
  Raymond Aaron: Very nice.
• 24:08
  Raymond Aaron: And the website is LarryEsto.com, the regular spelling of Larry.
• 24:14
  Raymond Aaron: And then Esto is E A S T O.
• 24:20
  Raymond Aaron: LarryEsto.com.
• 24:21
  Raymond Aaron: Go there, get one book, get the other, get both.
• 24:24
  Raymond Aaron: It's yours.
• 24:25
  Raymond Aaron: Thank you.
• 24:26
  Raymond Aaron: And Larry, thanks for your stealth wisdom.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you for the fun. This was a fun interview. Thank you so much.
• 24:35
  Raymond Aaron: Wow, I sure hope you enjoyed that fascinating episode. Please make sure you subscribe and
• 24:41
  Raymond Aaron: please tell your friends if you like it that they will probably like it as well.
• 24:45
  Raymond Aaron: For your information, this experience, this service, this podcast has been sponsored by
• 24:51
  Raymond Aaron: by the Orbit coaching program.
• 24:53
  Raymond Aaron: All of my friends, all my world famous speaker friends
• 24:57
  Raymond Aaron: all have coaching programs.
• 24:59
  Raymond Aaron: Mine has been independently rated
• 25:00
  Raymond Aaron: as the number one high level coaching program.
• 25:04
  Raymond Aaron: You cannot purchase it.
• 25:06
  Raymond Aaron: You have to audition for it by me personally.
• 25:10
  Raymond Aaron: If you're interested, please email me at respark@aaron.com.
• 25:16
  Raymond Aaron: Respark at A-A-R-O-N.
• 25:20
  Raymond Aaron: say that you're interested in being considered for the Orbit coaching
• 25:23
  Raymond Aaron: program and include your cell phone numbers that I personally will call you
• 25:27
  Raymond Aaron: back.