Latest / How To Talk To Humans / Active Listening to Enhance Gift Giving (Personal & Business) Holiday Special Part 2

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Active Listening to Enhance Gift Giving (Personal & Business) Holiday Special Part 2 · How To Talk To Humans

• 0:00
  Larry Wilson: Hi, this is Larry Wilson and this is How to Talk to Humans.
• 0:04
  Larry Wilson: This is the podcast that shows you how to improve your communication skills.
• 0:10
  Larry Wilson: Are you looking to get a better job?
• 0:12
  Larry Wilson: Are you looking to find a relationship?
• 0:15
  Larry Wilson: Are you trying to do things in your life that have frustrated you and eluded you so far?
• 0:21
  Larry Wilson: I can show you so easily how to change that.
• 0:25
  Larry Wilson: Now, I can only do it with humans.
• 0:27
  Larry Wilson: If you're looking to deal with vampires or zombies extraterrestrials, this is not the show for you.
• 0:33
  Larry Wilson: But if you're really looking to improve your communication skills, I can show you what I've learned from 40 years in the show business working with the biggest celebrities and superstars in the world, and their secrets are unbelievable.
• 0:51
  Larry Wilson: What I'm going to be teaching you during the course of this podcast every week are tools that you can use to communicate toward success.
• 1:05
  Larry Wilson: Hi, thanks for joining me again for part two of last week's show.
• 1:13
  Larry Wilson: There was so much I wanted to share with you, I didn't want to take up too much of your time.
• 1:20
  Larry Wilson: So here's all the good stuff that follows up the good stuff from part one.
• 1:27
  Larry Wilson: Hollywood does terrible things to people, and it brings out some of the worst qualities.
• 1:33
  Larry Wilson: I say this because I was saying if a gold bar might be a gratefully accepted gift.
• 1:39
  Larry Wilson: But there's some people in Hollywood who immediately would be on guard.
• 1:43
  Larry Wilson: They'd take it.
• 1:44
  Larry Wilson: Oh, don't get me wrong.
• 1:47
  Larry Wilson: They wouldn't refuse the gold bar.
• 1:50
  Larry Wilson: But in their mind, they might be thinking, okay, this person's working me.
• 1:55
  Larry Wilson: They want something from me.
• 1:57
  Larry Wilson: Now they're on guard.
• 1:58
  Larry Wilson: That's not what we want.
• 2:00
  Larry Wilson: We want you to pick a gift.
• 2:02
  Larry Wilson: For those of you who are afraid, I'm just dangling some tantalizing fruit that's impossible to achieve.
• 2:09
  Larry Wilson: I'm going to explain, as I always do, simple mechanical ways to achieve this.
• 2:16
  Larry Wilson: But we want them to be left with that semiotic message conveyed to them.
• 2:22
  Larry Wilson: It doesn't matter whether they understand it consciously or not.
• 2:26
  Larry Wilson: They might, but I know what they will feel is a good feeling about you.
• 2:33
  Larry Wilson: We can't really ask for more than that.
• 2:36
  Larry Wilson: I can't, I we don't have time here tonight for me to enumerate all the times that I've had this personal experience from a gift I've selected.
• 2:48
  Larry Wilson: It's incredible the effect this will have.
• 2:52
  Larry Wilson: Because most people feel from time to time, maybe not all the time, but from time to time they feel invisible.
• 3:02
  Larry Wilson: They feel like no one really sees them.
• 3:04
  Larry Wilson: Now, it doesn't mean they're invisible like Claude Rains in the Invisible Man, although I guess if it was really bad, they might feel that way.
• 3:13
  Larry Wilson: It just means that they don't feel people really care enough to listen to them, to look at them, to pay attention, to see who they really are.
• 3:30
  Larry Wilson: If you do, they will fall in love with you.
• 3:35
  Larry Wilson: And they will never ever forget you.
• 3:41
  Larry Wilson: Ever.
• 3:47
  Larry Wilson: I always have to be careful about revealing stuff that's too personal here because it doesn't seem to be the proper form.
• 3:55
  Larry Wilson: I have a needlepoint pillow in my bedroom.
• 4:00
  Larry Wilson: The bedroom I share with my wife that was made for me when I was 15 years old by a girlfriend I had at that time.
• 4:14
  Larry Wilson: And I didn't even really know that she knew how to do needlepoint.
• 4:19
  Larry Wilson: But somehow she had created a pattern or something that looked exactly like me.
• 4:29
  Larry Wilson: She had needlepointed this pillow so that it it looked like me.
• 4:36
  Larry Wilson: And I remember at the time I was struck by how amazing this was.
• 4:55
  Larry Wilson: My wife thought she was a lovely person.
• 4:57
  Larry Wilson: She really was.
• 4:58
  Larry Wilson: She's just a really nice person.
• 5:00
  Larry Wilson: But as the years go by, I'm more impressed by this pillow.
• 5:06
  Larry Wilson: And at one point I was a little bit embarrassed because you know I was married and everything.
• 5:10
  Larry Wilson: And I thought, and my wife said, Well, what is this?
• 5:12
  Larry Wilson: And I explained, Oh, that was something.
• 5:14
  Larry Wilson: She said, Well, we should, you know, take it to the cleaners, have it dry cleaned, and put it out.
• 5:19
  Larry Wilson: She said, That's incredible.
• 5:20
  Larry Wilson: I said, Well, yeah, it really is.
• 5:22
  Larry Wilson: The more time that goes by, the more incredible I think it is.
• 5:28
  Larry Wilson: Now, she wasn't trying to sell me anything.
• 5:32
  Larry Wilson: She didn't have a business.
• 5:34
  Larry Wilson: But believe me, I didn't understand it consciously.
• 5:38
  Larry Wilson: I couldn't have articulated it the way I am here.
• 5:42
  Larry Wilson: But what was so clear was she really saw me.
• 5:48
  Larry Wilson: She really saw me.
• 5:50
  Larry Wilson: She knew who I was.
• 5:52
  Larry Wilson: We'll never ever forget her.
• 5:54
  Larry Wilson: Never.
• 5:55
  Larry Wilson: Of course not.
• 5:57
  Larry Wilson: So, this is what I want you to think about in this coming crazy holiday season, because of course it always is.
• 6:08
  Larry Wilson: It's uh it's the name of the game.
• 6:11
  Larry Wilson: There's some retailers who make 80% of their profits in the month of December.
• 6:19
  Larry Wilson: The rest of the year they stay open, they stay in business because they do a little sales, but more than anything, I think it's just to keep people aware of them and let them know they're still in business.
• 6:33
  Larry Wilson: I I can think of more than one.
• 6:34
  Larry Wilson: I'm not going to name them.
• 6:36
  Larry Wilson: I'm not trying to bolster anyone's sales or promote any product here.
• 6:41
  Larry Wilson: But this is uh this is their job.
• 6:45
  Larry Wilson: And I'm assuming for those of you in this program, in this group, it's your aim.
• 6:51
  Larry Wilson: You want to promote your goods or services that you provide.
• 6:56
  Larry Wilson: You want people who maybe already use them to know how much you appreciate them.
• 7:02
  Larry Wilson: I wasn't going to give all these examples.
• 7:04
  Larry Wilson: I'll that's what I was saying, since uh since I know many of you are watching this on reprint.
• 7:10
  Larry Wilson: I did a show for a company.
• 7:15
  Larry Wilson: You can see me trying to, you know, pixelate this so that it's not completely clear.
• 7:20
  Larry Wilson: Uh, a show in Salt Lake City for a big company, holiday party.
• 7:26
  Larry Wilson: And everything about it was just really a delight for me.
• 7:30
  Larry Wilson: The audience was fantastic.
• 7:32
  Larry Wilson: There was a lot of funny byplay with the audience at this late date.
• 7:36
  Larry Wilson: I can't remember, I think it was like a year ago, a year or two ago.
• 7:40
  Larry Wilson: Um, but the audience was really funny, and the things that they threw at me to uh interact with were just like comedy gold.
• 7:50
  Larry Wilson: So I had a fantastic experience.
• 7:53
  Larry Wilson: And the guy who was the one who found me and uh hired me to do the show could not have been nicer and could not have made the whole experience easier.
• 8:04
  Larry Wilson: And talking to him, I heard him talking about, oh yeah, well, somehow something came up about because you know, we're near great ski locations and stuff.
• 8:16
  Larry Wilson: I like to ski.
• 8:17
  Larry Wilson: And he he said, Well, I'm not really a big ski.
• 8:19
  Larry Wilson: He said, I like to snowmobile.
• 8:21
  Larry Wilson: And I said, Oh, I've never done that.
• 8:23
  Larry Wilson: He said, Oh, it's so great.
• 8:25
  Larry Wilson: And he sort of waxed rhapsodic about snowmobiling.
• 8:30
  Larry Wilson: And I said, Oh, okay.
• 8:32
  Larry Wilson: And I sort of filed that away in my brain.
• 8:34
  Larry Wilson: Later, his wife was also there.
• 8:37
  Larry Wilson: I said, Tell me, you know, he was talking about snowmobiling.
• 8:40
  Larry Wilson: I wondered, does he uh subscribe to any of the snowmobiling magazine?
• 8:45
  Larry Wilson: And she said, Well, he did.
• 8:47
  Larry Wilson: He really liked it, but he felt it was too expensive, and so he a few years ago he discontinued it.
• 8:52
  Larry Wilson: I thought, oh good.
• 8:54
  Larry Wilson: Well, of course.
• 8:56
  Larry Wilson: When I got home, I purchased a subscription to a Snowmobile magazine in his name with a gift card saying, Thank you so much, make them so great.
• 9:08
  Larry Wilson: And I didn't think it was really that expensive.
• 9:12
  Larry Wilson: Uh I guess everything is relative in this world, you know.
• 9:16
  Larry Wilson: When he got the card, or I guess they sent, I don't know if they actually sent him a physical card or email, he called me immediately and he was over the moon about this.
• 9:25
  Larry Wilson: Now, I'll bet he thought he was over the moon because he loved snowmobiles.
• 9:31
  Larry Wilson: But I don't think that's why he was over the moon.
• 9:34
  Larry Wilson: He was over the moon, his wife knew about him, his wife paid attention to him, but that Larry Wilson, who had no obligation, I was paid to come do a show, I did it, it was a gigantic success, everyone loved it.
• 9:50
  Larry Wilson: End of story, it should be done.
• 9:52
  Larry Wilson: But a couple weeks later, he receives a gift from me.
• 9:56
  Larry Wilson: Now, like I said, I didn't think it was that expensive, but it was not about the expense, not about the cost of it at all.
• 10:03
  Larry Wilson: It's something that showed I was listening to him.
• 10:10
  Larry Wilson: I saw what was important to him, I saw what he had a passion for, and I wanted to somehow do something for him.
• 10:19
  Larry Wilson: So to me, this seems so simple, so obvious.
• 10:23
  Larry Wilson: What does it mean?
• 10:25
  Larry Wilson: First and foremost, we rely on one of the basic principles of Wilson Method, which is active listening.
• 10:36
  Larry Wilson: It's hard.
• 10:37
  Larry Wilson: I understand.
• 10:38
  Larry Wilson: Uh it's hard for me too.
• 10:40
  Larry Wilson: Uh, I just came back from doing a show for um, I was gonna say a Fortune 500 company, Fortune 50 company, and I wanted so much to make it perfect, and it turned out very well, and everyone's very happy.
• 10:58
  Larry Wilson: But it made it hard for me to actively listen to the people who had chosen me and were responsible for bringing me to the event.
• 11:08
  Larry Wilson: And I had to consciously make myself stop and pay attention.
• 11:15
  Larry Wilson: Because that active listening, it's like so many things I teach, it's so deceptively simple.
• 11:24
  Larry Wilson: It seems like, well, yeah, you're just sitting there listening.
• 11:28
  Larry Wilson: Not exactly.
• 11:30
  Larry Wilson: You have to be listening, not waiting for your turn to talk.
• 11:36
  Larry Wilson: You have to be listening like these are important things you've never heard before.
• 11:42
  Larry Wilson: And hopefully, if you're in conversation with someone, your response indicates I really hear you, and I understand what it means, what you're saying.
• 11:58
  Larry Wilson: I'm not just making small talk for those.
• 12:03
  Larry Wilson: That's an old-fashioned expression.
• 12:04
  Larry Wilson: I don't know if anyone uses that anymore.
• 12:06
  Larry Wilson: But of course, small talk, I think, was an expression from the 1950s.
• 12:10
  Larry Wilson: And it basically means talk that you could use with anybody anywhere in any circumstance, it means nothing.
• 12:16
  Larry Wilson: You know, um, it's about the weather, or how about those Dodgers, or you know, that's very different than somebody who's talking maybe about something that's really important to them, or something new to them, or something, maybe it's something they're agitated, but whatever it is.
• 12:35
  Larry Wilson: If your response indicates, oh, I hear you, not by saying, Oh, I hear you, because that's robotic mechanical machine stuff.
• 12:50
  Larry Wilson: That's the kind of stuff I expect from AI.
• 12:54
  Larry Wilson: No, it's that response where the person clearly understands what you're saying, why you're saying it.
• 13:06
  Larry Wilson: They're really listening to you.
• 13:09
  Larry Wilson: They're interested in you, they're invested in you, what you feel, what you think that's what active listening can do.
• 13:21
  Larry Wilson: And of course, the greatest gift you can give for the holidays is one that shows you really see them.
• 13:32
  Larry Wilson: That's all.
• 13:35
  Larry Wilson: Doesn't have to be expensive.
• 13:37
  Larry Wilson: Now, sometimes you might think of something that's grand, you know, it's a grand gesture, and it might be expensive.
• 13:47
  Larry Wilson: Doesn't mean you have to do that.
• 13:50
  Larry Wilson: Sometimes there's a way to scale that down.
• 13:53
  Larry Wilson: You know, I had a friend who's no longer with us, uh, who's a lovely guy, funny.
• 14:00
  Larry Wilson: It was a girl that he was very interested in and was sort of starting to have a relationship with, and you know, then the dreaded holidays come up and he was having a trouble time.
• 14:15
  Larry Wilson: Now, I had nothing to do with this, so uh I can't take any credit, but she was always talking about Paris.
• 14:23
  Larry Wilson: A girl in Los Angeles, you know, showbiz.
• 14:26
  Larry Wilson: She's talking about, you know, how she'd always wanted to go to Paris, and she, you know, had a dream about being in Paris with someone she loved, and blah, blah.
• 14:37
  Larry Wilson: And at one point, this friend of mine said, uh, I can't afford that.
• 14:43
  Larry Wilson: I said, no, of course not.
• 14:45
  Larry Wilson: Are you crazy?
• 14:46
  Larry Wilson: You know, to fly two of you to Paris and stay in a hotel and eat at great restaurants.
• 14:52
  Larry Wilson: And no, of course you can't.
• 14:53
  Larry Wilson: Now it doesn't mean doesn't mean he couldn't now if he were still with us.
• 14:58
  Larry Wilson: But this is when we were young and we had no money.
• 15:03
  Larry Wilson: Well, he bought her a snow globe that was actually a great-looking snow globe that had the Eiffel Tower in it.
• 15:13
  Larry Wilson: And you know, you shake it and it's all glittering snow and tastes.
• 15:18
  Larry Wilson: And he wrapped it up in a special wrap.
• 15:21
  Larry Wilson: And she loved this freaking snow globe.
• 15:26
  Larry Wilson: And he said to her when he gave it her before she opened, he said, I would like to have given you something much more grand, but it it's beyond my ability at the moment.
• 15:41
  Larry Wilson: But I want you to have this to keep in mind what I have planned for the future.
• 15:49
  Larry Wilson: Can't top that.
• 15:50
  Larry Wilson: Can't top it.
• 15:51
  Larry Wilson: Right?
• 15:52
  Larry Wilson: That's that's a winner.
• 15:54
  Larry Wilson: That's a huge, huge winner.
• 15:57
  Larry Wilson: And in fact, that's how this girl kept it with her everywhere everywhere she went.
• 16:04
  Larry Wilson: She had the snow globe.
• 16:05
  Larry Wilson: I mean, everywhere she lived, I don't think she carried it with her.
• 16:08
  Larry Wilson: But uh so what I'd like you to do if you have, I mean, we can separate these.
• 16:15
  Larry Wilson: There's personal gifts and there's business gifts.
• 16:20
  Larry Wilson: In a strange way, uh I think the business gifts may be harder because uh we don't always know about people personally in a business situation, but you have these devices at your fingertips to make this so simple for you.
• 16:41
  Larry Wilson: The first thing I always think of is Facebook.
• 16:45
  Larry Wilson: People have a tendency to be very revelatory on Facebook, they sometimes say things that I would never share on Facebook, but of course, also LinkedIn, because some very professional people uh sometimes will surprise you.
• 17:00
  Larry Wilson: I just saw one just recently, uh I won't say again, this is no one's business who it was, but it was a woman who um well I had looked up some stuff because I wanted to make a presentation to her company, and she revealed a lot of interesting stuff about herself, how she was sort of a maverick, and how she would always do whatever was the most difficult, and she and then she gave some examples that I'm excising here, but she gave some examples of things that were meaningful to her, and I thought, oh, well, I made some notes.
• 17:38
  Larry Wilson: You know, there's no reason you can't have a little file someplace that's gifts for special people.
• 17:48
  Larry Wilson: You don't have to buy them, maybe you can't, but sometimes I make notes.
• 17:55
  Larry Wilson: You know, you might in April be thinking, oh, you know what?
• 18:00
  Larry Wilson: This would be a perfect holiday gift for so-and-so.
• 18:04
  Larry Wilson: So I made that note with this woman in a customer relations management piece of software, because if I wind up doing business with them, I'm not gonna send it to her when I don't know her and don't have any kind of contact or relation.
• 18:20
  Larry Wilson: That seems like a bribe.
• 18:22
  Larry Wilson: Now, I've had enough of that from Hollywood.
• 18:27
  Larry Wilson: I don't need any more of that in my life.
• 18:31
  Larry Wilson: But if I do work with her, a very nice thank you gift, very simple, very inexpensive.
• 18:41
  Larry Wilson: I'll here I'll give you a good one.
• 18:43
  Larry Wilson: There's a man, a really great scientist, who's at a Ivy League school on the East Coast, and was very impressed by Wilson Method.
• 18:56
  Larry Wilson: Spent a lot of time talking with him about it and doing a deep dive with some stuff there, and had me do some things at this Ivy League school from Wilson Method.
• 19:08
  Larry Wilson: And I try to think, oh, we stopped at his apartment to get something he'd forgotten or left order.
• 19:18
  Larry Wilson: Now, this is in the dead of winter on the east coast of the United States, and there were a number of avocados in a bowl.
• 19:29
  Larry Wilson: I said, Oh, it's kind of interesting.
• 19:32
  Larry Wilson: He said, Oh, yeah.
• 19:33
  Larry Wilson: He said, I love those avocados.
• 19:36
  Larry Wilson: He said, you know, it's impossible to get them here.
• 19:40
  Larry Wilson: But I was in Florida a week ago and I brought those back, and I'm parceling them out.
• 19:46
  Larry Wilson: I'm, you know, trying to make them last as long as possible.
• 19:50
  Larry Wilson: And in my brain, I just went, avocados.
• 19:55
  Larry Wilson: So when I returned to California.
• 20:00
  Larry Wilson: When I lived in Los Angeles, I sent a case of avocados out to him.
• 20:05
  Larry Wilson: And you know, everything now seems to cost the moon.
• 20:10
  Larry Wilson: But in those days, it wasn't that expensive, a case of avocados.
• 20:15
  Larry Wilson: California, they're growing all over the place.
• 20:19
  Larry Wilson: I have friends who have avocados growing in their yard.
• 20:23
  Larry Wilson: But you would have thought I had picked the stars from the sky and sent them to the sky.
• 20:32
  Larry Wilson: And it really was the foundation of a long-term friendship that continues to this day with that particular scientist.
• 20:43
  Larry Wilson: And nobody had to explain it.
• 20:45
  Larry Wilson: Nobody, but oh my god, he's loved avocados.
• 20:50
  Larry Wilson: Kind of simple.
• 20:52
  Larry Wilson: So are you listening?
• 20:57
  Larry Wilson: As always, the clock is my enemy here.
• 21:01
  Larry Wilson: I see it sifting away.
• 21:03
  Larry Wilson: I want you to uh divide, uh and this, you know, you can do this in a hard copy or you can do it on the computer, but don't just think about it.
• 21:13
  Larry Wilson: Actually, make a list of people you have to get gifts for who are in business, and maybe family people too, and write their names down, and then don't make yourself crazy.
• 21:26
  Larry Wilson: No one's ever gonna see this.
• 21:28
  Larry Wilson: This is just for you.
• 21:30
  Larry Wilson: But to start with, just jot down the you know, with your family, of course, much easier.
• 21:36
  Larry Wilson: You know, but it's not about, and this I think is an important thing.
• 21:41
  Larry Wilson: Sometimes people say, Oh, I would love, you know, if someone would get me blah, blah, blah.
• 21:47
  Larry Wilson: What they mean is, yeah, they like this, and it's an easy gift for someone to understand.
• 21:53
  Larry Wilson: And they might like it, but I don't think they'll love it as much as something that carries that semiotic message.
• 22:02
  Larry Wilson: So think about, think about something that when they see it, there may be a moment of the shock of recognition of them realizing, oh, oh my god, I didn't think anyone was paying attention when I said blah, blah, blah, whatever.
• 22:19
  Larry Wilson: Whether that's that's what that gift means.
• 22:24
  Larry Wilson: When it shows that, oh yeah, I was paying attention, I was listening, I see you.
• 22:32
  Larry Wilson: That's what that means.
• 22:34
  Larry Wilson: But I'd like you to make that list of family, then make that list of business people.
• 22:41
  Larry Wilson: And with the business people, don't be afraid to go on social media and dig around a little.
• 22:49
  Larry Wilson: And don't, you don't have to stop with the first thing you find.
• 22:54
  Larry Wilson: You may be surprised.
• 22:56
  Larry Wilson: Someone at some point may tell a story about going to the zoo and thinking the greatest animals would be the monkeys or the elephants, or the, and then they were surprised that their favorite, this is maybe a childhood memory.
• 23:14
  Larry Wilson: I'm just making this up.
• 23:16
  Larry Wilson: They might say, but then it turned out the lemurs were the most fantastic.
• 23:22
  Larry Wilson: Well, something as small as a stuffed lemur, or I don't mean a real lemur stuffed.
• 23:31
  Larry Wilson: I meant like a plush toy, um, or maybe a little sculpture of a lemur, maybe a little painting that you see someplace, or a graphic of, you know.
• 23:48
  Larry Wilson: It doesn't have to be expensive.
• 23:50
  Larry Wilson: Without me hitting this too hard, I hope that you're seeing that it's not the actual thing itself that is preeminent here.
• 24:02
  Larry Wilson: It is the semiotic message that it carries.
• 24:07
  Larry Wilson: This is what stays with people forever.
• 24:12
  Larry Wilson: Forever.
• 24:14
  Larry Wilson: And as always, I hope that those of you who have a breakthrough of any kind, who have a eureka moment of any kind, will email me and share it with me.
• 24:30
  Larry Wilson: Once again, I'm so pleased to be able to share this information with you.
• 24:35
  Larry Wilson: The question is, who's paying attention?
• 24:41
  Larry Wilson: I hope it's you.
• 24:42
  Larry Wilson: Thanks.
• 24:44
  Larry Wilson: This has been Larry Wilson.
• 24:46
  Larry Wilson: I want to thank you for spending this time with me, and I hope you found this information useful.
• 24:53
  Larry Wilson: If you're looking for more, you can find it at thewilsonmethod.com.
• 24:58
  Larry Wilson: There's a ton of stuff there.
• 25:00
  Larry Wilson: In fact, if you want, you can even speak to me because I'm human.
• 25:06
  Larry Wilson: Send me an email at info at wilsonmethod.com because I read every single one.
• 25:16
  Larry Wilson: I hope that you'll join us next week in this continuing journey.
• 25:21
  Larry Wilson: And you'll be with me for the next episode of How to Talk to Humans.