At the core of communication, leadership, selling or any relationship where you want to achieve a fair exchange of value, lies four vital life skills. As simple as they sound, they take a lifetime to master.
With an overabundance of experts recommending this approach one day and that approach the next, I’ve found these four life skills still hold true as valuable tools in my daily work and personal life. While there are many things written and said about effective sales people, effective leaders, successful entrepreneurs, great teams I’ve found that every successful person I know practices these four vital life skills too.
So in the spirit of ‘less is more’ here are my four valuable life skills which continue to serve me and others very well:
- The ability to ask good questions (being fully aware that questions deliver answers and help build bridges to knowledge, understanding, empathy and rapport).
- The ability to actively listen (as opposed to evaluative listening or marginal listening).
- The ability to receive and give honest feedback (using evidence and substance; fact based references that seek to inform and support growth rather than personal attacks that only serve to belittle and destroy).
- The ability to reflect on ones actions and learn from them (self awareness combined with other awareness leading to the flourishing of a growth mindset).
Practice these four life skills and you will see new patterns emerge when it comes to your relationships with others.
Remember everybody lives by selling something.
