We all know people, in both our personal and professional lives, whom others just gravitate towards. People whom others want to be around. People whom others want to invite into their world and projects. People we ourselves want to be around.

As a leader, manager, mentor and champion for others, wouldn’t it be an amazing advantage to your mission if you were such a person? If you had such a magnetic draw for others?

What defining characteristics could you model, to magnetise yourself in this way? Chief among them is your LISTENING.

Listening is the most powerful part of ANY relationship.

It’s what we value most in other people. It’s what pushes all the important social buttons in the human brain. It’s what allows another person to unfold and expand. It’s what elevates the relationship to something quite special – and quite distinctive from all our other relationships, where the overwhelming take-away is rarely if ever: “I’ve been heard”.

Listening is far more powerful than talking. And that’s neither what we instinctively think, nor what we instinctively do: reflected in our talk-heavy behaviours.

The great American writer Brenda Ueland once wrote:

“Listening is a magnetic and strange thing. A creative force. You can see that when you think of how the friends who really listen to us are the ones we move toward and we want to sit in their radius as though it did us good, like sunshine.”

In your very next conversation with someone important to you and your world, MAGNETISE YOURSELF! Allow all their words to be drawn deep into you. Silently become enchanted by their message. And remind yourself that there’s far more power in the listening, than there can ever be in the talking.

Do this with one particular person and see what it does for your relationship. Do this with all those around you and see what it does for your reputation and impact.

Thanks for reading!

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