Todd Davis
speaker
423 appearances
6 recordings
3 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard May 2025
Todd Davis’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
But staying in that circle of influence actually shrinks, excuse me, staying within that circle of concern actually shrinks our circle of influence. Effective people, they recognize these things that we're concerned about, but then they go into the inner circle and say, what can I do about this? Where can I start to make an impact or live differently?
And then the third thing we talk about, the third practice, just in Habit 1, is using proactive language. And the science shows that it's not just talk positively and things will happen. It actually programs our brain. The positive language
proactive language opens up the creative portions of our brain and the synapses in our brain to come up with more solutions versus reactive language shuts down that creativity. There's an activity we do to get to your question. There's an activity. One of the activities we do there is people
write a sentence, I may not be able to, and then they fill in the blank, but I can, and then they fill in that blank. So for example, I may have been in my role for a long time at my organization, and I love the organization, but I'm tired of my role. In that activity, they would put, I may not be able to change my role,
But I can look at other opportunities within the company to, you know, change up what I'm doing every day. So it's training people how to actually use proactive language. I don't know if that's responsive, but that's... You've got seven habits.
Absolutely, and I could, yeah, and I know we only have an hour, and so I won't take all that time, but two things came to mind just now when you asked that, Vince. The first, this happened many years ago. We got a letter at Franklin Covey from a man who was in prison. He was incarcerated in prison. I don't know what crime he'd committed, but he had been in prison for about 20 years.
And he wrote our company a letter, and he said, I want you to know the seven habits of highly affected people has changed my life. It was in their prison library and he picked it out, didn't know anything about it. And he said, as I started reading this, I looked back over my life and I could see areas where I could have made a different choice.
And he said, even here in the prison, and I don't know whether he has the lifetime sentence or not, but he said, even here in the prison, I am learning how to be much more proactive, how to think win, how about for us to think win, have an abundance mindset, Habit five, seek first to understand, then to be understood.
And he talked about his communication with the warden and with other prisoners and how this book had changed his life, even in this very challenging and sad situation. And again, he was there because of some choices he had made, but that was really powerful.
More specifically, so many of the situations I found myself in helping leaders work a problem out between the two of them or helping an employee work with a leader better. We would reflect on all of the habits, but what I want to call out specifically is habit five that I just mentioned. First to understand, then to be understood. This habit is based on the principle of respect and empathy.
And so the point here is that as human beings, whether I live in the US, whether I live in Hong Kong, wherever, we have a tendency to listen to others with the intent to reply. We're listening to someone and we may not be talking over them. We may be eye contact and nodding. But in our minds, we're already formulating what we want to say next. And it doesn't come from a bad place. We're helpers.
We're fixers. We want to solve the problem. And so we hear just enough of what the other person is saying that we think, oh, I know how to solve this. Or I know what I've dealt with this before. I know what their problem is. And instead of continuing to listen to them, our mind is already working on the solution.
And again, those aren't bad, but people who are truly effective, those leaders who are truly effective, I love the word suspend. I'm assuming it translates the same, but suspend is to not give up on, but to put aside for a minute, my thoughts, my feelings, my response, and truly hear the other person. as much as I can put myself in their place.
And I found a lot of people, they hesitate to do that because they think, gosh, if Vince is talking and I'm totally listening, they're going to think I'm agreeing with them. And people don't. If you just listen, you're not agreeing or disagreeing. You're just listening with the intent to truly understand. not to reply.
That is one of the most effective tools any human being, certainly leaders, but can do. I'll bet you have people in your life, Vince, that are like that. They don't judge. They're not advising or probing. They're just listening to understand. And yes, they may say something like, so when you say that frustrates you, tell me a little bit more about that. They're totally in your space.
It is one of the most effective habits we can develop.
you said it perfectly. And I think you used a word a few minutes ago when you said, be curious, ask questions. In the course, in the book, and in my coaching, we talk about moving from I bet to I wonder. I bet Joe comes in late to work every day because he's probably as unorganized at home as he is here in the office. Two, I wonder why Joe seems so stressed out and hurried when he comes in.
I wonder what's going on. I should maybe take some time and get to understand him better. So it's what you said, Vince, it's this natural curiosity, or maybe it's not so natural. Maybe it's this, but this mindful curiosity to have this active listening versus autobiographical listening.
where we're listening through our own frame of reference, where we're filtering everything through my past experiences or the way that I see that. And we think it's helpful, and it is helpful at a certain time, but not when we need to understand each other. Dr. Covey said, the deepest need of the human heart is to feel understood. And I have seen that prove itself out over and over again.
And you think about it, whether it's two friends or whether it's two colleagues or two leaders or a leader and employee, when they truly take the time to understand each other, not agree or disagree, but really understand each other, they can solve problems that much quicker. You asked for a specific example that I'm remembering now.
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