Category 7: Questions Breadcrumb
These breadcrumbs are not as simple as they seem. See how to discover what really matters.
Category seven breadcrumbs, questions. I want to give you a statistic. Do you know over 80% of the time when somebody asks another person a question, they don't want to know their answer? They simply want to divert the conversations. When somebody asks you a question, I want you to think of it like a boomerang. What do boomerangs do? They go out and they're supposed to come back. When somebody asks us a question as an empathy-based listener, we want to think, "Wait, I want to catch that boomerang and I want to discover, I want to bring it back to them." What do I mean by that? Let me give you an example. I tell my story of tracking down Saddam Hussain. At the very beginning, I give this little bitty piece where I start off as an infantryman in the 82nd Airborne Division. I became an interrogator and later went on to find Saddam.
That piece of being an infantry, 82nd, is pretty irrelevant. Every time I give a speech, I open it up to Q&;A. I love Q&;A. Inevitably, one of the first questions, somebody says, "Eric, you were in the 82nd Airborne Division?" If it was a really bad listener, I'd go, "Yeah, because there's not an 83rd." No, no, no. But if I really wasn't seeking to understand, I would simply talk about how great the 82nd was and what a fantastic unit. They asked that question because they wanted me to hand it back to them. Why? I don't know, but typically it's because they had a grandfather who served in World War II in the 82nd. They have a niece who's currently deployed with the 82nd and they want to talk about their loved one. Their somebody they're so proud of. When somebody asks me that question, I go, "Yeah, I was in the 82nd. It's a great unit. I'm curious, how are you familiar with the 82nd?" They love it because then they get the opportunity to talk about what they wanted to talk to. They threw me the boomerang and what we want to do, we're going to walk it right back to them on their stage.
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