What a waste of time.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as we waited for the stage lights to turn on.
Why do we have to be here?
My mood was about as enthusiastic as a man about to walk the plan. I was inwardly groaning, convinced I was about to trade two precious days of my life for nothing. My wife’s cousin had invited us to this same event a few months ago, and we had felt obligated to accept. While it hadn’t been one of those over-hyped events full of forced positivity, it hadn’t impressed me either.
Here we were, six months later about to see the same speakers, my mind already counting down the minutes until I could escape. As a successful executive and consulting firm owner, I’d been all over the world and heard the most sought-after speakers. My contact list was a who’s who of important people and my resume would impress just about anybody. So why did I have to sit through this again?
As one speaker named Sophia took to the stage, the audience, smaller this time, welcomed her with a polite round of applause and I settled in for what I hoped would be a quick and painless event.
I was prepared to be bored. I was prepared to be unimpressed. Instead, I was totally humbled.
I had walked in thinking I knew everything. I walked out wondering if I knew anything at all…
My Wake-Up Call
I was born in a small city in China in the 70’s. No one was terribly rich or terribly poor and most worked for a state-owned enterprise. My father, on the other hand, wanted something different and became one of the first solo entrepreneurs in our region. Against all odds, he left a comfortable corporate position and built a successful business in the construction industry. He had no schooling or architect experience but set his mind to connecting with people who did and learning everything he could.
When it was time for me to choose a profession, I decided to become an engineer.
I was an avid gamer, put together my first PC myself in 1997 and it was through gaming that I learned to read and speak English. That skill allowed me to secure a high-profile job in the IT industry as a specialist for IBM and a liaison between Shenzhen and English-speaking partners around the globe. Eventually, I came to the United States and received a job offer in a leadership position even though I was only in my early 20’s.
I found myself at a young age being involved in high-profile, multi-million-dollar projects with executives who had 30 years more experience than I did. As the project succeeded and my reputation grew, so did my ego.
So, in 2001, when my wife and I sat in the audience for a second time to hear the speaker, I was not there to learn from the session, but to endure it and if I’m honest, critique it.
Instead, I was blown away. Her tone, body language, and confidence were totally transformed. The message of the session was delivered in powerful stories that captivated my attention. I found myself asking questions, chatting with other audience members and eager to make new connections.
That’s when it hit me.
In six months, this person had learned something that caused a drastic change in her public speaking abilities. She knew something I didn’t…and it bothered me!
I was humbled, but more than that, I was awake. I didn’t know everything after all.
I realized in that moment that for true leaders, school is always in session. The most successful people are willing to put down their egos and LEARN.
The zero’s in my bank account and my frequent flier miles meant nothing if I had stopped growing as a person.
I became a student again, an explorer of human behavior and potential, and in doing so, the next step of my journey was revealed to me.
To Expand Your Mind, You Have To Lose It First…
I didn’t sleep much that night. My mind was buzzing with a new awareness, and I spent hours sifting through my experiences and connecting dots. For years, I had been laser focused on climbing the corporate ladder, stayed in 5-star hotels and rubbed elbows with the most well-known people in the tech industry. Here I was, in my early 30’s already at the top of my career. What now?
What do you do when you’ve already hit every goal you set for yourself?
You learn.
I decided it was time for a new journey. I became an earnest student of philosophy and psychology, poured over the work and research of people like Chris Voss and Carl Rogers and finally understood how learning and listening were the most vital skillsets in communication. Not only that, but they were skills anyone could learn.
I had heard the stereotypes. Heck, I had BEEN the stereotype. There was a pervasive assumption that IT nerds were terrible communicators, best left to do their work behind the computer. These days, it’s not just techies that struggle to communicate effectively, it’s most of us.
Technology has connected the entire world digitally while at the same time leaving us woefully disconnected from each other. We rant, comment, get offended, and are quick to post our opinions but what we don’t do enough of is listen and learn.
I decided to be a force for good in helping people learn and started an organization called APEX LEARN. Our mission is to inspire a passion for adult learning, empowering people to grow as individuals and seek opportunities to expand their minds as a bridge to expanding their experience of life!
It’s a win/win for me as research shows that the best way to learn is to teach. By teaching people how to learn and listen, I become a better listener myself. My world has evolved since my commitment to banishing my ego to the back and looking away from what I already knew. We can become so attached to the knowledge we’ve already acquired that we fail to notice the potential for learning more. Our minds contract to fit around our current knowledge base until we commit to our own expansion.
That’s the secret not just to success in business, but to fulfilling relationships and dynamic lives of curiosity and wonder. Forget everything you know long enough to make space for what you don’t.
And when people say you are out of your mind take it as a compliment. It takes years if not a lifetime to master it!
The Lost Art of Listening
There is a backwards hierarchy for success that encourages us to focus on tools and techniques first, and then methodology and principles.
Methodology and principles should come first. It feels counterintuitive in a competitive world, but companies are now hiring talent based on soft skills, and not enough applicants have them! In fact, a LinkedIn report from 2023 highlighted that 92% of hiring managers consider soft skills as important or more important than hard skills.
The reason most people haven’t mastered soft skills is because we call them “soft,” and “soft” carries an undeserved connotation of “less valuable.”
Empathy, listening, emotional intelligence and communication are not soft skills, they are CORE skills, and without them the interpersonal relationships that are vital to success will suffer and eventually die out.
Still not convinced?
Richard Branson dropped out of school at 16 but his creativity and people skills helped him build a global empire.
Steve Jobs dropped out of college and had very little technical training but his ability to inspire people, along with visionary leadership skills revolutionized the world!
CORE skills are a lost art and reclaiming them is the secret to strategic success. Here are what I call the “core four.”
Curiosity
Samuel Johnson wrote that “Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.”
Even Einstein said he didn’t have any special talents but was passionately curious.
Curiosity is one of the cornerstones of success. The more curious you are about other people, their values, their desires and their experience of the world, the more likely you are to be able to provide value, find common ground and expand your own understanding of any situation.
For every negotiation, business or personal, there are an endless number of perspectives, and curiosity is the roadmap that helps you navigate the terrain of biases, subtle nuances and even fear so that you can zero in on a solution.
There is a pervasive belief that we demonstrate intelligence by expounding on subjects we are well versed in when actually we demonstrate intelligence by asking questions.
Our level of intellect is undoubtedly tied to our willingness to admit we know nothing and to seek further understanding.
Optimism
Contrary to popular belief, we are not born as either positive or negative people and even life circumstances cannot dictate our disposition. Optimism is a skill set that can be learned.
If you’re put in an environment with four or five other people who are optimistic, you can get curious about why they are, and what possible outcomes they see that you don’t. You can also shift your belief around uncertainty. A lot of people we work with at Apex Learn find uncertainty to be a very uncomfortable place and a lack of clarity often leads to a negative outlook.
But, as Rainer Marie Rilke wrote, we must try to “love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.” Optimism comes from viewing uncertainty as a gift of discovery.
After all, when nothing is certain, anything is possible!
Reflection
We are living in a world of emojis and abbreviations. Spend ten minutes on social media, and you might feel like you are trying to decipher a new language. We have become a society of shortcuts and have moved away from the power of the written word. Writing, however, is one of the best mediums for reflection. Writing forces us to slow our thinking and examine our emotions. In reading what we’ve written, we can identify patterns, connect dots and gather insights into some of our most complicated problems.
The practice of writing was valued by some of the greatest thinkers of our time. The Roman philosopher Seneca used writing to refine his Stoic principles, and Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor, kept a journal that became the "Meditations," a profound collection of personal reflections that continues to inspire readers to this day.
Writing creates a stream of consciousness in which judgment and filters are removed, allowing for the purest thoughts to come through—our ideas, desires and our truth!
Empathy
There is perhaps no greater CORE skill than that of empathy. Whether it’s in a diverse workplace or the comfort of your living room, empathy allows you to understand the feelings of others, a quality that is essential for establishing trust and forging strong connections. When another person feels your genuine interest and concern, they’re more likely to be honest and generous in their communication. That of course opens the door for you to learn more and give back.
By appreciating and understanding different perspectives, we can respond thoughtfully and make decisions that consider the well-being of everyone involved. Empathy is the bridge that connects you to other people. Their can be no leadership, no teamwork, no successful relationship without it.
But how do you do it?
Typically, when a new member joins us, they’re at a crossroads. It’s time for a career change, or they have a growing desire to live with purpose and intention. The hard part isn’t knowing that they want something, but figuring out what that something is!
Luckily, we have a proven system to help them.
To truly understand what drives someone, we first help them clarify their top five values. Often, we mistakenly believe our values are of equal importance. We experience tension when decisions force us to prioritize one value over another. Not everything is equally important, and in any given pair of values, one will always take precedence. Identifying your top value with crystal clarity is essential.
Next, we invite our members to consider what keeps them up at night—what are the obstacles and sources of misery that you face? These challenges are often directly tied to your values, as they challenge or threaten them. By pinpointing the one or two things that truly disturb your peace, you become more motivated to create change.
Then, it’s about leveraging your strengths. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and it’s crucial to connect your strengths to the problems you want to solve. Core values are what make your strengths effective here. If you rely too heavily on hard skills without aligning them with your core values, success will feel empty.
Finally, reflecting on what worked and what didn’t is vital. When we analyze outcomes, we often find ourselves more sensitive to emotions than reasonable in our judgments, especially when working with someone we care about. It’s easy to let feelings take over and sideline logical thinking. That’s why it’s important to take a step back, reflect carefully, and make adjustments as needed. This way, you can really understand what happened and move forward in a more effective way.
Change is a Choice
If a techie like me—a high-flying guru engineer who once thought he knew everything—can transform into an empathetic, curious, and eager learner, then anyone can. I changed my entire life by embracing the art of active listening, empathy, and a relentless commitment to growth. The key is to keep expanding your mind, infusing your work with passion and love, and in doing so, discover your true self.
As you collaborate with others, not only will you create soul-stirring masterpieces that align with your purpose, but you’ll contribute to building a better society. My personal and professional journeys have taken me all over the world. Yet, it was my journey from knowledge to wisdom that opened a new world for me.
Imagine that life is a game. Every moment we can choose to be a character in that game whose movements and decisions are at the mercy of a controller, or we can become the controller, building worlds and wielding power. The best-case scenario, however, is when the character and the controller collide into a single being.
It’s only in taking the game controller and becoming the driver of our own destiny that we can hear the calling that is uniquely meant for us. We can jump levels and enter new worlds. We can look for sources of power and respawn again and again as wiser versions of ourselves.
In that moment of courageous synchronicity, you are both the artist and the player. You are the writer and the book.
And you can both create the game… and win it!
Comments