No matter who you are or what you do in life, both professionally and in your social life we are all different. Some are good listeners, some are good teachers, and some good communicators.
Look around and you will see a miriad of self help and development material, those which may benefit our personal lives and those for our professional and working lives. And each and everyone of us takes from these materials and media different values and understanding and begin to apply them accordingly. However, have you ever noticed that some people just 'like a duck to water' seem to take on board this new learning and some struggle and take time to adapt.
No two people are the same, yes indentical twins are indentical, physically maybe, but there will be subtle differences whether on the inside or out. And each will learn about the world around them differently also, this is true of everyone.
This brings me to the purpose of this blog, and the lesson i learned from reading a book 'The Magic of Metaphor'. The book contains many stories and indeed examples of how valuable lessons can be learned by the power of story, One of which grabbed my thoughts and attention immediately.
The teacher of a large class could not understadn why one of her pupils was constantly achieving low marks when the rest were not. Deciding one day to ask what could be done to improve this pupils marks the teacher was surprised to hear that the pupil couldnt relax and focus like everyone else bacause the classroom was too quiet and everyone had to sit still. The teacher replied that this was normal for a classrooom and acceptable conduct. The pupil then explained that when he was at home doing home work for other topics (ones which he got good class grades) he would have music playing and would dance and move to the music whilst reading. The teacher suggested that he could do this in the classroom silently in his head without distrubing everybody else. This the pupil did and without disturbance and his grade improved dramatically. The teacher suddenly realised that to be a great teacher one must understand how the learner learns.
A great story and a great lesson and one we can all use in our everyday working and personal lives.
Wnat to be a grea salesperson, understand how the buyer buys, a great communicator, understand how people communicate,the list is endless. But more valuable a lesson is that everyone is different, and therefore what works with one wont neccessarily work with another. In sales you should never assume that all buyers buy the same way, they dont, processes may be the same, but the decision criteria isnt, the same can be said for marketing.
THe book 'Magic of Metaphor' was written by Nick Owen and available through online bookstores and directly from his site www.nickowen.net
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