Don’t Check Your Phone When You’re in Front of Another Human

Listening is, in so many ways, the social equity of the world-class cultures that evolve into world-class organizations. Listening makes people feel special (and talent leaves organizations mainly because they didn’t feel special). Listening shows respect. Listening allows you to gather the data that will improve everything you do. I guess what I’m suggesting to you is that brilliant performers are brilliant listeners.

Today, just for a day, make the decision to listen masterfully. Don’t interrupt. Don’t rehearse your answer while the other person is speaking. And don’t dare check your email or search for text messages while another human being is sharing their words. Just listen. Just hear. Just be there for that person.

Everyone has a voice. And we all crave to be heard. Just watch the great things that unfold when you do.

If these insights speak to you and you’re willing to do a little work on the ideas, tools, and habits I’ll happily teach you inside my new world-class digital training program, then I’d love to help you here.

FOLLOW ROBIN SHARMA:

Instagram
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube

Transcript

No phone conversations. Well, as I travel across the planet, I go into restaurants, I see entire families sitting around a table. No one is talking. Everyone is on their phones or on their tablets. I was in a European country recently, and I saw a husband and wife sitting at a table with probably a five-year-old child. The five-year-old child had these noise-cancelling, huge, massive earphones that were bigger than his own head, and I'm joking, but huge earphones to block out the noise. And a tablet had been set up in front of him, and he was playing with video games, and he didn't say a word to his parents. And over the two-hour meal, while I was at the restaurant with my loved ones, having deep conversations of laughter and sharing and, you know, I'm not judging, I'm just reporting, the parents didn't say a word to their child. I see so many times in business meetings, someone in the middle of a meeting, they will pull out their phone and start checking their social media feed or start checking emails. And what I suggest, this is just my opinion, but that's disrespectful. The greatest gift you can give your child or your spouse or your client or your coworker is the gift of the fullness of your attention. and your energy and your attention on another human being, you make that person bigger. You validate that person. One of the greatest gifts you can give another human being is the gift of pristine listening. And if you're checking
your phone, well then again, you're taking your attention and you're leaving attention residue on your phone, which means you have less attention for the conversation. And if you have less attention... for the conversation, then you're not really listening to that person. And if you're not really listening to that person, the deep place within them knows it, and they're gonna trust you less. And you're gonna miss data that would allow you to serve your client or build the teammate
or dominate your domain. So no phone conversations professionally and personally. Just turn off your phone, turn off your device before the meeting, and go all old school and have a real conversation. The best leaders are curious. You don't get that if you're worried about your incoming digital messages. The second excellent habit that will allow you to beat digital distraction, construct your own Menlo Park. So, you know, I'm a big fan of Thomas Edison. He's one of the greatest, if not, you know, arguably the greatest inventor in the history of humanity. I mean, over a thousand patents to his name came up with amazing, amazing things. How did he do it? Isolation. You can be out in the world, you can be a history maker and a productive legend, you don't get to do both. One thing all great geniuses do is they spend a lot of time in solitude. Solitude has a bad reputation in our society right now. We think if we're not with the cool crowd, if we're not checking our devices, if we're not posting selfies or other images, we are losing out. We have all these fears and here's what really happens. As you start to get hooked on likes, as you start to spend most of your best hours of your greatest days posting, checking, playing with apps, getting hooked, you actually become addicted. We all know about technological addiction. And it's literally a dopamine. Dopamine is the inspirational neurotransmitter. And every single time you check for a like, there's a shot of dopamine. And it becomes this addictive. Every single time
you check for a life, the hook grows stronger. Every single time you pick up your phone, you build the neural pathway to check it even more often. Every single time you see that if someone's liking you and is your following growing, you tap into that reward system that every human brain has. Because when we were tribal, thousands of years ago on the savanna, We wanted to be liked by the people in our tribe. We wanted to follow the herd. And if we weren't being followed by the
herd, we would stray from the herd and get eaten by saber-toothed tigers. We would starve, or we would be captured by warring tribes. And now here it is in modern society, but we still have that neurobiological instinct, it's a part of who we are, to check for likes so we fit into the crowd. Well... The true nature of a leader is you're not a follower. And so you absolutely have to do the inner work required to break that hook of being liked. I mean, that's what leadership is all about. That's what being a great artist is all about. That's what dominating your domain is all about. That's what changing the world is all about. It's about saying, here's who I am. I have my own mission, my own vision, and I'm going to break free from the crowd. So an addiction to distraction is the... death of your creative production. Your phone is costing you your fortune. If you look at the great geniuses of the world, the Shakespeare's and the Basquiat's and the Beethoven's, the great chefs and the great titans of industry and the great humanitarians, all great thinkers have one thing in common. They spent long periods of time away from diversions,
distractions, trivial interruptions.