Editor’s note: Brooks is a favorite of mine, conservative but open and reasonable. His books and articles have been featured here before. I’m currently reading “Second Mountain” and will let you know if that’s as good as I expect it to be. In this article, Brooks seems to be telling me one-on-one about my listening flaws. I hope you enjoy it.
Favorite excerpt: Don’t fear the pause. Most of us stop listening to a comment about halfway through so we can be ready with a response. In Japan, Murphy writes, businesspeople are more likely to hear the whole comment and then pause, sometimes eight seconds, before responding, which is twice as long a silence as American businesspeople conventionally tolerate.
By David Brooks
Opinion Columnist
Editor’s note: My dear friend and exemplar, Rich Clark, sent me this after reading last month’s blog about zero-sum people.
About forty times a year, at the end of Vistage (CEO peer group) sessions, I say, “don’t get caught in the dressing room rewriting the script of your life. This is not a dress rehearsal, the curtain is up and this, my friends, is THE show.”
Book of the Month by Mihir Desai
Editor’s note: Thanks to my son, Timmy, for this my favorite read of the year so far. I imagine that loving it depends on your perspective. My children and I consider ourselves wisdom-seeking writers who generally hold finance in disdain. And I know quite a few finance wizards who are not inclined to the arts. Desai, a long-time business and law professor at Harvard makes wonderful connections between the two disciplines – from as far back as Archimedes to as current as The Simpsons. I mean, who knew that the first examples of 529 college plans were romance savings accounts (for dowries) in 15th century Florence!
