“You look like hell and I don’t think it’s because you’re dying; you’ve been dying as long as I’ve known you,” I said to Max (real name withheld) the terminally ill tough movie mogul I’d been doing house calls on and with whom I had developed a no b.s. rapport.

“I don’t think I’ve ever done anything important in my life,” he told me.

“What?” I protested, trying to ease his mind as he closed in on the end of his life.  “Think of the hospital wing named after you, the jobs you created, the amazing films that will live on forever.”

“Don’t con a con man, especially when he’s dying,” he snapped back.  “I have all the love that money can buy and that’s all it’s worth.   I also have several ex-partners and two ex-wives I beat up on financially and a bunch of trust fund kids from three marriages, who I guess I love, but who are all selfish and irresponsible.”

“So if I continued the list of all your achievements, it wouldn’t work,” I asked.

“No, not now.  I think I just might have outsmarted myself,” Max concluded.

Now having trained FBI and police hostage negotiators and appeared on CNN and national radio stations on the day of the Columbine shootings and again on 9/11 to take calls, I am pretty quick on my feet.

“Really,” I said. “You know there are a couple of very uncomplimentary words in psychology that I’ve been thinking that might apply to you, but I didn’t think I’d get to use them given that you’re dying.  Those words are narcissist and psychopath.  And you know, you might just be getting exactly what you deserve.  You did use people for most of your life and took pleasure in doing it. You were a master manipulator.  In fact you made Citizen Kane look like a boy scout. And another thing,” I stopped when he abruptly interrupted me.

“Stop already! Okay! I get it.  You’ve made your point,” he said emphatically.

“And that point is?” I asked.

“This is not a good time for me to be asking these questions,” he said with a broad smile that indicated our rapport was still in tact despite my verbal assault.

“CORRECT! You weren’t perfect, but neither were you the most evil person on earth.  You messed up, but you did a lot of good.  Drop it already. Let’s go for pain control, morphine drip and then get out of Dodge,” I urged.

“Do I get to go out with my boots on?” Max quipped.

“Sure, it’s your movie,” I couldn’t resist having the last word.

Three weeks later Max died…with his slippers on.

Why is it that so many high achievers stink at relationships? High achievers are good at clearly selecting a goal and tenaciously staying on track until they achieve it and scattering anything that might derail them.  Other people’s feelings or being mindful of their own lack of tack (which taken together we refer to as Emotional Intelligence) would distract them.  Most high achievers are not insensitive, they are simply NOT sensitive.

To be good at a relationship, you need to listen to the other person, care enough to make the effort to understand what they are saying (i.e. “relate” to it) and then communicate back to them in a way that demonstrates you have taken into consideration what you have understood.  Not only is that off putting to a high achiever, but the “run on sentence” I just used to explain it was more than they could even pay attention to.

The more questions you ask someone before you offer a solution, the more you care about understanding their problem;

How do you distinguish yourself in a transactionally myopic (find the deal, do the deal, next deal) world where the more you treat people as a deal to be made, the more they will view you as a commodity to be squeezed on price?

Do this by listening to what the other person wants.  Next move the conversation into what they want to accomplish that is important to them this year (which may or may not be related to their first answer).  Finally ask them how they came to pick that as important and what it would mean to them to achieve that.

Then find a way to help them make that happen. Even if you lose their business, you may be able to refer them to someone who can help them, who will in turn think of you when one of their clients need what you do.

If you really want to get through to people, you’ll discover that it is less important what you tell them. Rather it is what you enable them to tell you that reveals what is most important to them and that you proceed to help them with.

If you agree with this, my about to published book, “Just Listen” Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absoulutely Anyone, will show you how to make that happen.

I hope you’ll check it out. You can even pre-order it at a hefty discount. And if you like it, it would mean a lot to me for you to get the word out about it to your friends, family, colleagues at work and mailing lists.

Finally if you enjoy my Usable Insights, I hope you will join me for my free August 26 9-10 AM PST, 12-1 PM EST webcast for the American Management Association on: “The Simple Way to Get Through to Difficult People.”