October 15, 2024
It’s a trick I learned as a reporter — and it works anywhere.
Welcome to One Thing Better. Each week, the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine (that’s me) shares one way to be happier and more effective at work — and build a career or company you love.
Today’s one thing: Talking.
That one thing, better: Getting past the small talk.
When you talk with someone, you should have four goals:
- Earn their trust.
- Show that you’re listening.
- Show that you understand them.
- Remember what they said.
Now here’s the fun part: You can advance all that with one simple strategy.
It’s a formula that I learned as a reporter, and now use throughout my life. It deepens personal conversations and advances professional ones.
The formula is this: Their thoughts + 1.
Today, I’ll explain what this means and why it works.
First, let’s talk about their thoughts.
Consider what happens at a restaurant: A server takes your order, then repeats it back to you.
Why? Two reasons:
- They’re confirming the order.
- They’re performing for your benefit — because when they get the order right, you’ll trust them more.
Now apply this logic to regular conversations: When someone hears their ideas or thoughts repeated back to them, they feel heard and appreciated.
So when someone tells you something complex or interesting, you can reply with a version of…
- “That’s so interesting. Let me repeat it back to you, to make sure I understand…”
- “Wow, so what you’re saying is…”
- “Let me make sure I get that. So in other words…”
Then restate their ideas or insights back to them.
I know this sounds simple. But it is magical. People feel heard and validated. Even better, this also helps us engage with the things they said — thereby making their ideas clearer and easier to remember.
Here’s an example: People often book consulting time with me. I might have 30 minutes to understand someone’s business and share helpful insights.
They’ll begin by telling me a lot of info. I’ll then say: “Let me repeat that back to you, to make sure I got it.” Then I do, but in my own words, using my own reference points. They love this — because once they see that I understand their business, they’re more likely to trust whatever I say next.
But this is just the start. When you repeat people’s thoughts, you build trust — but when you add your own insights on top of that, you build connection.
That’s why it’s time for the second part of the formula…
Now we add the +1:
What do I mean by plus-one?
I mean this: You repeat their thoughts, and then add a fresh insight. Maybe it’s a surprising observation or a delightful comparison. Maybe it’s just a question they’d never heard before. Take a little risk. Be a little bold.
Typically, I like doing this in one of two ways:
Approach 1: “In other words, what you really did is…”
In this approach, I restate what someone did or accomplished — even if they might not have seen it that way.
For example, a few months ago, I had lunch with the CEO of a famous brand. She told me her backstory — starting at the company when it was small, taking over from a male founder, and facing immense employee distrust. Over time, she transformed the brand and hired hundreds of new people who saw her as the leader.
“So in other words,” I said to her, “what you really did is take over a small company where nobody trusted you as the leader. And instead of trying to fit in there, you just created a completely different, much larger company, where everyone did trust you as the leader.”
Her eyes widened. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “I’ve never thought about it like that, but yes! That’s exactly what I did.” And from there, her guard was down and we became friends.
Approach #2: “That reminds me of…”
A few weeks ago, I interviewed my friend Jon Taffer. He’s the host of a TV show called Bar Rescue, where he tries to save failing bars and restaurants — often by screaming at the owners until they make drastic change.
Taffer told me the surprising history of all that screaming. In real life, Taffer isn’t a screamer at all. Then he started filming the show — and because each episode is filmed in only four days, he has limited time to fix a failing bar. The owners are often hesitant to change, and he tried everything he could to motivate them. Screaming worked — even though, Taffer admitted, “it was horrifying and scary” to do it.
When I heard this, I told him about something I recently learned from John Mackey, the cofounder and longtime CEO of Whole Foods. Mackey attributed his success to this habit: Throughout his career, he’d always ask, “What does the company most need me to do now?” — and then he’d do whatever it was, even if it was uncomfortable.
“You did the same thing,” I told Taffer. “You asked yourself, ‘What does this situation need from me?’ And the answer is what you became.” (In this case, he became a screaming TV show host!)
Jon was floored. “In 13 years of interviews,” he told me, “that might be the most insightful statement that’s ever been said to me. Nobody’s ever said anything like that.”
In both of these cases: I did nothing special — either with Taffer, or the CEO of that famous company. I just repeated their own stories back to them, but added a little something extra. For the CEO, it was a narrative flourish. For Taffer, it was an interesting comparison.
But in both cases, I helped them see their story in a new way — and they were grateful for it. That’s the power of their thoughts +1.
And that’s how to do one thing better.
Now repeat it back to me. 😀
