It happened to a friend who’s a teller in a bank on Houston’s upper North Side.

A woman wearing a modest outfit approached his window, her smile radiating gold teeth, and presented a withdrawal slip only slightly worn than her face. She wanted to withdraw twenty dollars.

Our friend counted out four fives, but the woman pushed the bills back.

“Is not my money,” she said. “My money is ten dollar size.”

Experienced at meeting all kinds, our friend grasped the situation immediately. He replaced the four fives with two tens, and the woman went happily on her way. To her, a bank is a place where they put your money in a drawer. When you want it, they give it back. Since she had always deposited tens, those fives belonged to somebody else…

… and the point of our story is this. You never really know what’s going on inside people’s heads until you take the time to understand them.

A favorite saying that helps frame this concept is:

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Recently I finished reading a book called Skill With People which helps you understand people and what influences them.

Here are some key insights from the book:

Human Insight #1
How We Learn (and Buy)
83% Through SIGHT
11% Through HEARING
3.5% Through SMELL
1.5% Through TOUCH
1% Through TASTE

Human Insight #2
How We Retain Information
10% of what we READ
20% of what we HEAR
30% of what we SEE
50% of what we SEE and HEAR
70% of what we SAY as we TALK
90% of what we SAY as we DO something with what we learn

Human Insight #3
It’s better to SHOW and TELL than to just talk.