At Thanksgiving, I used my nephew’s bathroom and encountered soap with a tobacco scent and gritty texture. That seemed odd to me, so I asked him about it. He got excited explaining it was exfoliating hand soap. The grittiness wasn’t a flaw; it was the whole point. He chose it specifically for the exfoliation.
My first thought: when did men start thinking about exfoliating their hands? I grew up using Lava soap after working on the car – the pumice cut through grease, but nobody thought about what it was doing to your skin. Exfoliation wasn’t even in our vocabulary. It was just what happened when you got your hands clean.
My second thought, if I’m being honest: this seems like something women think about, not men.
And that’s when I caught myself. That’s my problem, not his. He lives in a world where men think about skin care. I don’t. Neither perspective is wrong – they’re just different starting points shaped by different experiences and different cultural moments.
Later that day, before we got ready for the drive home, this old man needed some caffeine. My nephew helped me understand the espresso machine we both own. I’ve been making lattes for years without mastering the milk frothing technique. He walked me through it in language I could actually understand.
“Start by adding air – it’ll sound like paper ripping. Just a few bubbles. Then use the steam wand to create a vortex in the milk as it absorbs those bubbles. When the jug is hot to the touch, turn off the steam before removing the wand. Swirl the jug to eliminate remaining bubbles, maybe tap it on the counter. When it looks like wet paint, you’re ready to pour.”
Wet paint. He knows I’ve done painting projects over the years – houses, rooms, furniture. Not artistic paintings, but enough to know exactly what “wet paint” looks and moves like. That one reference translated something I’d been fumbling with into a target I could visualize.
I still haven’t mastered latte art. Not even close. Maybe someday I’ll invest the time and burn through a few gallons of milk and espresso to get there. But for now, I’m happy knowing what I’m trying to accomplish. I understand the target. And I’m getting closer.
Same nephew. Same gathering. One moment I’m judging his hand soap choices. The next moment he’s translating latte art technique into my language using a reference point from my own experience. I caught myself doing both things at once – the initial judgment and staying curious anyway.
This matters in my work.
When someone sits across from me explaining what they want from their financial life, I can’t help them if I’m filtering everything through my own framework. One person wants to understand every detail of how their portfolio works. Another just wants to know how much they can spend each month. One is comfortable with market swings if the long-term plan makes sense. Another loses sleep when their account balance drops, regardless of the reasons.
My initial reaction to what they care about might not always match how I’d approach things. That’s inevitable. What matters is catching that reaction, staying curious about their perspective, and finding a way to connect the dots … in their mind.
My nephew didn’t make me a latte art expert in five minutes. He gave me a framework – “wet paint” – that connected to something I already knew. Now I understand what I’m working toward, even if I’m not there yet.
Listening is an essential skill in our line of work. We need to hear our clients stay curious to uncover their back-story if we hope to understand their concerns before we can hope to find the right metaphor, the right translation, the right reference point that makes sense in their minds of our complex concepts.
I still don’t care about exfoliating my hands. But I know what wet paint looks like when I’m trying to froth milk. And I’m paying attention to that moment when my first reaction is “that doesn’t make sense to me” – because that’s usually the signal that someone’s about to teach me something if I’m willing to listen.
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Research and development of this article included the use of artificial intelligence tools.