Culitvate genuine interest in the other

I wanted to post this to remind myself...
(borrowed from a thread on Omidyar.net)

"I had the privilege of having a brilliant mentor for several years who happened to be world-reknown in our field. She had more people approach her to hire her consulting advice than she could ever handle. In addition to being reknown as an expert in her field, she was widely regarded as a marketing genius because she had so much business. Here is the secret she shared with me upon which all of her fabulous success was based: whenever she met someone, anyone, she was always genuinely and deeply interested in the other person. She said she had thought a lot about what contributed to her success because so many people sought her advice and she said her success was, in fact, that simple: genuine interest in the other. She said that if you listen long enough, with genuine interest, the other person becomes inescapably interested in you because they genuine believe you care about them. They want to invite you to work with them because you care."