Here’s a brief excerpt from an article by Naomi Simpson for LinkedIn. To read the complete article and check out others, please click here.

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I remember my parents trying to impart wisdom upon my younger self – and my busy little brain was saying something like: “Yeah, yeah, sure, whatever.” And now when I do the same with my teenagers, I think I can hear inside their heads muttering the same thing.

So at the risk that no one is really listening, here are [the first two of] the five things I’d say to my younger self about life, starting a business, and more.

o Learn to listen deeply. As a young person, I was always finishing people’s sentences, or rushing to make a comment. I was so busy practicing in my head what I was going to say – I was not listening. Learning to really listen is an art that takes practice. (The Lost Art of Listening is a great book.)

o Be truly present. If you are with people, then really be with people. In the olden days, there were no mobile phones, but I still managed to try to do at least two things at once whilst on the old dial-up phone. (The person always can tell… and it gives a horrible message about how important they feel to you.) Now it is even worse with mobile phones and portable devices, as I’ve previously posted.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Naomi Simson is Founder of RedBalloon.