Listen for what people bring up more than once. That’s usually what matters most to them.

Repetition is how people tell you what matters without saying so. Something brought up three times in a month, as a joke, as a complaint, as a passing mention, is whatever is sitting closest to the surface, and most people do not know they are circling it. What gets said once may be nothing; what keeps coming back is the subject.

Pay attention this week to what one person returns to. Then ask about it directly, by name, as though it were the obvious thing to ask. Being asked about the thing you kept almost raising is one of the better feelings there is.