Mental Muscles

Anybody whose ever done any kind of physical exercise (I really hope that's everyone) knows that you can't do it forever.  Eventually your muscles start to wear down and you are physically unable to go any further.  At this point, you're probably in a little bit of pain, feeling that burn.  But if we know that exercising will bring us pain, why do we keep doing it?

Because we know what the outcome will be.  Sure we'll feel sore the next day, but after our muscles build back up we will be able to do more than we did before.  We have to break our muscles down to build them back up bigger.

This same idea goes for charisma.  Your charm is not just an endless flow of awesomeness continually emanating from your body (wouldn't that be cool though?).  It's something you can consciously turn on and off because you only have a limited amount of supply.  I've been reading a lot that you only have a set amount of willpower to use throughout the day.  If you are on a diet and constantly smell that box of donuts your co-worker brought in, it's going to take a lot of energy to not eat one of those donuts.  It will physically and mentally drain you.  BUT, continual exposure to and resistance of the donuts will build up this supply of willpower.  Sure, in the beginning you will be exhausted, but each time it will get easier and easier.  

I've been noticing the same thing when I'm trying to be charismatic.  I'll get really tired after only a couple hours.  I'll sometimes go home thinking "Man this stuff is exhausting, is it even worth it?"

The answer has to be yes.  I'm just not used to being so outgoing for extended periods of time.  I have to break down my mental walls to build up my endurance.  

That being said, i probably am overdoing it a little bit.  This improv stuff is going STRAIGHT to my head.  I find myself improvising during almost every conversation.  The other day I told my mom that I was getting a tattoo of a dragon on my left ass cheek.  She didn't freak, but she certainly was not pleased.

I'm going to try to tone it down a bit, but not too much.  I want to get used to being mentally fatigued, so much so that it doesn't affect my charisma anymore.  I need to get to the point where I'm not thinking about all the things that go into a charismatic personality and it just becomes second nature.  I need to let the subconscious take over, and to do that I have to teach it through my conscious mind.

I just ordered this book "Mind Over Mood" which pretty much teaches you exactly that - how to continually repeat things to yourself using your conscious mind so that you can train your subconscious mind to think in more beneficial ways.  Mad excited to start that, I'll let you know how it is!

In the arms of the angels...

So one thing I've been really excited to learn about is visualization and the ability to control your current mental state.  I cannot stress enough how invaluable a skill this is.  This was the main transformation I saw in myself after finishing the book "The Power of Now".  I was able to recognize when I would begin to have negative feelings, and I taught myself to objectively watch myself have these feelings.  Without bias, I simply observed the emotion without reacting to it, described what it felt like physically and mentally.  Immediately, the negative emotion was gone.  It was as if the emotion was a spiteful child who only wanted attention.  Refuse this attention, and the emotion melts away.

The stress in my life has SIGNIFICANTLY lessened, but this is not really "Controlling" mental states.  This is more defusing negative states.  I want to learn to fill myself with an emotion of my choosing at the drop of a hat.  Visualization is the key to this skill.

Over the course of my reading I have come across multiple methods that I will discuss in other posts, but I wanted to share one simple method that anyone can put to use today.

Remember when you were preparing for a certain event where you would be the center of attention?  It's quite daunting when you are not used to it.  As expected, someone close to you tries to calm you down and suggest "Imagine everyone else in their underwear!"  This is kind of like that.

What I've learned to do is imagine everyone with angel wings on their back.  Big, glorious, glowing angel wings, spread wide for the world to see.  Sound silly? Let me explain.

When talking with others, one characteristic that is vital to your charisma is warmth.  You gotta be nice dammit!!  You can have all the confidence in the world, but if you don't genuinely care about the well being of others, it will be apparent in your everyday interactions.  Now tell me, if you bump into a guy with angel wings walking on the street are you going to yell out "Hey dickhead, get outta my way!"?

No, you're not.  You're probably going to be concerned that they are hurt, concerned that you inconvenienced them on their journey to whatever destination they have.  The guys got freaking angel wings... I mean, come on.

Imagining everyone as angels just gives you that warm feeling inside.  It opens you up to seeing the inherent good in others, giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are genuinely nice people.  You will go into any interaction with an advantage because your warmth levels will be off the charts.  You will also find that you're less nervous.  Honestly, what bad is an angel gonna do you?  Except for Ben Affleck in "Dogma".  He was a bad angel, don't imagine him.

See these angels all around you, and then see yourself as one of them, part of a team all trying to make the world a better place.  Yea it sounds lame as hell, but who cares??  Your body language will be so relaxed and your demeanor will show a caring for other people.  I've been doing this for a week now and it only get's better the more I try it.

Give it a shot!  No one's going to know, what do you have to loose?  Commit to it, give it 100% and I'm telling you it will work.  You'll feel light like your floating on a cloud... or something, it's cool!

If you try it and it works, that's awesome!  Comment and share your story so others can learn and see that this silly, lame, korny shit actually works!

4 Fiber Bars in One Day is 4 Too Many Fiber Bars

I try to stay healthy.  Everything I read is telling me to eat more fiber - "It's good for your heart" "It helps your stomach" "It lowers the calories you intake".  Okay, you win society... I'll play your little game and eat some fiber.  What could go wrong?

I'm actually pretty familiar with the harsh effects of fiber, and if you are not, be sure to google it before you go all fiber crazy.  Back in my wrestling days, I would do whatever I could to shed a couple more ounces without actually having to workout.  The more fiber I took in, the more it pushed EVERYTHING else out (know what I'm saying?)... It makes you shit... like a lot

So in this midst of my new found obsession for health food, I decided to get back on the wagon and once again begin a high fiber diet.  Turns out that when you combine a protein shake, a glass of wheat grass juice, 3 cups of cottage cheese and 4 spoon fulls of chunky peanut butter with 200% of your daily value of fiber, it turns to stone... or explodes.. Scientifically, I cannot describe what was happening in my stomach, but it felt like world war 3 (stay with me here, the charisma stuff is coming).

It started on the train into the city.  I felt the McGurggles starting, but it wasn't too bad.  Walking over to the bar where I was to meet a friend was where shit got real.  I'm no literary mastermind so I won't try to impress you with some crazy metaphor here, but it hurt... a lot

I was meeting a friend I haven't seen in a while.  We weren't that close, but just felt like catching up a little bit.  I thought this was a perfect opportunity to put on my charismatic face and have a great conversation.  That is not what happened.

I tried to keep a straight face man, I really tried.  In the end, my effort was futile.  I was shifting my weight from side to side like an uncomfortable 4th grader asking a girl out for the first time.  As much as I tried to ignore this immense pain, it was the only thing I could focus on.  I wasn't able to listen to what my friend was saying, I wasn't able to stay present.  Furthermore, I could tell that she was starting to notice something was wrong.  My pain was starting to show through my body language and looking at her face, I noticed she felt uncomfortable because she knew I felt uncomfortable (follow me so far?).  

Our brains are so hardwired around our own lives, we take any signal of someone else being uncomfortable to be because of ourselves.  I can't say say for certain, but I can imagine the thoughts in her head going something like this:

"What the fuck is he doing?  Why does he look like he is about to shit himself?  Man, he looks so uncomfortable right now.  Is it because of me? Am I making him feel uncomfortable? What did I do to make him feel uncomfortable?  Great, now I feel uncomfortable... Thanks a lot Chris"

In the end I couldn't take it anymore.  I had to leave, but I couldn't just say goodbye and bolt.  That'd be weird.  I had no choice.  The only way to relieve this tension was to fess up and be honest.

"I really have to go.  I ate 4 fiber bars today and I now realize that was a huge mistake.  My stomach is killing me"

Her face of "This is awkward" melted away to reveal a more "Haha holy shit man that sucks" kind of face.  Immediately there was no more tension.  I put everything out on the table and made it clear that it was not her who was making me uncomfortable.  

I ended up actually leaving, the pain was too much to bear, but there are three things to take away from this experience:

1) Though your mental state is the main driver of your charisma, physical discomfort can be a HUGE liability.  Like I said in a previous post, what you're truly feeling inside will always come through in your body language, no matter how hard you try to hide it.  The other person will instinctively take this to mean that they are the cause of your discomfort.

2) Take every precaution you can to avoid any type of physical discomfort when you know you are going to have to be charismatic.  Where sunglasses to avoid the glare of the sun, take a shower to feel nice and fresh, and please please do not eat 4 fiber bars in one day.

3) If done all you can to prevent physical discomfort, but it comes anyway, just admit it.  Be open and explain it, that way the person you're talking to will know they are not the cause 

Win the Inner Battle to Fight the Outer War

It's funny how you can read so many different books, each with their own point of view and medium of expression, but then notice that they all have the same exact overarching theme.   Not all the books I've been reading have been on the subject of charisma, but apparently, all the authors had a conference and decided to write about the same exact thing and spin it different ways.

To change the world around you, you must first look inside the world within you.  And since the world within you lives and feeds on thoughts, you must first change the way you think.  

These 2 sentences pretty much sum up the last few books I've read.

The Power of Now - Live in the moment.  Don't burden your mind with thoughts of the future or see your present through the lens of the past.  Be completely present. 

Start - The voices in your head will always be negative.  They are comfortable with the definition of "Identity" that you have right now and will say anything to convince you not to change it.  If these voices are left unchecked, they will destroy you.

The Master Key System - The world without is simply a reflection of the world within.  People try to deal with external problems with external solutions.  They try to fix effects with effects.  The cause of everything in the external world is the environment of the internal world, and here lies the root of all problems.  

       -Mah man Rocky gave me this book, and two chapters in I can already tell it is going to change my life

The Charisma Myth - Most of the power of charisma comes through in your body language.  Since it is near impossible to consciously control every minute detail of your body language, we must control our mental states to portray confident body language.  No matter how hard you try, your body language will always show your true mental state.

Now I haven't read to much of The Charisma Myth, but I can already tell I'm going to like it.  I said in another post that I wanted to learn how to control my mental states and that just so happens to be the first chapter!  

There's a passage from this book that I'd like to share with you.  It sums up the HUGE importance of being able to control your mental state as it pertains to body language:

"No matter how brief that negative expression, the person facing you is going to spot it.  And all they know is that while you were looking at them and listening to them, a negative expression crossed your face.  Naturally they'll assume that expression was a reaction to them - what they said or did, or what you thought about them."

Isn't that so true???  Haven't you ever been talking to someone and could just sense that they were uncomfortable?  The person was probably subtly portraying  negative body language, and us being completely insane humans immediately assumed it was because of us.  It could have been that they forgot to feed the cat or turn the oven off (Yes, these are both things I often think of and sometimes do).  

This idea of having a positive mental state is not only to make ourselves feel comfortable, but to also make those around us feel comfortable.  When we have conversations, we want our face to say "Hey, I am enjoying this conversation and having a great time talking with you".  

I still have to read more details on exactly how to do this, but I wanted to share with you the idea behind it.  This is the "Why" of the equation.  Next is the "How"

You just got Dale Carnegie'd SON!

The day started out really great.  I had my whole work schedule planned out, there was no wandering aimlessly looking for things to do - it was a day to get shit done and I was pumped.

It was about 2:00PM when I received the email.  One of my project managers asked me if I had filled out an internal survey regarding some details about our client.  Nothing too urgent or important, she just wanted to check in on the status.  I told her that I filled it out and sent it along, thinking that I would be praised for getting this done without anyone having to remind me.  That was wrong.

Though this was an internal deliverable - not going out to the client - but it still had it's importance.  This project manager was none to pleased to find out that I sent something out regarding her client without having anyone check it.  

Stage one stress levels - commence

I responded and sent her a link so she could check it over.  As I sat with my fingers crossed, all I could think was "Please don't be filled out wrong, please don't be filled out wrong".  The first words of her email back to me were "This is filled out wrong".

Stage two stress levels - activated

We went back and forth a couple emails explaining what was wrong and how this should have been handled.  My responses were very short, not in a defensive manner, I just knew that I was in the wrong and did not want to dig my hole any deeper; I decided it best to try and lay low.  Turns out this was a bad idea as the next move was to bring a director into the conversation to see how to handle this.

Complete freak out - you bet!

I then received two emails, one from each, explaining the importance of this survey and how proper peer review protocols are to be handled.  My heart racing, and brow sweating, I had to make a move.  I couldn't just lay down and die.  These people smelled blood, and they were gonna get it!

I sat back and gave myself a quick ZEBRA (if you don't know what that is, check out my video post from last week: ZEBRAS!!!).  I had to stop my mind from thinking and bring my adrenaline levels way down.  Once calm, I remembered that this is the exact reason I am trying to master the art of conversation - to know how to deal with every human to human interaction.  In my fit of stress, I had totally forgotten everything I learned and reverted back to everything that was wrong.  Coming to my senses, I sat down, composed my thoughts, walked over, and said the following

"I totally understand and agree.  These surveys are important and we want to make sure the correct people are checking them so that we can produce the most accurate results.  It’s no excuse for not checking in with either of you, but in my defense I was instructed to update the file as I did. 

I’m sorry for this inconvenience, I realize that this could have easily been avoided by simply emailing one of you.  In the future, I will make sure that everything I send out, whether it’s internally or to the client - especially to the client - gets checked by a second pair of eyes.

What steps can I now take to mitigate this mistake?"

I looked back to everything that Carnegie had taught me, and put it into this response.  I started off by agreeing with them, getting them saying "Yes" right off the bat.  I then expressed that I understood their point of view.  I did throw in a little defense, but I made it completely non-threatening and explained that it was "no excuse".  I made it entirely about the other person.  I didn't say how filling out the survey affected me, why I filled it out wrong, what I thought about the survey.  Everything I said was catered to them. 

But the main point was that I was completely and utterly sincere.  I cannot stress this enough, you cannot fake this.  I saw this situation from their perspective and realized how frustrating it must be to have someone go over your head and send in wrong information with your name on it.  I was genuinely sorry, and it showed.

Her response:

"That was a fantastic response. Very appreciated."

It was over, just like that.  No more novels, explaining how I was wrong, or what I should have done.  I showed that I understood the entirety of the situation from their perspective and there was nothing else to be said.

Back to the grind

DAM it's been a while.  I really suck at this whole consistency thing, but I'm back and motivated to write!

I feel like I kind of got side tracked for a couple posts.  Don't get me wrong, the stuff I wrote about was important and has certainly helped me, but it strayed from the topic of conversation.

This last week has been great for me.  I had some time off to enjoy the greatest weekend of the year - the D1 NCAA National Wrestling Tournament.  From noon on Thursday to midnight on Saturday it was non stop wrestling - Bedlam if you will.  Over the weekend I had some great times with friends I haven't seen in a long time.  Catching up is such a joy now.  I try not to focus on getting my point across and making sure what I have to say.  I simply sit back and enjoy watching others enjoy our conversation.

So anywayysssss.  This week I did what I always do when I get bored at work - scour amazon.com and buy shit.  Only this time I didn't buy useless shit that I will never use - OK the 250 incense variety pack might have been a little excessive, but who cares???

I learned there is a great amount of literature on the subject of conversations, but more specifically charisma.  This word has certainly sparked my interest.  While conversation is really just the act, charisma is more of the lifestyle.

You develop charisma, you have charisma, you are charisma.

OK so I'm still not entirely sure on what it means to have charisma, but I quickly realized that it brings more useful Google searches than "Art of Conversation".

I want to get back on track here and talk more about the science of conversation, but also bring in the science of charisma. After reading a couple things I have developed a list of books I want to read and people I would like to research.

Bill Clinton - Apparently, this dude was the man.  He knew how to command a room, really control an audience.  Not really sure why he had to screw it up by getting head from some fat intern, but I don't care about his politic.  I'm interested in his personality.  What drew people to him, and further more, what did he do to keep their interest.

The Clinton Factor - So I don't know if this guy was so obsessed with Clinton that he broke down his every action into easy to follow steps, but that's what this book is.  It's pretty much a how-to book on bill Clinton's personality and public speaking abilities - down to the last body language movement.  Very excited to start reading this.

Marilyn Monroe - This chick was the cat's meow.  Everyone wanted a piece of her, hell people still have posters of her in their college dorms.  The cool part was that she could turn it on and off.  It was a conciousable (not sure if that's a word) skill that she had.  I see here name pop up every now and then in books and articles I've read so I'm interested to learn more about her,.

The Charisma Myth - Like the Clinton Factor, this breaks down the science and art of charisma, but on a more general level.  Not sure about the details, but it came highly recommended from my trusted sources on amazon lol.

And of course, I'm still reading "How to Win Friends and Influence Others".  Dam that book is good, but they tell you to read each chapter twice, taking notes the second time - it takes sooooo long.  But I'm almost done, and I'll start posting about those chapters soon as well.

So let's get back into it.  I took a little break, but get ready for some posts! (that is, if I don't get lazy and just stop)

Oh, and happy birthday dad!!

ZEBRAS!!!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Andy Kaufman!

Just thought I'd post the Mighty Mouse video for those who haven't seen it.  Sit back, open your mind a little, and enjoy!

Here He Comes to Save the Dayyyy

Have you ever thought about doing something, only to have that little voice in the back of your head talk you out of it?  Don't lie, this shit happens to everyone.

"What are you doing? That's completely crazy"

"Your not good enough, who are you to do this?"

"It's too late to start something new"

Sounds familiar?  This is our minds putting up a warning signal.  It wants to stick with what it knows; we have identified with thing we call "Myself" for so long and our minds despise any change.  When we stray from the definition of "Myself" that we have and take on something more challenging and important, we are changing a little bit of that definition; we are changing what we see as our identity.

This sends our minds into panic mode.  We continually feed our egos with what we think our identity is or what it should be, and we grow comfortable with this definition.  Anything that changes this is a personal attack serving to take away who we are, and we become frightened.  We see these voices as our protectors and thank them for saving us before we make mistakes, but really we should be scolding them for holding us back.  Identity and Myself don't have to have concrete, set in stone meanings to each of us.  To get to success, we MUST destroy these voices.

The best way to do this is simply by making them visible.  Bring conscious, unbiased observation upon these voices.  Listen to exactly what they are saying.  Write them down in a notebook (I find this extremely effective).  This way, we can really analyze how ridiculous they are.  Look at the most successful people and they all did exactly what our voices are telling us not to do.  Don't even bother asking them their opinions or for permission anymore, you already know their response.

Since the voices come out when we sense a change in our identity they tend to speak the loudest when we're about to do something important.  Something significant, something different, that most people would not even think to do themselves.  Rather than listening to them and backing away slowly, we should get excited.  Now that we know they signify some change, we should embrace that and trust that it means we are growing.  From now on, we should know that when we hear these voices, we should really do the opposite of what they are suggesting (Obviously within reason - that voice in the back of your head saying "Don't light your school on fire" is probably a good one to listen to).

Yesterday, those voices were SCREAMING in my head.  It's a rather silly situation, but an important one I feel none the less.

Every couple weeks we hold this "Toastmasters" meeting at work - a public speaking workshop where we hone our skills talking in front of an audience.  I was assigned the role of jokemaster and thought to take it in a slightly new direction.  Though I was excited, those good ole' voices came along to temper my expectations a little.  "Who are you to try something so different?" "You're not funny enough, no one will laugh".  This was all I heard all morning, and I bought in.  I was freaking out, thinking that what I was about to do was so unprofessional, my boss would scold me afterwards; I even played out a scenario in my head where I got fired.  Ridiculous, I know, but this is the craziness we all know to be true.  Once I wrote down what these voices were saying, it wasn't hard to see they were wrong.

Have you ever seen the old Andy Kaufman skit where he nervously mouths the lyrics to the "Mighty Mouse" them song?  If you haven't, stop right now and look it up on YouTube.  It's hysterical.  Well that's what I did as joke master; a reenactment of this skit, if you will.  Now, this is no ordinary skit.  It's predicated on a LOT of awkwardness and a weird kind of funny that most people probably don't understand.  That's where the voices kicked in and spoke up with authority, but in the end my mind was made up and I went through with it.

It was a hit!  Everyone laughed, even the people who had no idea what I was doing; I even got a couple "Nice Job"s from the senior managers.  But that wasn't what made me feel good afterwards.  I had heard the voices in my head, even accepted them as truth for a bit, but recognized this as an opportunity to overcome them and went through with it.  I was proud of myself.  I feel like this is a muscle that needs to be flexed, and the more you flex it, the easier it gets and the more voices you can dismiss.

Whatever the reason for the nerves, I now see the value in being able to control them.  Though the anxiousness served the purpose of the awkward character in the skit, it would be incredibly beneficial if I was able to control my state of mind.

Different situations call for different states, but I want to have a set plan to calm myself down when I get anxious, or to rouse myself up when I'm too lax.  Some things I plan to look into:

1) Mediation - I've been meaning to do this for a while now.  I hear just 15 minutes a day could work wonders to quiet our minds and put us at ease; such a small time commitment is surely worth that.
2) NLP and Subconscious processing - Honestly, I'm still not really sure what this is, but it sounds extremely interesting and can probably help out in many areas of life.
3) EXPERIENCE - Get out there and talk to strangers, do outrageous things, push the limits.  Even cause a little bit of trouble - as long as you don't go completely destroying everything

Is it worth it?

I can think of a lot of times I look back on things I've done and asked myself this question, reflecting on some sort of outcome.  Rarely do I take the proactive approach and ask myself this kind of question before or during I take on another project in my life.  Here, I think the question turns from "Is worth it?" to "What is the purpose?"  I'm not talking about weighing the pros and cons of doing something new, this comes after you have already established that it's something you want to do.  I'm talking about having a clearly defined objective or goal; a reason for changing from the way you do things today.

I met this guy at the gym who invited me to join a group of his that does one of them "Insanity" workouts every Friday (Man, that workout is no joke!).  After this intense workout, the guy came up to me and said "Now if only i can look like you."  Instinctively, I told him this took years to do and that it wasn't worth it.  I didn't really think about it too much before I responded, but I considered it while in the shower (I don't know about you, but I do some GREAT thinking in shower, or any other time when I don't have a pen and paper handy).  I didn't immediately recognize the magnitude of what I said, but in the shower I realized having a great body really wasn't worth it.  This was just a by product of my wrestling career.  I won't go into too much detail (I'll leave that for another post), but I had some tough times throughout my wrestling career.  The workouts, the drama, the weight loss; it was all physically and mentally draining.  The amount of work I put into my wrestling career is not equal to just being in shape.  It's the disclipline it taught me along the way, the mental endurance, the intense highs and deep depressions that I went through.  It made me a better person, and that is why it was worth it.  The great body is simply an added bonus, but alone is certainly not worth the cost you pay.  The only reason I was able to stick it out so long was because these were the things I focused on.  Getting in shape and having a great body were pretty low on my list of reasons for wrestling - they would have to be; any sane person would certainly not go through this hell just to look good.  I focused on becoming a better person, seeing myself in 5, 10, 50 years down the road with some new obstacle and reminding myself "I went to Hell and back while I was wrestling.  If I got through that alive I can certianly get through this too."  It raised my standard for hard work, and I knew that I can handle anything life threw at me.  I went into 7th grade a boy terrified of the spotlight, and came out of college a man ready for the real world.

I don't mean to stray too far from the main point of this blog, but we have to look at ourselves and ask why we are working towards the things we think we want.  There's some part of me that wants to be good at talking to people so I can have a lot of friends and everyone will like me and think I'm cool, but this shouldn't be the main objective.  Everybody can think I'm great, but at the end of the day I may very well be completely miserable.  The main reason I want to master the art of conversation is simply to learn.  Learn about other people, learn their point of view, learn the different thinks that make other people happy in hopes that I can apply them to my life as well.  This is the real purpose of my mission and I didn't realize this before that reflection session in the shower.  Now that my purpose is clear I can continually go back to that and see if what I'm doing is really serving to advance towards this goal.  I can now stay on track and limit my distractions.

How to Win Friends and Influence Others

I cannot express how AMAZING this book is.  Almost everything I write about in this blog comes from Dale Carnegie's incredible book.

In the first chapter of the book, he stresses how beneficial it is to read through a chapter once, let it settle in, them re-read the chapter a second time and take notes.  I have done this so far and want to share with you what I thought the main takeaways are from each chapter.  While I encourage you to go out and read the book in its entirety, I want to provide you with a resource that you can read through quickly and try to gain some more knowledge in this area.

Honestly, I've only been at this for a little while now, but the results I have seen from the applications of the theories in this book are STAGGERING.  Literally, I almost just fell over thinking about it.

For real though, if you don't feel like buying the book and reading the whole thing, please read through my notes and you too can see the drastic changes in your everyday conversations and relationships.

I posted all of my notes in a new Page labeled it "How to Win Friends and Influence Others"

You can click the link at the top right of the home page, or just click the link below:
http://convoguru.blogspot.com/p/how-to-make-friends-and-influence-others.html

The classic elevator scene

How many of us have experienced this before?  You're in the elevator with a few other people.  One is scrolling through their phone, another staring at the doors waiting for them to open, the next frantically pressing the "Door Close" button after each floor, desperately trying to lessen the time spent on this agonizing elevator ride.  Hell, I've been the "Door Close" guy many many times, but who can blame us?  It's 8 in the morning and everyone knows they have the entire work day ahead of them, so no one's particularly happy. The last thing these people want to do is talk right?

WRONG!

Well, maybe not always wrong.  There are people who legitimately dislike other people and despise any kind of human interaction.  But who cares! That is certainly not what this blog is about.

I've noticed that just one observant, funny, or clever comment can alleviate all the tension that these elevator rides have to offer?  The "Door Close" guy and his two other nervous buddies may seem completely anti social, but be the one to break the silence and they'll be all smiles.  It doesn't have to be the greatest thing anyone has ever said ever.  Just a simple "Man, it's cold out there" to break that silence will put everyone at ease.  They start looking each other in the eye instead of at the wall; all of a sudden, everyone is not in so much of a rush to get out.  Everyone will smile and when each person gets off the at their floor they will always say "Have a nice day" or some sort of farewell greeting.

Everybody (well, mostly everybody) inherently wants - nay, NEEDS to interact with other people.  It's in our DNA, and when we are forced to cram into a confined space such as an elevator, this need is heightened.  We crave the interactions and it's right there at our fingertips, but for some reason we are terrified.  Self doubt kicks in and we put this immense pressure on ourselves to have the first thing we say be the funniest or most profound thing anyone has ever said.  We then become even more antsy and frustrated that we want something so bad, but refuse to satisfy ourselves, turning into this vicious cycle.  The truth is it doesn't matter what you say, as long as you say it with confidence and with a smile.  People will be so relieved and their need for human interaction will be satisfied.  Try this next time you take the elevator and notice how people suddenly relax once the ice has been broken.

People are more than willing to accept a connection with other people, no matter how small, but they refuse to be the one to initiate that connection.  Like I said before, the first words are the most terrifying, but the least important.

Children are the key to any conversation

Man, people love their kids.  There must be something about creating another human life, I don't have kids so I still don't fully understand, but MAN!  People love their kids.

I'm actually really excited about finally realizing this.  I first read about this in Carnigie's book "How to Make Friends and Influence People."  I forget the details, which I will have to look up later, but the idea was that people love their children more than anything and are always eager to talk about them.

I had 2 conversations yesterday that exemplified this greatly.  One was with a guy I met at the gym, another with a co-worker in the office, but both conversations began on the topic of working out.  I then brought up how I love going to the gym in the morning, and asked them how they first adjusted to the new routine of waking up early.  They both explained that this was a direct result of having kids.  Newborns are constantly waking up throughout the night, toddlers don't sleep much and are ever curious when they are left alone, teenagers must be prepped for school... Having kids = waking up early.  It's just more convenient.

Each of them explained this rather unexciting change in lifestyle with ginormous smiles on their faces.  I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly thrilled with the idea of getting less sleep, but these 2 individuals were ecstatic.  The difference?  They have children and I do not.  There is an understanding of this unconditional love that is unknown to the childless.  The act of creating another living human creates a bond that cannot be replicated in any other way.  It's like the children are an extension of the parents; and since we know everyone loves nothing more than to talk about themselves, they also love to talk about their children.

These two conversations were almost exactly the same, starting out as a normal everyday conversation about the gym, but evolving into an intensely deep discussion about children and the affect they can have on your life.

So what's the big take away here?

Make the other persons children the topic of conversation, and you will most assuredly never run out of things to talk about.

I Love Sundays

I used to love Sundays because of my obsession with the Jets, but lately that has just let to misery and depression.  It's actually a relief the the football season is over, but Sundays have taken a whole new meaning ever since I started taking improv comedy classes.  From 6:30 to 9:30 I am in a consistent fit of hysterical laughter.  It's a place where I can get up in front of 15 other people and completely let go of all inhibition.  It feels nice to be so vulnerable in such a spot light, it's a time where I have to free my mind of all useless thoughts.  It's unbelievable how much these classes correlate with my study of the art of conversation.

Last night, our instructor Rick explained that the beginning of a scene may seem like the hardest part, but it is the simplicity of it that makes it work.  This is called "Building a Base Reality" where you really have to make everything up.  The problem is that we try to over complicate things and try to make everything we say hilarious.  This is simply not going to work.  We can't truly open our minds when we are constantly thinking of little one liners trying to make sure every word we say gets a laugh.  This leads to hesitation, and confusion which will drag out the beginning of the scene for way to long.  Rick explained that you want to establish the picture of the scene, the relationships between the characters and the current situation as soon as possible; and the simpler the better!  This part does not need to be funny, it just has to make sense.  It is from this concrete base that we build the funny parts of the scene latter on.

This is the same idea when talking with strangers.  Most people think that the hardest part of making new friends is finding the perfect words to approach someone you do not know.  Trust me, I am no stranger to this feeling of anxiety.  It is completely normal and expected to have this feeling, but it's not really logical.  We put so much pressure on ourselves to make the first words that come out of our mouth pure gold, while in the grand scheme of things they are rather meaningless.  In fact, the simpler this opening line is the better.  It's a base to build a conversation off of, not the conversation itself.  Recently I have been trying to approach more people while I'm out during the day; asking questions, noticing unique things or qualities, and as of late talking about the abundance of snow.  We can start the conversation with literally anything - "Hi, my name is Chris" has even worked - but it is how we transition to a meaningful conversation and sustain their interest that is the difficult part.

We also went through this one exercise that focused on expressing emotion.  There would be three chairs lined next to each other.  The person in the first chair would start giggling - at about a 4 on a scale from 1-10.  The person in the second chair would see them giggling and would start all out laughing - at about a 7 or 8.  Finally, the person in the third chair would loose it and start laughing hysterically - turning that bitch to 11!  It was about seeing someone else's emotion and expression, feeling that emotion mirror inside, and then heighten it to another level.  We are always hearing that we must show the audience how the characters are affecting one another, and this was a great way to practice being affected.  It was a start at a study of body language, which I hope to get into soon (but again, that's for another post).

All in all, here are the things I have to focus on:

1) Quiet my mind to really listen to the other person.  Turn off all unnecessary thoughts.
2) Don't put too much stress on opening lines, in improv and when meeting new people.  A conversation can begin with literally everything (sure some may be easier to work with than others, but all can work), it's how you transition to a conversation that is the difficult part
3) Learn to pickup on other peoples emotions, and try to mirror or complement that in myself.  Try to relate or sympathize.

Bouncing from place to place

Man, yesterday was a busy day.  As I went over in my previous post, I was at my college wrestling match last night, so I ended up crashing with a buddy of mine who lived in the area.  Andrew graduated with me back in 2012, but has already locked down a full time gig as a high school physical education teacher and HEAD coach of the wrestling team.  Oh, how I envy that lucky bastard.  I don't have a clear view of my future and am not sure what exactly I will be doing, but I know for certain that I will be coaching wrestling; no doubt about it. It's hard coping with the fact I can't compete anymore, looking back there are a lot of things I would do differently, but all I can do now is hope to pass that knowledge onto someone else so they don't make the same mistakes.

Anywayyyyy, Andrew's team had a match that morning, so I jumped on the opportunity to watch any sort of wrestling.  With the college match Friday night and the high school match on Saturday morning, I was in bliss.

After the match, I said my goodbyes to my old friend, and headed to the library to do some reading.  I planned to meet with a kind of mentor of mine for lunch, but I had a couple hours to kill so I thought I'd read the next principle Dale Carnigie had to share.  Stemming from the previous chapter of listening, the present chapter suggested to keep the conversation topics geared towards the interests of the other person.  This was pretty much a continuation of the listening chapter, with the overall concept being that the conversation cannot be a competition.  Each individual is programmed to want to talk about things that interest them self, which can cause the conversation to sour if the two have conflicting interests.  This new chapter even took it a step further and said to research specific topics in advance when you are expecting a visitor; kind of like on an interview when you research a company.  This is not creepy as it may initially seem; it is actually quite flattering.  How would you feel if someone else put in effort to research topics they had little knowledge in, just to please you.  It's a very selfless act, and it will never go unappreciated.  So here are the main take aways:

1) Research topics in advance that interest the expected visitor.
2) Keep the conversation on these topics
3) Listen intently

As I said before, I was to meet a mentor of mine, Jon in Philly for lunch, so I was determined to try this out.  He is an amazing person who actually got me my first job as an actuarial intern.  He wrestled with my college wrestling coach, and did not hesitate to give me every opportunity when everyone else was turning me away.  This bond among wrestlers is as strong a relationship as I know, and it is a deep understanding that the person in front of you has been to hell and back.  There is a mutual respect among the wrestling community.  It's not like other sports where there are cuts and try-outs.  We accept anyone who is willing to put in the work, but not everyone is up for it.  There are always half as many people in the last practice of the year as there were in the first, and it's this self weeding that makes the sport so great.  But I digress.  Jon now fights MMA and I learned that he had a fight coming up next weekend.  Before meeting him for lunch, I researched the fight, his opponent, and even bought a ticket.  As a wrestler myself, I knew I would already have enough to talk about on the subject, but now I had even more to back me up.

It had been over a year since I last saw Jon, but since I came prepared there was no shortage of things to talk about.  I immediately noticed he looked thin, cutting weight for the upcoming fight, and the topic never strayed from that point on.  All I had to do was ask a few questions here and there and actively listen to what he had to say.  We had a deep and intelligent conversation, but only because I was genuinely interested in what he had to say, and was not worrying about what I was going to say next.  I know I just started this active listening thing on Friday, but it is incredible.  My mind is just free.  Where I was constantly thinking of things to say, and make sure that the conversation never died, I now quieted my thoughts and soaked in everything the other person has to say.  It was scary at first.  There was this unsettling feeling of this new risk of the dreaded "Awkward Silence," but you must have trust in the system.  When you actively listen and stop worrying about what you are going to say, you pick up on SO much more and the conversation becomes a lot easier.  The other person ends up doing most of the talking anyway, just being appreciative that someone is willing to listen.

This post is getting pretty long, so I'll speed things up here.  I spent the night in Philly with another friend from college.  I have recently decided to stop drinking, so though it brings about great surprise and a barrage of questions from everyone I love the fact that I no longer get any hangovers.  I'm still getting used to going out and interacting with drunk people while I am sober, but last night was a blast with a lot of blasted people (see what i did there?).

Today is going to be another busy day.  Currently, I 'm at a rest stop somewhere in central Jersey, but I'm headed to a friends house to do a little jammen (music is a HUGE part of my life, and I've been playing guitar for about 15 years now).  This stuff actually applies really well to music and playing with other people, but that's for another post.  We even might get some studio time in, which would be unreal.  After that, I have my improv class where I want to keep focusing on creating the story myself and stop making lateral moves.  Focus on the "And" part of "Yes, And".

latahhh dudes!

Eye Opening Night

Nothing like a good 5:30 AM workout to get the day started.  Feeling energized, and ready for 24 hours packed with meeting new contacts!  Well, not really new contacts, but it will be an eventful day. 

I’ll start with a recap of yesterday.  I’m currently reading Dale Carnegie’s “How to Make Friends and Influence Others” (AMAZING book by the way, but I’ll go into more detail in a later post) and in the morning I read the chapter about listening.  In short, it explained how listening is the key to any good conversation.  Carnegie explains how people are 100 times more interested in themselves and their own problems than anything else, and love to talk about it.  This makes sense; deep down we are all only out to increase our own satisfaction; at the root of every person is a completely selfish being.  This doesn’t mean to say everyone is a selfish schmuck and only cares for himself.  For example, a volunteer at a soup kitchen is helping people, doing a completely selfless act, but the main motivation to go and volunteer at this soup kitchen is to satisfy his or her need to give back or feel important.   I’m sure I’m not explaining it very well right now, but just think about it a little and it will make sense.

Anyway, I ended up going back to my college to watch a wrestling match; I was on the wrestling team through college, so it’s nice to go back and see all the coaches and alumni.  I haven’t seen many of these people for years, so I knew we would have a lot of catching up to do only I went out with the intent of letting them do all of the talking.  The results were incredible. 

I walked into the gym and immediately saw my old friend, Eddie that I lost touch with during my senior year.  We were both happy to see each other, but there was that initial hesitation to completely open up.  The conversation started with some simple pleasantries: “how have you been?” “What’s your job like?” “Any Girls in your life?”  But it wasn’t until I started listening that the conversation really got going.  Edd told me he was planning on applying to graduate school at NYU for film, and his face immediately lit up once we started on the subject.  His whole body language changed; turning his torso towards me, opening the expression on his face, and talking with his hands a lot more.  I never let the subject sour and turn to something else.  For the entirety of the match I listened attentively to him explain the intricacies of film making and his breakdown of how a story actually progresses.  There was no faking interest or waiting for my moment to change the subject.  I literally knew nothing about movies and we talked for close to an hour and a half about the ins and outs of film making and script writing; I was genuinely interested.  You can try as hard as you can to fake interest in someone else, but they will ALWAYS be able to tell.  It’s so transparent.  Besides the occasional “What do you mean by that?” or “Can you give an example?” I didn’t say a word.  At one point his father interjected and said “are you gonna watch or talk the entire match?”  I could tell that he didn’t have many opportunities to fully express himself and talk about things that he was passionate about.  Numerous times he would stop and say “I’m sorry, I’m just blabbing on,” but I reassured him that I was truly interested and showed that I appreciated the knowledge he was sharing.  By the time we said our goodbyes, I could tell that he was grateful that I let him talk.

I felt invigorated.  I had done nothing but listen, but had an intensely deep conversation.  I was ready to try this out more, but a little differently.  The next friend I talked to, I let him talk about what he was doing with his life, noticing that he was very attached to the conversation.  After a couple minutes, I changed the subject to what was new in my life and saw an immediate reaction.  There was no eye contact, he would fiddle with his jacket, and look uninterested.  Not to the point where it was rude, but there was a stark difference then when the subject was about him.  Amazing, truly amazing.  People really love to talk about themselves, but rarely does anyone give them the opportunity.  The moment they meet someone who will truly listen, the conversation turns from a competition from the spot light to a passionate talk about a specific subject.  Conversing in this way is not a give and take relationship; it is give and give some more.

After the match ended I was not ready to stop testing out this whole listening thing, so I met 2 more friends at a local bar to catch up.  I got the same amazing results.  They were all amazingly attached to the conversation because they were the subject.  Duh, it's so simple.  I even had one of the older alumni entranced in conversation - this particular alumni HATED talking to me while I was in school (Probably because I was consistently talking about myself).

The only thing that I did not like about this night was that I did not reach out and start conversations with any strangers.  I made no attempt to meet new people.  Granted, the night was a huge success and I connected with old friends in a way I never have before.  So I have to work on the following:

1) Still have intense conversations and listen attentively to the close friends I go out with, but also try to rope in new people, and learn their stories. 

2) Find common interests between multiple people in the group so everyone can contribute and stay interested.

Day 1

Another snow day.  WHEN WILL IT END???  The good news is that I now have time to recap yesterdays events.

I worked from home all day, but it was eventful none the less.  It was the first time in my career that I signed an official document sent to a client.  Though only a data request (this is very unimportant), it was still a formal document that the client would see.  This was extremely exciting.  I have updated many of these documents before, but never with my signature at the end.  Not meaning to do so, I took special care with this one, noting anything confusing and making sure all grammatical errors were fixed.

Of course something went wrong.  I had to send it as an encrypted email, so one person could not open it.  It is against company policy to send information like this without encrypting it first, for fear of interception.  I reached out to my upper level colleagues for advise on how to respond, but they did not get back to me until much later, after I had already signed off.  I now feel a level of regret.  I think I should have sent an email to the client saying I cannot send the file without encrypting it, but we are currently working on a solution and will let you know when we figure it out.  It would be simple and would reassure the client that we are doing everything we can.  I am always hesitant to send anything to the client, and never do so without getting a draft reviewed.  Here are my thoughts:

1) Should I be more willing to contact the client when I think it is helpful, without consulting upper management?
2) Should I have emailed her last night, or wait until the next day when we have a more concrete solution?

I also went to an improv show last night.  I guess this is a good spot to tell you I take improv comedy classes every Sunday in New York City.  I started about 3 weeks ago and it has completely consumed all of my attention.  It is a fantastic feeling of making something from absolutely nothing, and developing this story with another person who has no idea what you're about to say next.  I'll go into more detail about my fascination with this later, but last nights show was a kind of "open mic night" for improvisers.  It was all people currently taking classes like me, but most were in the higher level classes (this coming Sunday will be my 4th week of level 1).  I got up and I feel like I did an OK job, but I didn't create anything.  I just kind of fed off what the other people were saying.  There's this idea of "Yes And" in improv, and I was only Yesing last night. I have to work on elaborating the story and moving it forward instead of laterally.

There was also another girl from my class, Kaitlin, who attended last nights show as well.  She was pretty much the only person I talked to all night which I do not like.  It would have been so easy to start talking about improv to any of these people since they were all enrolled in the classes as well.  I started one conversation that turned into a conversation on sports, but it was nothing great.  While I was talking to Kaitlin I felt awkward.  I was thinking very hard about what to say next and not letting my mind fully encompass what was being discussed at that moment.

This lesson goes hand in hand with why I'm taking improv in the first place.  I want to learn to completely turn my mind and thoughts off while talking to people.  I have to become a better listener (when your listening you can't be having other side thoughts).  So, in the future I want to:

1) Stop thinking while I'm having a discussion with someone.
2) Stop trying to think of what to say next.
3) Be fully present and listen attentively
        a) As long as I am fully present, I will pick up on things that can evoke responses or spur other threads of conversation.
        b) This involves a lot of faith, so I have to get comfortable with the unknown of not knowing what to say next.

Introduction - Why?

Well this is the first post, so I guess I'll introduce myself real quick.  My name's Chris Lombardi, I'm 23 years old, and I want to master the art of conversation.  This has really been on my to do list for YEARS now, but I never had the balls to step up, learn from those who know more, and track my progress.  I'm generally known as an outgoing guy, an extrovert if you will, but inside I guess I'm a little afraid of people and what they will think.  I don't know if this is something I have to overcome, or something I have to accept and look past, but that's why I'm here.

Like any good goal, I first thought of mastering the art of conversation during this past new year's.  I work as an actuary, so I was fed up with being stuck behind a fucking computer screen all day while everyone else got to interact with the world.  I starting getting angry and anxious that this was what my life was going to be, and the quality of my work started slipping as a result.  In another part of my life, I wasn't unhappy with my social situation, but I wanted more.  I wanted adventure, to meet new people, avoid staying with what's comfortable and experience all the world has to offer.  The whole game of social interactions is a fascinating, but it can be difficult to put yourself out there and test what really works.

That was then, this is now.  Currently, I'm at a point where I am taking action.  I'm reading books and putting my new knowledge to work, and guess what... it works!!  This shit aint that hard after all!

So here's what I want to do.  Everyday, I am going to come back and track all of my social interactions - good or bad.  I'm going to see what I did correctly, what can be improved upon, and what new ideas did I come up with in the process.  Though there are two parts to this goal - social interactions and career - they both have the same main objective: get another human being to take an interest in you and do what you want.  It's as simple and painstakingly complex as that.

So, I'm not sure if you're reading this, hopefully this blog can spark something in you to go out and try it yourself.  Maybe it will motivate you to inspire someone close to you about these ideas.  In any case, I hope we can take this journey together and simply learn how to get along with other people.

It's late (I have a strict bed time of 11:00 PM on weekdays), so I'll start my progress tomorrow.  latahh!