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!
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