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.