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.