Do You Have a Story to Tell?
Yesterday I spoke about time and how to make the best of it. The three steps include first enjoying what you do, second identifying what drains you, and third replace it with what you enjoy doing. We can choose how we use the time we have available.
What is next? This sounds just too simple to work. It begins by just concentrating on one thing first and perfecting it. My thing is communication. Allow me to explain with an example, as I often do.
Yesterday I met with a new connection that I had been trying to set up a face-to-face with for some time. Two prior meetings had to be cancelled for one reason or another. We had messaged back and forth, but this is not real communication. I have found a new saying that I will be applying to my work. It goes … “Deep relationships are built upon deep conversations.”
Conversation—true, deep, meaningful conversation—is one of the greatest gifts we can experience in our human interactions, and yet such conversations are not all that common anymore. Our addiction to technology, our overfilled schedules, and inability to commit time to this pursuit have isolated us. Fewer and fewer people understand the art of conversation, an art that is at the very heart of our humanity. It is essential for us to think together, with others, about important matters in our lives. This is how we gain knowledge, test theories, and discover TRUTH. As Aristotle says, humans are both rational and social animals. When you combine those two aspects of our nature, the natural result is conversation.
Now back to my story. I was uncertain about how our conversation would go or, for that matter, even why it was happening. He has his own marketing agency and several prominent clients. I saw little that I could offer him, but I was intrigued, as I often am, why he had suggested getting together. Meeting for the first time, I anticipated something he entirely was not. He broke the ice with a question I often ask. “Why did I want to meet and what did I expect from our meeting?”
It forced me to focus on my own motives. I am interested in meeting interesting people, in having real conversations, finding out what motivates and drives them, hearing their stories. So many conversations do not happen for a number of different reasons. Fear, “we have nothing in common,” or just setting aside time in our busy schedules.? Some feel they do not have a need, that they have all the “friends” or acquaintances they need; they are comfortable within their little bubble. Our devices also get in our waves. Have you ever observed at a restaurant two people sitting across from each other with their heads firmly in their cell phones? What is that all about? I often wonder if they are actually texting each other.
Do any of you remember the days before TV or other “devices” of communication occupying our homes and out lives? The primary form of human recreation was talking, talking about the past, future, and present, sharing wisdom between generations. Sharing the news they got from the paper or corner store. ?We used to sit at the kitchen table and talk, gather at the fence or the intersection, the barber shop, or the grocery store, to talk, actually talk.
People yearn for deeper human connection fostered through true conversation, but often we are too shy or uncertain about how to get things started. One of the biggest hurdles to deep conversation is knowing how to begin. Once the ball of a good conversation is rolling, it often propels itself for hours through its own momentum.
My new friend and I spoke for over an hour without realizing the time was going by. Our conversation was wide and deep, covered many different subjects, and concluded only when each of us suddenly realized we had someplace else to be. Pretty amazing for an encounter I doubted would even come off.
As I have shared in the past, Questions are the foundation of TRUTH. Questions are also the foundation of building relations, starting conversations, and of truly communicating.? Find the things you enjoy doing most, seek out opportunities, even substituting what you don’t like for what you do!
Are you struggling with finding the time to do this? Are you having trouble making connections or starting a conversation? Let me help you! Reach out and give a new connection a chance to get to know you and what motivates you. I am interested in meeting interesting people, in having real conversations, finding out what drives them, and hearing their stories. Do you have a story to share?