Interesting People Collect Interests

When I was growing up, I had (and still have) a healthy general knowledge. I am an asset to any trivia team - I just soak up facts and tidbits from anywhere and everywhere.

People often think this is a superpower. It isn’t.

“Where did you learn that from?” they ask. I simply tell them: I read a lot.

No, surely not.

Yep, that’s it.

Read. Watch YouTube. Listen to Podcasts. Subscribe to a newspaper (print or online).

Spend one weekend out of every month attending an event or venue you normally wouldn’t dream of in a thousand years.

Amass more knowledge than you know what to do with.

But why? To be an egghead?

My parents feared that my having a general knowledge wouldn’t get me far in life. Of course, this was limited to their imagination (i.e., they never had one.) You can monetise absolutely anything you want to in this day and age - and it served me well in my “dream” job of being a journalist, once upon a time.

I worked in newsrooms and as a freelancer for about ten years. I landed my ultimate dream job of becoming Editor of a music magazine, Hysteria Magazine. I was fortunate enough to interview rock n' roll artists, attend gigs for free, and rub shoulders with industry bigwigs and rock superstars on the regular.

I got out of it because, well, music journalism isn’t the most lucrative job in the world. But it is cool.

To conduct an interview, you need to know almost everything there is to know about your subject.

The more things you know, the more you can connect with people.

The more you can connect with people, the more they will like you.

The more they like you, the more they’ll tell you - even if they shouldn’t be telling you.

Hey, that's a neat job you have?

I am a copywriter (among other things). Most people don’t know what a copywriter is. They think I add the little C in a circle -> ? at the end of TV credits and file some paperwork somewhere.

Umm, no.

A copywriter writes text for advertising or commercial purposes. Text is called “copy” because in the old days of journalism, writers would hammer out their stories on typewriters. They’d sandwich a sheet of carbon paper between two bits of paper to make a “carbon copy” - what was written on the top sheet would appear on the bottom sheet. (It’s what CC means when you send an email.) Copy boys (or girls) would literally take this “copy” to their sub-editors for editing.

There, now you’re a little bit more interesting than you were before!

Scramble Therapy yourself to success

One of the best ways I've found to become more interesting is to introduce what Leil Lowndes in her book, How to Talk to Anyone, calls "Scramble Therapy."

"Scramble Therapy" is scrambling up your life and taking part in an activity you'd never usually think to indulge in.

If you've ever seen the film Yes Man - where a depressed schlub transforms his life by saying "yes" to every request put in front of him - it's probably the best on-screen depiction of what it can do (well, in an extreme sort of way.)

If you've ever felt like an outsider, hanging around different groups of people means you're at least giving their hobby or their passion a go - and it doesn't take long to become an insider.

Knowing something about someone’s profession, hobby, or interests often makes you more likeable.

Lowndes also says "learn a little Gobbeldygook" - learn specific industry terms and gain instant rapport. In the media world we don't write text, we write copy as I explained above. They aren't photos, they're pictorial. (Impress your media friends with this knowledge!)

All the people interviewed on television have a story to tell - if they weren’t interesting, they wouldn’t be on television!

This was adapted from my book (co-authored with Garth Lategan ) Balding Overweight Sex Machine: An absolute beginner’s guide to navigating dating and self-improvement for Men over thirty. Buy it here from Amazon.