Lesson 1 - We want to be interesting not interested

How we communicate with others

Talking is part of our lives everyday. There are ample opportunities in work, school and play. Even online we are able to talk virtually either by text or speech, even body language. The bad part is, sometimes we think we are communicating in ways that everyone understands and we might not be. 

We want to explore how we communicate with others. I say "we" but I am more so talking about any specific individual that you can think of. Let's explore the ways we communicate. 

Talk

In general, we all talk. We are good at it. Some talk in different languages. Some speak the same language but others cannot understand what they are saying. Some don't want to hear what others are saying, they just want to talk. 

  -It's Not Your Fault

How we communicate is not our fault, we have all been trained to communicate in certain ways from a young age and it is only after we socialize and learn new ways to communicate that we develop some sort of new skill around it. (Or reject new types of conversation).

  -One Resource To Help Communicate

One great resource that seems timeless to me is How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I have read this book a couple times but always skip the chapter on manipulation, while that might have been a part of business in the past, it shouldn't be today. I feel that we can get what we want simply by showing up and helping people without striving to take advantage of others. The major underlying point that I pulled from this book is that if you are willing to help others get what they want, you will get what you want. 

  -We Learn At Home

Communities learn to talk in certain ways and develop attitudes around their social situations. These ideas come with us into our daily lives as we grow to an adult age and take them with us to new areas. There are very few hubs today that have generational redundancy, they exist but they are not as common as they were 40-50 years ago. Those areas do not change much in the way they vote, express religion, or even attitudes towards global issues.

As people talk, they express their opinions about their take on their beliefs on any topic. 

Talk about us

A lot of our daily conversation revolves around us and what we want. One of the great economists in recent ages, Adam Smith, believed in the idea that if you leave the stock market alone, it will move according to the desires of the market. He called this principle "The Invisible Hand". The same principle applies to our own lives to some degree.

We move according to the desires of our own market, the market of surviving daily in our own lives. Why wouldn’t we, we all have basic needs; food, water, shelter, etc. We fulfill those needs by going to work and making some contribution in our local communities, either by earning money as we serve or spending money on our needs.

Even the recluse has to come outside to empty the trash. They might not provide any conversation but they may be mumbling under their breath at how nice of a day it is or grumbling that there are too many people at the stores these days. Who knows, I have never met a recluse. 

   -The Us

We talk about our needs. What will get us to the next day. What will fill our lives with some type of meaning. 

   -The Us We Miss

My son and I were playing baseball in our driveway once last summer afternoon and he hit it across the street into the neighbors patch of grass. He grabbed the ball and threw it back. As he did he simply said I used to play baseball (technically, he was playing baseball with us by throwing it but you get the idea). I had never met this individual, I still don’t know his name, he just offered up that little bit of information with a memento of a past experience. He said it as if he wanted to play but was afraid to ask but wasn’t sure he could live up to how he used to play. 

That small experience brought to mind the idea that we talk to tell memories of things that we miss or expect or even demand of ourselves but have given up on a passion. Not all conversations go to that extreme.

   -The Us We Have To Prove

Some conversations turn to the explanation of information that has been researched with the hopes that we sound impressive to others. A flattery to ourselves of the vast amount of knowledge that we have gained. I am not that well read, in fact I read only to research and work at this point and if I didn’t write a blog, I would only read at work as I had to (which is quite a bit). 

Talk about what we have achieved

Going back to the story of the neighbor who shared his lost passion for baseball, if the conversation would have continued, it would have been a life history of the success, when the team stopped and the role played in it that eventually stopped. Isn’t that why stories change? 

Once someone has achieved something, they have a story to tell but what more is there to tell about it. Unless the story continues, it ends. One reason I hate reading fiction books, and I found this out recently, is that they end. Don’t get me wrong, they are very entertaining. Usually the story is engrossing, captivating and a welcome time for the mind to relax and get lost somewhere else. The end is always the same though, the story stops. 

When we talk about what we have achieved, we are telling the story of the time that we stopped achieving something, where we reached the end. Often the end of an achievement is the permission to brag about it. 

Talk about what we are doing right now

This is easy to talk about, it is fresh on our minds and the most important thing to us. 

Right now I could talk about the blog that I am writing, juggling my work schedule to find time to write blog posts, assistant coach baseball with my son, fill-in coach weekly for my daughter, the opportunity to serve my community through church participation as a President of an Elders Quorum (meetings weekly, visiting people in the neighborhood who need assistance, visiting with people because it is the Christ-like thing to do, organizing events and following up with people) and make time to spend with my family collectively (around the table for meals, finding one on one time, practicing for sports outside of practice, finding opportunities to serve them, etc.). The fact is, we all have 100 things we can talk about at any given moment and we are not afraid to show and express those things to anyone that will listen. 

Too often, a lot of people just want someone to talk to them and by that I mean have someone listen to them talk. Don’t forget that when we share and then listen, that is a conversation. 

For some reason I am thinking of iRobot and part of the plot is that the AI Robot learns to wink from Will Smith’s character in the middle of the movie. At the end the AI Robot pretends to be reprogrammed and Will Smith’s character believes that the Robot is now his enemy but just at the right dramatic moment, the Robot winks and Will’s Smith’s character realizes that they are still on the same side. 

In the many different ways we communicate, it is important to remember that we communicate when we listen, not when we talk. More on that in the next blog post. Until then, keep building.