The Charmer by The Family Grove Company
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/fgc2007-05-27.shnf/fgc2007-05-27-t09_64kb.mp3]
So I went to my cousin’s wedding this weekend. Turns out I don’t like weddings all that much. I should clarify: traditional weddings. Formal affairs with lots of things done for no reason other than they have been done for years and years. Silly.
Anyway, today I was considering the reception, where I met a lot of people who may/may not be related to me. I talked to a lot of them, and forgot almost everything they said. I’m not big on small talk. Finding out what people are doing, how they are, how their mother is, just doesn’t interest me. I don’t care. So I don’t ask those questions. When people ask me, I tell them that there isn’t much happening. My answers aren’t longer than a few sentences. And its the truth. I’m not doing much this summer. But what got me thinking about this was a guy named Mike.
I think he was a friend of my cousin, but I’m not sure. Anyway, he talked to a lot of people at our table, and was really pleasant. A good guy to talk to. Why? Because he asked, and listened, and responded relevently. Simple. But everything that he was talking about falls into the category of small talk. I was thinking about how he could possibly be interested in these things in the lives of people he doesn’t even know.
I find people I don’t know facinating, but not because I don’t know what they’re doing, but because I don’t know how they think. Everyone has a different philosophy on life, and that is what I like to take from any conversation I have with someone I’m just meeting.
What prompted me to write this blog post was the biography on Mister Rogers I read last night. He did the same thing Mike did, but on a much larger scale. Mike and Mister Rogers reminded me of a lot of the principles from Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends & Influence People. If you haven’t read it, I would suggest it.