TechProfound

Recently I’ve had a number of opportunities to listen to people’s stories, to people’s daily happenings, to people’s frustrations, to peoples’s pieces of their lives.  Yesterday I was particularly interested in a friend’s perspectives on some political things.  I genuinely wanted to understand and to see if his perspectives would add some different colors to mine.  I wanted to know why he thinks and feels the way he does about certain topics.  It was a good conversation for about 30 minutes… (I’ll come back to that.)

This morning, I read Seth Godin’s post, Pretending that you care.  He makes a really good point at the end.

“So, the essence of the lesson here is this: if people start out pretending to care, next thing you know, they actually do care. They like the positive feedback and they like the way being kind makes them feel. It spreads. It sticks.]”

(Coming back to my story…)

The conversation was good for about 30 minutes, until we were rudely interrupted by a bystander who interjected himself into our conversation.  The interjection was not the problem.  The rude interruption was.  This person was more concerned with telling me that I was wrong and with ‘going off’ on all that is wrong with certain aspects of my thinking.

The person I was having the conversation with even jumped back in to combat this rudeness.  The interjector eventually left, in a huff.  We continued to converse and my friend made a mature point.  His point was that the interjector probably had a valid point, underneath his frustrations.  He probably had a reasonable argument and a reasonable perspective that could have added to the conversation.  And, we both agreed that if the rudeness was not there, we both would have appreciated the input.

So, to Seth’s point, quoted above, I can relate.  I can relate to listening and starting to care.  I was turned off to our interjector because he was telling me what I thought.  I honestly didn’t know exactly what I thought – because I was listening first, and trying to understand first, before trying to be understood and trying to make any point.

I have done that a lot more often, in recent months, than I have in my past.  I care about more things in different capacities now.  And, I’ve watched as my friends have appreciated and started to do that some, amongst themselves.  Yes, “It spreads.  It sticks.”

Sometimes we may need to fake our way to reality.  When we and others around us put our egos aside and listen first, it makes a difference.  It has for me and the people I hang around.  And that, my friends, is some good sauce!