I’m talking to my students about how to write specifically about problems they solve. “I help you live a happy life” as a description for my work is more or less appropriate. But that’s such a general and vague statement. “Finish your to do list today with my excitement-based anti-procrastination program” is a super specific way of talking about my book Action Formula and I’d say finishing a to do list feels amazing, so that sounds enticing.
This isn’t exclusively a business related skill to develop, I think it helps in general social interactions too. When we want to advance our social relationships from the “hey, how are you doing?” “I’m doing well, how about you?” “I’m also doing well. Thanks.” to “Hey!!! How is it going???” “Oh my god, I have so much to tell you — do you have a few minutes? Wanna grab coffee?”, what are the steps involved in that?
When we think about our formal, cordial relationships, there’s a certain kind of a distance to it. Yes, we exchange smiles and the vibes are generally good but it’s good at a distance. There’s an implicit rule that says the distance has to be kept for a cordial relationship.
Getting into a deeper relationship means that the distance will be broken. In the best case this will be a good thing and we’ll have deeper relationships with people but unfortunately life doesn’t always give you the best case scenarios. In the worst case people will find the lack of distance off-putting or offensive and choose to leave the relationship with you.
Are we willing to take that risk?
When you tell a specific story to teach a specific lesson to your audience, you’re putting yourself at the risk of being misunderstood. In this day and age, a simple statement of “I like A” is often times misconstrued as “fuck B”. Specificity is like a double edged sword; it has a strong pull when it hits the right way, and it repels when it doesn’t hit.
When you tell someone about your weekend in more depth than usual in your Monday water cooler talk, you’re at the risk of boring the other person or them judging you for your activities. Sharing more about yourself, your personal life — it’s like a double edged sword; it has a strong pull when it hits the right way, and it repels when it doesn’t hit.
But here’s the cool part: nobody said we can only tell one story.
Yes, telling one story carries that risk. But what if you tell another story that explains the misunderstanding? That new story will come with its own set of potential misunderstandings, but what if you told one more story that addresses that? As you continue to share more and more specific stories with individual risks, the more of a collective story you tell.
Sharing one weekend story might but won’t realistically change a relationship dramatically. But throughout the week as you share more and more of yourself, you’ll find yourself closer to your coworkers after that week. It doesn’t have to be about work; if you go to a gym and you have some people who spot you, you can do the same with them. You don’t have to be friends with everybody, but your willingness and ability to open yourself up at will can be a great asset in your life.
So today I’ll end with a story that might not resonate with you at all. I trained with a guy I haven’t trained with at my jiu jitsu academy today. His specialty was darce chokes and holy crap, I got choked out so many times I felt a little out of my body on the drive back home today. I thought to myself, “did I actually train today?”. It was very fever dreamish, which I like (don’t worry, I didn’t lose consciousness. Or maybe I did, and this writing is a fever dream?).