The forgotten art of conversation.

This will not be the most impactful thing you read today. It covers about 20 minutes total of my otherwise normal day. (A day which did, if I may say so myself, include drafting one seriously wicked butt-kicking letter to some evil-doing majority shareholders, but that’s a topic for another post.)

So I leave the office and I’m walking a couple of blocks to my car. And there’s a woman walking from her car into her small office building, and she said something to me. I didn’t hear her, so I approached her and asked what she said. She repeated herself. “Sorry. Didn’t mean for you to stop. But I just said you have a nice tie. No one wears colors anymore. You look nice.” Her manner of speech was clear that she was not hitting on me or anything weird. She just liked my tie. A perfect stranger talking to another perfect stranger and complimenting his tie. Awesome! So we chatted for a little bit. I’m a lawyer who can drop the hammer pretty good in a letter. She’s a counselor/therapist. She’s 70 and retiring maybe next year. But maybe not, because she loves her work.  She doesn’t look a day over 55.

That’s a lot of information to pick up just based on a simple compliment about a yellow tie. I do a lot of networking events. Networking is not bad. But it would be fair to describe it as “socialization with a goal in mind.” There was no goal in today’s conversation other than… conversation. What a throw back!  It was nice.

So I’m feeling pretty good as I resume my walk, and thinking, “You know what, I DO LOOK PRETTY GOOD DUDE!” Nice way to end the day. But then it got better. I’m driving my hour long drive home and a number pops up that I don’t recognize. It’s Joe. A guy I met on Facebook. This guy’s Facebook page is jammed full of encouragement and positive thoughts. I had posted on his wall that he inspired me to re-take Bluff Road. Read all about that here.  So we traded numbers and this was the first time we had spoken.  I thought Joe was pretty amazing before, but now that I’ve spoken to him he’s unbelievable!  This guy has so much positive energy its crazy.  He’s one of these guys that you know you want to hang out with after just a few minutes of conversation.  Joe is the real deal.  Entrepreneur.  Rock solid good dude.  And it was very good fortune to have met him.  And he told me that he would never have guessed I was a lawyer based on my FB pics and posts.  That’s high praise sir!  (Lawyers make me nuts.)

I spend a lot of time online.  But today was all about the old fashioned person-to-person conversation and it was a nice way to end my day.  Hope you all have an awesome day.  Go call someone.  Or compliment someone’s tie.

Later dudes!

J

Photo credit:  http://www.globalimagegrp.com/blog/personal-shopper-tips/style-tips-for-men-october-2008