The Delayed ‘Me Too’

 

In a recent post, Culinary Conversations, I urged for everyone to make a sincere attempt at listening and asking questions during conversation rather than defaulting to talking and giving opinions. Now, in this post, I will outline a more specific technique which, if adopted, will provide a tangible way to put this same “first talk, then listen” disposition into practice. This technique is called The Delayed ‘Me Too.’

To see how it works, join me in this familiar scenario… You are at a company event when you begin conversing with an acquaintance. Maybe it is the first time you and this acquaintance have ever spoken outside of normal work talk, or maybe it’s not. Nevertheless, your conversation naturally requires some small-talk-gymnastics as you seek for points of commonality that you can both enjoy discussing. You ask how she likes the food and then what she has been up to recently. Both questions come out of a need to fill space, eliminate awkwardness, and create a pleasant conversational experience. Then, as you both begin to open up, the conversation moves deeper and you start sharing details about your personal lives.

Finally, the acquaintance tells you a new fact about herself, something you didn’t know before and are excited to hear because with this new information you now have something in common. How exciting. Maybe she says, “I’m from Minnesota originally,” and, as irony would have it, you too are also from Minnesota. Or maybe she says, “I used to play the saxophone,” and again, it seems serendipitous (does it not?) because you also played the saxophone as a kid. Enthusiasm overwhelms you because there is more in common here than you first realized.

Okay, now for the technique, The Delayed ‘Me Too.’

When an acquaintance informs you of a fact about him or herself which is a common point between the two of you do not say anything about your commonality. Yes, that’s right, do not immediately blurt out “Wow! I’m from Minnesota too!” and don’t barge in with “No kidding! I used to play the saxophone too!”

No, as unnatural as it may feel at first, don’t tell her that you have this in common, yet. Instead, listen or you ask more questions. Make this moment entirely about your acquaintance and not, even a little bit, about yourself. You may ask which part of Minnesota she grew up in or why she relocated? You may ask if she still plays the saxophone or why she ever stopped playing? For a period of time, maybe for 20 seconds or maybe 20 minutes, you will withhold divulging your point of commonality altogether.

Finally, when the moment has passed, when she has felt that you were completely listening to the information she shared about herself and when she will have good reason to believe that you truly care about her as a person, only then will you connect the dots. This can be minutes later or even hours. “You know, I’m actually from Minnesota too,” you will say, or, “Hey, I forgot to mention this but I actually played the sax as a kid too!” This technique has a surprisingly powerful way of building rapport.

Some people may question using techniques in conversation, believing at first that using a technique on another person is tricky or deceitful. However, I believe otherwise. Sure, it may feel unnatural at first, as if you are hiding something or playing a game, but you will discover that by practicing such techniques your conversations will naturally become more focused on others. Furthermore, those others will recognize and appreciate your selfless nature. You will be seen as someone who genuinely cares about others, rather than a self-interested person who seeks to make every conversation about yourself. In practice this is true as well, you actually begin putting yourself aside and giving freely a sort of conversational generosity.

Conversely, if you blurt out “me too!” before a person can even finish her sentence, it is like, as a friend explained to me recently, slamming your hand over a spinning coin. In any conversation you have three choices:

1.  Let the coin keep spinning until it runs out of momentum.  This is like listening intently until it is your moment to speak.
2. Flick the coin with your finger and keep it spinning.  Asking questions, probing, and showing interest in order to urge your counterpart to keep talking.
3. Slam the coin under your palm and completely stop it from spinning.  Interrupt, talk about yourself, dominate the conversation.

Which do you think will bring you greater joy?

 

Please leave a comment if you are able to put The Delayed ‘Me Too’ into action. I would enjoy hearing if this works for you.

Want Trap Manure (Message to a Wantrepreneur)

I remember the time and place when I decided that I would someday be an entrepreneur. I was sitting alone in my college apartment, a senior at the University of Minnesota with a heart full of ambition and a blank resume to show for it.

Both my own parents and my then-girlfriend’s (now-wife’s) parents had given me an example of life as a business owner. My mom owned a successful tailoring business through which she had staked a corner in the wedding-dress category. She was an artist with dresses and people were willing to pay handsomely for her services. My would-be-father-in-law also ran his own company doing industrial construction and again, reaping the benefits. Both had a life that came with their business ownership: flexible schedules, interesting problems to solve, complete ownership over their product and their company, and, most importantly, a love for their work. Both were CEOs in their “company of one,” meaning they had no employees. Both worked from home and made a reasonable but not exorbitant wage.

My vision of business ownership was only slightly different. Skewed by the Silicon Valley culture of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk who flashed across Rolling Stones Magazine and Business Insider, my image of entrepreneurialism was more extravagant. Zuckerberg, the hoodie-wearing college drop-out induced awe. He and his Silicon Valley billionaire peers set a new standard for fame and wealth, replacing the rock-star images of previous idols such as Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. Silicon Valley’s start-up culture had created a media-driven image of young geniuses who were living the dream.

I wanted that dream and I wanted it bad. But reluctantly, after graduating college I was forced to look for work in the real world with little experience and zero expertise in anything. I ended up working part-time jobs in marketing, sales, and operations, until I finally landed at the company I still work for today (where I have been very happy, I might add). Yet through many years working for big corporations, I still resolved that my ultimate goal was to be an entrepreneur. The appeal of freedom, solving interesting problems, and loving my work plagued me with the ideal that nothing other than starting my own company would ever satisfy.

This, my friends, is what we call being a wantrepeneur, someone who thinks, dreams, and talks about being an entrepreneur but still has not taken the leap to start his own company. And of all Wantrepreurs, and there are many, I rank among one of the biggest and best.

It wasn’t until recently that it struck me that even my own understanding of the word entrepreneur is ironic. Coming from the French origin “entreprende” which means to undertake, the word itself wasn’t used until the year 1800 when Jean-Baptiste Say coined it, saying “The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.” (source). That makes sense, sure, but to me the word carried more meaning; it was completely synonymous with someone who had achieved great wealth and fame. Although studies show that over 50% of businesses fail in just the first few years, my image of an entrepreneur was that of a rock star.

“Wantrepreneur” casts a more ridiculous image. A poser comes to mind; someone who often sits with friends brainstorming great new ideas for mobile apps or ground-breaking technologies that could be built, never to actually take action on said genius ideas. But more silly than the surface value of this word is the way it actually sounds if you say it out-loud slowly. “Want-Trap-Manure.” When I first realized this I couldn’t help but chuckle at the obviousness of my own ignorance.

A desire for fame and riches like that of Silicon Valley’s most successful entrepreneurs is actually a want-trap. It is a never-ending cycle of idealizing others and desiring to have more than one already has. It’s a never-ending lack of contentedness. Being a wantrepreneur is a vicious mental trap of always wanting more. Excuse my French, but obsessing over becoming an entrepreneur is, frankly, a big pile of manure. A want trap manure. Say it five times fast.

As a wantrepreneur extraordinaire I set my life goals on a pedestal: become a business owner, a start-up prodigy, and a creator of something great. This ambition gave me a fiery entrepreneurial attitude, always seeking to understand business and what makes the economy tick. I grew especially interested in capitalism, the stock market, and why companies are good or bad. I listened to hundreds of hours of podcasts like How I Built This by NPR and StartUp by Gimlet Media. I read books like Behind the Cloud by Marc Benioff and Zero to One by Peter Thiel.

On the upside, all of this ambition, study, and thought gave me an edge in my jobs because I saw business from a CEO’s perspective (or at least tried to) and it made me work harder and smarter and it kept me focused on the profit-line of my company.

But being a wantrepeneur was also exhausting. It left me feeling empty as if a void in my work-life was unfilled and I wouldn’t be happy until I would find my Big Idea. This dream played like a movie I had seen: a lightbulb moment followed by sleepless nights working on my new passion which then led to securing millions of dollars in funding and finally hitting it big, making millions, and writing a book to tell about how I did it. It was all a beautiful story yet untold, and it was also a want trap — nothing but a pile of manure. It stunk.

Believe it or not, this realization, this “wake up and smell the manure” moment, was earth shattering for me. First, the realization that I may never have that great big idea, as sad as that may be. But secondly, and more importantly, the epiphany that my constant desire for more was a trap that I had locked myself into, one that would never allow me to feel fulfilled unless it came to fruition.

In order to enjoy life and be content in my work, my eyes would need to be opened to new possibilities in which my dreams were fulfilled without actually becoming a Silicon Valley stereotype. Maybe I would never start or run a company. Heck, maybe I would even be “stuck working for the man” all my life, as if that is the worst of all things.

For the first time in ten years, I was actually at peace with this possibility. I no longer feared the regret of not becoming an entrepreneur. I stopped dreaming unrealistic-big-goals and looking too far into the future. Instead, I started thinking tactically about tomorrow and looking at what and who was standing right in front of me. I realized that every day actually provides an opportunity to entrepende, to undertake. Every hour at work provides multiple opportunities to think like a CEO or a business operator. Every transaction can give the experience of running a business, solving interesting problems, and loving one’s work.

Even the lowest employee in the most established company has an opportunity to think like an entrepreneur, to work with grit, think outside of the box, and be obsessed with her work. In fact, I believe that companies should seek to hire more employees who think entrepreneurially. These will be their leaders in the future, those who care about the business as if it is their own, rather than simply looking for a paycheck; and those who will find opportunities to adapt the company to a changing economic landscape, rather than jumping ship when the company struggles. Hire these entrepreneurially spirited people, as long as they can get out of their own way, have realistic expectations, and focus on what is in front of them.

My advice to myself, and anyone else who has felt like a bit of a wantrepreneur, is not to stop thinking and dreaming big. No, it is these hopes and dreams that will eventually bring you to new heights. If your ultimate goal is to own your own business, hold on to it, but don’t expect it to happen now. Instead, I urge you to harvest these desires and interests by planting seeds in the garden right where you are, rather than thinking about what is far in the distance. Make sure that while you are planting and harvesting you don’t get stuck in the Want Trap Manure. Instead, realize that your entrepreneurial ambitions can be fulfilled in-part wherever you are. Exercise your skills and passions to the best of your ability today, even if you are working for someone else, and let tomorrow worry about itself.

Culinary Conversations

The first thing you will learn in any basic cooking class is how to appropriately wash your hands for maximum sanitation. This is so basic and obvious that your first response is to become offended. Of course, I know how to wash my hands, and I’m paying for this class? However, the enthusiasm of the cooking class experience is still fresh, so you shrug your shoulders and suds-up your hands anyway.

After the hands are clean, the instructor moves on to the second thing you learn in any basic cooking class. This, she states, will be the most important thing you learn today. But as she continues on you become slightly offended again, just as you did with the hand washing. Her lesson is elementary, intuitive, and obvious. “Let’s get on with it,” you think, “teach me how to Sous Vide!”

But this lesson, the chef states once more, is the most important lesson in all of cooking. Sure, she admits, it is simple and basic, but that, by nature, makes it underappreciated and overlooked. Today you become a master in the kitchen, she promises. Today you learn how to use salt and pepper. 

Here we go.

Salt comes in many forms, but basic table salt is inherently useful because it boldens flavors in anything that it is added to. When the appropriate amount of salt is applied (more being better than less), it has a way of making the food actually taste more like itself, not just more salty.

For example, if a piece of meat is adequately salted, it will actually taste more like meat. And, consequently, if a zucchini is salted, for instance, it will bring out the zucchini flavor even more than without it. This premise, the chef states, calls for a default to add more salt than the amateur cook typically applies. She encourages an extra dash here, a sprinkle there.

She adds another pertinent lesson, that salt can also be used during any part of the cooking process. In the beginning, while preparing a dish, salt can be added before heat is ever applied, but it can also be added during cooking and even after cooking is completed and the dish has hit the plate. Taking into account only the boldening of taste, and putting all health concerns aside, salt is worthy of being used liberally and at any time during a dish’s preparation.

Pepper, on the other hand, has more restrictions (for a chef) than salt does. While salt brings the flavor out of a food, pepper adds flavor to a food. Pepper is used when a food might be bland or needing some additional character. Pepper is a distinct flavor of its own, and its complementary nature adds complex layers of flavor to a dish or meal. Pepper shouldn’t be used as liberally and should not be used in everything. Because Pepper brings its own taste, it can often clash with other tastes or mask the taste that a dish is truly intending.

Additionally, unlike salt, pepper has to be used at the right time during the cooking process since its flavor and texture can change with heat. For instance, if you are frying eggs in a pan, you may want to add the salt early on or during the cooking, but it is important to only add pepper after the eggs are completely cooked to your liking. In another example, when cooking chicken, you may, or may not, want to add the pepper before or after putting it on the grill, depending on preferred taste and texture. The decision of when to add pepper greatly impacts the dish.

Salt and pepper. Such a simple lesson that is overlooked and underappreciated. Second only to washing your hands it is the most important lesson in cooking and, subsequently, it is also an important lesson in relationships and communication.

In relationships, we often communicate without reason or thought. We carry on how we always have, floating through conversations and interpersonal interactions operating intuitively and with habits that we believe we’ve mastered, or worse, haven’t given much time to reconsider. Most people believe they are good conversationalists and enjoyable to talk to. Few believe, even if it is true, that they monopolize conversations, speak about themselves too often, or leave people with little desire to engage with them again in the future.

Many of us carry on talking and interacting each day with the same errors that an amateur makes in his cooking, by misusing the most basic of ingredients.

Let me explain.

Your salt is your ability to bring out the uniqueness of each person you interact with. Salt comes in many forms: curiosity, question asking, and listening. By demonstrating genuine curiosity, asking sincere questions, and listening intently, you bring out more of the greatness that is within a person. Your addition to the conversation is like the perfect pinch of salt which enhances the person’s composition by absorbing and strengthening her great qualities.

Salt can be used liberally and at any time in the communication process. It is subtle yet significant, simple yet extraordinary. Like salt, there is little risk in overdoing it. Being too receptive or giving too much attention rarely spoils a conversation. More is usually better than less.

Pepper, on the other hand, is the unique flavor and perspective that you bring to others. You sprinkle it in at the right times, usually at the end, after the listening has been done. When added to a dish or a conversation, pepper adds color, texture, and variety to a source that otherwise would not have had those qualities. Adding your personal take, your unique perspective, and your opinions add value to others when done at the right time in the right amount. Often less is better than more.

A simple rule for the aspiring culinary communicator is to “listen first and listen often.” With listening, you really can’t overdo it. Then, when it is time, speak and add your own unique flavor. Remember that, as in using pepper, your words, opinions, beliefs, and thoughts are not always needed, even if sharing them is what you want most to do.

The next time you enter a conversation with a spouse, child, coworker, or colleague, remember: salt and pepper. Even in the most basic interactions, there is a recipe for creating the perfect experience.