Today we're going to be talking about something that we've all
thought about ourselves. Are we a good hang?
Right? Everyone asks themselves that
question at some point. At least if you are a good hang,
you probably have asked yourself that question.
So we're going to talk about those that are a good hang or
maybe why they become good hangs.
People that why someone might drain a room or not be a good
hang and what what what's the difference?
What makes someone enjoyable to be with and how presence matters
more than personality. This is the all in podcast and
hopefully we can be good hang for you today.
All right fellas.
Well, who? Who's someone who you genuinely
enjoy being around and why? 123 will.
Yeah, you were late on that one, huh my good friend Will.
I was thinking I had my my mind on Jimmy.
Jimmy. Jimmy from college.
He was such a great hang because
he was always smiling, always happy to see you, would remember
things about, you know, he was so great.
Jimmy is, I mean, when was the last time we talked to Jimmy?
It's been a couple years for me. I mean, I've talked to him post
college, but it's been it's been a little bit I.
Haven't talked to him since we took a bowling class our senior
year and we're in a little. Whenever you are, Jimmy, we're
going to send this to you. You are a great hang.
Here's the thing about Jimmy, and I think this is a principle
for all great hangers is they have.
They have not width that makes. Them sound overweight stockiness
range. Range range.
Range, they have range. They can talk to different
people about different things. Jimmy was kind of one of those
people who was like a professional BS are like just
just could talk to anyone about anything.
I've been told in my life that you know a little about a lot of
things. Those are people that you love
being around because you could put them in a room with a bunch
of strangers and they're going to be able to work the room and
have a great conversation about engineering, sales, religion,
football, and then circle back to cooking by the time the
nights all said and done. It's a great point.
Shout out, Jimmy. Shout out to Jimmy, I'm going to
send this to you. What a legend.
What do you say about Will? Do you think it's similar
qualities, the range, the being able to talk to anyone about
anything? I would say Will is just a very
light hearted, an enjoyable person to being around.
He makes you feel really funny. Yes, and he makes you real.
He makes you feel really funny. And then at the same time you
also kind of feel like he he he just kind of disarms you a
little bit with his with his humor.
I would say. Yeah.
He's one of those people where you can just really quickly you
find yourself sharing things with him that maybe you wouldn't
share with other people just, you know, vulnerable things.
I get you can you can go deep with him.
I think sensitive things. Yeah, relatively quickly, I
would say. My favorite thing is is Will is
one of my I know I was late on saying his name.
What was the best man at my wedding?
He's my best friend, but Will and I became really close.
And then I think through that natural you guys also start
hanging out with them. But I do feel like pretty
quickly within like the first couple of times that you
specifically you Clayton hung out with Will, you were just
sharing every like the deepest things that were going on in
your life with your family, with, you know, with like
everything happening. But you're right, because he's
he's very disarming in a in a great way.
Well, I. Would say also Jose, we've been,
we've been good friends for a long time.
And for all of our listeners, I stood second at Jose's wedding.
The people's, which I'm very grateful for.
Yeah, the people's best, myself, the one that people wanted that
they didn't get. So kind of like LeBron?
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
What was it? Because I.
Did them out. I lost my train of thoughts.
He wasn't. Going to be able to.
Make it, I made it. Though you, you made it.
You did make it incredible. But anyway, sorry.
I lost my train of thought. What were?
You started talking to LeBron getting.
Deeper. Oh, well, I was going to say,
Jose, you're a great connector of people.
I think that's a great quality of yours.
And you'd become friends with Will before I had become friends
with them. I just remember you telling me
frequently, I think you guys are like 2 peas in a pod, you know,
like you'd become really great friends with them.
And honestly, you've been that way, I think, with a lot of
different people in your life. I've just you have all these
friendships and you like connecting your friends with
other friends that you have that aren't in the same groups.
Well, I think your best quality is you're not, you're not a
sanguine, but you're like people think you're a sanguine.
So for those of you who. May you talking about me or
Clayton? Clayton.
OK, I couldn't tell because you're pointing at me and you're
looking at him I. Wanted to include him.
Yeah, you know, I. Appreciate that I needed that.
But for those of you who are not familiar, temperaments are just
kind of like a it's, it's a way to describe maybe like
personality things that you maybe naturally draw to.
So I think me and you would have sanguine as kind of one of our
main personality types. Sanguine's like you love people,
you love being with people, you love connecting people.
And you're not a sanguine in your strongest temperament, but
you certainly come off that way in terms of your friendliness.
So I think that's why you connect with people, but then
your melancholic comes in, your depth comes in, and then you're
easy to connect with, but then you have depth that Joe.
Michael and I lack. OK, now Jose, it's your turn to
affirm John Michael, now we go left.
Out. We should just all affirm each
other and all of our friends who are listening right now love
you. So I do love you and I do think
you have all great qualities, but that is not what.
There are too many to name right now, so we can't.
Even begin to. No, you know, something that I
do think actually makes someone a great hang that I think you're
you're probably the best out of all of us at is remembering
things about people's lives. I love asking people questions
about their life. I'm self-proclaimed good hang.
You know, we'll see when the when the reviews come in, But
I'm really bad at remembering things about people's lives.
I love talking about it and I'm up front about it, but OK, I'm
so sorry. I have a really bad memory.
You remind me. I was it, you know, your kids
doing this or what was it? How do you get in front of it?
I mean, just at lunch, you, you looked at our friend Nick and
like your son's like, what, four or five?
And he's like, you just turned 3.
So like, so we're talking about qualities that make someone a
good hang, but what are what are things that people do that make
them a harder hang, maybe even if they don't mean to?
So we did an episode, I can't remember when it was about
conversation and we talked about the, the question asking portion
of good conversationalist. And I think that principle
applies here. Like there are people that
you're hanging out with that just deflate the room because
everything in the conversation, they always draw back to
themselves. So they they relate to your
experience only in so much as they themselves can talk about
something that happened to them. It's like you're talking about
your family, like, Oh yeah, my family, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah. Instead of following that up
with Ohio. Yeah, tell me, tell me more
about that. I want, I want to hear more
about that. So I think that's one aspect
where people deflate the room. The other thing is like inside
jokes that no one really understands.
They're making all these little bits that only one other person
in the room understands and the other six are just feel left out
of the inside joke. That's a great way to kind of
shut the vibe down. You know what?
What quality is one that I, I don't think anyone does it like
maliciously. I I think it's just like a it it
comes from a place wanting to connect.
But when you're in a group and then someone keeps pulling you
out of the group, Yeah, you know, like we're all talking.
About someone on one combo, yeah.
Well, not, it's not like, hey, can I talk to you real quick?
It's like we're all talking about something and then they
just lock in and you're OK. Do you remember that, that time
that it's related? But it's like, it's only kind of
like an inside joke. It's just like an inside story
that has nothing to do with everyone else.
It just kind of fully pulls you out.
So right now I work in fundraising.
That's my my primary role that I have right now.
You can call it a bunch of different names, fundraising,
philanthropy, development. It's got a bunch of funny names.
And I've read all these development books over the last
year or so and I've kind of transitioned now I'm reading
more sales books right now. Philanthropy and development is
not the same thing as sales, but it has a lot of crossover and a
lot of what I'm reading right now, there's kind of a similar,
you know, pattern that that follows in sales as it does in,
in development and fundraising, which is that your, your first
encounter with somebody new, either you know, a, a
perspective or current benefactor, or you know, a
perspective or current customer is not to come in and, and just
try to sell somebody on something, sell somebody on a,
on a solution. Your first step is always
asking, asking questions and doing what's called discovery,
trying to understand, you know, in, in development, who this
person is, what they care about, why they care about it, what
that looks like in their life. And for someone that's new in
development or someone that's new in sales, you know, the
temptation is as soon as you, excuse me, as soon as you hear
something that you can, you know, promote your solution for
you, you jump in and, and you do that.
When in reality, you want to, you want to continue to ask
questions and go further. It's kind of like what what you
were saying, Joe Michael. And so I've been reading these
books. I'm like, Oh my gosh, like
there's, there's so much here that has, you know, it's, it's
really important in sales, it's really important in development.
But honestly, it's just really important for human formation in
general because a lot, a lot of what they're talking about is
just building trust with another person.
How do you build trust with another person and show that you
actually, you know, you're not just trying to get something
from them, but you're trying to, to create, to create value for
them? And so I think we're really
quick to listen, to respond like you were saying, listening so
that I can now tell my story that that connects with what
you're saying instead of listening to understand and kind
of pressing in deeper and, you know, uncovering layers that are
there. What role does humor play in
either Inflating the room, making it enjoyable to be
around, or deflating it to where people feel uncomfortable?
It's a great. Question We lean one way or the
other in this group. It's probably to too much humor
at times at the cost of maybe delaying some serious moments.
Yeah. I, as you say that I was kind of
thinking to you of like, did you guys ever have a moment where
you're like, OK, maybe I'm the bad thing?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, and maybe not that, but I know late
high school, early college, I, I was very, I want to say
self-conscious in the, in the way that I was like insecure
about it, but just very conscious about how am I
speaking? How, how are the people
receiving me in like maybe overthinking it for sure.
And I kind of had to like reinvent my social skills a
little bit. Was there what what led to that?
Insecurity or overthinking? I have always been a very
stubborn person and I think it it still comes out at times
there's like I, I just need to be right.
And I was for sure the type of guy like late high school, early
college, that if there was any sort of anything, I would go to
any lengths to make sure that I was seen as I was right and you
were wrong, which no one cares about that when you're 18 years
old, freshman in college, just trying to make friends, right.
And I mean, I had a fine time making friends.
I, I wasn't like struggling on department.
But at the same time, I don't, I don't know if there was 1
moment. I just remember multiple times
I'm like, whatever I just said definitely changed the vibe of
the room. Whatever I just said.
People reacted differently to what Clayton said or to what
John Michaels or to like, I, I just started to notice there was
a difference the people reacting to whatever I was saying versus
what other people were saying, you know?
Yeah, and that's made me question a lot of like, OK,
well, what am I saying? What am I sharing, right.
I also tend to use a lot of humor, right?
And there's been a lot of time. So it's like, OK, like I've had
to learn in which relationships can I use more humor versus less
humor, you know? But I, I'm wondering if like,
was that just me that, that y'all go through something
similar where you guys just always good hangs, you know?
I think everybody probably goes through a phase of being
insecure about what other people think of them, whether that's, I
don't know, you know, you're in a, you're in a new group for the
first time, you know, or even just with your current friends.
I mean, that's just want to attempt a temptation, you know,
an insecurity or, you know, an, an, an attack from the evil
spirit of just like you're isolated.
Nobody likes what you're saying. You know, you're not, you're not
good socially. Like all those things.
I feel like all of us have experienced that at one point or
another of feeling of, of being isolated from the group because
you, you feel like you don't know you're doing something
wrong. You know, whether that's in a
social situation or whatever situation that you might find
yourself in. But I've found that the best
conversationalists, the ones that I enjoy speaking to the
most, they, they do the wave. They do the wave.
And what I mean by that is when you're using too much humor, you
tend to stay here, you know, you tend to stay on the on the
surface. And then it's like you can't
really, you don't, you don't connect really deeply with
someone at that level. But then you also have people
that are are really, really deep, which is good at times,
But I've been in, you know, multiple hour long conversations
where it's like deep the whole time.
And afterwards you're like, you got a headache and you know,
you're just kind of you're kind of tired and a lot of it was
good. But you know, the the most fun
and engaging conversations that I'm a part of are the ones are
the ones that go like this where you can dip into, you know,
conversation of death and then come back out and make some
jokes and be light hearted and then dip back into the depth.
So I would say doing doing the wave is probably a, you know, a,
a best practice if if you will, and I think.
Both of you guys identified the the growth and understanding a
room and understanding what's appropriate.
I just think that's a sign of emotional maturity, emotional
intelligence and emotional intelligence.
I don't know how you develop that.
We've all worked with people in our jobs where it's just like,
man, they just really lack emotional intelligence.
And I've always struggled to work with those people and coach
those people because I'm just like, I don't know how to teach
you that besides just showcasing it for you and having you be
around people who are emotionally intelligent.
Because who taught us? I don't know.
Emotional, intelligent, you know.
I, I think I mean, what you identified as the beginning of
college was a time of emotional maturity because you're talking
about understanding that the way you're being received is
different than other people. That's emotional maturity.
You had the wherewithal to be able to identify that as a an
aspect of your life. And then you made changes to
adjust, right? It was your glow up.
You had the greatest glow up of college.
I did of us three. Your glow up was insane.
Yeah, dude, it was rough at the. Beginning, but I was talking.
About like every year you became cooler.
It's true. It's so true.
You took the fifth year we graduated and we were seeing
pictures of you were like, man, Jose is living the life.
Everyone should take a fifth here it was the.
Most fun. I never want to happen.
What happens when you're when you're deep though, or when
you're honest and then it just met with crickets?
Like, that is the worst feeling when you share something and
then everyone just kind of looks at you and you're like, I was
kidding about that, by the way. When?
Was the last time that happened to you?
Because that happens to me sometimes when I'm around people
that maybe aren't as deep into their faith.
Not on those like this feels like a big blanket statement.
It's not always true, but that it does tend to lean that way
when when people aren't maybe aren't as passionate about the
faith, they just feel uncomfortable.
Yeah. So that that that happened to me
a lot over break, being with my family or with old high school
friends. Yeah.
I feel like some good training that we've had just being a part
of a Catholic missionary organization for a long time,
leading a lot of Bible studies and small group discussions.
There's there's three main roles that we've kind of learned how
to play and leading a Bible study, which I think are also
really applicable to being a part of conversation as well,
which is the first one is the traffic cop, which is there's,
there's someone that's, that's talking too much in, in a
conversation that kind of yeah, just dominates the conversation
or derails the conversation. And as someone, you know, when
you're leading a Bible study, you want to take charge, you
know, make sure you're leading the Bible study.
But as as someone that's entering into a conversation,
really, you know, where there's not really one designated
leader, you're just in a group conversation, you can still you
can still play that role and be able to kind of, you know, pause
that. Thanks for saying that.
And then and then connect to somebody else in the group and
just recognizing that that might be, you know, a pattern for
particular people in the group. But that's what you know,
you're, you're not just being a great conversationalist because
you have a lot of great things to say, but you're being a great
conversationalist because you recognize that the dynamic of
the group and you're willing to kind of step in and lead the
group really, really subtly, you know?
Yeah, I think the time to move on from humor to seriousness is
when you can just tell, you know, the the laughter is dying
down, rooms getting a little quieter.
You can just sense a a feeling of guys are ready for that next
conversation point. It's like when the responses get
shorter, that's probably the time where you toss up a
question of somewhat depth, right.
Tell me about your experience here.
And that promotes conversation that gets past the point of
humor and allows for a on ramp to a deeper conversation.
So a lot of what we said earlier and we're kind of starting to
come back to to this quality is listening, right, asking
questions not to bring it back to yourself, not to respond, but
what did you say? Don't ask questions to respond,
but ask questions to. To understand.
So OK, listening is something that genuinely makes someone a
great thing. What are some other qualities
that make people good hangs? I think the.
Ability to engage both genders effectively in a room is really,
really hard to do. I was a little surprised coming
out of college and realizing that I I just kind of felt like,
oh, we all grew up and we can all talk to both male and
females. Right.
Like some guys are great hangs with the dudes, but then you get
a little uncomfortable when it's a, you know, a multi gender room
and you're just like, I'm kind of scared about that.
Talking to my wife. My, my wife always says that her
rating on emotional maturity of a man, whether it's someone I'm
investing in or a friend, is if they enter her house and right
away they start engaging her in conversation, she's like, right
away, I can tell that person has emotional maturity.
And I think it says something about the man because if you can
speak to, if you can speak to a lady in a way that is, you know,
responsible and appropriate and, and really seeks to know them
without making it flirtatious or overly inquisitive, that's a
sign of emotional maturity. And like, I think both of y'all
do that very well with my spouse.
I mean, even this morning Clayton was was over at our
place having breakfast and right away Emily walked into the room.
And Clayton gets up out of his chair, gives her a hug, you
know, welcomes her and starts engaging her in conversation
right away. That is a sign of emotional
maturity is when men can engage women single, married, you know,
older, younger in a way that is really raises the woman up and
and compliments her well. Yeah.
I think another just kind of shooting off of that a little
bit. We've all had that experience
where you're in a group of people and, you know, you're,
you're in a group of five, you know, four of the people, but
you don't know one of the people in the group.
And then you don't. Sorry.
Group of six. Yeah.
Just to clarify, there's six people, five people that are not
you and you know, four of them. One of them you don't know and
you don't introduce yourself right away.
But then it's like then you're like 45 minutes in and at this
point you've kind of talked to them a little bit, but not
really, you know, and then it's like, do I do I introduce
myself, but this is kind of awkward now to be like, hey, by
the way, what's your name? You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm
Clayton, you know. And so I would say, you know,
having the, again, emotional maturity intelligence to walk
into a room and there's a few people that, you know, they're
just being able to go up and address the people that you're
not immediately closest to. We've all been in an environment
where someone, you know, walks into a room and there's two
people that they know, two people that they kind of know,
and then two people that they don't know at all.
And then they just gravitate to the two people that they know,
you know? And it just kind of makes the
dynamic awkward for the whole group just being willing to go
up and shake someone's hand, engage them again, going back to
Jimmy, his range, you know, Jimmy was a friend of ours from
from high school. I was probably closer friends
with him in high school than you were John Michael.
And then we were in the same major in college.
And so we did a lot of studying together.
And so I had a, you know, another, you know, friend group,
I guess, if you will, that I was always Jimmy was kind of always
around and he he did this super well.
He would always go up and like engage with my roommates and
engage with the people that came in the door.
And everybody always had the exact same thought, which is
like, I love, Jimmy's awesome, I love Jimmy, I love.
Jimmy Yeah. Yeah, but it is all forgiven, at
least for me, if that same person that you know going back
to your example is in a group and it's been 20 minutes in the
seven and introduced themselves, if they say, hey, I'm so sorry,
I should have introduced myself, my name is.
Right, Jose and. I'm like, oh great, we're back.
We're back to square 1. Yep.
It's funny to say that you know someone else.
I'm thinking was like a great Hank was y'all's roommate Cullen
in good? Looking great hang.
Great hang. I mean, like, he, yeah, he, he
had all those qualities. But what I'm thinking of, which
I don't know why this has always stuck with me.
There was someone that worked as a Catholic missionary at the
student center. Yep.
Y'all's roommate was not Catholic nor involved at the
student center, but he was friendly enough to, you know,
again, this is a silly example. She updated her profile picture
on Facebook and he commented like, great picture.
You know, this looks great, just like very friendly.
And that always stood out, stood out to me of like, you don't
know this person, but you're out here, like going out of your way
to make him feel seen. You know, like what a great
quality to have, which just kind of going back to like emotional
intelligence, emotional steadiness.
I think a lot of things we're we're going after is they, they
make people feel safe, right? Go back to Will.
He makes people feel, he disarms people, he makes them feel safe.
How can like a question I have, because we're talking about
like, well, you know, growing emotional intelligence.
Well, you know, reflecting on these things, but they, they,
we're not really giving a lot of practicals, which is hard to
give some practical advice with this.
But yeah, like what's something someone can do to grow in that
emotional intelligence, to grow in that listening aspect of
things right there, of making people feel safe with something
practical? I think 1 learn, be a learner.
So like you need to know, you need to take time to learn
things about people, about experiences, about ideas that
you're not naturally interested in.
Like 1 of the things I love talking to you guys about is all
of us are like, Oh yeah, I was reading this book about this
thing. I was watching this video about
this thing. I was watching Listen to this
podcast about this. And so your, your ability to
have range in a conversation is totally influenced by the range
in your, in your mind. Are you constantly engaging new
ideas to, to where you can be able to converse about a, a
various amount of topics, no matter if it's a topic that
you're personally interested in or whether it's something that
you know a little bit about, but you're excited to learn more
about it. So there's a learning aspect
that happens outside of the conversation so that then you
can have a learning mindset when you're in a conversation, when
you're in a room with people that you don't know.
If there's if there's one relationship in your life where
you feel like you've learned the most about yourself, what what
relationship would that be? That's out of my spouse.
No, I know. Well, that's the end.
You gave it away. That's the answer I'm looking
for is I would say that the relationship where I've learned
the most about myself is in my relationship with my wife about,
you know, my my tendencies to speak one way versus another
way, my tendencies in a group. And I would say the reason for
that is because, you know, in, in our, in our marriage, I feel
like it's just natural. You're constantly giving.
I don't want to say constantly, but it's a relationship where I
feel like I've, I've received a lot of feedback in a good way.
Sometimes, you know, I'm glad to hear it.
Sometimes it's difficult to hear.
But I would definitely say one thing.
And this is, you know, we've totally employed this in, you
know, the roles that we've had for the last nine years in
different, you know, various forms of, of mentorship.
It's just asking for feedback from people because oftentimes,
you know, you can, I mean, you, there's things that you can do,
you can read books and kind of pick up on things and practice
some certain things like looking people in the eye, giving a firm
handshake, asking questions about someone before you start
talking about yourself. And you can definitely get
better that way. But I would say, you know, with,
with the friends that you have in, in your life, being willing
just to say, Hey, just give me, you know, give me some, give me
some feedback here. You know, well, just like, Hey,
what are some things that you think that I could grow in, you
know, and just growing in self-awareness like that is
going to help you in social situations, I'd imagine as well.
I don't know if this is the best advice or not, but this is
something that helped me when I was talking about, you know,
when I was coming to college and I was like, OK, I need to kind
of change some things. I would kind of make games out
of conversations and not in in manipulative or malintentioned
way, but more of like, OK, I'm going to make it.
I'm going to meet this person and I want to see how long I can
go without speaking about myself.
And just like that type of game, you know, that really helped me
in like learning, OK, can I connect with someone without
talking about myself? Can I connect with someone
without changing domineering a conversation?
Or can I connect with someone without speaking, just smiling.
Now maybe that's an extreme, you know, but just making games, I,
I think was very helpful for me. That's a good idea.
No, again, I don't know if it's just my because I overanalyze
things and I definitely have gone the other way too of like
OK can I say how many things can I say before ruining a
conversation? I think another example of a
great hang are people who have range in conversation, but also
range with generations of people.
So when you're in a room and you have people, it's so funny to me
now because I don't know if you guys feel this way, but we work
with people who are our parents age now.
And we're, we're peers, maybe not peers in terms of like job
title, but peers in the sense that we're, we have professional
relationships with these people. And it's just always funny to me
because being from the South, I was at a wedding this weekend
and I, I saw some friends who were my parents age and I, I'm
still naturally inclined to call them Mr. So I was talking to
this guy and yes, Mr. John, Mr. John, like, how are you?
And he's like, hey, you have to call me Mr. anymore.
You know, we're, we're, we're both adults here.
And it just, it revealed that fact of there are a ton of
people that are great with people in their 20s, college
people, young adults, but you put them in front of a, a
grandpa and they're just totally lackadaisical in conversation.
Or you put them in front of a, a 50 year old have no idea what to
talk about. So there there's a multi
generational range too. And that's actually a great test
of your ability to be a good hang.
Do like people in their 50s like being around you?
Yeah. Or are they like, oh, he's
trying way too hard? There was no higher compliment
to me growing up than if someone told me my parents love you.
My parents always ask about you. It's the great, the greatest
feeling. Oh, people used to make fun of
me. They're like when you when I
invite you over to my house, you just sit in the kitchen, talk to
my mom and dad the whole time. Didn't even hang out with.
Me. You're the parent friend.
Yeah, everyone has that friend that's really good with the
parent too. Jose would come over on on
Christmas break, you know, in between semesters after colleges
as missionaries even come hang out with my inlaws at at at
their house. And Jose always did such a great
job of engaging, particularly my mother-in-law in conversation
was always hanging out with us, so much so that she wanted to
invite him over for Christmas because she thought Jose was an
orphan because because he spent so much time hanging out with us
at at the house. Never spoke about myself.
She loved him. Yeah.
Because you never, you never give away that.
Hey, you actually, I don't know if I ever told you, but I have
parents and siblings. Joe Michael, I've got a question
for you and I want, I want to see how you, how you answer
this. I think you know, a lot of what
we're talking about, what we're not trying to say is, Hey,
here's how you get people to like you, right?
That that's, that's not really the mindset that you want to
have when you go into these conversations is, hey, how can I
behave in a way where I get people to like me?
Joe Michael, you've always, you know, you've have a high EQ,
high emotional intelligence. I think you just want to bring
it back and just affirm you in the group.
You've been waiting all episode. And you, you've, you, you've
been, I think naturally skilled socially, you know, I would say,
you know, 10 years ago. Oh, no, I, I would, you know,
and, and I think, you know, we've spoken about this, maybe
you've spoken about, spoken about it on the podcast, but
those skills are more geared towards how can I enter into a
room and, and get people to like me.
And I'm going to, you know, use the word I don't, you're not
manipulative, but it's like, how do I, you're going in that
conversation? How do I, how do I, you know,
behave in a way where, yeah, maybe I'm doing all this
question asking, but it's like it's self-serving.
And I think I've seen a, a large shift in you over the last
number of years where it's become more genuine.
And your disposition is how do I serve the person in front of me
instead of I'm only really trying to gain social skills.
So and to be self-serving. Does that make sense?
Yeah, I mean, I think I would say all three of us are great
with people like I, I would confidently say that I think all
of us, myself included, maybe the foremost.
I know how to manipulate people like you can just when, when you
have emotional intelligence, you know how to just just get them
to like you. And, and you can do it to your
point in a way that seems selfless, but it's actually
selfish. Like I'm just going to ask a ton
of questions because I want you to really like me.
And I think still to this day, it's a decision of the will in
each moment to make the decision of am I thinking about myself
and how I'm appearing in this moment?
Or am I thinking about what I'm giving back in this
conversation? Am I using my abilities to
highlight those around me and genuinely seek out their best
interest in conversation or in an environment?
Or am I using this so that they like me?
Because it would be the same skills, but it's the intention
behind that. The hardest part about this is
from the outside looking in you, you really sometimes aren't able
to tell what this person's intention is.
But I don't know about you guys there.
There is a certain soft marker that you just know when you're
when you see it and you're like, man, they're they seem like
they're all about other people. But I can just tell the way
they're doing this, it's all about them.
Can you name that? I don't know because I don't
know if I can the word. Gentleness comes to mind here
because you could have a very charismatic personality that is
still subtly gentle and how it comes off to people, you know,
dominating versus meek that they have the same outside effect,
which is a sense of power. But dominating is I'm going to
use my power to make sure, you know, that I'm the alpha mic in
this room versus meekness being that ability to say, I have this
power within me. I'm able to control it, use it,
apply it, pull out that tool when the right time comes in
this situation. And then I'm also able to notice
when I need to pull back a little bit.
And you know, one of one of the things that I think I struggle
with in conversations is just dominating the conversation.
So you can even be someone that's asking a lot of
questions, but you're not giving the people around you the
opportunity to do the same. And so you're leading the
conversation and it looks like you're inquisitive, but in
reality you just want to hold the ball the whole time.
You're just dominating. Yeah, absolutely.
Sounds like what we're saying is that becoming someone people
enjoy being around isn't that performing.
It's not about just asking a lot of questions.
It's not about being someone you're not.
It's simply about connecting and being present to a person, part
of you. If this episode gave you
something to think about the next time you walk into a room,
share it with someone you love spending time with.
Make sure you're following or subscribe to us so you don't
miss what's coming next. We're the All In podcast.
We'll see you next week.