How to Secretly Learn About Their Lives
How to Secretly Learn About Their Lives
Let’s say your paper carrier has just hurled the newspaper from his bike to your front door. You pour a cup of coffee and get comfortable to catch up on what’s happening in the world. Your world, that is.
Do you flip first to the international news? The fashion section? The sports page? The entertainment section? Maybe the comics? Whichever section you usually flip to first, tomorrow DON’T.
Turn to any other section, preferably one you hardly ever read. Why? Because it will familiarize you with other worlds so that you can soon discuss anything with anybody, no matter how little you have in common.
How about the real estate section? Yawn. Maybe you don’t find real estate especially engrossing. However, sooner or later you’re going to find yourself with a group of people who are discussing properties, deals, and today’s market.
Scanning the real estate section just once every few weeks will keep you au courant with their conversation.
The advertising column? Maybe you think the world would be a far, far better place without Madison Avenue. But your bottom line won’t be better off if you can’t hold your own discussing matters with the marketing maven you’ve just contracted to advertise your company’s widgets.
Just a few peeks at the advertising news section and you’ll soon be chatting about campaigns and creative people, and doing print or TV. Instead of saying words, you’ll be saying copy. Instead of the agency, you’ll be bandying about real insider terms like the shop.
Using outsider words is one of the biggest giveaways that you are not in the know. On the ship, if a passenger asked any of my staff, “How long have you been working on the boat?” they’d squelch a groan.
Cruise staffers proudly worked on a ship, and the word boat revealed the passenger as a real landlubber.
The right word can perform conversational miracles. In the receiving line, whenever passengers asked our laconic captain, “When did you first become a master?” or “What was your first command?” he would hold up the entire line of people snaking around the ballroom waiting to shake his hand.
Captain Cafiero would enthusiastically recount his naval history to the savvy inquirer who might have just learned the words master or command last week in the newspaper shipping notices.
(If the passenger had simply said, “How long have you been a captain?” or “What was your first boat?” he or she would have gotten the captain’s usual Italian gentleman’s version of the bum’s rush.)
Soon you’ll become addicted to the high that establishing rapport with so many people gives you. All it takes is reading different sections of the newspaper.
Pump Their Pulp for Even More Fuel
Then, when you crave a bigger hit of insider lingo, start reading trade journals. Those are the closed-circulation magazines that go to members of various industries.
Ask your friends in different jobs to lend you one so you’ll have even more fuel for the conversational fire. All industries have one or two.
You’ll see big glossy rags with names like Automotive News, Restaurant Business, Pool and Spa News, Trucking Industry, and even Hogs Todayfor people in the pig business. (Excuse me, they call themselves “swine practitioners.”
Hey, you never know when, to make your next big sale, it will help to speak pig.) Any one issue will give you a sample of their lingo and inform you of the hottest issues in that field.
When it comes to people’s hobbies and interests, browse through magazines on running, working out, bicycling, skiing, swimming, and surfing. Large magazine stores carry biker rags, boxer rags, bowler rags, even bull-riding rags.
You’ll find thousands of special-interest magazines published every month. Several years ago, I got hooked on buying a different one each week.
It paid off quickly when a potential consulting client invited me to dinner at her home. She had a beautiful garden and, thanks to Flower and Garden Magazine, I could throw out insider terms like ornamentals, annuals, and perennials.
I could even keep up when the discussion turned to the advantages of growing from seeds or bulbs. Because I was so fluent in “flower,” she invited me to take a longer walk with her to see her private back gardens.
As we strolled, I gradually changed the subject from chrysanthemums to the consulting work I could do for her company.
Who was leading whom down the garden path? Is the world getting smaller, or are we getting bigger? Today’s Renaissance man or woman is comfortable and confident anywhere.
The next technique helps you be an insider wherever you find yourself on the planet, and it saves you from fulfilling the world’s fantasy of “the ugly American.”
Ask your friends in different jobs to lend you one so you’ll have even more fuel for the conversational fire. All industries have one or two.
You’ll see big glossy rags with names like Automotive News, Restaurant Business, Pool and Spa News, Trucking Industry, and even Hogs Todayfor people in the pig business. (Excuse me, they call themselves “swine practitioners.”
Hey, you never know when, to make your next big sale, it will help to speak pig.) Any one issue will give you a sample of their lingo and inform you of the hottest issues in that field.
When it comes to people’s hobbies and interests, browse through magazines on running, working out, bicycling, skiing, swimming, and surfing. Large magazine stores carry biker rags, boxer rags, bowler rags, even bull-riding rags.
You’ll find thousands of special-interest magazines published every month. Several years ago, I got hooked on buying a different one each week.
It paid off quickly when a potential consulting client invited me to dinner at her home. She had a beautiful garden and, thanks to Flower and Garden Magazine, I could throw out insider terms like ornamentals, annuals, and perennials.
I could even keep up when the discussion turned to the advantages of growing from seeds or bulbs. Because I was so fluent in “flower,” she invited me to take a longer walk with her to see her private back gardens.
As we strolled, I gradually changed the subject from chrysanthemums to the consulting work I could do for her company.
Who was leading whom down the garden path? Is the world getting smaller, or are we getting bigger? Today’s Renaissance man or woman is comfortable and confident anywhere.
The next technique helps you be an insider wherever you find yourself on the planet, and it saves you from fulfilling the world’s fantasy of “the ugly American.”
Technique:-Read Their Rags
Is your next big client a golfer, runner, swimmer, surfer, or skier? Are you attending a social function filled with accountants or Zen Buddhists—or anything in between? There are untold thousands of monthly magazines serving every imaginable interest. You can dish up more information than you’ll ever need to sound like an insider with anyone just by reading the rags that serve their racket. (Have you read your latest copy of Zoonooz yet?)
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