Don't Think, Just Do

Everyone wants to be around exciting people.  They draw crowds because everyone wants to hear their exciting stories about their awesome lives.  Don’t you wish you were one of those people?  Let’s see if we can’t make that dream come true.

Exciting people do indeed live more exciting lives than your average man, but their excitement is also created by them just being naturally exciting.  They tend to be very good story tellers and are generally charismatic people. Here are some tactics that can be used to create a more exciting aura.

Be Animated – Use your hands when you talk to emphasize your point, be generally in motion and animated.  But, be careful with this.  If you are jumping around like a fool you will surely be exited, but that is just not the excitement we are looking for.  We’re looking for the excitement that others will envy, we want them laughing with you, not at you.  So use your animations to emphasize points, but don’t go overboard and try to resist the temptation of going further and further with your animations just because they are getting laughs, there is a good chance they are not the laughs we’re looking for.

Be Interesting – Try to keep your eyes open to new topics.  An interesting person is interested in what other people have to say and is constantly learning and broadening their vast wealth of knowledge, keeping up with current issues.  Try to master the skill of playing the devil’s advocate.  See the positives and negatives of any side of an argument.  This will help you to understand what other people are saying.  Then, when you listening to someone say something repeat the underlying meaning you get from them back to them to make sure you fully understand what they were talking about.  If they used specific vocabulary, try to use that.  For example if they say “beach house” don’t use “cottage” use “beach house” it helps you relate to them better.  The other purpose of repeating the meaning you get from someone’s conversation is that you were actually listening; they will appreciate it and will have a greater opinion of you.  Learning interesting things to talk about is great too, like piano or photography, and can have you have a special connection with people that share your hobby instantly.  The more hobbies you have the better.

Stories – Over time, you will have life experiences that are worth sharing.  Mastering the art of storytelling can quickly make you the main attraction at any event.  A good story is gold.  Obviously, you need interesting experiences to tell interesting stories; we’ll get to that in a few min.  First, let’s see what can be done to tell an awesome story.

• Begin and Finish Your Stories with A Bang – You want to immediately grab their attention and drag them into the story, and then when you are finished, you want to leave them with the best impression possible.  Naturally, this is easier said than done.  The key to the opening of a story is, first of all, to be speaking in a loud, clear voice and to have it unclear as to where the story is heading at all.  That will have them listening.  When you have them listening, you want to be building suspense, build on your main theme.  Then when you get to the ending, it should be something that is very much unexpected.
• Don’t Borrow – Don’t borrow stories if you can help it.  The whole “my friend” bit sucks, steer clear.
• Explain Facts – If you throw a fact out there, like “Danny is not a small person…”, try to explain it a little; it will add color to your story. For example, “When I say he isn’t small, I want you to picture this Goliath of a man getting into the back seat of my poor little Mini Cooper… ass first… wiggling that gargantuan planet of a behind in to my meager sitting space and then having his stomach mold like Play Doh to the back of the driver’s seat… only, it didn’t smell like Play Doh… and the kicker was the two Asians who barely spoke English already back there, as if they didn’t already judge us for being overweight as a country!…  Just picture that for a second… yeah… that’s what I said.  But, you should have seen the look on the faces of my two buddies in the back there, oh my word!  Priceless!…  I didn’t know Asians could open their eyes that wide.  Anyway…”  As opposed to saying, “So when he got in my car it was a little tight, to say the least.”  Throw out a fact, and then spice it up using the following three techniques.
• Imagery – Try to paint a picture of the scene you are trying to describe.  Look at the example from the bullet above, I purposely put in “just picture that” to show you that you should be giving enough detail to ask people to picture what you are saying.  I’m not saying you should do it every chance you get, in fact, I’d suggest you don’t do that.  But keep the imagery at the level where you would be comfortable in doing so.
• Pauses – You can’t just keep going and going.  Pause.  Again, look at the example a couple bullets up again.  Look at all the usages of the …, they are all pauses.  Pauses are your friend for three reasons, they will give you time to gather your thoughts and put together good sentences, will build anticipation and will slow your story down a little giving off a nice relaxed and confident vibe.
• Humor – Humor is always a good thing to use in a story.  Obviously, you want it to actually be funny though, otherwise you are going to just look like a loser.  Having humor in a story is actually very easy, the main concept is to produce something that is unexpected and out of the ordinary.  This can be like going into description of something odd much further than any man would normally and maybe using some fancy vocabulary while you’re at it.  If your story involves a funny situation, make sure to explain all the imagery in detail, again, some fancy vocabulary when talking about odd things goes a long way here.  Be careful who you insult.  The example I gave three bullets up should not be told in the presence of overweight or people of Asian descent unless you are good friends with them and know they won’t care.  In most cases, they won’t mind, but just be careful.
• So Much More – I could really just go on forever about stories.  The best way to really become a good story teller is practice.  You need to practice storytelling and tweak your stories to see what is most effective.  Remember to always know your audience and pick the most appropriate story to tell.

Relax – Stay relaxed.  Interesting people have this sense of mystery about them.  Being relaxed is a big part of that mystery.  It’s almost like you’ve seen it all before and nothing is out of the ordinary for you.  Just do all you can to stay calm cool and collected at all times and be… (See next bullet)

Confident – Well, I’ve written an article on this.  You can check it out here.

Gather Your Thoughts – Think before you speak.  Speak slowly, don’t rush it.  Speaking slower will have them hanging on to your words and at the same time it will give you t gather your thoughts.  Embrace pauses at the end of sentences.  Avoid blurting out a sentence that doesn’t make sense or comes out wrong by taking your time, pacing your speech and pausing after sentences naturally.

Listen – This was touched upon under being interesting, but, to reinforce because I think it is a major point, you must listen.  Listen to what others are saying, be genuinely interested and try to understand the true meaning of their opinion as described in the bulleted section above called “Be Interesting.”

Smile! – Smiling makes everyone around you more comfortable and happy, it’s contagious.  Make sure you are always happy, or at least portraying that you are happy.  No one is interested in talking to someone who is always down and making things generally depressing.  Be cheerful person and people will want to be around your uplifting attitude.

Being interesting is not all just about creating an interesting aura, it’s also about doing interesting things.  So what are some things that can spice up our lives?

• Hobbies – The more hobbies, the more you have to talk about and be excited about.  Do things that really get you out of your comfort zone.  Try Jiu Jitsu, imporv classes, or singing classes, something that gets you out there and a little uncomfortable, vulnerable.
• Travel – Travel every chance you get, the more makeshift the better.  Some of the best experiences of my life came when I was absolutely broke and traveling with friends.
• Sports – The sporting type of crowd is always an interesting one, and they are usually physical, so some crazy things can happened when you hang out with them.
• Make Plans - Don’t be the type of person that settles for just watching movies weekend after weekend, sure that is all good fun, but you can’t do it all the time.  Make plans to do something, whatever it is.
• Do Work You Enjoy – You, most likely, hang out with people you work a lot.  If you are excited about what you do, then you will be exited around them constantly and they will be excited by your exciting aura

Obviously, last but not least, I want to embrace spontaneity.  For some of you, this isn’t for you at all, but, personally, I enjoy a crazier lifestyle.  I do things spontaneously, sometimes legal, sometimes not, always fun.  Some of my most exciting memories ever have been completely crazy and completely spontaneous.  A lot of you will be reading this post solely to find out how to be like this and my advice is to be open minded.  Get out of your comfort zone.  Take every opportunity you can.  If you don’t think you have the balls to do it, remember… winners don’t think, they just do.

As always, have fun!