What My Truck-Driver Dad Taught Me About Talking with Brilliant People
How to move beyond small talk and connect deeply—even when you’re intimidated.
This week is a big week in our community because of the Fourth of July and tons of people come visit and celebrate.
This week is also a big week for me because our library asked me to be a part of Amity Gaige’s visit. I have to ask her questions and talk after she does a reading.
This is obviously a bit weird for me because I (as an author) am used to being the one who gets questions asked at these sort of things.
And I’m excited, but also a bit scared.
I’m scared because I want to make sure that anyone who comes (it’s on July 3 and there is a lot of other stuff happening) actually gets something out of it, that they feel more connected to Amity, her brilliance, and her book.
She teaches at Yale!
She has a Guggenheim!
The NYT made one of her books a 2020 New York Times Notable Book!
She has been a finalist for the Mark Twain American Voice Award.
This is impressive stuff, right?
How do I help facilitate a conversation with someone this cool? It’s a big ask. And I want to do a good job.
So, I’ve decided that I’m going to try to channel my little hobbit dad as I speak to this brilliant human on Thursday.
As people who have been with me here know, one of my dads was a little hobbit of a man who loved all things breakfast and chocolate cake and conversation.
He was a truck driver and a mechanic and by his words to me never made it past second grade, not really, when he was growing up in Staten Island, New York where his parents had gone to hopefully make their fortunes, because he was incredibly dyslexic in a time that there were not many resources or knowledge for kids like him.
His brother and sister and parents were all incredibly smart and so was he, but he never realized it. He always thought he was dumb.
And sometimes other people would swoop in and take advantage of his lack of confidence in his intellect.
I see that happening now with our little community about someone. This hurts my heart a bit.
Here’s the thing, this person? Just like my dad has some big gifts.
What they have is an incredible gift of communicating via listening and story. My dad instantly connected with people and went right to the heart of things. My dad would have a very good conversation with Amity Gaige.
How do I know this?
I know because I’ve seen him do it before—a million times.
I grew up in New Hampshire near the big city of Manchester where presidential hopefuls would do meet and greets in diners or in the Mall of New Hampshire or Bedford Mall, trying to make contact with as many potential voters as possible.
They’d cruise through the crowds.
Until they came to my dad.
My dad wasn’t a person of shallow talking. When he came across anyone—president, coworker, family member, random human walking down the street—he wanted to know them, really know them, and make a connection.
He would ask them how they were doing.
He would ask them if this is what they imagined their life would be when they were little.
He would ask them what they worry about, if their family was okay with them campaigning.
He would remind them that they were human.
And sometimes those presidential candidates would interrupt and turn away because they were too busy, but some of them? They’d actually engage with him despite their handlers’ urging them away to move on.
My dad didn’t do this on purpose—this building connections—he did it on instinct because he learned from other people by listening to their stories, reading their faces, being immersed in their experiences and it’s how he became one of the smartest people I knew when it came to what people were really like and about.
Connections like the ones my dad tried to build with anyone and everyone are beyond the small talk and about building trust.
This is from Esther Perel’s masterclass about relational intelligence. I think my dad could have taught this right alongside her.
What does it mean to build connections?
Indeed has a great take on it writing,
“Building connections occurs when you form a bond with another person. While you may create personal and professional relationships, both can benefit your professional career. Connections allow you to benefit from the help you receive from others, and you can also offer support to them when they need it. These relationships create a mutually beneficial system, in which increasing your network also increases your effectiveness and helpfulness in professional settings.”
They have a list that’s a bit career-oriented, but numbers 4 and 6 really resonate with me when I think about my dad.
Four on the list was finding commonalities, which is something my dad would do with anyone all the time.
And number six was showing gratitude.
Indeed talks about that as something you do after someone grants you a favor, but for my dad? He was grateful for a handshake, a half smile, a piece of story, a hello.
That’s what I think was special about him and why I think everyone loved him. He was always grateful to be seen, to be recognized, to have a moment of anyone’s time. Instead of taking people for granted, he took them to heart.
That’s what connection really is: taking people to heart.
Bit of a resource
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/build-connections
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