When You Are Interested, You Become More Interesting
blog·@jeremyc·
0.000 HBDWhen You Are Interested, You Become More Interesting
 In October of 2014, I visited Philadelphia from LA to visit a friend that was attending the University of Pennsylvania. My plan was to only go for the week, but I ended up dumping that plan and moving there for the remainder of my time in the US (This is a long story that I will explain in another post). Nearby on the Upenn campus where I was staying, there was a café called 'Capogiro' that I would visit regularly to do some reading. It was a nice modern café that a lot of the students would visit to pick up a coffee and some gelato, but one of the most interesting times to visit was during a period called "Rush Week". During this specific week, students from all over the university would visit fraternities and sororities hoping to be accepted into their ranks.  During one of my visits to read a new book I had picked up from the local store, I overheard a conversation between two people nearby. It was between a sorority member and a girl who was hoping to join. I can't remember the specifics of the conversation, but it was clear they had not met before and were just getting to know each other. Have you ever been in a conversation where someone just keeps trying to 'one-up' you? That's what this was like. Whenever one would say they had visited this place and that place and loved it, the other would respond immediately with a similar story of their own. And on and on it went….. It should be noted that most of the time when people do this, they are not aware they are doing it.  It happens usually because when someone tells their story, a lightbulb goes off in the other persons' brain and reminds them of a similar experience that they suddenly get excited to share. Before you know it, our brains are 'listening with the intent to respond' with our new lightbulb story, rather than 'listening with the intent of being interested'. When someone tells a story, they like to receive some verbal feedback that it was an interesting and cool story, but when we listen with the intent to respond, we skip giving them feedback and immediately respond with the story we've been waiting to tell. # "Before you know it, our brains are listening with the intent to respond with our new lightbulb story, rather than listening with the intent of being interested." . This leaves the other person still wanting that feeling of recognition; the reason why they told the story in the first place. What happens when we have two unaware people talking to each other like this? They get in a loop. Both of these girls just kept responding to each other with their similar stories without giving the other person the recognition they were looking for; that it was an interesting story. This blew my mind. It shouldn't have. But it did. Here I was at an IVY LEAGUE university where everyone is supposed to be as smart as anything, and I had realised how barely any of these people could even hold a proper conversation with one another. As people in a 1st world society, we all have a default setting of being narcissists. We LOVE talking about ourselves. Don't believe me? If someone has ever handed you a group photo, who is the first person you always look for? Yourself. When we do not have a high self-awareness, we fall into these loops of unconsciousness and act out of our default behaviour. However, when we are able to break our natural conditioning, we might instead respond with an interest in their story and ask further questions. When this happens, people notice!  # "When we do not have a high self-awareness, we fall into these loops of unconsciousness and act out of our default behaviour." . I have a friend that visited a wedding and he knew no one but the bride. He found a someone to talk to and stuck with them for the night so he wasn’t alone, listening to what they were saying and asking questions back to them. By the end of the night, he had barely said a word about himself and the person he was talking to went over to the bride and said: "I've had a great night, this man is so interesting!" The lesson? People do not become interested in you because you can tell a better story than them or have had cooler experiences. When you are interested in what the other person has to say, you become more interesting to that person! Become conscious of your natural stimulus-response habits and try to break them. They were formed by chance and circumstance during the random events of your life. Begin building deliberate habits that have intentionally chosen, and you will find yourself becoming a much more interesting person than you ever thought you could be. ------------------------------------------------ https://image.ibb.co/d6eOuw/DQma_DAr38h_QJh_ET75_FKE74_Amj_BK56_Cwn_WCt_T8_X3_Cd_Dxi_Dx_Y.png **New posts daily!**💡 *Let's connect:* Steemit: @JeremyC Instagram: [Jcorne_](https://www.instagram.com/jcorne_/) Get to know me: [Read My Steem Intro](https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@jeremyc/hi-i-m-jeremy-and-i-am-an-entrepreneur-who-lives-a-life-of-freedom-and-adventure)