Social media, Facebook and Twitter among others, rock. You can engage the world w/o tripping the offline trapdoor that regularly plunges you into a familiar pit of conversational hell. The pit is worth avoiding; odds are good you still bear scars from the 2nd and 3rd degree burns you've earned there. And how will detailed info about this trapdoor be relevant to your life? If you're expecting that a strong lifestyle has only the usual strategies on how to store cabbage in the refrigerator or 5 tips to manage stress, if you think lifestyle has nothing to do with how you talk to people face-to-face or make business contacts, or if you've given up on letting people know how your product or service can benefit them - maybe it can't - or if you're convinced that the recession has fallen on your act much like a heavy curtain ends a light comedy, and because the play is over you've given up on networking entirely, then you shouldn't pay much attention to this posting, celebrating as it does a laser treatment of what to say when someone asks us, "What do you do?"
This is a cultural question, a navigation question about how we maneuver through our own particular world of contribution and compensation, a question considered rude in many cultures but business as usual here in ours. The question looms over you like Mason the bully llama stands over a little alpaca. (previous post) Business as usual needs - demands - no response beyond a self-typing category: "I'm a medical technician... a teacher... housewife... own a paint store... student... consultant... I help people plan their financial future..." that glues and labels us against the biologist's slide, the gluing and labeling a skill we've all acquired from years at school and at home. If you answer the question like most of us, your connectivity is toast, your answer the equivalent of a full syringe of novocaine right into the prefrontal cortex of the brain of your partner in communication crimes and misdemeanors. If conversation is a dance, you've just killed your dance partner: gone, eyes rolled back in their head.
"So, what do you do?" There's no avoiding it; the question has been asked and now it lies there, uncooked, flopping on the plate. Having witnessed hundreds of these moments of quiet agony while the face freezes and the smile forms a frozen rictus of civility as the answer makes its tortuous way out of the speaker's mouth, his or her slow loris eyes wide with the angst of already knowing this song will be seriously off-key. Déjà vu, all over again. I am not an innocent in this; we all know this one. We're usually bored with the question AND the answer. (Can ears glaze over or is it just eyes?) We tune out, we lose focus, we wonder if we fed the dog. It's all there imprinted on our neurons, firing off in some areas of the brain, shutting down in others, a house bright and partying here, dark and unoccupied there, with sometimes the entire neighborhood closed down dark like a garment district at night. We've lost our listener. Forever.
What to do?
2. No time? Need to save your business NOW? Go here:
This is a cultural question, a navigation question about how we maneuver through our own particular world of contribution and compensation, a question considered rude in many cultures but business as usual here in ours. The question looms over you like Mason the bully llama stands over a little alpaca. (previous post) Business as usual needs - demands - no response beyond a self-typing category: "I'm a medical technician... a teacher... housewife... own a paint store... student... consultant... I help people plan their financial future..." that glues and labels us against the biologist's slide, the gluing and labeling a skill we've all acquired from years at school and at home. If you answer the question like most of us, your connectivity is toast, your answer the equivalent of a full syringe of novocaine right into the prefrontal cortex of the brain of your partner in communication crimes and misdemeanors. If conversation is a dance, you've just killed your dance partner: gone, eyes rolled back in their head.
"So, what do you do?" There's no avoiding it; the question has been asked and now it lies there, uncooked, flopping on the plate. Having witnessed hundreds of these moments of quiet agony while the face freezes and the smile forms a frozen rictus of civility as the answer makes its tortuous way out of the speaker's mouth, his or her slow loris eyes wide with the angst of already knowing this song will be seriously off-key. Déjà vu, all over again. I am not an innocent in this; we all know this one. We're usually bored with the question AND the answer. (Can ears glaze over or is it just eyes?) We tune out, we lose focus, we wonder if we fed the dog. It's all there imprinted on our neurons, firing off in some areas of the brain, shutting down in others, a house bright and partying here, dark and unoccupied there, with sometimes the entire neighborhood closed down dark like a garment district at night. We've lost our listener. Forever.
What to do?
1. Listen to this audio file below if you want a path out of this polite purgatory. Ann Convery. I talked to her and yes, now I'm happy to be affiliated with her, and you'll see why when you hear what she says about the brain and communicating. Make it easy on yourself if your living depends on answering this question: "What do you do?" Lots of insight you can use immediately. She's good.
(Click below if you want the full audio interview)
Download Ann Convery Interview
2. No time? Need to save your business NOW? Go here:
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