The Practical Guide to Thinking Like Me

People Matter More

People make the world go round, the planet is our treadmill.

Before it began, it started.  That big idea.  People is what makes thing work.  Technology is a bit like a new god, and us, humanity, we're the old god, one of the oldest.

People cause things to happen.  We are the effectors in the system.

Your average company lives and dies by people, not on opportunities lost, or cash missing or some other factor we like to think about. The failure of it all rests on us.  People matter more.

Part of my job is to understand people.   I train my team to look for behaviors in people.  Reading people is a better skill than shaping people.  You can't save everyone, but you can sure as hell entertain yourself observing people.

a memory opens

Black light fills the room and I wonder why I'm there.  I jest.  I like to think I'm there, because they dragged me there.  

No man is dragged into a strip club.

We are foolish souls that march willingly into a bar filled with predators, hunters seeking our cash and eagerly stroking our egos to hear what we wanna hear.

I would wager that if you want to understand people, a strip club is one of the best places to do that.  Sure you can people watch in a bar and observe the pass and fail of people hitting on each other, but in a club its magnified by like a thousand.  Its not just men that are playing the game, the women they too expose themselves beyond the flesh and bikini like smiles.

It was that classic moment, the client wants a drink.  They wanted to club.  We of course said sure.  In that moment we all acted like we were from that fraternity.  We relished in our new bond of bro'ness and took conquest in a near by strip bar to regale stories new and old.  Oh the fortunes we'd make together.

The heart of hustle is looking legit and rapidly closing the gap that you're not.

I'm always in interview mode.  

Talking to people calms me.  It addresses my restless.  Even now as I type this, I'm talking to myself.  Reminding myself that I'm ok, and next, is near by, waiting for me.

Sometimes I get into the notions of futures- possible futures that exist.  Its a deep thought.  I think about timelines and futures that all around us and waiting for the next fork in their temporal standing- my question with Lucy, the asian stripper dancing on the stage, I could be apart of her timeline, I could be here for a reason, and I just don't know it yet.

It makes for a great story.  That day, us there, we were there for a reason, I was meant to talk to her, to make her laugh, to make her come over to my table.  Of course its about the hustle, the audacity in her mind swirling that whatever cash I had on me was her's, it was only a matter of time.  Her will, her notions of her confidence would decompile mine, and my new renewed confidence would note the credit to her, my nod to her that we were not in the combined state of yeah baby this cool.

She pitched me hard until my body language suggested something else.

I went into interviewer mode but added a full compliment of obvious bits to breakdown the small talk barrier and get into the good stuff.  These are classic techniques i've used thousands of times to keep the person i'm engaged with in control- its not about my control, its about theirs.  A person in control reveals more cards.  They expose more data which nets you more possibility, or in my case, enriches the timeline.

"I figure every question I ask you you've heard before.." I said nursing a beer as my collages oogled me from a far at the main bar. 

"Yep, that'd be true.." she laughed keeping her eyes on me.  

Her hand floated across my shoulder, the sense of kingly presence filled me.  Of course this is nice.  This was the opener- she'd want a dance or a VIP or a drink it was coming and in most cases I would oblige.  After all, she is working.  Success to her isn't just a conversation, its conversion.  Keep her in control.

"I'm always curious tho, how do you pick your mark?" I was bold.  I wanted to know the real skinny, how does she navigate a room of drunk horny men.

In my mind I pictured myself in a lab coat, taking notes, firing off orders to the interns on the blackboard- get this down fellas, we're gonna understand this place!

She changed her posture, possibility curious in my question but I figure its because something new in a place like this is an amazing thing.  Think about it.  She has likely met a 1000 men, her mind was pattern matching me against a trove of data that she knew already, she sized me up but now this was something different.... or a maybe she was bored.

Maybe I recall this story cause I feel different, want to be different, as if the people who are me, I matter more.  

"A watch tells a lot.." she said waving the waitress over.

I had to get her a drink.  This conversation represented new data.  I was building a prototype in my mind for a product I had not yet understood.  While the guys at the bar talked about whatever that thing was and the future it was gonna be and talking trash on x and y or how they love z, I was on a new frontier, talking to girl I knew nothing about but was so eager to understand something new and more so, let her be the architect of it.  

Control

"So a watch is money?" I said.

"Not just money.. sophistication, entitlement... " she sneered back at me telling the waitress what she wanted.

I celebrated my watchless arms.  I never did like wearing a watch.  Sometimes I liked wearing one like my Dad would, with the face of the watch pointing inward instead of outward.

"What about those two jocks?" I nodded toward the far wall, a booth of college grads. 

"Nope, they got no cash." She smiled and attempted to recalibrate her interest in me.  

The interview while interesting was less interesting compared to the potential cash on me.  Staying in conversation kept her in control yet it also gave her more opportunity to reverse engineer my mindset and make it more aligned with hers.

"Maybe conversion is merely a smile away from recognized opportunity.." The deeper me spilled out on the neon stage.  

"You're funny.." she said getting up with her drink.  The interview was over.  "You're not like most people, drunk at the bar, being stupid with a girl, you're different.." she said sliding her hand across my broad shoulder frame.  

"Be careful in here.. " she said walking off. 

I'd like to say that was last time I talked or interviewed Lucy but I'd be lying.  There would be a number of times I would return to the club, yet another moment of drunk manly bro bonding where once again I'd be alone at my table, in conversation, getting to know a predator named Lucy.  

a memory closes

People are reason things move, memories form, lives interconnect.  

I seem like a technology person, but I'm really obsessed with people.