Avoid Boring People
Yes, you heard it right. It is pretentious, but it is correct, isn’t it?
Life is short. You want to spend the time with interesting people. You want to have exciting and memorable experiences. The easiest way is to shut off boring people.
But hold on. It is not just that.
This is one of the best life advice given by James Watson, Nobel Prize-winning scientist and a legend for his work unlocking the structure of DNA. It is the title of his biography as well.
This is an essential piece of advice on networking. To find interesting people, you should not be boring them. Yes, avoid being a bore. Be an interesting person. This is the core of the advice. Shutting off boring people is probably true in 10% of the time. But most of the time it is us, who needs to aware of this advice. We can bore the shit out of others by lamenting or berating. We can be very self-centred and nagging. By just being aware of this advice, we can be mindful of our behaviour.
This is also a lesson that I learnt from the writing bootcamp. When you try to connect with other people, we need to be really mindful of this fact. People are 10x busier than you. This simple heuristic makes you think in a different way of interacting with them. You are not just “catching up” for a coffee or just “hang out”. You have done enough research about the other person. Or you know in detail and very specifically the topic you want to talk and pick their brains out. Lastly, the other person gets a feeling that it is a time well spent with you.