Remember when the dirt covered rust bucket pulled up to a family restaurant or neighborhood gathering…the very sight of the sign sent tingles through you like Christmas in July! Hair still wet from moms saliva spat onto a comb stuffed into her purse, each child showered their area of the car with so much excitement rainbows could be spotted for miles only to be suddenly silenced when the parental figures drove the silver YOU BETTER BE GOOD stake through your heart?
Mom’s most overused line, “You better watch your P’s and Q’s!”
Mentally, I’d paint a giant P and Q on each hand…whatever it took to symbolize any attempt at listening to their stern words or face the wrath of the south side of a body part moving north.
It could be just me but being so mean seemed so wrong. Every kid in the joint was either getting knocked off their chair or sent to the car without dessert…making matters worse were the beyond perfect sister figures decked out in Sunday like dresses and candy like barrettes in their hair.
“Why can’t you be more like your sister?” Dad would always question.
Kids don’t know the rules. You can scream, play lets pretend or softly talk like a poet who's just downed three Red Bulls and in the end, kids are going to be loud, goofy and mess the joint up, sliding your many years of presence in the community right into a world of embarrassment.
Going to work is no different. It doesn’t matter what your job is or where you’d like to one day be…there’s always going to be someone or something that’s going to fold back your ears like a wild dog searching for raw meat to sink its teeth into.
Introductions kill people!
Someone you know or think you know has shown up unannounced in the lobby and no matter how hard you try…their name as well as where you met has completely been dumped from your memory bank…what do you?
If your dad was here, he’d knock you upside the head…that’s how they rebooted the human computer before Bill Gates. The head shot or the old swift lift in the shorts brought on by the fathers out of control foot.
The dude, if properly trained could have shown us how to extend our hands and simply say, “Hello my name is Arroe Collins.” Studies show 90% of those waiting in the lobby will mimic your first move. If you’re stuck in a lapse of time, trying to decide if you should feel guilty or famous, they become your mirrored image.
If bad luck continues to land on your side of the picket fence, don’t let them see you sweat…continue to be extremely friendly and invite them into the area you first met, “So, what have you been up to since the last time we spoke?” Using general questions triggers the 10% still locked in identity silence and or too lazy to catch on to the name game.
By making yourself the action figure creates results. It shows the visitor that your time together is valuable and getting to the point allows you to have better space to grow. Stop being a TMI (too much information) or a business downer stuck on any reason available as to why you’re having a difficult time remembering their name.
If the first two steps putt your golf ball into the sand…then be the first to break out a Tiger Wood’s 9 Iron and flat out say, “I have forgotten your name, how do we know each other?”
That’s the kind of business leadership that can be played in any walk of life…from baseball and soccer fields with the kids to pumping the weights or kicking high in aerobics class. It’s not a written rule that you remember everyone, but be the first one during uncomfortable situations to say, “Hello my name is…I believe we’ve met before.”
During these deeply dug trenches of change on American soil, the average person is being tossed into meetings, greetings and interviews that steal every ounce of air from your lungs while leaving your feet dangling for a ground to walk on.
When you appear in an office to be interviewed or to sell an item your company is trying to push…another greeting that invites thundershowers on a sun filled day…when someone says, “It’s nice to meet you.” Um…is it? What are you seeing that I’m not? Trust me, if it truly is nice to meet me, why hasn’t the daddy dude used such speeches with me?
The golden rule: It’s not about your daddy and it’s completely 100% not about you. Accept their greeting because it makes them feel comfortable inside unfamiliar surroundings.
Learning to handle the unknown makes you a tremendous leader inside a world addicted to machines that require only your thumbs to type out words.
Steal my art…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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