In last week’s blog I answered the question:

“What should I do if I’m talking to someone, like a client, who just isn’t that interesting, but I’m supposed to be super interested in?”

The simple answer is to get genuinely curious – not about what they’re saying, but why they’re saying it. What is it about this topic that they find so interesting?

This week, let’s go one level deeper: don’t just get curious, become a collector of stories.

Titles Matter

The words we use to describe ourselves and others play a huge role in perception.

My friend Zoe Chance, Yale professor and author of Influence Is Your Superpower, recently described how she became a better teacher when she started thinking of herself as a host, rather than a professor.

“So for me as a teacher, I just asked myself, what would it look like if I were in the hospitality business? What would it look like if I were hosting my class instead of teaching my class? And this was a sea change from one semester to the next where I had been so stressed out, crazy, meticulous, micro-managy of students and TAs.”

Where once a TA had told her, “You’re just not inspiring me to do a good job,” now 90% of her students show up to every class, even on Zoom, and even though she doesn’t take attendance.

And all from an outside-in shift in title.

So next time you’re standing in line at Starbucks, instead of thinking of yourself as “the person getting coffee,” try thinking of yourself as, “a collector of stories.”

Instead of being an accountant, an event planner, a teacher, or even a parent – try this new frame.

Benefits

When it’s your job to collect stories, you have no choice but to get genuinely curious about who people are and how they came to be that way, and believe the things they believe.

Not only will it keep you focused, engaged, and present in conversations…

Not only will it help you think of interesting, relevant, and meaningful follow-up questions…

But it will prevent your emotions from taking over when someone disagrees with your worldview. Instead of being the Person Who Disagrees and getting offended, you’re a Collector of Stories, who wonders how they came to hold that position.

Plus, there’s a unique bonus for folks who use social media professionally:

You’ll never run out of blog ideas, podcast topics, or LinkedIn posts.

The Collector of Stories connects with people in the moment, and connects with an audience in the future. Win-win.