While not every person’s story may be interesting to you, it is interesting to that individual—and he or she wants to tell it. The problem is, not many people want to sit and hear another person’s story. Even rarer is the person who attempts to cajole the story out of somebody else. Yet the advisor who acts as biographer will find that clients feel connected and loyal to someone who cares enough to seek and hear their personal stories. I believe that a greatly underappreciated, powerful driving force in every human is the need to be known.
I once met an advisor who told me that he wasn’t satisfied with any conversation with new acquaintances until he knew some fact about their life that made them unique—something that he would easily remember about them. Contrast this conversational attitude with the banal types who aren’t satisfied with a conversation until they have told you a dozen interesting facts about themselves.
What You Might Be Missing
In my story-gathering workshops, I emphasize the importance of asking people where they are from. After one of these workshops, I was approached by an advisor who shared an incredible and unique story:
“Many, many years ago, I was invited to a cocktail party at a local assisted-living facility in Little Rock. Now I know you’re wondering about my social life—and I wondered too as I walked into the event. But it ended up being one of the most fascinating nights of my life.”
He sat down in a circle of people, all of whom ranged in ages from the 70s to the 90s, and asked the woman next to him, “Where did you grow up?” She told him the exact address. He nearly fell out of his chair. It was the exact address where he had once lived when he was renting a small house at the back of the property. They had some great laughs and conversation about that old house and the various people who had lived in it through the years.
He then asked her where she had gone after moving from the house. She told him about going to a nearby college where she had roomed with the famous poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay. As she described their friendship, the advisor thought, “How fascinating!”
At this point, he noticed a woman a couple of chairs down who seemed quite tuned in to their conversation. “How about you?” he asked. “Where are you from?”
“I’m from Wisconsin,” she replied.
“Really?” he responded. “What did you do in Wisconsin?”
“Oh, I worked for the government,” she replied dismissively.
“What did you do with the government?” he prompted.
“I worked for a United States senator,” she said as nonchalantly as possible.
“And which senator was that?” the advisor asked.
“Senator Joseph McCarthy,” she responded.
They had an interesting conversation about what it was like to be on the inside of the most intense period of anticommunist paranoia in U.S. history.
The advisor then noticed that a man in the circle had been eavesdropping, so he turned to him and asked, “What’s your story?”
“I was an educator,” he replied.
“Not just any educator,” one of the women offered.
“Where were you an educator, and what did you do?” the advisor asked.
“I was a superintendent of schools right here in Little Rock.”
Then it struck the advisor that there may be another historical figure present in that small circle. “Were you the school superintendent in 1955?” That was the year of a historic civil rights event, when the color line was broken at an all-white high school.
“I certainly was,” he answered, and they proceeded to have yet another amazing conversation.