Notes for Youth Fireside
Crown Point Ward, May 2006
Intro
What am I doing here? I mean, who am I to be giving a fireside about conversations? Here’s my suspicion: In the Church, we tend to get assignments that challenge us. Rather than the most qualified person, the Lord seems to want those who most need to learn the skills. We all have things we could work on, and I, for one, could use some help with conversation skills. As we talk for the next thirty minutes or so, I hope we all get something out of it that improves our ability to converse with others. I think you’ll find that improved conversation skills can improve your life by improving your relationships; after all, what is life but our relationships?
So do you think I can change your life in half an hour? I can certainly try, but chances are, you’ll store this away somewhere, and it’ll gradually fade out of memory until this half hour block gets mushed together in some file cabinet in your head called “places I was supposed to be, things I was supposed to learn, etc.” right along with all the other routine firesides, church meetings, Sunday school classes, seminary lessons, and other random packets of time you’ve stored up. Think you’ll remember any specifics? I doubt it. I’ve probably gone to a hundred firesides like this in my life. And if you put a million bucks in front of me right now and offered it all to me in exchange for one specific thing I heard at any one of those hundred firesides, I couldn’t collect. When I open that file drawer in my head, I find faded pages I can’t decipher anymore. (I do remember some great refreshments, though...) Maybe it’s for my own ego, but I’m hoping that just this once, things will be different for you. And that if you end up giving a fireside twenty years from now and someone were to offer you that million bucks, I’m hoping you could come up with at least one thing that was said at the []’s house in the spring of 2006. (And I do hope the refreshments are memorable as well!)
So here we go! And wouldn’t you know I’ve already gone off course by breaking a cardinal rule. When I took a speech class at about your age, I was taught that the first thing you do to open any speech or presentation is to state your authority. Tell people why you’re an expert, and they’ll listen to you. Well I can’t do that here. I’m no expert on being a conversationalist. In fact, when I was your age, I used to avoid conversations at all cost, telephone conversations in particular. When friends would call and ask if I could hang out. I’d usually join them, but I never did any calling myself. My mom noticed that I never initiated any phone calls and said, “you ought to be calling your friends too; otherwise they might think you don’t like them.” I just nodded and said “uh huh”. But I just hated phone conversations, so I never changed my ways. And sure enough, friends stopped calling as often; a few years down the road, I even lost a girlfriend or two over my phonophobia. I’d only call them out of my own initiative if it was for something very specific (like to ask them out). But then they’d want to stay on the phone and go on and on about all sorts of random stuff. This was in the pre-wireless age, so I’d fidget with the phone chord, the blasted ball and chain that had me trapped, tied to a five foot radius of the phone jack. I’d look at my watch thinking about all of the other things I could otherwise be doing. Sometimes I’d hold the phone away from my ear and stare at it like something out of a Charlie Brown movie. “Wah WAH, wah WAH wah wah…” (probably a bit like the stare I’m getting from a few of you right now…) And then I’d grab the first excuse, true or not, to get off the phone. So if the topic for the night were how to be the worst conversationalist ever, I could legitimately state my authority as an expert on the subject.
Well, unfortunately our topic tonight is how to be a great conversationalist. As I’ve said, I don’t have a lot of qualifications there, but I do have a thesaurus. So let’s get started with some synonyms: how about effective communicator? Any others? Communication involves dialogue, and di, of course, means two. It’s a joint venture by definition, and both parties have to exercise two skills: speaking and listening. So our topic ought to be covered in two sessions; if you ask my wife, she’ll say the listening course should by far carry the most weight. The scriptures remind us that hearing and listening are not necessarily the same thing. Christ often warned about those who hear without understanding (Matthew 13:13). Just because you can repeat the last sentence you heard someone utter in a conversation (which I sometimes have a bad habit of doing) doesn’t mean you were really listening. Now the speaking and listening skills themselves are important for a conversation, but I’m going to focus on some prerequisites to developing those skills during our conversation tonight. This fireside itself is a conversation – it’s an exchange between me and each of you. Some of you will raise your hands and make a direct comment, some of you won’t. But even if you don’t say anything to me directly, I’m adjusting what I say and how I say it based on your body language. You can see I’ve got more in my notes than we’ve got time for; as we move along, I’ll be picking what parts to skip based on my perception of your interest level in the different areas we cover. If everyone looks bored or distracted, I’ll get nervous and speed up, or start skipping bigger chunks. If it still doesn’t work, I might stand up, move around more, try to speak with more enthusiasm. If, on the other hand, you look comfortable and interested, I’ll probably be able to speak more comfortably and confidently without having to focus on my notes or on adjusting things too much. Either way, you are communicating with me, whether you like it or not.
Breaking the Ice
As a youth, you may go through phases where you don’t want to talk at all. I certainly did, as I’ve mentioned, but I grew out of it. And now I can honestly say that I love to communicate with people. And I’m a firm believer that deep down inside, most everyone in this world longs to communicate with others, if they could just get over the initial awkwardness of getting a conversation started. Unfortunately, most of the time we just don’t have an excuse to start a conversation with strangers. But because we all crave communication, I believe that most people go about life, sometimes unknowingly, on a constant search for excuses to communicate. What’s my basis for that belief? Well, here are three examples from my typical workday:
1. The train. I commute on the train each day; when I get on the train, everyone just sits there and stares at their papers, their laptops, out the window, or at the ceiling. No one says a word. But if I happen to catch the train that picks up the Benson High kids (who sometimes are, in fact, high kids…) from the Hollywood District and drops them off at Lloyd Center, you get this three-and-a-half-minute volume increase. Obnoxious cell phone ringtones, then “he said…she said…and then he’s like…and I’m all…and bleeping this and bleeping that…” And wouldn’t you know, as soon as the chaos ends, the person sitting next to me, who hadn’t said a word in the previous half hour, will invariably turn and say something to the effect of: “How annoying! Can you believe how rude kids are these days? I can’t believe the things they talk about!” So it seems that all of my fellow train riders want to talk, want to connect, want to communicate… Where the excuse was lacking before, now we’ve found a common enemy and we can strike up a conversation.
2. The elevator. When I get on the elevator with other people from my building, we nod to each other and ride up in dead silence. But I know they want to talk to me, to connect, to communicate. How do I know? Because every time I bring one of my kids to work, the people in the elevator say “how old is your son?” “Is he going to help you work today?” Etc. etc. Kids are great conversation starters. [So great, in fact, that there’s an epidemic of teen pregnancies that are selfishly and deliberately planned to try to make someone who feels lonely feel more interesting to others. How do I know? Benson High kids who confess things too loudly on their cell phones…]
3. The park. Sometimes I go to the park outside my office to eat lunch. The people sitting on the benches say nothing to each other. We just sit there scarfing down our leftovers. We all want to talk to each other, but there’s just no icebreaker. How do I know? Because the instant someone walks by with a dog, I hear about ten people stop the dog walker and ask “What kind of dog is that?” “Boy or girl?” Etc. etc. Instant conversation! And just like that, two people who were strangers a few seconds ago are discussing this dog’s anatomy, whether he’s been neutered, and where they take him to breed. In this case, it works because the conversation is focused on an unbiased third party: the pet. This is much safer than directly approaching someone; even though you can’t predict how people might react to your words, your words can’t offend a dog. [I believe that a whole lot of city dog owners actually own dogs so they can meet other dog owners. The companionship of the dog is just a side benefit. What we really yearn for is a connection to other people. And any excuse will do.]
Now I wouldn’t fault anyone for using these third-party conversation starters. In fact, I would encourage it as much as possible so long as it spurs further conversation rather than repelling it. [It’s easy to misuse the third-party ice-breaker. Have you ever heard parents talk to each other through their kids when they’re mad at each other? “Tell your dad he needs to get a clue!” or that sort of thing?] A third party tends to be a safe zone for conversations – you’re in a non-threatening situation that keeps you invulnerable. You aren’t addressing the other person directly, and you haven’t divulged anything personal about yourself. Think about the three situations we just talked about. Can you imagine if strangers just walked up to you and directed those questions at you? The elevator: “hi there, how old are you?” The park: “what breed are you? Or the train: “do you know how annoying you are?” Sometimes people are that blunt, but interesting as those questions may be, it probably wouldn’t end in an uplifting conversation. If there’s some other target, though, you can begin the process much less awkwardly. So my first point [I’d better watch out, I’m already five minutes into this and I’m just now getting to my first point] boils down to this: deep down inside, we long to connect with other humans.
The Care-O-Meter
In our time this evening, I won’t be focusing on how to initiate a conversation or how to act while you’re having a conversation – that will come in the second half with [] and []. Those are valuable skills to learn, and there are all sorts of books out there about winning friends and influencing people that include great pointers on how to pretend you’re interested (remembering names, direct eye contact, etc.) But these skills are only helpful if you are genuinely interested in someone but just don’t know how to show it. And I think that’s rare. Normally people who don’t look interested just aren’t interested. And even the lamest conversationalist can pick up when someone’s being fake. Inside of each of us is a highly sensitive instrument. I’ll call it a care-o-meter, kind of like a lie detector, but it senses someone’s sincerity, whether or not they’re genuinely interested. In my opinion, genuine interest can’t be faked – at least not for more than a few minutes; finding that genuine interest is the prerequisite part I want to focus on this evening. Once you’ve found that interest, then you can move on to honing the actual conversation skills.
Do you think I’m excited to be here with you right now? I hope you can sense it from my tone. Talking with you this evening is a singular opportunity. If you don’t believe that, I hope you at least get the feeling that I do. And by the end of our time tonight, I hope you’ll all believe it too. My interest in you is genuine, and nobody can change that. I’m excited about the topic, and nobody can change that. Offer me all the money in the world to say “I can’t stand those kids and I think having a fireside about conversations is a lame idea!” Maybe I’d say it. In fact I’m sure I’d say it, but it wouldn’t be true. So even if I told you I didn’t want to be here, I’m a terrible actor, and if you hooked me up to your care-o-meter, you’d see right through me. Either you care or you don’t. I happen to care about being here this evening. And to whoever chose the topic in your BYC council meeting, I do think having a fireside about conversations is a great idea.
Now you may disagree. You may wish you were somewhere else. Change the topic and maybe I’d be in the same boat. Let’s say the topic of the night were professional sports – who here is into NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL? Some of you may have been a whole lot more excited to be here if that’s what we were discussing. As for me, if some executive sitting in his office suite decides to pay a certain plus size meathead boo coo bucks to run around on a lawn in an orange T-shirt, I certainly don’t care whether that guy can beat up on another plus size meathead some other executive paid to wear a green T-shirt. Buy up armies and navies, torture me on a rack, tell me to care. Sure I’ll paint myself green and scream for the Packers. But hook me up to your care-o-meter, have a conversation with me about it, and you’ll see that I still don’t care who wins the Superbowl. Usually I don’t even know who’s playing. Unfortunately for me, I work with people who do care about it, deeply and personally. So to participate in inevitable office conversations, I always look it up online real quick that Monday morning. Think I fool everyone when I come into the office and say “How ‘bout them Steelers…”? Not a chance. In fact, they’re amused that I even try, because I always end up putting my foot in my mouth eventually. Now there are certainly some exceptions for me. Seeing exhibitions of natural ability, for instance, what the human body or a team full of people can achieve when they work hard - that’s interesting to me. Ask me about the Olympics or the X-games and you’d sense my interest right away. Another exception is college football. Though I still don’t care about the game, my resume looks better when my alma mater wins. So it matters not because it matters to me, but because it matters to a whole bunch of sports fans, one of whom might happen to be interviewing me for my next job. So Go Cougs!
Speaking of interviews, some of you are graduating soon and may be interviewing for schools, for a job, or some other opportunity. Do you think your conversation skills will come into play? What do you think they expect to learn in a job interview? All about the classes you took in school? No, they want to know how interesting you are. And the only thing they’ll have to go on is whether you can keep up an engaging conversation. Most of the time, they don’t even ask that much about your actual qualifications. The only skills they’re interested in are whether you’re interesting and presentable, basically whether you’re a good conversationalist. That’s what matters. Whether you know your stuff? Not so important in the interview. Why not? Well, so do 100 other applicants. They already know that from a piece of paper, and they wouldn’t be wasting their time with you for an interview if you weren’t qualified. What sets you apart from the other qualified applicants? It’s your conversation skills! Interesting and teachable trumps dull and overqualified every time.
Passion
What is your passion? To me a passion is a subject that you choose to think about when you don’t have to think about anything else. Let me tell you about one passion I had when I was younger. See this scar on my arm? What do you think it’s from? Don’t worry, I’m not going to get into any stories about being an ex-drug addict. This scar comes not from shooting up but from selling plasma twice a week the whole winter of my freshman year of college. I was feeding a different kind of addiction: It turns out each two-hour plasma session earned me just enough ski money for a full day on the slopes. Skiing was definitely my passion at the time. I’d lie awake on a Friday night and picture the slope, picture the snowfall, where the jumps might be, picture myself heading toward a jump…could I get enough rotation for a 360 or maybe a back flip? Then on Saturday night I’d lie awake in pain, remembering the jump, picturing how I might make it all the way around the next time [show wipe-out picture]. I’d feel airborne just lying there, and despite my pain, I wanted more. To me that’s the definition of a passion!
What are you passionate about? I want everyone to try to think about the person in this room you think is most passionate about a particular activity. [Call on someone] Want to give it a try? What person in this room is most passionate about something? What is it? [Take a vote] Everyone agree? [Call that person up to the front]. I’ve never met you. But I genuinely want to know what makes you tick. We might not be interested in the same things, but I still believe that you’re an interesting person and that I could learn something from you. What are you interested in? basketball Even though I’m interested in you as a person, the worst thing I could do is pretend to be interested in basketball . You’d see right through me. [Strike up a conversation, pretending to be interested in basketball ]. Do you believe it? No way, I’m a terrible actor. But even though I don’t know much about basketball , I’d genuinely like you to tell me about your favorite experience playing basketball . Go ahead and tell me. [story] Thanks – having heard you talk about it, I have no doubt you like basketball .
Now here’s a dictionary. Go ahead and choose a random number. [Go to that page.] Now choose another random number. [Go down that many entries]: bologna . Say I’m a bologna dealer. Bologna is my life, but I’ve got so much, I need some hired help to sort through it. You need a job (to pay for basketball camp), and to land the job, you’ll need to convince me that you’re as passionate about bologna as I am, even more passionate than you are about basketball . So tell me about your favorite experience relating to bologna . Go ahead. [story] Anybody buy it? Not very convincing! You can’t fake passion. Either you care about something or you don’t. And people are smart enough to sense a lack of interest with their internal care-o-meter. They might be fooled for a minute or two if you’re an expert at faking it, but no one can keep it up forever. Think about your priesthood leaders. Have you heard Brother [] talk about his convictions? I would bet you that even people who don’t share his beliefs have no doubt that he is convinced that he’s speaking the truth. Is there any chance in outer darkness that he’s faking it? How about Brother []? When he speaks, can you imagine questioning his conviction? Do you have any doubt that he has your best interest in mind? Do you think there’s any chance that he’s just faking it because it’s his job, just doing it to promote himself, to hear himself speak, stepping on you as a way of getting there? Not a chance. There are certainly people who do that sort of thing, but you won’t get that same reading from your care-o-meter if it’s tuned up. Conviction makes all the difference. Some day you may end up with a job where you’re asked to sell something you don’t necessarily believe in. I know a few people who sold used cars – using the same skills as missionaries do. They kept it up for a while, but eventually it wore them down. Either you end up believing in it, you have to change your field, or you end up completely miserable or calloused. The difference is conviction, sincerity, genuine interest. And that’s exactly what people are looking for and discerning in every conversation you have.
One in a Million
If you were standing here giving a fireside about the importance of the World Series, and I were in the audience, you’d have quite a task on your hands getting me to buy it. But I still hope I’d be open-minded about it. In the same way, if you aren’t excited about our topic tonight, I hope you’ll at least have an open mind to considering just how special your conversations with others are. Let’s move on to the two inherent beliefs that in my opinion will do more to make you a great conversationalist than any technique you might learn from a how-to book:
1. You are amazingly interesting and have something to offer to every other soul on this planet.
2. Every single soul on this planet (whether you like them or not) is also incredibly interesting and has something to offer you.
Do you believe it? Do you believe that any stranger would be better off having learned more about you? That every stranger also has something locked away inside their head that you could learn from if you were just to unlock it through a conversation? Even though we’re talking about being a great conversationalist, most of what I’m covering this evening focuses on these two goals: to make you feel more interesting and to make you feel more interested in everyone else. From the Sermon on the Mount, “do this and the rest shall be added unto you” (Luke 12:31). In other words, if these beliefs are inherent in you, the rest – conversation skills in this case – will follow naturally, without you even having to think about it. [From En Vogue, “Free your mind and the rest will follow”].
Conversing with others is a singular, extraordinarily precious thing. Let me try to demonstrate why I think so using plain old dirt. [Bring out a gallon bucket of sand.] The Lord compared people to sand grains when he spoke with Abraham. I’ll try to use the same analogy here. [Pick out one grain.] This grain is me. [Pull out another grain, give to someone I don’t know.] And this is you. Look at the sand grain on your fingertip – now go walk around and show it to everyone else. This little grain of sand is going to go through life and meet other little grains of sand. [Take out a measuring cup] This is your life. Any conversation you have with someone new, let’s throw one grain of sand into the cup. So in the end we’ll have collected one grain for every person you met. You’re born and your cup is empty. You can’t say much, so no grains yet, but after a few months, your mom says “eat your mush!” and you spit it out – that means “no!” Well what do you know? Your first conversation! One grain in the cup. Siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles ooh and aah to you, and you laugh. Sprinkle in some more. Your parents throw you into the nursery and you fight someone over the Hot Wheels – another grain goes in. Here’s a grain for your teacher who breaks up the fight. And a pinch for the rest of the kids in your nursery class. A year or two go by and you head into primary, then pre-school, elementary school, more pinches for each class. Move a time or two, make new friends, more pinches. Birthday parties for you, some more for your friends – each one gets a pinch when someone new is there. Then on to middle school and high school, with school friends, church friends, sports friends, band geek friends, myspace friends...a pinch for each. Now this isn’t just your peers, so here are more pinches for teachers, counselors, church leaders…the adults in your life. Here’s a pinch for your graduation party. Congratulations, you’re legally an adult now! So how is our cup looking? Maybe five or ten thousand grains in there – a few tablespoons...
Now you’re off to college, so everything’s new. Throw in a whole teaspoon for dorm friends, fraternity or sorority friends, nutty professors… Now I’ll dip the whole cup in the bucket and grab the biggest scoop yet. What do you think this is? Well, if you go on a mission, you’ll find out what I mean. You’ll probably never meet as many people the rest of your life as during those two years. [We had a goal of approaching and talking with 25 new people every day in my mission; over 600 or so days in the mission field that makes about 15,000 people, which certainly at least doubled the contents of my own cup.] Come back to real life, and here’s a welcome home party pinch, more college, more sprinkles... Here’s a grain for each blind date. A few “special” friends…out of those a few very special friends…and finally narrowed down to a single, most-special-of-all grain – who becomes your spouse. Here’s your bachelor party, your bridal shower, friends-of-your-parents who show up at your wedding reception… Now real life really hits, and you’re off to work, so add some more for your boss and your coworkers. Here’s a new baby, here are your say-hi-as-you-pass-while-walking-off-the-baby-fat friends... Sprinkle in a few more kids. Now add PTA friends, soccer club friends, out-of-shape middle-agers going-back-to-the-gym friends…
Moving on, your kids become teenagers – a bit scary – so throw in a few grains for your kids’ friends. And their parents, too - people who you’re checking out not necessarily because you like them but because you want to make sure you know something about the kids your own kids are hanging out with. Remember, this little container is everyone you’ve interacted with, even the people you may not like so much but still had to talk to. That said, here’s a pinch for telemarketers, car salesmen, tax collectors… Now your kids are filling their own cups up, but things start trickling out a little for you. Most days you go through your routine life with the same old people and don’t even meet anybody new. But sometimes you add few sprinkles here and there when you go on vacation or a business trip. A few more sprinkles for each family reunion with new in-laws, or nieces and nephews you hadn’t met yet. Here are some more sprinkles when you get new home teachers, get a new calling, give a fireside to a bunch of people you don’t know. [If this is me, I’ll throw in a grain for each of you tonight, assuming you make a comment or introduce yourself after the fireside.] As we move on, here are some more grains for grandkids, then country club friends, the breakfast buffet crowd, your senior club at the condo... Now you’re off to the nursing home, a few more grains for your new friends there. Things are really starting to trickle off now. Maybe your health starts to go, but you get a few more grains for the hospital staff. Now you’re stuck in your room at the nursing home; you can’t go out anymore, but maybe throw some grains in for a couple of great grandkids who come to visit. Now you’re starting to lose your mind, so quick throw in a single grain for the lawyer who stops by to draft up your will while you’re still coherent. Then finally here’s the last grain of all for the nurse who comes in and takes your pulse for the very last time. Time’s up! Let’s put a cap on your cup and seal it up.
Take a look at this little cup. This is your life! We threw a whole lot of grains in there, but it’s still pretty small when you consider that we’re at around six and a half billion people in the world. Fill this room with sand a foot or two deep and you might have a grain for each person alive right now. Anthropologists say something on the order of eighty billion humans have walked this earth since the dawn of man. Eighty billion grains of sand would fill this whole room to the ceiling. So picture this whole room filled with sand, and during your time on this planet, you only got to grab one little measuring cup out of the whole thing. That’s all the interaction you get! [Shake hands with someone new, ask how they’re doing, ask a personal question, listen to the answer]. Are you going to tell me that it isn’t something special? Are you kidding? You just joined the party in my measuring cup! And I’ll tell you what, it’s an exclusive club. Less than one in a million gets in. See this gallon bucket? It’s got about a million grains of sand in it. [I know because I had a sieve analysis done on this sand at work to see if it could hold up a foundation.] For every grain of sand in my little scoop, every conversation I have with someone, there are a million grains of sand, a million souls walking this earth today that I didn’t get to meet. So in my eyes, you are literally one in a million.
This little cup is very important to me – it’s all I have to go on. Virtually every opinion I form about humanity is viewed through this lens. My opinions about any group of people, whether it be about a race, a nationality, a religion, or any other group, have to be based on these few interactions I’ve had with people. [Supplemented by books, movies, and TV shows, of course, but as often as not, you’ll need to use your real relationships – based on real conversations and interactions – to counteract the conclusions and biases of some author or producer]. In the scope of world religions, for example, we as Mormons represent a tiny minority. Most people on this planet will go through life without ever having met a Mormon. Chances are, as you go through your life meeting people, you will encounter a whole bunch of people who have only met one Mormon in their entire life: you! How many Mormons do you represent to them? Millions! Even if you meet someone who has already knows ten other Mormons, you get to represent a million Mormons to that person. It goes the other way, too. LDS Church membership is roughly equivalent to the present number of Jews in the world. How do you feel about Jews? Has anyone here ever met one? More than one? I’m guessing my conversation cup right now has a dozen or so Jewish people in it. What I think about all the ten or fifteen million Jews out there is extrapolated from my interactions with those select few. Each one of them represents about a million others I didn’t get to meet. Same holds for Muslims, Buddhists, or Hindus, Ethiopians, Albanians, or Mongolians…for any race, creed, or religion out there, I only got to meet a tiny sample. Keep this in mind in your daily interactions. People may be judging a million Mormons based on their opinion of you. Why? Not because they’re maliciously judgmental. It’s just all they have to go on. So the bottom line is this: be careful what you do and how you act – you are a representative of your family, your school, your community, your religion, and more, whether you like it or not.
So far, we’ve just been talking about mortality. Let’s get back to our cup. Remember the last grain when you took your last breath? The nurse may not have found a pulse when your measuring cup got sealed up, but in that instant, you become more alive than ever. You’re certainly not just sitting around waiting for the resurrection bus to stop by. So how do you picture the next phase? A tunnel, a tube, a flash of light, taking the Millennium Falcon into hyperdrive?…. Whatever it happens to look like, one thing we do know is that most of what you collected in life is gone. Your pension plan is gone. No RV, no PC, no SUV, no PSP, no MP3… All of your collections seem to be gone. Except for one. What’s that? Check your pocket! You still have your relationships. Every grain of sand is still in your measuring cup; every conversation you ever had is on the record. What did Christ say? “By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” (Matthew 12:37) What are words? Well, unless no one’s listening to you, they’re conversations. And it’s not just certain conversations, certain words that go on the record…you’ll have to account for “every idle word” that you speak (Matthew 12:36). Why do you think King Benjamin warned us to watch our thoughts, our WORDS, and our deeds (Mosiah 4:30)?
So your earthly conversations are a vital part of you. And as you enter the next world, there will no doubt be many more conversations, infinitely more, in fact. Hopefully there’s one initial conversation where you hear “well done thou good and faithful servant” and you get to add the first celestial grain to a whole new container of sand. This one had better be more like a wheelbarrow, though, because as you look around, as far as you can see, there are other beings of light to meet: celestial, terrestrial, or telestial grains, whatever the case may be. Maybe when you first arrive, you’ll start interacting with people you knew in mortality, people whose lives you touched: hopefully dozens of people you did temple work for, hundreds of people you only read about in history books, thousands of ancestors you may have heard of, millions of ancestors you probably hadn’t. You’ll see that your influence went far beyond the people you directly interacted with on earth. You’ll see how you affected every soul you shared the planet with, and every soul who came after you. You’ll see those who influenced or affected you as well, which is basically every soul who ever preceded you on the planet. By the time things are said and done, you’re tied to every soul who ever walked planet earth, from its beginning to its end. So now you’ve got a whole roomful of celestial sand!
Now look around closely at these beings, and you’ll see that every one of them still has their first little measuring cup. Some died young and only collected a few sprinkles. Some were very powerful, famous, infamous, or otherwise influential. Maybe they collected a whole 2-liter full. But you’ll see that nobody, no matter how famous or influential, came remotely close to interacting with even a tiny fraction of God’s children during their mortal lifetime. So even at that point, while you’re just beginning to grasp the concept of eternity with all things being revealed to you, there will still be something special about your little measuring cup. You only get one chance at mortality, and a billion years from now, a fraction of the way into eternity, that still won’t have changed. These were the select few people you encountered in your earthly existence. In all the eons of time to come, you’ll never have another chance to be a mortal. The cup you collected here on earth is sealed now, and it will stay with you forever.
Let’s take it even further. Ever heard the term “worlds without number” in the scriptures? What do you think that means? Every time we make a better telescope and peer deeper into a tiny sliver of space that we thought was dark, we find millions of additional stars. In fact, they now estimate that there are a million stars for every grain of sand on this planet – that’s billions and even trillions of stars for every person. Did you know you can literally name a star? You pay a fee, and the official astronomical mappers will call some star out there whatever you want it to be. Might make you feel special, but what they don’t tell you is they’ll never run out! Even if every person on this planet spent the rest of their lives doing nothing but naming stars, you’d still never come even remotely close to running out of stars. So how does that apply to us and our measuring cups? Not only is this room filled with the sand that represents other souls, but the whole house, the whole neighborhood is filled, enough sand to make a beach [Show picture of beach/coastline]. If you’re going to account for the past and the future, you’ll need lots of beaches. If we take God literally when he told Abraham that his own posterity would be as the sands of the sea, we can add up all the sand from all the beaches in the world. And that’s just one person’s posterity – what about everyone else? [Show picture of the Sahara Desert]. So you’ve got more sand than you can possibly imagine…a whole planet full of sand. Picture yourself standing on top of this dune on a planet full of sand [show picture of C-3PO and R2D2 on the dunes of Tattoine]. There’s nothing but sand as far as you can see. And every single grain of sand represents one soul just like you, one child of God. Now go wander around for a while. Take a week, a month, how about forty years in the desert? Keep searching until you think that you’ve found just the perfect spot. When you’re completely parched and exhausted, and you think you’ve finally found it, get out your measuring cup and pick up one little scoop. That’s it. You only have one life. One chance. One little scoop of sand. Sift through the sand in that cup, look at the grains individually. Each one ought to be precious to you, especially if you think about the rest of the dune you passed by to get this grain into your cup. Now knowing how precious this little scoop is, does it make sense to waste that time on small talk, chit chat, fickle arguments, or the dreaded silent treatment? No? Then it’s time to get real with your conversations.
Get Real
There was a group of four of us back in high school who hung around together, call it a little nerd clique. We did lots of dumb things together; in fact, now that we’re married, we’ve all agreed that if our wives had known us in high school, they’d never have ended up marrying us. But we bonded in the process of doing some of these dumb things. And then we all went our separate ways. Sure we’d send Christmas cards, but there really wasn’t any opportunity to hang out anymore since we were scattered around the country. One day a few years ago I got a call out of the blue that the last of the crew was going to be getting married. So I booked a flight and headed back to Michigan for the wedding. We took some photos, had lots of great talks about the good old days, and then I got on a plane, went back home and went on with my life.
A few months later I got another call, this one not quite so positive. Turned out another friend of mine had died of a heart attack. He was my age, four kids at home, and just like that he was gone. Some time after the funeral I ran across the picture of our nerdy group from the wedding. I had been meaning to scan it in and e-mail to the other guys. I finally got around to it and started writing an e-mail. It went something like, “It was great to see all you guys again at the wedding. Here’s a picture. Keep in touch.” I attached the picture and was about to hit send, but when I reread my note I realized how empty and shallow it was. I had just been at a funeral, and going to a funeral can put you in a contemplative mood. I looked at the picture again. I cared deeply about these people, but I started to realize I knew nothing about them anymore. We had been close for four or five years, but then over ten years had passed where we didn’t see each other. I knew I was a completely different person, so was each of them. But I didn’t know who they had become. Who knew when our next opportunity to get together might be? Another ten years, maybe twenty? Then what? We’d be in our fifties, going on sixties. By that time you pretty much know the only excuse that would get everyone together again would be a funeral. So I started writing what I considered a real letter. I listed a bunch of questions I wanted to know about. For example, don’t just tell me how many kids you have – I already know that from your Christmas letters…but tell me what you’re learning from your kids. Not just where your parents live now, but what you’re doing differently from your parents in raising your kids. Any question I could think of, from politics to religion. Did you stick with your parents’ religion? Why or why not? Who among our high school teachers or coaches had the most influence on you? Why? Are you glad you chose your line of work or would you study something different if you could go back and do it again? Question after question. Then I went through and answered each of the questions for myself. Took me over ten pages [you can see from my notes here what happens when I get going on a subject], but I got it hammered out and challenged each of them to write back. They were all pretty amused when they got my letter. Particularly that I could ramble on for a page and a half about some random subject like foreign policy in the Middle East. But one by one, they all wrote back, and proving that we hadn’t outgrown our nerdiness, we even started a little online discussion group. Things had progressed beyond superficial Christmas card travelogues. I learned more about each of them through just one of their real letters than I would have learned through another fifty Christmas cards about their kids’ activities.
Life is too short for chit chat. Get real with your conversations! Will you be talking to your parents when you get home tonight? If so, what do you think you’ll talk about? When you need the car this week? Who has to baby sit next weekend? How about instead, you ask them about something that helps you and your parents understand each other better? Ask them what they regret. Ask them what they’re proud of. Ask them if life turned out the way they wanted, the way they expected it to? Tell them what you’d do differently if you were the parent. See if they agree. Ask them if they’re happy. [That’s not supposed to be a simple yes or no question.] Do you expect to see your parents in the afterlife? I hope so. Do you believe the scriptures that tell us that in the next life, all things which are hidden or secret will be revealed (Mormon 5:8)? Or from the New Testament that all things which are said in the closets shall be proclaimed on the housetops (Luke 12:3)? Either way, whether it’s now or later, your parents are going to find out who you really were, what you really thought. And I’m guessing so will everyone else. I like to picture it as a movie screen – a massive Jumbotron playing the ultimate reality show. I look at the dumb things people do on actual reality shows and say to myself, “don’t they understand that there are cameras on them and this will be broadcast to the world?” Well, we’re all on a reality show that’s larger than life. And every conversation, with all its flaws, will be broadcast to billions. And this broadcast comes with subtitles that will show everyone not just what was said, but what we were thinking at the time. Every fleeting thought will be out there for all to see, so the sincerity of our words (or the lack thereof) will be part of the broadcast. The audience’s celestial care-o-meters will be fine-tuned and honed in to pick up every insincerity, every hypocrisy. [I got a little sample of what that might be like as a missionary in East Germany, when the secret police files from the Communist era were made public. People saw who their real friends were, and who had been pretending to be a friend for the previous twenty years but was really just getting paid to spy on them. You can imagine how many people split town in shame just before the files were opened.] But people will also pick up on our good intentions, the real meaning behind things that may have been misinterpreted, things that may have offended but were never meant to. In any case, if you believe that all secret things will be made known in the end, then opening up to someone in this life is just giving them a preview of something they’ll see anyway. Either way the files will be opened. They’re just getting a little head start.
You are all smart enough and mature enough to interact and converse on a higher level. I believe you’re above the cell phone conversations I hear from other teenagers at the mall, who seem to me to be wasting their valuable conversation time on spiteful gossip, or on the color of their twentieth pair of shoes, or the brand name written on their purse, basically trying to decide what company they’re going to donate Mom and Dad’s money to, just so they can have the privilege of providing free advertising as a walking billboard…as Nephi put it, spending “money for that which is of no worth,” or “your labor for that which cannot satisfy” (2 Nephi 9:51). You are above that! With your perspective, knowing how precious our mortal conversation are, knowing that you picked this one person to interact with out of billions and billions of choices [show picture of the Sahara], is that really what you want to learn about them in this tiny snippet of time you’ve been given to converse with them? I believe you’re fully capable of much more than that. You may be young, but I believe you have the capacity to get into real issues, real debate, real discussions about really important subjects. Things that make the world go round, things that will gain you knowledge that carries over into eternity.
Take your testimony, for example. Not a glossed over, recited testimony, but a real, heartfelt testimony. Are there any aspects of your own faith that you struggle with? If so, who do you think you should talk to about it? How about asking your parents if there are any parts of their testimonies they’ve ever struggled with? If they have, they might be hesitant to tell you about it at first, because as parents, we’re supposed to be this rock for you to rely on, and it’s a hard thing to open up and admit to a struggle that might mistakenly be considered a “shortcoming.” Maybe we’re afraid if you see our weaknesses, you may end up with the same ones. But I think if you talk to your parents about the things you might be struggling with right now, chances are, you’ll end up more solid and anchored in the gospel. If you go on a mission, it will make you a better missionary. Borrowed light only goes so far. Challenge your own beliefs together with your family, and you’ll be filling your own lamp. Or you can wait and let someone else challenge your beliefs outside the influence of your parents. Either way, everyone’s beliefs get challenged at some point, “for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.” (Ether 12:6). In that light, you’ll probably find that your parents would prefer to be the ones to help you receive your own witness when your faith is tried.
To start with, how about asking your parents to bear their testimony? I hope you’ve heard your parents’ testimonies in Family Home Evening. If not, start by asking them to share it there. And then take it to a whole new level and ask them to share it with you personally next time you have a chance to talk one on one. It’s one thing to bear a testimony in a meeting, to give a monologue in front of your family and a whole congregation, but it’s a whole other ball game when it’s one on one and you turn it into a dialogue, a conversation. Parents are told over and over in General Conference to share our testimonies with our children. But as a parent, I know that we sometimes forget things. And sometimes we mistakenly think we can just move on to the next apostle’s advice and no one will notice. As you listen to general conference talks, are there things you hear about that aren’t happening at home? Our prophet has asked all parents to bear testimony to their children. In my opinion that means one on one. If that hasn’t happened, the next question you ask your parents should be “Mom, Dad, can you share your testimony with me?” I think they would be honored to be given the chance. Are there things you’re missing in your relationship with your parents? If so, don’t be afraid to call them on it! You might be surprised at the results. When I was your age, my family had a tradition of going out to a restaurant on Sunday afternoons. One day my little sister, who was probably eight years old at the time, told my parents she didn’t think it was right for us to go out to eat on Sundays and make other people work for us. And I think that was the last time our family ever did that. It’s one of the most humbling things in the world to be corrected by your child. A few months ago, for example, my three-year old daughter reprimanded me. I had gotten into the habit of saying prayers with my boys, but for some reason, I hadn’t started it with her. It was just one of those things that had slipped through the cracks as she had gotten older. Then one night she comes to me and says, “Daddy, how come you don’t say prayers with me?” That was humbling, but I was sure glad she asked. Are your parents real people to you? Real people with real flaws? If not, they haven’t been open with you. If they seem like they’ve never made the mistakes you’ve made, you probably just haven’t asked the right questions yet. So keep asking them questions until they finally do seem real to you.
Connections
I’d like to move on to another topic [you’ve noticed I jump around a lot]: history books. I really love history. And I love books, non-fiction books in particular. You see, to me pretty much any non-fiction book is actually a history book. It might not be ancient history yet, but even current events are tomorrow’s history. I don’t get into fiction quite as much – no offense if you’re a fiction fan, but I just can’t justify spending precious time reading a concocted story, when there are so many fascinating, unwritten, true stories out there that will connect us to real people we’ll meet someday. What I really love about non-fiction books is that they really don’t ever have an ending. You might end the book, but the stories keep going. Follow any path far enough, and it will run smack right into you. Ever hear of the seven degrees theory? That we’re all connected through a friend of a friend seven times over? I actually think it’s more like four or five. [Take a group like the Mormons, and you can trim it down even further: probably two or three degrees connect every Mormon on the planet.] Throw in a few connections through your ancestors, and you’ve added the dimension of time. In any case, if you were able to trace the path, you’d find that you’re connected to every character in every non-fiction book, as well as its author, through just a handful of connections.
When I finish a book, I usually still have lots of questions about where people ended up. Sometimes I’ll track down the author and send them a letter or e-mail. Every once in a while I get a reply. Some of these replies have been from holocaust survivors, from war heroes, and others who have written books about their own lives. Whoever it happens to be, that reply to me is a real connection! That blows my mind. When I get one of those e-mails or letters back, I realize I’ve actually connected with someone in real-time, someone who is a character in a history book. They’re in my cup! Amazing! Next time you read a book you really like, try writing a letter to the author. Maybe they won’t mind writing you back. They’re authors, after all; that’s what they do, they write! Nobody knows their face so, unlike other celebrities, most of them can walk around like normal people (with the possible exception of Stephen King and the Harry Potter lady). Give it a shot and I think you’d be surprised how many authors actually read their own mail [unlike movie stars]. Do you have a strong opinion about something? A story to tell? A suggestion, an invention? Well get on the computer and write it up! Send it off to your City Councilor, the Troutdale paper, your school district’s Superintendent…take it further and send it to your Senator, the New York Times, the President, to Oprah! These people are making history. They may pay their staff to prevent people like me or you from getting anywhere close to them. But if, by chance, you get a letter back, you’ll know you’ve effected a change, and you are now a grain in their cup. Forever.
One of my interests is World War II. I’m not sure why it fascinates and intrigues me so much, but I can’t seem to get enough of the stories. Maybe it’s because I visited concentration camps as a kid and have those images burned into my mind. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Germany and had friends whose parents were Nazis. These were real people who seemed just like you and me; how could something like that have happened? I’ve always wondered how it would be to lose everything you think you own, to have your social network and basically your whole world collapse around you. To be stripped of everything but your own temple. When I read books about that time, I realize that we sit here living our comfortable lives and have no clue. But I don’t have to look far for a direct connection. I can go right to my father-in-law’s family (he fled the communists during the revolution in Hungary) to see what happens when everything you know, everything you have, gets pulled out from under you. Picture yourself as a father or mother. What do you do with your family when two competing ideologies, neither one of which you agree with, sweep back and forth across your hometown in the form of armies. Even though you don’t like either one, you have to choose one to join or the other will kill you. Which one do you think will keep your family safest? Choose the losing team and you’re pretty much toast. You may not even care the least bit about the politics, you just want to live a simple life with your family. What do you do? I can’t imagine what that would be like. But I am directly connected to people who know it first-hand.
When I was your age, I met a handful of people who actually fought in World War I, a full generation before World War II. That’s ancient history to us, with the Red Baron, the Sopwith Camel, and all that. Now at the time when I had these conversations, it didn’t really seem that unique to be talking to a World War I vet; there were thousands of them around. Now I heard on a recent radio program that as of today, there are 30 World War I veterans left in the U.S. Just 30! If we assume they’re spread around the country, we’d be lucky if even a single one happens to be in the Portland area. And then you’d have to be even luckier for them to still have the strength and coherence to relate any stories. So if you wanted a first-hand account of what World War I was like in the trenches, you’d have quite a challenge on your hands. Now how about World War II? How many vets do you think are alive today? Thousands! It wouldn’t be that hard to find a vet. Just go to the nearest nursing home. Check with some of your oldest living relatives. They are here and you could connect with them if you chose to. But when you’re my age, standing here giving a fireside to kids who aren’t even born yet, there might be thirty or so left. And if by that time in your life you hadn’t ever spoken with a World War II vet, you probably will have missed your chance. So I’d encourage you to try it now. Go to a nursing home, interview your great grandparents if they’re still around, find someone who was there, strike up a conversation, and ask them what it was like.
We are really not separated that far from history. [Shake hands with someone.] What separates you from the civil war? I’m guessing one person. Any of the leaders here born before, say, 1950? Brother []? Chances are, when he was a child, he met someone who lived through the civil war as a child. Brother [] is a grain of sand in your bucket, right? Well his bucket includes 10,000 grains or so, at least one of whom probably remembers the civil war. And that one may have met our early prophets, the founding fathers, and who knows who else! Here’s a scenario: Ever gone to a party or activity and met friends of friends? “Hi, this is so and so. He goes to Barlow and we play church ball together.” Now you know so and so, too. You might not have much of a connection yet, but you both know the same friend, and that’s a start. You are now connected, and another grain of sand has been dropped into your little cup. And that’s exactly how closely Brother [] is separated from the birth of our country.
As a missionary, I met old Russians in nursing homes who remember the time of the czars. I wish you could meet some of these people, too. Can you imagine the insights you can get from someone who lived through the Russian revolution – Anastasia, Rasputin, and all that? Someone who in their youth had to choose between the red army and white army like in Dr. Zhivago? Someone who lived through Stalin’s purges with friends and family sent off to Siberian death camps. Who lived through Hitler’s sieges boiling boot leather for food? Endured years of communism with the KGB tracking every conversation and being forced to hide their bible under floorboards, someone who lived through the onset of Glasnost and Perestroika, the collapsing wall, the arrival of capitalism, then mob takeovers and the corruption that fills a power vacuum? I’ve met people who experienced every one of these things in a single life span, and I had just a few minutes to interact with them. Now I wish I could talk with them again, because I’ve collected a whole lot of other questions I’d ask them. They’ve left this life now, but someday in the next life, I’d love to introduce you to them. Then you’ll be connected to them, too. Think about some of the older people in your life. They are no less fascinating than the people I met. And their lives were probably no less interesting. There are people alive today who grew up in the horse and buggy days, who remember where they were when the Titanic sank just like you remember where you were on 9/11. The opportunity to interact with them is here for you now, but gone soon. So meet them, talk with them, and ask them as many questions as you can think of.
Advice and Warnings
If I sound like I’m giving you advice, the advice is meant not just for you, but for me as well. I’ve raised some of these topics in an attempt to recommit myself to the principles. That said, here’s one piece of advice: get familiar with unfamiliar things, Do you have friends of other faiths? Of course you do – now go out and ask them what they believe. Not with the intention of trying to cram your own religion down their throat as soon as you can get a word in, but out of genuine interest in them and what makes them who they are. Missionaries are taught to build on common beliefs. How do I build on common beliefs with someone if I don’t know what those beliefs are? Don’t be afraid to check out other religions, and don’t be afraid to ask questions about your own. (And again, get real with your questions!) There is so much out there to learn about. President Hinckley once gave this advice: “Cram your head full of knowledge. Assimilate it. Think about it. Then let it become a part of you.” (“Life’s Obligations,” Ensign, February 1999). He’s not just talking about LDS material, he’s talking about the whole body of knowledge that’s out there at our disposal. Go out and get it, sort it out, and cram it into your head! Even if it’s just random trivia about obscure subjects that you might not necessarily care about (yet). Any subject you choose is bound to be somebody’s passion. Even something seemingly mundane, like, say, the weather. Usually people ask about the weather because it’s a safe third party, and you won’t know anything more about that person than you did before your so-called conversation. Say something about the weather to me, though, and you’ll find out about my passion for chaos theory and how we all control the weather. How you have created, quite literally, every sunset, every cloud, every rainbow you see. Things of grandeur and beauty that you attribute to God, he could not possibly have brought about in the form you see it without you. Anyway, I could go on and on, and I already have, but you see with one mundane question you’d probably never shut me up and you may wish you hadn’t asked. Anything you study is bound to make you more interesting to someone out there, and you may end up finding that these are things you do, in fact, care about, too.
Another piece of advice comes in the form of two warnings. #1: be selective. Getting close to someone by opening up to them in a conversation is a special thing; we’ve covered that extensively here. But just because it’s a rare opportunity doesn’t mean it’s always a good idea. I sincerely believe that your life will be more fulfilling if you choose to deepen the conversations you have with your peers, parents, grandparents, and select others. But not in chat rooms, not on myspace, not with some random adult, whether it be a teacher, coach, or scout leader. And definitely not a hitchhiker. I used to pick up hitchhikers during road trips by myself. I never really thought much about the risk. I thought people were so interesting it was worth whatever small risk there might be. Then the last hitchhiker I picked up turned out to be a pimp who took me to a brothel. This was Czechoslovakia, and through a mixture of bad English and German, I had misunderstood what he was and where he was heading – thought he needed to get to his sister’s house. The reality finally sank in when we got there and he started asking for money, pointing at his “sister.” I was out of there quick, but needless to say, it was a bad situation that probably could have gotten me arrested just from the appearance alone. People are not that interesting! Not interesting enough to do dumb things like that to get to know them.
#2: avoid sending out crossed signals that could lead to misinterpretation of your intentions. Genuine interest in someone as a person can easily be misconstrued as emotional interest. People are short on emotional interest and will sometimes think you’re emotionally interested in them if you start digging deeper than they’re used to in a conversation. Here’s an example: My last month in the mission field I got a greenie companion fresh out of the MTC. He didn’t speak much German, but he had memorized some of the discussions and knew how to apply all of the principles of the Missionary Guide. That included looking directly into someone’s eyes, smiling, leaning forward intently, saying the person’s name as often as possible…basically the skills that make you appear to be genuinely interested in someone. One day we had been rejected over and over again. We had this game to challenge each other to approach people. “On the sidewalk, guy in the blue sweater...” “at the bus stop, family with a stroller…” So we’re walking down this trail, I see a guy on a park bench and say to my companion, “two o’clock, guy on the park bench...” So he gets up his initiative, approaches the guy and starts a conversation. The guy offers us a seat, and the conversation deepens. Now my companion had no idea what the guy was saying back to him, but he had memorized some great, though-provoking questions. I mean think about the questions missionaries ask…he was really prying deep into this guy’s soul. I let him do his thing and was really only half listening, when I heard this guy ask, “how does your church feel about alternative lifestyles?” I tuned back into the conversation, and tried nudging my companion to let him know he was being hit on, but he had no idea. He was just happy someone would talk to him, and this guy was REALLY happy to have Elder Greenie interested in him.
Take a Look at Yourself
Well, enough with the warnings, and on to a couple of last pieces of advice. One visualization trick you may want to try during a conversation is to imagine an out-of-body experience, kind of like you hear people talking about sometimes in the OR. Imagine you’ve stepped back and you’re taking a look at yourself as an observer. Pay attention to your words, your tone, and your body language. Is it blatantly obvious when you’re bored, annoyed, or in a hurry? If so, try picturing that grain of sand, this rare opportunity to learn something from this person. This person has had a whole different experience than you. They have seen the world from an entirely different perspective. Isn’t there something they could offer you that could add to your own perspective? That exercise is easier said than done, of course, as I just found out myself this afternoon. I was over at my sister’s house a few hours ago, and we had been bouncing around some ideas about this fireside. While we were talking, her 10-year old son came in and told us that he had just finished the entire set of seven Chronicles of Narnia for the fifth time. He was very excited about it and proceeded to tell me the entire history of Narnia from beginning to end. He was so excited, in fact, that his mouth couldn’t quite keep up with his thoughts. I watched him with a bit of a blank stare, nodding and saying “uh huh” a whole lot. There’s a Pink Floyd song with the lyrics “your lips move, but I can’t hear what you say”…or on a scriptural note, there are warnings about people who “hear without understanding.” (Isaiah 6:9) Well that’s a bit like how I felt. What’s ironic is that my sister and I had just been discussing ways to exhibit good listening skills. And I flunked every one of them on the spot. An outside observer would have said, “that guy is just not interested in the conversation.” So I had to think of why my nephew and his passion for Narnia should be interesting to me. That might sound self-centered, but I thought of how my own kids might get this excited about it if they were to read it. That helped a little, but I didn’t quite get there…the blank stare never really left. It’s not always a simple task. And that’s with someone I genuinely like. It’s even harder when you don’t like the person. But as I mentioned before, you don’t have to like someone to have a mutually beneficial relationship. In real life, you don’t always pick your team. In my field in particular, you don’t necessarily get the best person for the job, you get the low bidder. Then once you’ve got your team established, you have to figure out what you can both gain from each other. If you’re going to be a successful leader, you have to recognize that everyone has something they can contribute. I realize I need to challenge myself to be better at it just as I’m challenging you right now.
That’s an outside look. Now how about an inside look? Every day as I ride the train through the fareless zone, someone, usually stinking of alcohol, gets on the train and starts talking to themselves. It makes for a great conversation starter for the rest of us. I love to listen to what the “crazies” are saying. They have lost all inhibitions. They no longer care what anyone thinks, they just say what’s going through their mind. It’s like a window into someone’s brain. A crazy brain? I don’t necessarily think so. Ask yourself this: if someone were to tap into your brain, and put an ultrasensitive microphone on your thoughts, what would happen? If you had to walk around all day with that mike hooked to an amplifier, broadcasting your every thought to the world, what would people think of you? Do you think they would judge you? You bet, they’d say you’re crazy! Sure you can fry your brain worse by feeding it garbage. But in general, the only difference between so-called crazy people and the rest of us is our inhibitions. Try playing the filibuster game with your friends. Does everyone know what a filibuster is from your government class? When Senators get to postpone a vote so long as they ramble on in an endless speech without stopping? You may feel like you’re in the middle of a filibuster fireside right now... Anyway, picture yourself hooked into electroshock therapy, start talking, and if you pause for an instant, you get zapped. Just tap into your brain and start talking. Your brain never quits thinking, so you shouldn’t have to stop talking. See how long it takes before you’re just rambling completely incoherently. Pretty soon you won’t be giving your brain enough time to express things in a coherent manner. You’d be expressing your raw, unprocessed thoughts. So if I tapped into your brain by forcing you to filibuster, I’d say you’re completely crazy. So am I.
Our thoughts are pretty much nonsense, but inhibitions and processing time prevent most people from ever seeing this reality. That is, pretty much everyone but your spouse. When you get married someday, you may dive into things with some inhibitions, but chances are, you’ll get humbled as your inhibitions are broken down one by one. Get married and have kids and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Like President Hinckley said, “…we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled to be humble” (reading Ezra Taft Benson, Beware of Pride, April 1, 1989). But either way, God will have a humble people. Likewise, you can choose to shed your inhibitions, or you’ll be forced to lose them. Either way, you’ll be stripped of them eventually. Your spouse will tap into your brain one way or another and find out what’s deep inside. You may not even know yourself until it’s shown to you. There’s no getting around it – eventually you’ll be humbled as you are exposed for who you really are. That might sound embarrassing, but it doesn’t have to be something to fear. In fact, it’s what the Lord wants. Like CS Lewis said, “…if you really get into any kind of touch with [the Lord] you will, in fact, be humble—delightfully humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which had made you restless and unhappy all your life. He is trying to make you humble in order to make this moment possible…” (Mere Christianity, p. 114). Yes, we’re all crazy. But we’re all in the same boat, each of us just trying to figure this life thing out the best we can.
Last Words
Well thanks for putting up with me during our time together this evening. I hope you’ve gained some new insights into conversations, and I hope these new insights will make your life more fulfilling by improving your relationships and helping you to see just how special your conversations are. Not that any of you know Paul Simon’s music, but he’s got a great song about walking around in downtown New York that I think sums it all up. He says, “I was walking down the street when I heard this voice say, ‘Hey, aren’t we walking down the same street together on the very same day?’ Now that’s astute!” To me those lyrics capture an important fact of life: an encounter, a dialogue, an interaction, a conversation between two people is something so completely unlikely as to be nearly impossible. Think about the probabilities. If you went back just five years and rolled the dice again, what do you think the chance would be that we’d be meeting here tonight? At least in my case, a completely random series of events got me here. As one example, someone screwed up a map and drew the MAX light rail line all the way out to here. That’s the only reason I even looked at houses in Troutdale. And that’s just one of thousands of things that had to go just the way it went for me to be here right now. Same holds for you and your family. So the chance that we would meet here and have a conversation is miniscule. It’s about the same as if I let my three-year old pound away at a computer keyboard and out comes a sentence from Shakespeare. Or let her hit random notes on a piano and out comes a familiar melody. Virtually impossible! Yet here we are.
Before we close, I wanted to point out one important omission. After all this talk about conversations tonight, it turns out we haven’t mentioned the most important conversation of your day. Any guesses? Prayer, of course! Are your prayers a recitation, a monologue? Do they “bounce off the ceiling” as one writer put it? Or are they a conversation, a dialogue, as I think they are intended to be? Do you have any questions for God? I sure do. How would you approach a conversation if you could talk to Him face to face? Would it be different from your prayers? If I want to have the experience of talking to God one on one, how far do I really need to go? What does this scriptures mean to you: “Inasmuch as ye have done it (or not done it) unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40,45)? Does that apply to conversations? Could it be read as “If you’ve spoken with the least of these my brethren, ye have spoken with me?” Would you take it that far? Why not? Isn’t man created in his likeness? Don’t we all have the power to progress eternally? The doctrinal hints are sparse, but if we are Gods in embryo, as some have put it, I have to believe that entails the power to create things. When we look around at the beauty we see in humanity and nature, we recognize God as its source. But God hasn’t reserved the power of creation for Himself alone – he has endowed us all with the potential to have that power. It may be latent right now, but it resides somewhere deep inside of all of us. And if you have that potential, the potential to create something as beautiful and infinitely complex as this world, why should I not want to learn something from you in this brief instant, this sudden snapshot that marks the chance to talk to you, to converse?
So let’s get better at it. Let’s be great conversationalists! In presenting this fireside, I’m recommitting myself to value every conversation; in the process, I hope I’ve been able to relay some things that will help you feel both interesting yourself and genuinely interested in others. I believe those are the two most effective traits in helping us to become great conversationalists. And that brings me to my last point (I promise): Rule #2 from my speech class (which I’ve apparently flunked just like the first rule): “ALWAYS stick to your time limit.” Knowing when to shut up is one of the most important parts of being a great conversationalist. That time has come and gone, and with that I’ll turn the time over to [] and [] to do some role playing of practical examples for conversation starters. Thank you!