The real hero here is God,
for blessing me with this nose and a
few other amazing appendages.
—Brian Griffin (the dog),
Family Guy, created by Seth MacFarlane
“Hi there, how are you?”
How many times a day do you hear variations of that question?
“How’s it going?”
“How ya doin’?”
“What’s shakin’?”
“How’s it hanging?”
“What’s new?” Or that peculiarly male version, Whassup?—often shortened to ’Sup? and asked while the body is in full stride, without the asker even slowing down to pretend to hear the answer.
How many times a day do you ask that same kind of question?
Are you really looking for an answer when you ask these throwaway questions? Usually, I’m afraid, we’re looking for and expect a throwaway response that allows us to avoid getting into a conversation and just get down to business. No interest in true connection, just get in, get out. Half the time the answer doesn’t even match the question asked. You’ve been there, right? Someone says, “hi” and you reply, “Good, good,” or “Not too bad.” Your face turns slightly crimson. Not because you gave an empty, meaningless response, but because you gave the wrong empty, meaningless response. Thankfully, the other person probably didn’t even notice. Why? Because he or she wasn’t really listening to your answer to begin with.
The “Good, Good” Syndrome
When I’m giving a talk, I often start by asking the group the standard, “How are you?”
In response, the group predictably answers, “Good” in a less-than-effervescent tone.
I then say, “No, I asked ‘How are you?’”
Unfailingly, the group shouts, “Good” in a louder, slightly more jacked-up voice.
They assume I’m playing the “I can’t hear you” game. I tell them, “I didn’t ask you to repeat your answer in a louder voice because I couldn’t hear you, I asked how you are. Because I really want to know. Let me try again . . . how are you?”
At this point a few participants will mumble tentative responses, a few will shrug noncommittally, and the rest stare intently at their shoes. The truth is that a lot of my listeners aren’t “good” at all. Some are tired, some are stressed out—no, many are—some of them are having problems at home and some may even be hung over.
“Good” is a pretty empty word, isn’t it? It’s a generic, all-purpose response. It usually means absolutely nothing. You might as well say “potato” instead. But that’s the very purpose of “good,” isn’t it? To be meaningless. To avoid genuineness.
In fact, that’s the purpose of much of today’s “casual” conversation. It is not designed to build bridges between people, but to build walls. And to lubricate business transactions. After all, you can’t just walk up to someone and ask, “How many widgets do you want to buy today?” So you throw out a “filler” question like “How’s it going?”—not because you want to hear the answer, but because you need to say something to get things rolling.
I once heard the British playwright Harold Pinter say that the everyday purpose of language is not to communicate but to avoid communication. I thought he was just being a wiseass, but I’ve come to realize he was more than a little right.
It’s an odd idea, isn’t it. That language, our essential tool of communication, might be used to wall us off from one another, rather than to bring us closer? But that’s exactly what much of language does. We use it to keep people at arm’s length. But by shutting ourselves off from the possibility of real encounters with people, aren’t we giving up a lot of what makes life meaningful and rewarding?
Homo Sapiens, the Great Communicator
I am fascinated by the language of casual encounters. I believe the way people handle casual communications is a reflection of the way they handle all communications.
We humans are “allegedly” the master communicators of the animal kingdom. Scientists say that language is the essential way humans differentiate themselves from the “lower” creatures. Our brains are structured, to a large extent, for just this purpose. Humans alone (supposedly) possess the ability to communicate abstract ideas, learn the intimate details of one another’s lives, and express our thoughts and feelings in both precise and poetic ways.
Then why do we leave this miraculous tool in our pockets so much of the time? It’s as if we’re all gifted pianists who insist on playing “Chopsticks.” We can communicate brilliantly, but instead we use words to put up façades, to hide, to mislead each other, to redirect each other, and to avoid the risk of real connection.
And yet we wonder why there is so much loneliness, alienation, and misunderstanding in our world.
Canis Familiaris, the Great Sniffer
Dogs, on the other hand, are supposedly our evolutionary inferiors due to their lack of words. As communicators, they take a distant backseat to humans. Or so we think. But look at how dogs handle even the most casual encounter.
Two dogs meet. They immediately “sniff each other out.” They don’t sniff superficially, either. They don’t ask each other, from a polite distance, “How do you smell today?” and then answer “Good, good” in a falsely bright bark. Nah, they dive right for the most intimate parts of each other’s anatomies and start sniffing.
Dogs, as you probably know, have an astonishing sense of smell, often estimated to be anywhere from a thousand to 10 million times more powerful than that of humans.1 A dog’s brain is designed primarily to process smell. When a dog sniffs, it is downloading reams of information not available to the noses of mere mortals.
1 http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/articles/dogsenses.htm
Just a small sampling of the things a dog learns by sniffing another dog:
A dog’s nose is a story-gathering machine. In a very real sense, a dog listens with its nose—intently. When two dogs meet, something real happens between them. They encounter one another directly and intimately. They each make the other dog the most important thing in their universe, at least for that minute or two. They don’t rush through the exchange, distracted by the goals they need to accomplish that day. They give the encounter their full presence and attention. They come to an understanding of each other.
Think, on the other hand, about the familiar scenario of two human dog walkers meeting each other on the street. While their two dogs are busily learning intimate details about each other’s lives, the two humans are busily smiling superficially and saying, “Looks like rain.” “Yep, sure does.” Yet the two humans walk away from the encounter, confident in their status as great communicators.
For dogs, sniffing one another out is an adventure, a doorway to new worlds. Admittedly, that’s because they have such amazing noses; sniffing is their mutant superpower. But you have a mutant superpower, too. It’s your ability to ask questions and listen to answers. That’s your doorway to new worlds.
Remember the old cartoons, when a character would draw a door in the air and step right through it? The character would then emerge in an alternate universe—outer space, the Old West, or King Arthur’s England. That’s the power you have in your hands every time you enter an exchange with another human being. You can create a door to another universe. But most of the time you don’t use that power. You don’t make that other human being important enough to learn about. Your busy agenda takes precedence.
What would happen if you took a page from Dog’s book? What if you took the opportunity—not with every single person you met, of course, but even just once or twice a day—to “sniff one another out”? I don’t mean to literally sniff, because that might lead to things like restraining orders, but to do so in the poetic sense.
Try this. The next time you’re in line at the grocery store, talk to someone: the person next to you or the clerk. You might find out the checkout clerk is new to the area. You might find the person in line behind you has a recipe for banana bread worth sharing, or a daughter about to graduate. Before you know it, you’ve widened the circle of people you know, even just a little.
On that long ride to the airport shared in a cab with a colleague, do a little asking, but more important, listen. You might just experience that warm, tail-wagging glow your dog knows about.
Take the Sniff Test
I’m sometimes a troublemaker; it’s just my nature. For the past few years, I’ve been conducting an informal experiment. Almost every day, at least once or twice, I will take a casual exchange, like buying groceries, and try to turn it into a sniffing session. Sometimes I play the sniffer, sometimes I play the sniffee. Admittedly, this doesn’t always go smoothly (sometimes people don’t want to be “sniffed” and we need to respect that). But I usually make a mark: I forge a connection with a new person, and that changes the person’s perception of me from the generic to the specific. I’ll give you a few examples:
I recently stepped into an elevator and this guy was standing there. He said the typical, “How’s it going?” thing, then snapped his eyes toward the floor-numbers display (notice he “said” and not “asked”). My first impulse was to toss out a typical conversation-ending “Good, good,” but instead I confessed, “Well, I was doing good, but my favorite hockey team got hammered last night in a playoff game, so now I’m on life support.” He gave a polite laugh, but I could see low-level panic creeping onto his face: What have I gotten myself into? I chatted a bit more about hockey, as he began staring at the elevator doors, willing them to open between floors, presumably so he could dive out into the empty shaft. As soon as the doors did open, he dashed out. Probably on the wrong floor.
Oh well, chalk one up in the loss column for me. No big deal. Interestingly, though, I ran into the same guy in the lobby a few days later and he made an effort to catch my attention. “Still watching hockey?” he asked with a smile. “I saw there was a game on last night” he added. It was a small thing, but it made me realize, by golly, I had made a mark with him. A small one, admittedly, but at least it was something—a specific connection. I’m probably known as “that hockey guy” to him. Still, next time we meet in an elevator, we’ll have a starting point to build from.
In another elevator encounter, I ran into a sales rep from my company whom I had encountered professionally but didn’t know personally. I gave her the old “How are you?” and received the expected chorus of “Good, good.” I decided to sniff a bit more and asked “Good good?” She then admitted to me she was actually dreading a professional meeting with a doctor later that day. I asked her why. She told me. I happened to know the doctor she would be meeting with and offered some advice that turned out to be just the thing she needed to give her some direction for the meeting. It was a brief conversation, but it had substance.
The end result? It felt productive to have a valuable exchange with a colleague that turned out to be helpful. The rep felt great to have been listened to and to get some good advice. And we both forged the beginnings of a possible friendship. The doctor, too, probably ended up benefitting from our exchange.
In a third example, I was recently dining out with some friends. When the server came over, we exchanged the usual round of “Good, good,” then I asked how she really was. She seemed pleasantly surprised and thanked me for asking. I reassured her, “You are our lifeline to food, so how you’re doing is very important to us.” She laughed and told us she was in a good mood because her boyfriend had finally cleaned the apartment, something he’d been promising to do for ages. This seemed very important to her. It also prompted a lively five-way conversation for a couple of minutes, and suddenly she wasn’t just our server anymore; she was our friend. She gave us special treatment for the rest of the evening, even slipped us a free dessert. We gave her a great tip. Everybody won.
People want to be heard.
Sniffing Pays
Those are just some very recent examples of the hundreds of rewarding experiences I’ve had over the past few years (in addition to a few rolled eyes) as a result of “sniffing” like a dog. Of course, not every exchange with every cab driver needs to be turned into Sunday with Oprah. Sometimes you just need to accomplish a task. Sometimes the “vibe” just isn’t right.
But I do suggest that at least once or twice a day, in a situation where you would normally start mindlessly chirping, “Good, and you?” you take the opportunity to sniff. Why? What’s the benefit?
Well, there are many. I’ll start with the basic stuff. First, sniffing boosts your metabolism and your spirits. We humans are social creatures and we measurably improve our physical, mental, and emotional functioning when we connect with others. That’s a medical fact. So there’s an immediate, felt reward. Exchanging energy with another living being feels good—period. Dogs understand this instinctively. E-mailing doesn’t do it. Texting doesn’t do it. We need to mix it up with real people face-to-face. It keeps us alive, healthy, and vibrant.
Still skeptical? A recent study by Brigham Young University confirmed that social isolation is as bad for your health as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day, failing to exercise, or being an alcoholic, and twice as bad as being obese. People with healthy social interactions, on the other hand, have up to 50 percent higher survival rates (depending on their ages and the time frames studied).1 Another study showed that elderly people who regularly engaged in simple social interactions—even if those activities did not involve physical exercise—lived two and a half years longer than those who kept themselves isolated.2 Are we throwing away glorious health benefits by avoiding one another like the plague? It would seem so. Candy Crush Saga and Farmville don’t count, sorry.
1 http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/24/health-relationships-longevity-forbes-woman-well-being-social-isolation.html
2 http://www.valueoptions.com/april06_newsletter/benefits_of_social_ interactions.htm
Also, if you make a habit of sniffing, you create a sense of community around you—in your workplace, in your neighborhood, at the gym, at the supermarket. Since I began my personal experiment in sniffing, I can honestly say that the world around me has transformed. Everywhere I go, I feel “known.” Some of the folks in my little universe know me well, others not as well, but it’s a noticeably warmer and more intimate world I live in now than it was a few years ago.
Another great advantage to sniffing is that it makes a mark. When you stop and sniff, you leave an impression in the consciousness of another person. We always remember the people who listen to us and the people we listen to. As for me, I may be Hockey Guy to one person, Guitar Guy to another, Kayak Guy to another, Medicine Man to another, and Listening Guy to yet another. But however they know me, I am real and specific to the people in my world. So, if and when I need help with something, I have lots of people to turn to.
One of the most powerful rewards of sniffing is the almost magical way it leads to spontaneous opportunities. You never know when the person sitting next to you on a train or buying the cup of coffee in front of you may hold the key to your next business opportunity, your next job, or your entire life’s direction. Unless you break your code of silence, you may never find out.
You’ve probably had an experience that confirms this. You talk to a passenger on a train and it turns out the person works for the company you’re trying to get into. You offer a listening ear to the mail carrier and it turns out she wants to buy the car you’re selling. Over the years I have heard countless stories of people opening unforeseeable doors in their lives—meeting a future spouse, finding a new job, selling a screenplay, landing a multi-million-dollar contract, even one guy who ended up getting a personal audience with the Dalai Lama—as a result of “random” sniffing encounters. Often these encounters have an almost mystical component, as if Fate were somehow playing a role. In each case, though, the good fortune was unlocked only because the person took the opportunity to sniff or responded to a sniff from someone else.
Why Are We So Reluctant?
The benefits of sniffing are both immediate and long term. They can be mood-lifting, health-improving, and life-changing. Dogs make sniffing an integral part of their lives, like food, water, and oxygen. Then why don’t we do it more often? Well, of course, some of it has to do with personality. Some people are introverts and others are extroverts. There’s also the fact that technology, as we discussed, has made it so easy to avoid direct contact with one another. Thank goodness for the smartphone; we now have something to stare at besides the number display in an elevator! (I was waiting in line outside a popular take-out restaurant the other day and every single person in line was staring at a smartphone; no one was talking to the person next to them.) Aside from those things, it really comes down to fear. What is it we’re afraid of?
By taking the risk of “being real” with another person, you become vulnerable on many levels. You run the risk of rejection, embarrassment, being judged, saying the wrong thing, looking like a crazy person who has no boundaries—or getting involved with a crazy person who has no boundaries.
You may well have a general discomfort level about self-revelation and intimacy, so you try, as a rule, to keep the social walls as high as you can. You know that when another person breaks that imaginary wall, anything can happen. The game changes. You’re no longer in complete control (which is why the street hustler in Manhattan tries to make eye contact with you; he knows that once you’ve looked him in the eye, he can begin to work his magic on you). You prefer to stick to your little agenda—i.e., get from point A to point B as quickly and efficiently as possible—and avoid disruption.
That’s the real fear, isn’t it? Experiencing disruption.
Disruption
Disruption is rude and inconvenient. It throws off our neat schedules. It costs us time. It throws a monkey wrench into our plans.
But here’s something to keep in mind. Disruption is not necessarily a bad thing. Disruption is inconvenient, yes, but it’s also the engine of growth, opportunity, and adventure.
Every great leader and trailblazer in history has been disruptive. Jesus Christ was disruptive; Martin Luther King Jr. was disruptive; Thomas Edison was disruptive; Gandhi was disruptive; Steve Jobs was disruptive.
Every great invention has been disruptive, too. The wheel, the printing press, the light bulb, the telephone, the computer. Each of these new ideas necessitated throwing out the old way of doing things, while messing up comfortable patterns and well-oiled systems. People lost jobs. Heads rolled. I’m sure the guy who owned Scribes ’R’ Us was not too happy when Gutenberg came along.
Every important change in your personal life is a disruption, too. Falling in love, getting married, having kids, starting a business, moving. All of these things are major blows to your routines and comfort zones. But they often lead you to a better place.
Nothing changes without a disruption to the old pattern. Disruption ushers in the new, the creative, and the exciting. That’s why entrepreneurs, artists, inventors, and innovators love disruption.
That’s what’s so refreshing about dogs, too. No matter what their agenda is at any given moment, they’ll give it up in an instant if the opportunity presents itself to engage with another dog or a human being. They embrace disruption.
Whenever you stif le an instinct to go sniffing, it’s an opportunity lost. How many times have you felt the urge to say something to someone, but you suppressed it and let fear take over? Then later you felt a twinge of regret or loss. That’s the universe telling you, “You should have sniffed a little harder.”
Start paying attention to that little gut feeling and acting on it more often. Take the risk of being a game changer.
The Art of Inviting
There is a difference, of course, between sniffing and being flat-out obnoxious. It can be a fine line, admittedly, but there is an art to sniffing without . . . er, cramming your face into someone’s butt (my apologies to dogkind). You can sniff while practicing proper boundaries and being respectful.
We all know people who make us want to run the other way when we see them approaching. When they come sniffing, it feels pushy. Usually it’s because they’re only interested in their agenda, not yours. Their stabs at “intimacy” are thinly disguised attempts to fish for information that serves them, not you.
That’s why we often recoil and clam up around salespeople. We know they’re “sniffing” us out because they want to sell us something, and our natural reaction is to back off. Their energy feels pushy. Pushing energy almost always triggers a push-back or retreat response. It rarely leads to true engagement.
I like to use “pulling” energy instead. Pulling energy invites a response, without demanding it. If I run into someone with a dog, for example, I might make a comment that can be responded to, but doesn’t need to be; e.g., “Someone’s getting some sun today.” If I run into someone at a conference who looks stressed out, I might reflect my observation back to the person, without layering on too much judgment. “Tough day? I’m all ears if you need it.” If someone tells me he’s “Good, good,” but doesn’t sound very convincing, I might say, “You don’t sound too sure about that.”
It’s not so much the words you say—think of dogs; they don’t use human words at all—but your tone and your intention. You make it clear that you are putting out an invitation to communicate but that you also understand that the other person may not be in the frame of mind to talk. You do both at the same time. You respect the other person’s boundaries, while also tendering an offer to sniff.
Beyond the Casual Encounter
I’ve been focusing primarily on the “casual” encounters that often go untapped and unexplored. But, of course, “sniffing” is equally as important in your existing relationships—at home, at work, and in your circles of friends. You need to make efforts, on a daily basis, to dig beyond the superficial.
Women are naturally better at this than men. Men tend to “keep it casual,” even when they’re with close friends and family members. They’ll stand around at parties, talking about sports and the hottest new app, while the women actually try to find out what’s going on in each other’s lives.
This story was recently brought home to me by my friend Jake. Every year, Jake and his old college friends get together for an evening at a designated restaurant/bar. They’re all in their forties now, so this ritual has been going on for quite some time. Anyway, Jake was starting to grow weary of these get-togethers. Every year felt like a carbon copy of last year. They’d spend half the evening making small talk and then, after they’d had a few drinks, recite the same old stories of the “glory days.” A few years ago, Jake decided to take a risk and try something different. He began the evening by asking each of the friends to talk about something difficult he’d been struggling with over the past year. Each guy was given “the floor” for as long as he wanted/needed, while the other guys just listened.
Jake said it was a remarkable evening. One of the friends shared that he had been struggling with unemployment for years but had been too embarrassed to talk about it. Another confessed that he was having serious health issues and had recently received an unpleasant diagnosis. None of the others had known this! Another told of a heart-wrenching problem he was having with his son. One of the guys expressed his desire to open up a store, but said he’d been too shy to discuss it for fear of being discouraged. One buddy would talk, the others would just listen. The shocking discovery, to all of them, was how little they really knew each other. By the end of the evening, though, there were tears and hugs and a whole new level of friendship. A new tradition was quickly established, whereby each of these annual get-togethers would begin in a similar way—each guy talking about a meaningful topic while the others just listened. This new ritual has transformed a casual “good-time” get-together into a real bonding experience, and some of the friends have begun spending more time together.
To me, this story illustrates how much value there is in sniffing. Had Jake not made the courageous decision to dig beneath the surface, these eight men might have remained superficial buddies forever, not true friends.
Listening Is a Gift
Humans have a fundamental craving to be heard—to be known, to be understood, to be received for who we really are. This is one of our most essential psychological needs. That is why listening is so important and why “sniffing” can be such a vital, life-changing practice. Whenever you give your ear to another person, even for a minute, and invite that person to share a bit of who he or she is with you, you offer them a tremendous gift. That gift makes an indelible mark on both the listener and the one speaking. Whenever listening takes place, a connection is made, just as when two dogs “check each other out” in their own inimitable way.
So take it upon yourself to make your world a little more real. The next time you catch yourself saying, “What’s up?” without stopping to hear the answer, or throwing out a high-pitched “Good, good,” ask yourself whether there’s anything you can do to make the encounter a little more genuine. It often takes only a few extra seconds. All you have to do is pause, set your own agenda aside for a moment, and truly listen to another human being. You will not only get an immediate, felt reward, you’ll also be building a network that might very well provide your next sale, a great restaurant recommendation, or your next dinner date.
And that’s worth sniffing for, wouldn’t you agree?
Something to
Chew On . . .
Benji
Benji, the loveable ragamuffin who is a film and TV star 3, was a pioneer in dog listening. The original Benji was rescued from the Burbank Animal Shelter by Joe Camp, the creator, writer, and producer of all the Benji films. Camp brought out the best in Benji for the world to see, and even created a method of dog training based on their work together. Essentially, the Benji Method works on two principles: compassion and communication. What Camp learned over the years is that dogs have amazing comprehension as well as a tremendous desire to serve and to please. To train a dog to do almost anything, you start with love and compassion. Then you communicate meaningfully with it. You don’t bloviate. You communicate with purpose. A dog will literally do somersaults for you if you have a relationship based on mutual caring. “Nothing lifts the human spirit like sharing, caring, relating, and fulfilling,” says Camp.4 Hmm, feels like a lesson here.
3 There have actually been four Benjis over the years. While the next two Benjis were offspring of Benji I, the fourth Benji was also a shelter dog. This good deed not only gave us great movies, but helped the cause of animal adoption. According to the American Humane Association Benji’s adoption and resultant screen popularity was directly responsible for the adoption of more than one million dogs.
4 www.benji.com
Every Benji movie or video is unique because they’re all told through the dog’s heart and soul—there are no narrators or talking animals—just a floppy-eared mutt expressing emotions better than many human actors. As one critic put it: “Never before have I watched a dog’s face on the screen as he considered problems, discarded alternatives, tested theories, decided on courses of action, executed them, then reacted to their successful or unsuccessful results.” It’s no wonder that Benji was the second animal ever to be inducted into the Animal Actors Hall of Fame.