Category Archives: The Ones Where I Try To Give Advice

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The Kid Coming Through Technique

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First, let me apologize for my unexplained absence. My life got away from me for a little bit, and then I went to NYC with Students for Education Reform . So life was a little hectic. But I am back now and with a vengeance!

So like I said, I spent my weekend in NYC, which was pretty cool. I had never been before. And the best part was that being in the city wasn’t even the cool part. The people were. But we will save them for another blog post.

On Saturday night, a friend of mine graciously took me to Times Square. She had already been. If you have ever been to Times Square, then you know it’s kind of a one-time thing. You don’t really need to do it more than once unless you have a lot of money that you are just dying to spend on outrageously priced M&M trinkets.

As with most highly-populated places, there are about a billion street vendors milling about (that’s an estimate; there were probably more). They are trying to sell you all kinds of things – paintings, photographs, tickets, bags. But as I listened to them yell at the passers-by I realized that I was getting a great lesson in sales and marketing.

There was one interaction that was especially informative. I call it the “Kid Coming Through” technique – the KCTT. One vendor was selling pictures or something, and he wasn’t having much luck. Everyone was basically ignoring him, and he didn’t have a real good location on the street. He was up against a wall, both metaphorically and literally.

But he saw an opportunity. There was a young dad pushing his child through the crowd, and the vendor started yelling, “Hey, kid coming through” in order to clear the crowd for him. That is the KCTT. It’s that simple. Here’s a breakdown of how it works:

1. It draws attention to yourself. You have an excuse to yell louder than everyone else. And you can use it all you want. No one is going to reprimand you when you are yelling for the less fortunate.

2. You come out looking like a philanthropist. Even if you are doing it for purely self-motivated reasons, the objective reality is that you are actually doing something for someone else. And people respect that.

3. Friends are more likely to buy from you than strangers. The dad with the stroller is now your friend. It’s going to be harder for him to say no to you now.

The KCTT is cool, but I think it’s important to remember that it’s a lot cooler when it’s motivated by love.

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A Metaphor Concerning Honey Wheat Bagels

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Since I came to college, I have been obsessed with the fact that I am so normal. I have written blog posts and journal entries, had conversations, and lived a life trying to figure out why I am so normal.  I want conflict (naively)! I want hardship (naively)! It’s silly, I know. But it’s something that I think about.

I have always preferred white bread and plain bagels, which has made for a great metaphor. I am white bread. I am normal.

The other day, I was grocery shopping, and they were out of plain bagels. So I had to buy honey wheat. I was really upset. I am a plain bagel person. I will always be a plain bagel person.

So a couple of days later, it was time to open up the honey wheat bagels, and I did it begrudgingly. And I made my usual cheese and ham sandwich with a toasted bagel, and I bit into it, and the world opened up and the sun smiled on me. I loved it!

Sometimes you go your whole life thinking something is one way, and if you just step out of it, you can start having something another way. Metaphors. Bagels. Awesome.

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Asking for Help is Harder than Asking for a Date

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I like to do things myself.

In high school, I dated this girl for a while. The thing about dating someone regularly in high school is that you always have a built-in date for dances. And that’s nice.

But without fail, my parents would start hounding me about a month and a half before the dance. “How are you going to ask her?” they would ask.

I like to think that I am a creative person, but sometimes I have trouble coming up with original ideas. And at my high school, it was pretty important to ask someone to a dance originally. Fireworks were not necessary but encouraged. If you could figure out how to build a canal for gondola rides, you should do that. That sort of thing.

So a month and a half before the dance, my parents would be like, “When are you going to ask that girlfriend of yours to the dance?” I would respond that I didn’t have an idea, yet. And then they started to give me ideas. A lot of them were great. A lot of them were cute and adorable. But I refused to listen to them because I wanted to use my own ideas.

That was a noble quest, I suppose. Except one year that idea never came. And I waited too long. I asked my girlfriend to the dance one morning before school. That was it. Yawn.

This is a mistake I’ve repeated many times since then. I hate asking for help. Even when I get it into my head to ask for help, I rarely ask the kinds of questions that would benefit me. Instead, I dance around the issue, hoping that the person I’m talking to will magically read my mind. They don’t.

There are people out there with specific knowledge that you can use. These people are probably not in your immediate group of friends. We tend to encircle ourselves with people who are similar to us – single or married, student or businesswoman, parent or childless. They are great friends, certainly, but if we want specific knowledge we need to seek out people who have what we think we want. We need to talk to people who have already been through what we are going through. And then when we talk to them, we need to ask them very specific questions.

That way, we will always creatively ask the girl to the dance on time.