How To Be The Most Interesting Person In The Bar


  • Most people are boring. Not you.

    Why?

    Because you broke away from the pack a long time ago. You’re a different breed — a dog of a different color.

    You cultivated the black art of individuality, learned the art of personality. You became brilliant. People argue about your modesty.

    She does things differently, they say, she’s heterodox, self-contained, haunting the higher eminences of thought, hard-worker, school-leaver, reposed, self-taught.

    Like all of us, she’s a tightly packed pod of living potential, but she’s EXPLODING: a life-giving force, a mustard seed.

    She’s never in need.

    She has the common touch. Yet, somehow, she remains pure and remote and above the fray.

    She has a certain way.

    She’s silent. She’s sensible.

    She’s sane.

    She’s generous and regards stinginess as something almost reprehensible.

    She cultivates her brain.

    She’s still. She understands the power of the human will.

    She’s esoteric.

    She’s inquisitive.

    She’s relevant.

    She’s independent, exquisitive.

    She knows that self-development is the aim of life and that self-control is the basis of character.

    She’s happy, not sloppy or self-pitying or sappy.

    It takes a certain kind of work to be boring, whereas in order to be interesting it’s … what?

    It’s mostly a question of habit — and the true secret of habit, as everyone knows, is the insight that habit is discipline and that your habits are what you choose them to be.

    Your life is your values.

    Your values are what you most enjoy doing.

    In this sense, your values are your habits.

    Cultivate, therefore, your desire for knowledge.

    Work to want it more. Knowledge is at home in any public house, coffee-shop, diner, saloon, or bar.

    Strive to become the unstoppable learning beast of unslakable thirst that you know you are.

    How?

    By generalizing. Specialize, yes, that too, but read a little about a lot — or, if you don’t like to read, listen.

    Take a course. Attend a lecture. Plug into a podcast. Take in a play.

    Most importantly: seek to integrate the new things you learn into the full body of your existing knowledge. In this way, your web of learning will become interconnected, contextual, hierarchical, sweeping.

    Learn also to listen in a charismatic way.

    You heard me right. (Or did you?)

    People love to hear themselves talk. Not you. You’re far too interesting for that. You’re far too self-contained.

    Attentive listening is an infallible hallmark of magnetism and manners — which two things go together like whiskey and wieners.

    By being an excellent listener, slow to speak and swift to hear, you’ll go far in developing a kind of irresistible fascination.

    Brilliant listeners focus sincerely on what the other person is saying.

    They never participate in a conversation with the mindset that they’ll listen only until it’s their turn to talk.

    If the whole time you’re listening, you’re thinking about what you’re going to say next, it will show on your face like food in your beard.

    If you’re fidgety, this, too, will show invariably.

    In your patience possess ye your souls. Learn to be patient, for fucksake.

    Patience and presence are signals of extraordinary listeners.

    Good listeners do this:

    Pause before they respond.

    Never interrupt.

    Allow in total silence people to interrupt them.

    Finally, seek to become a passionate storyteller.

    How?

    Simple:

    Create stories around subjects that you’re truly passionate about.

    If the subject of your story is something you’re genuinely interested in, your personality will BLAST through, and you’ll be exposed as the ferocious creative force of insatiable appetite that you know you are.

    Those who speak well speak briefly.

    And remember:

    Talent is meaningless.

    There’s not even really any such thing as talent.

    Ambition is everything.

    The truth is that the overwhelming majority of successful people aren’t particularly gifted or educated or blessed. Rather, they become successful, in any given endeavor, because they will it.

    Because it’s not how smart you are.

    It’s how smart you want to be.



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    September 15th, 2016 | journalpulp | 12 Comments | Tags: , , ,

About The Author

Ray Harvey

I was born and raised in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. I've worked as a short-order cook, construction laborer, crab fisherman, janitor, bartender, pedi-cab driver, copyeditor, and more. I've written and ghostwritten several published books and articles, but no matter where I've gone or what I've done to earn my living, there's always been literature and learning at the core of my life.

12 Responses and Counting...

  • Robert 09.15.2016

    Talent DOES exist and everyone has them but most don’t use them.

    This is a simplistic and linear piece.

  • Don’t be a douche bag, Robert. It’s a good article.

  • Yeah, Robert. Don’t be a douchebag.

    Michelle, thank you for dropping by.

  • Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d say, “In this world, Elwood, you must be” – she always called me Elwood – “In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.” Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.

    Elwood P. Dowd

    I think Robert didn’t really read the article. Instead he spent the whole time thinking of his comment. However, I must say I do like things simplistic and linear, especially when they are measured in board feet.

  • Thank you, Mr. Dowd.

    Finally, somebody gets me.

    Thank you for dropping by.

  • Captivating.. I must say I very much enjoyed reading this piece from your forthcoming book.. I must say I look forward to reading it in its entirety. So much of what I’ve been told by others of my personality I see written here in your chapter.. I am not a coincided woman, whatsoever, but after this read I’d like to say “I’m a f*ucking beast”!

  • Thank you, Leiah Rose!

    Thank you very much indeed.

  • Looking forward to reading more. Excellent advice. What’s more, you set the example you speak of and I think it makes you the most interesting person at the bar. (P.s. I’ll deny ever saying this)

  • Joanne, you sly little son-of-a-gun, just when I thought you’d forgotten all about me.

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