One Way to Seem Interesting is to be Interested in Others

Being interested and being interesting are connected to one another. This idea was introduced by Dale Carnegie in his book “How to win friends and influence people ”, in 1936. It is his famous saying that “If an author doesn’t like people, people won’t like his or her stories. In his book, he shared the stories of different people and told us how they win more friends by being more interested in them. He stated that the first principle of winning more friends is to “become genuinely interested in other people”. He suggests different tips to become more interested. One of my favorite tips is to give compliments to others. He gave the idea that we can make more strong relationships by being interested. If someone focuses on himself only he can not understand the problems of others and can not get involved with others when they need to.

Being interested is a skill and it can be developed by practicing it. We are so busy with ourselves and like to talk about ourselves all the time. But people are interested in themselves and do not find us interesting. So, to become interesting, become interested.

“ Nothing is interesting if you are not interested”. Being interested becomes a popular concept of business and personal relationships. So, the question is how to become genuinely interested? First of all, listen and show compassion. I believe that “ To be a great listener is more difficult than to be a great speaker”. To be a great listener you need a lot of patience and a deep interest in other conversations. You have to pay undivided attention to their stories and show great interest in them. You can be a great listener only if you listen from the heart.

“THE INTEREST CHALLENGE”

To develop the skill of being interested I took an “Interest Challenge”. The rules of this challenge were to talk to my friends, family members, colleagues, and teachers and ask them about themselves and try to remain focused on them instead of telling about myself. If they asked about me I have to respond politely in a lesser time and return to them quickly. This challenge was completed in 24 hours and I have to keep it to myself that I am doing this activity as a part of the challenge. All of the participants were unaware of this fact.

I selected as many people as I can to talk to them and asked them different questions about themselves. I started by asking How are you? and how’s your day? to ask them about their life goals, interests, achievements, difficulties, and pleasures.

“OUTCOMES OF THE INTEREST CHALLENGE”

After completing this challenge I gathered my learnings from this experience. It is a universal rule that “Love and to Be Loved” so, I learned that being interested also earns you respect. It makes other people happy when they get your undivided attention. They love you more and show their interest in you as well.

LEARNING PROCESS

I learned from this challenge the reality of a valuable concept “Learning”. Being interested in it is a learning process. You can learn a lot from the experiences of others. It enhances your skill of reading the mindset of others. Even people shared their secrets to you if you show interest in their conversation.

LEARN FROM DIFFERENT PEOPLE THAN YOU

This challenge helped me a lot to learn from people different than me. People belong to different backgrounds, facing different problems and difficulties can enhance your knowledge and can change your perception towards different realities. It is a useful source of learning different things. Stories of different people make you wiser and help you in your real life.

WIN PEOPLE’S HEART

I learned being interested helps you to win people’s hearts. They like to meet you again and again. They give you more importance and would like to help you whenever you need their help.

STRONG RELATIONSHIPS AND BUILD TRUST

Being interested helps me to establish a strong relationship with others. It is a good way to break the ice and to begin to talk about themselves. If you are a good listener it helps you to develop trust and strong connections with others.

INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

This challenge helped me to develop my interpersonal skills. It helps to communicate and interact with other people. It helps me to ask questions and to become more proactive who initiates conversation.

ACTIVE LISTENING

It helps me to practice the skill of active listening. I experienced how to give attention to small details and how to remain focused on the conversation.

BEING INTERESTED AND WORKPLACE

As far as jobs are concerned, when a potential candidate will be interested he will explore every detail about the company. He will utilize different sources to get unique information about a company to stand out among other candidates. He would be ready for the expected questions and give an impact of confident personality. He would be more aware of company vision and culture. At a new job being interested makes people able to establish connections quickly. It showed your passion and commitment to your dream company.

This challenge helped me a lot and I recommend that everyone should take this challenge to practically implement the concepts of Dale Carnegie about being interested and being interesting. This principle can help you to gain the highest edge of your success.