In the pursuit of higher ‘n’, be thankful for ‘1’

How to deal with popularity

When you have an abundance of attention [1], it’s very easy to ignore any one person in this craze and chaos. Say, you were lucky enough to have the privilege to give a talk to an audience of 200 people on the topic you’re both knowledgeable and enthusiastic about. The talk generates a lot of attention and lots of people start coming to you with questions or requests for photographs. Having been on both sides of the table, I first-hand know how easy it is to take this attention for granted and not give your full focus (and attention!) to any single person approaching you. It’s the trap of maximizing the width (of your reach) forgetting about something way more valuable — the depth of the connections you make. Be mindful, and don’t fall into the trap of this proverbial busy loner.

As the speaker, you should be ungodly thankful (at least I am!) that even one person cared enough to approach you. One of the hardest things in this noisy world bombarding us with new and more exciting information is having someone’s attention. If you have it, don’t blow it. Be respectful. Don’t even try to think that by ignoring this one person or half-assing your answer to her, nothing changes in the big scheme of things. In fact, everything changes — it’s the tiny drops which make up the vast and endless ocean. If you’re starting to fall in the direction of this poisonous mindset, observe it and don’t’ let that happen. As the creator of Gmail Paul Buchheit famously noted, ‘It’s better to make 100 people happy than to make 1,000,000 people sort of happy’.

If you’re part of an audience, listen carefully and take notes of the thoughts you found the most surprising or worth remembering. Even jot down your one phrase reactions to them if you have a moment to spare. But don’t just listen, engage, ask questions to deepen your understanding. Approach the speaker if you have the burning thought on the subject. Hell — approach the speaker even if you don’t have anything other than ‘Thank you. That was a super insightful talk!’ to say. Do what you’re most fearful of. That tends to lead to growth. And if something brings you to higher state of consciousness, why not to take it? Even if the speakers, you approached, are clearly sloppy about their engagement with the audience (caring about width, not depth) [2], don’t blame them — they’ll eventually realize. Just don’t repeat the same mistake. Go for depth, not breadth.

Notes
[1] Common thing at conferences.
[2] Based on a few interactions and many talks I watched, notable author and former Apple evangelist, Guy Kawasaki (in the photo above) is clearly guilty of that. More often than not, he cuts off the people asking the questions and approaches the book signing or smiling in pictures as the conveyor belt. A bit hypocritical coming from the author of “Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions”. No judgements, just saying ;) Let’s write it off to his tiredness, age and, honestly, simply unbearable ‘width’ to support. He’s a great Guy — and that’s what matters.