How to Quietly Get People’s Attention in a Noisy World
Being a calming influence when things go south is a seriously attractive quality
“I’ve arrived!” the young Hungarian announced to an audience of none. The year was 1921. The place was San Francisco. He’d been traveling for days, but instead of looking for a place to rest, the man had one last thing to do.
“Excuse me ma’am!” he politely said to an elderly woman. “Would you be so kind as to tell me which building houses the city press?”
“You can’t miss it!” the woman replied while pointing straight ahead. “It’s that building right there with all the flags hanging from it.”
After giving the woman a hat tip to show his appreciation, the young man made the short walk down the street. Then, he checked into the hotel directly in front of the building that housed the press, lugged his bags up seven flights of stairs, traded in his dusty clothes for a tattered straitjacket, and promptly threw himself out his hotel window.
As you can well imagine, the man’s antics sent shockwaves throughout the city. The next night, thanks to neighbors talking to neighbors and a building full of journalists reporting their first-hand account of how the man had officially arrived, the young traveler performed more magic…
