A human being is one of the most interesting things on this planet. That’s why the best stories, movies, and books are about people.
Any writer worth their salt will tell you the key behind a successful story is its characters. Not a clever plot, or beautiful writing, but the characters. The same applies for movies or TV shows. A film production company can spend millions on high-tech scenes, but if it gets its characters wrong, the movie will underperform.
Mortal Engines, considered one of the biggest box-office failures, grossed only $83.7 million against a production budget of $110 million plus marketing expenditure. The movie is said to have lost Universal Pictures an estimated 174.8 million. Among other reasons, the flop is attributed to poor character development. That’s how important characters are.
Scene from Mortal Engines
The funny thing is, we spend so much time watching fictional characters on TV while ignoring interesting characters we come across in real life. We are fascinated by a doctor who saves lives in a medical drama but ignores real doctors every day at the gym.
“There are no doctors at my gym,” you might say. To which I will quickly respond: “How would you know when you never find time to interact with people?”
Often, we aren’t interested enough in people to start conversations. Or worse, we do start conversations, but we are so focused inwards we spend the whole time talking about ourselves. This is where one of my favourite sayings applies: “Be more interested than interesting.”
What this simply means is, instead of trying to show people just how interesting you are, you should take time to listen and show genuine interest in others. In Stephen Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, this is habit number five: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
The benefits of being interested in people and listening are countless. You can draw inspiration from their personal stories, cure loneliness, or start a beautiful business or personal relationship.
Yet, even when life puts us in situations where it’s easier to interact than not to, many of us put on our headphones, preferring to listen to music rather than to each other. Take a flight, for example. How many of us have spent hours in the air without saying a single word to the person sitting next to us beyond the cursory “hello?”
Disinterested people on a plane
This is a time when showing interest in the person next to you seems natural. It certainly seemed natural for Dan Lee and Bob Farrell, two strangers who bonded over their lifelong struggle with remembering names on a flight from Charlotte to New York.
It was the beginning of a great business relationship that led to the launch of Remomorate, an app that helps people remember names. The point is, the world is full of interesting characters. Why don’t you stop ignoring them every day and start learning their backstories?
Rememorate app
Whether you are at a business conference or the grocery store, strike up a conversation, be inquisitive, show genuine interest. If you are naturally a quiet person, that’s not a problem. In fact, the quieter the better. Because remember, the assignment is not to talk all the time; it’s to listen. It’s to be more interested than interesting.
