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Someone Said "Looks Like You're Having a Lot of Fun" When I Shared with Him about a Course
It was a casual catch-up with a friend/acquaintance.
I attended an in-person course and shared the results with someone over video conferencing:
Me: I attended a course recently on this subject.
I can share about the course if you're interestedHim: Sure I'm interested
Me: (shares the screen and explains the material)
Him: Looks like you're having a lot of fun
Me: What do you mean by having a lot of fun?
Him: You're attending all these courses.
It seems like a lot of fun.
Then, later he talked about having a lot of serious meetings in his company.
I felt that he was one-upping me by framing my learnings as "fun" in contrast to his endeavours.
I believe that I should have asked him about what he's learning:
Him: Looks like you're having a lot of fun
Me: What do you mean by having a lot of fun?
Him: You're attending all these courses.
It seems like a lot of fun.Me: What are you learning about right now?
This would change the frame from "fun" to "learning".
We have regular catchups every month/bi-monthly.
I put in the effort to find out common interests.
He seems to want to stay in touch but somehow is not very interested during the catch-ups.
The catch-ups feel a bit like robotic, professional updates.
He wants to update and then end the call.
I am able to vibe with him at the start.
But then the tone shifts into professional and detached.
So I pushed for more direct talk about interests at the end:
Me: What are you interested in learning about?
I don't want to share with you things that you're uninterested in.
Like the course for example.Him: (says in a professionally, detached way)
Yeah, I'm interseted in the course and what you share about (this and that).
I'm interested in the fields of (topic 1) and (topic 2). (vague, professional topics with jargon like product management)Me: I'm interested in B2B sales and how you navigate stakeholders on the client side.
I think our industries differ quite a bit though.
So our approaches may be different.Him: Yeah, that's why I'm interested in discussing.
(...brief discussion on "professional" interests but a bit mechanical...)
I think it's a start to dig deeper.
I will see how it goes.
If our conversations continue to be spinning wheels, I may speak more directly:
Me:Â Our conversations seem to be spinning wheels over the past few catch-ups.
We don't really seem to have a topic that we can dig deep into.
I would like to hear from your perspective.
But it may also make sense to keep contact and have brief update-like chats with someone of a very different background.
I'd have gone more direct:
What do you mean "fun". It was for learning. It was also fun of course, but it was for learning
OR:
I'm not sure "fun" is the word I'd use. It was for learning
The core of the issue here is that many people who work on something see people who are too deep into self-development as wasting time.
It's not necessarily them being unreasonable as in some cases that view is not necessarily wrong since there are people who are self-help addicts but who take no action.
As for what to do with the next meeting, I'd ask myself how much value they generally add to you -including opportunity costs, as if we go to the bottom of it, anything can add some value-.
And I might not do the work to reschedule the next. See if he does.
This guy s a fool. If somebody is willing to give you a walkthrough on a subject that's an incredibly time efficient way of injecting some learning into the week.
And you know a lot about the people side of sales which Will apply across industries.
My take is he's a slice of pie guy and doesn't get growing the pie.
I would have tried to frame learning as fun as in.
There is definitely fun in learning. If you are not having fun in the process of learning then it will seem like a task you are doing forcefully.
Quote from Transitioned on December 5, 2021, 5:09 am(...)
Yes, Keving went to the core of the issue here rather than staying at the "technique" upper levels.
Character and personality-wise, it's a red flag.
If he really wanted to help, he should have asked something like:
- Do you think the time and money spent have good returns on investment?
And then maybe he could have asked "what I'm thinking is that the time to learn may take away from action".
Or whatever else he had in mind, he should have shared THAT if he thought you weren't being effective or goal-oriented (or whatever else he was thinking).
Instead, he kept whatever he was thinking for himself, and used it for an innuendo type of one-up.
It's only one instance and of course, you know better.
But this one instance says "not a great partner for feedback sessions" (unless you school him how to do/be better).
