I came across Russell Davies when he spoke at The Do Lectures last year. He has written an insightful post about how to be interesting that I think is really spot on.
The way to be interesting is to be interested. You’ve got to find what’s interesting in everything, you’ve got to be good at noticing things, you’ve got to be good at listening. If you find people (and things) interesting, they’ll find you interesting.
Interesting people are good at sharing. You can’t be interested in someone who won’t tell you anything. Being good at sharing is not the same as talking and talking and talking. It means you share your ideas, you let people play with them and you’re good at talking about them without having to talk about yourself.
He goes on to list 10 things you can do to be more interested, and therefore interesting:
- Take at least one picture everyday. Share it online.
- Start a blog. Write at least one sentence every week.
- Keep a notebook.
- Every week, read a magazine you’ve never read before.
- Once a month interview someone for 20 minutes, work out how to make them interesting. Podcast it.
- Collect something, anything.
- Once a week sit in a coffee-shop or cafe for an hour and listen to other people’s conversations. Take notes. Blog about it. (Carefully)
- Every month write 50 words about one piece of visual art, one piece of writing, one piece of music and one piece of film or TV. Do other art forms if you can. Blog about it.
- Make something.
- Read.
The point he makes about blogging is a subtle insight too. To write a short post about a topic you have to form an opinion about it and know just enough to do that. This is about clarifying thoughts in your own mind more than publishing and sharing with the world – that is simply an added benefit.
The key here is to Start Simple Immediately. Pick one of those and write it in your calendar for the next few weeks and be disciplined about it. It is consistency not completeness that wins.
Be interesting!
You should really go and digest the whole post here. What does it mean to you?
By Ross Hill - March 5th, 2009 at 9:30pm with 1,353 views - do lectures russell davies
