Nuggets of gold

I’ve recently discovered that people are generally annoyed at my constant nagging and lecturing about their investments, their shopping habits, their housing choice, their food choice, and whatever opinion-forming-bandwagon I’m on at the time. But most importantly, most people are simply not ready to hear it.

Now, when I say most I really mean most. Some people, given the right topic at the right time, will not only listen to everything I have to say, but ask follow up questions. This is a strong signal that they do care. But the reason has nothing to do with me nor my approach nor the information that I so elegantly presented. It just happened to be the right thing at the right time.

Recently, I’ve tried to be a little more flexible and understanding towards people. Instead of dumping facts on them and have it backfire and have them hate me, I try to bring things up slowly and gauge their interest. I may even drop by always controversial opinion in there to see if they bite. If they don’t I move on.

I call this dropping a nugget of gold

You’re welcome to any toilet humor regarding this technique.

Written by Leon Tager who lives and works in Seattle writing about a better life. You should follow him on Twitter