Do I know you?

There’s a strange negative side effect to studying too much. Other than not mixing in action with your studying.

I’m talking about something a little different. It’s what I call the friend syndrome. I spend A LOT of time listening to audio content on my mp3 player whenever I’m not home.

I listen to podcast, teleseminars, courses, etc by Ed Dale, John Reese, Frank Kern, etc. Over time you get to know these guys (or gals). You understand their sense of humor, their personalities, quirks, etc. You get to laugh with them, cry with them, and share with them… (yeah, I know).

It’s easy to forget that they don’t know you. More-than-likely they’ve never seen you, talked to you, or had any interaction with you what-so-ever. This makes it very hard to refrain from being “too friendly” towards them.

Now I know you’re probably wondering how anyone can be too friendly, but it’s true. I’m a big believer in treating everyone with respect and befriending all. Anyone who follows me on twitter knows that I’m a friendly person. I’ll do what I can for anyone.

I’m sure you’ve experienced this many times. You meet someone for the first time and within minutes they are acting like you’re the best of friends and being overly friendly. Your natural reaction is to put up your defenses and wondering what they want? Why are they being so friendly?

This is the problem that I have with the, for lack of a better term, “gurus”. Other than Ed Dale, whom I’ve gotten to know over the last year or so, I’m still a pretty much a nobody to Frank and John (and other “gurus”). Sure I’ve had a few interactions with them via twitter, but as a whole, they don’t know me.

I find it very hard to hold back my immediate feeling of being ‘real’ friends and the slight feeling of disconnect when they don’t respond to me. Because I can’t turn off the fact that I ‘know’ these guys, I find it difficult to not joke around with them and talk to them like I’ve been friends with them for years.

Now is this a bad thing? Well it can be. If you attempt to communicate too aggressively and be too personal in your initial communication with them you can annoy them and raise their defenses. Immediately they’ll see you as a nuisance and wonder what you’re up to? what you want from them?

But on the other hand, this can be a benefit. Just like a prospective customer/market. You need to understand them to effectively communicate your message. If you spend a lot of time learning from a particular “guru” and get to know his/her personality, quirks, humor, etc you can adjust your communication to better match their personality. The key here is to be very subtle. You don’t want to come across as a “friend” to the guru, but you can communicate in a manner that is similar to their personality. People respond well when you are on the same level as them. No one likes a person who talks down to another person or attempts to make themselves out to be smarter.

So if you want to get to know your ‘guru friends’ a little better I have two tips for you. 1) Be yourself and don’t pretend to be anyone you’re not, and 2) be subtle and not over friendly to people you just meet or talk to the first time.

Take care,
Shannon