Greeting Potential

G. P. (Greeting Potential)

rediscovering the beauty of human interaction

We live in a time where we Skype, Facetime, Go Live on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Periscope with people from countries we will never visit. We spend hours every day connecting via the internet with thousands of friends we will probably never meet. Maybe we are called Social Media Addicts for a reason. We prefer likes, follows, subscriptions and shares over face to face hello’s. It has become common place to tweet, chat, sending messages via (DM) direct message or Messenger with those we know without seeing them for weeks. We are slowly losing our ability to talk with those in our presence without having our eyes glued to the screens of our smart phones or I-pads.

There is something uniquely human in connecting in person with people we know and those we just met. Especially if you are an artist or entrepreneur of any type. It is important we work on becoming more proficient in rebuilding our ability for human interactions. What if we created a personal grading system? A way to measure how we fare on a personal level using the Four Levels of Communication. When you meet someone new are you conscious of your body language? Do you find yourself judging them by the way they are dressed? Is your handshake firm? Are your hugs comfortable? Does your smile appear original or does it seemed forced? If you take a moment to think about it there is so much you can gather or offer in the initial greeting.

Greeting Potential isn’t anything new the reality has presented us with a need to pay close attention to the way we present ourselves. The new business acumen is how do you create, present and represent your Brand? You don’t have to pay attention to notice how Branding works. There are logos you see and instantly know what company they represent. For example: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pintrest, Blogger, Snap Chat, Linked In this is just to name a few. Most of them appear as a small squared symbol you mouse click to go directly to your desired medium. Why is it necessary to address the places we hang out in the privacy of our homes? Well to make it clear, these are the main reason we need to be able to know our grade when it comes to Greeting Potential.

                Most people are not comfortable in group settings or become somewhat anxious when new things present themselves. Greeting Potential isn’t new it is bringing back something old in which we’ve lost familiarity. You may need to practice speaking to get away from the hand wave, the head bob and the shoulder shrug. Each day you meet someone new you should rate how you think you did with the encounter.

 In each category rate yourself from 0 being non-existent to (5) five being you’ve mastered a particular step.  Mind you, this is only for you to get better at the old way of face to face interaction.

1.       measuring our ability to engage on one on one conversations

2.       do you listen with the intent of understanding?

3.       losing points if we constantly interrupt  

4.       paying attention to your body language

Over the last three years I have been conducting a study. It wasn’t my intent but hindsight has a much clearer vision of the passing of time than I ever will. Again, the main question is: Why is Greeting Potential a thing worth notating? I guess the first step is explaining why there is a need to rate yourself when greeting another human and defining the benefit of doing so. When you get a chance, take a moment to survey the people around you. I am not asking you to ask questions, just make a mental note of what they are doing, how they are doing it and are they paying attention to anything around them. You will notice first hand that smartphones and I-pads have infiltrated every moment of our day. How many people in ear shot or in your line of sight are speaking into headphones? How many are mouthing lyrics to their favorite song? How many are texting? You get the point. You can probably count on one hand the number of people enjoying life without being beholden to their smart devices. It would seem we’ve gotten a little rusty or simply unable to recall how human voices blend with the outside air or the acoustic properties of voices in enclosed spaces. There is magic in the physical properties of people taking time to socialize with other people.

Let’s say Greeting Potential is not the new in thing. What if we fail to notice our choices of isolation until we start to notice how isolated we are? Being preemptive and proactive can’t be such a bad thing. It should be somewhat saddening to us all how focused we’ve become on self. How we as individuals only care about ourselves. Greeting Potential or rather ‘GP’ should raise our awareness to the fact… in lieu of all our advancements we are still moving backwards. How much ground must we lose before we find our place in society irreversible. Ask yourself why is it so many artist today call themselves ‘starving artist’ but we stay in constant contact with family and associates we labeled friends? There are close to one billion people on Facebook alone and most artist of all genre’s struggle to sell product. This is where Greeting Potential should be of great interest to you. It is written in scientific studies that only ten percent of the people you encounter will even take a look at what you have to offer with any amount of interest. In further studies, it states that only five percent will actually purchase new product from little known artist.

In order to maximize ‘GP’ you must adhere to the four rules of communication presented earlier. Every new person you meet can become a new customer or someone willing to share your post on the different mediums we use to show our products. It will become a share for share venture. We must forget about the individual aspects of growth recently discovered, for no one has ever made it on their own. No video on YouTube has ever reached a million hits without other people sharing it. That’s why there is a subscribe button on YouTube, a friend and follow button on Facebook, a retweet button on Twitter and a share button on Instagram. We all need each other no matter how beautiful, how gangsta, how independent or how isolated we try to become. What if you actually spoke to your neighbors? What if we started introducing ourselves to all we come in contact with? The real truth of the matter is - we really do need one another to help make our dreams come true.