I was going to start a Facebook thread that went something like this: The person I don’t want to know does this: (fill in peeve).

That would have been a fun exercise in eliciting peoples’ differences but it wouldn’t answer the underlying, unspoken question: Who DO I want to know?

My preferences and prejudices already identify who I don’t want to know, but that doesn’t lead me in the direction of who I do want to know.

Here’s what I found out: I want to know YOU.

My hobby is photography. I would never want to do it as a profession but I do love taking pictures of people – mainly portraits. I took a photography seminar a couple of years ago with famed photographer, Peter Hurley. Aside from all the great information I learned from Peter, the one thing he does, like no other, is elicit YOU from behind your facade.

He is like a magician employing misdirection to get you off your game, so you lose your “game face” and give the camera YOU.

I don’t want to know peoples’ facades; I want to know them at the level where all our differences disappear. That takes some recognition and work to accomplish.

The recognition part is noticing your own prejudices at work when interacting with another human. If you notice them and choose to set them aside, for just a brief time, you’ll be able to connect with that person at a level where you are both the same. Let’s call it a “Kodak” moment.

Think back on a time when you had a “real” moment with someone. All judgements went out the window and all prejudices were suspended and there was nothing but connection.

To make those moments happen more often takes work. We have to become aware of our prejudices while they are happening in order to set them aside. If you are having a conversation in your head about someone while interacting with them, your attention is on your internal dialogue and not on them. Your chances of finding the real them are remote and the real you is blocked from surfacing.

The really fun part of this connection strategy is that you can silently practice it anywhere – in the deli line, on a bus, on the phone or with your friends and family members.

Here’s another perspective on the real you from another real world magician, Jerry Stocking. Jerry is writing a book about sex and enlightenment. One of the things he says in there is something we all know: At the moment of orgasm, all pretense goes out the window. You are the closest to YOU at that moment. Your facade falls away.

Channeling my inner Oprah, here’s what I know for sure: The real you is in there and if I want to know you, I have to first get ME out of the way.

All the best,

John