Speech BINGO and con(fidence)

At my current job, I’m privy to some pretty neat opportunities. Five weeks vacation, for example, and a convenient cafeteria. One of the most unique privileges, I feel, is a program called Friday Lunch. It’s a weekly speaker series, most usually hosted by a certain popular columnist, in which speakers give brief opening remarks on a topic of their choice, with the remainder of the lunch dedicated to discussion in this room full of, you know, accomplished smarty pantses.

I’m sure I can’t and should not discuss what goes on behind these doors. I don’t even know if I’m allowed to say who I’ve (sort of) had lunch with. But today’s lunch could have made for a marvelous game of Speech BINGO. This is that silly game when you and bunch of friends pass out a BINGO card and you mark when an overused catchphrase is said. Today’s included “No one knows more about ___ than ___[often ‘you’], but I think…” or dropping in a question-asker’s first name sometime in the first two sentences of an answer, and the inevitable similes comparing legislative battles to football. It was a pretty standard display of someone trying to make an impersonal forum personal by making things intimately relatable.

This might sound like I’m calling the speaker out, but I’m not: how can you call someone out for doing that? It was just a very clear example of the communication strategy of bringing the conversation somewhere you’re comfortable (e.g. stalling or flattery or rehashing really really old jokes). I’m sure we all repeat patterns in our language depending on the social situation, and speaking to small room full of people eager to make salient points regarding a topic of your choice is certainly a unique one. Who could be blamed for repititiously reaching into the same box of comfortable phrases in that setting?

It’s like interviewing for jobs. If you’ve ever been in the unfortunate position to interview for jobs repeatedly, you sort of end up learning all the twists that interviewers throw at you; you “get good at interviewing” if you’re not always the most naturally charming and intelligent person in the room.

There’s no point here, other than that it’s interesting to note these dynamics in people who are advanced in their fields. There are plenty of things that separate politicians, academics, businessfolk, “the successful” from a shlub like me. But perhaps recognizing, absorbing, and emulating their reactions and patterns is fundamental to being a con man something eminently doable that just could lead one towards some path of “success” (whatever that may be).