My colleague Alan is the light hearted, experienced, humourous, captivating Irish genius, that I have the pleasure to call a friend. You can expect always to have a good 'craic' all the time around Alan. Hanging around Alan, I began to understand the power of, what Alan would himself call “ the power of never shutting up”. Alan always has stories to tell, and he is such a great storyteller that he almost can relate to everything you say and with his spectacular Irish telling accent, he can in less than 10 minutes make you feel as if you had known him for years. Watching Alan interact with Dr. Eshetu, Benjamin Franlin himself would pass on a slight wink of approval to Alan for his wit and uncastrated charm. Dr. Eshetu, director of our host organization, would say "yea coffe” and Alan would have a story about his parents and coffe, and may bring the story to cows, and without pause a new conversation about Muslim/ IRA will end that conversation only to begin a new one about the bus ride this morning. He takes you on a ride with his stories, and he relates it personally to his experiences, personalize it, promote himself of course (hehe), empathize with you, all in one and I dare you not to be enamored, admired, and completely captivated by that. I mean w/e you thought was of urgent matter two seconds ago seems to lose importance as you find your self, stuck, attentively listening to Alan and cracking your jaw open. Alan is a charmer and knows exactly what to say to make the person feel important and to give them that feeling of being friends. The thing about it, and this I come to realize more and more, is that it is all genuine, nothing forced, nothing fake; the man is simply who he is: a master of social intelligence, a master of human influence with a strong and dedicated character apt to make everyone feel good. I, myself being a lifelong student of influence, I am breaking down everything Alan is doing, and it comes down to this “Indirect communication (via sharing stories ) to subtly validate the person, encourage their dreams, shamelessly flatter them, relate to their struggles, and make them feel important and cared for. What is there not to love about the man?
