Brian Johnson watched his kids Eleanor and Emerson play chess while bikers from across the U.S. gathered at the same hotel. He noticed how 30-second elevator conversations with strangers created real connection, and argues that putting your phone away during these moments matters more than you think.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Heroic Plus One. Now, one of the amusing things about this weekend's chess tournament is the fact that the hotel booked both a kids chess tournament and a biker club reunion party on the same weekend. Awesome. You know what I have to say about that? More opportunities to connect with people from different backgrounds. Let's go. So continuing our exploration of ways to create micro moments of awesome, here's what I did. Eleanor played 5 games on Saturday and another 5 on Sunday. So in between those games, we would go up to our room. That gave us a lot of opportunities to use the elevator, which has got to be one of the best ways to connect with people. I mean, you're in a little box that magically goes up and down, and unless you're staring at your phone to try to avoid people— pro tip, don't do that— you have a chance to connect with another human. Note, all these little ideas to create connections might be insanely obvious to you as an introvert, who tends to not connect naturally, at least used to tend to be like that. I've had to build this skill. So one of our biker club friends is in the elevator. Looks like you guys are having a great time. Y'all getting together from around the country? Yeah, we have guys from all over. Cali, Colorado, Illinois. Awesome. Have a great weekend. Micro ripple of connection created. Elapsed time, 30 seconds. Max. That's today's +1. If you feel so inspired, put your phone away while you're out and about and find a chance to connect with someone all day, every day, especially today. Little PS, I wrote that +1 in the dark, in the bathroom while the kids slept. I just read it to the kids. Emerson said, oh, I had a fun micro moment with one of the guys in the elevator too. The door took forever to open and we were laughing about it. Let's go.
