Cigars and great conversations...

My good friend Keith is one of my oldest friends as an adult. We met 12 years ago, and to this day he is a friend, a mentor at times, a guy who has been kind enough to help me build furniture when it is too much for me to do alone (especially as he has a cordless screwdriver!), and our friendship is unconditional. I enjoy the times we have spent together alone, with his fiancee Mary Ellen (an wonderful woman too), and even with his children.


Keith enjoys many of life's finer things, with the most low-key, down-to-earth attitude. One of his enjoyments is smoking cigars. And every so often I am invited, and encouraged to join him at Nat Sherman's to lounge downstairs and catch up. Yesterday was one of those days.


Interestingly, yesterday was a day I woke up knowing I would be talking with strangers. I was attending a conference put on by IBM's Predictive Perspectives, and as my inner geek loved SPSS in grad school, I was excited to see how IBM was taking this long-time statistic tool and bringing it up to date in new business models.


For whatever reason, I found myself at the conference less engaging with others than I set out to be when I left the apartment in the morning. Keith rang me to meet him just as the lunch had started, and I agreed to 1:45.

Keith was there when I arrived and we proceeded downstairs to chat and talk about the conference and life. After our more private conversation, we joined two other friends of Keith's (Dan and Julie) in the main area of the room. Conversations flowed the way I often imagine conversations among people in old-fashion salon gatherings would. Topics ran the gamut from cigars, apartments, jobs, travel, life experiences, and religion. As often the case, religion can bring up many reactions, and recently to me, since Dad died last year, I struggle with faith as much as I do with religion. So I opted to ask two people with whom I had just met, "Do you have faith?" Now this was addressed more to Dan who had just revealed he is an Atheist.


Phenomenal discussions continued with Julie and Dan around personal philosophies, and the fact was I opted to be vulnerable and ask the burning question in my mind. Asking opened up another layer of myself to giving and receiving, to being present in the room and in space and to myself and to others.


So my questions for today are:

What is the big question in your mind?

What are your thinking about?

Does it impact you physically? Emotionally?

Who are you talking with besides yourself on coming to a place of resolution with the thoughts inside yourself? Are you willing to let someone else here the question?

Is this something you are willing to work on digging deeper inside alone or can you open yourself to share with others?

Sometimes great conversations with strangers allow us the opportunity to see ourselves in new light - if we actively listen, to both all the voices, inside and out!