Wise Up

I have a secret to confess. Despite my friendly nature, and anything else you know or think you know about me, I am not a friendly person. For example, to avoid chats and conversations, I walk my dog with earbuds in and nothing playing, and even though I’m married, I still prefer going to the movies alone.

What I’m trying to convey is that even though I have warm, loving parents, and I support humanity and society, I’m a loner. In fact, if I didn’t have a family, I’d probably move to a cabin in the woods with no Internet and reluctantly interact with humans once a month to pay for supplies at the general store.

However, thanks to a stranger who “tricked me” into conversing in a coffee shop seven years ago, I can no longer boast about my affinity for the solo life. Yup, this weird guy forced me out of my shell, and now I go out of my way to find him for in-person, face-to-face conversations about “life as we know it.”

I thus do not think it’s a coincidence that his last name is “Wise,” and I have a feeling you’ll agree.

John Wise celebrated his birthday this week, but my guess is the only people who know this are his wife, his daughter, me, and the barista who heard him mention it to me the other day, at his current favorite coffee shop, which is where you will find John, if you want to have an amazing conversation.

John is one of those people, but seven years into our friendship, I’d revise that to say, “John is one of those people,” proving yet again that intonation is more powerful than diction. I’ll let you decide. John, unlike me, enjoys meeting strangers (even aloof ones with headphones on), and he likes this because he earnestly wants to learn about humans and the human experience, more than anyone I’ve ever met.

Fear not! John is most certainly not one of those guys, who talks at strangers. John asks questions, John listens, and John remembers details weeks after chatting with you while you waited for your drink at whatever local coffee shop he’s chosen to hold court in. And this is part of an orchestrated, life-long plan to collect any and all wisdom he can. Then, the next day, this lunatic goes back to collect more.

He’s like a sneaker-head, only instead of buying useless shoes, he’s collecting vicarious human experiences, and even if he disagrees with someone’s ideology (he often does), so long as they aren’t malevolent or misanthropic, he wants to hear them out and give their version of a reality “a fair shake.”

John approached me one day in 2017, at my coffee shop where I went every weekday to work, but in John’s world, that was his coffee shop, which meant he had carte-blanche to meet and interview me.

But John’s not dumb. In fact, he’s a brilliant, self-made computer-tech-guru who has traveled most of the world. And he plans to visit even more new places in the coming years, thanks to he and his amazing wife’s savvy, conscientious life-planning skills. They life-hacked retirement.

Wise as can be, John recognized my aloof nature and played the long game. He saw me coming into our shop for weeks, but waited until the day I dropped my guard and took my earbuds out to tell the barista that the somewhat obscure Nirvana song on their playlist was my “adolescent anthem.”

John, cool as a cat, glanced up at me and calmly said the three magic words that open my heart:

“I met Kurt.”

“You…you what?”

“Kurt Cobain. I met him once.” He pointed at his coveted laptop. “I even have a bootleg from the show.”

“A bootleg tape? Of…Nirvana?”

“Yeah. But this was way before they were famous. They were cutting their teeth in Germany. One night, he was sitting at the bar at a venue I frequented, before the show. He was shy, but nice.”

I’m sure I’m butchering this story—it was years ago—but what I can attest to is that within minutes, we were no longer discussing superficial memories. Which is John’s forte. Thanks to his candid approach to conversation, I willingly poured my heart out to him, and hours later, I’d done no work, but I’d sold him my third novel, and he’d sold me on the best advice I’ve ever received:

“You should prioritize finding the person you love over everything else.”

John gave me this directive because he knew I needed it. He sensed how close I was to giving up on myself, because he met me in the darkest period of my life, when I was reeling from my son’s abduction and from a recent break up with the woman who is now my wife, citing “irreconcilable differences.”

John convinced me that when it comes to love, “no differences are irreconcilable,” and he then opened up to tell me about some of the ‘roller-coaster drama’ that preceded his decades of happy marriage.

My wife owes our marriage to John’s advice, my daughters owe their births to John’s advice, and I owe my sanity and dignity (and my amazing family) to John’s friendship and that advice. And this is the quick story of our friendship. I could spend many paragraphs explaining how many times I’ve moved around Phoenix, only to find a new coffee shop where I randomly see John, holding court with a smile.

I’ll put it this way, I’ve seen John many times a week, for years, but we only exchanged contact info a year ago, in case one of us moves. And I prefer it that way. Thanks to my awful experiences with online communication, texting, and group chats, I prefer to have conversations “the old way,” in-person.

Because of John’s gregarious approach to life, I have a true friend who carves out time from his busy schedule to have intellectual, heartfelt conversations with me. Best of all, I’ve changed. No longer aloof, I smile at strangers and chat with neighbors now. John Wise extracted the best version of my heart.

John isn’t an easy man to buy gifts for. He’s a minimalist, he loves traveling and packing lightly, and his taste is specific and hard to predict and describe. I’m therefore giving him this tribute, as a testament to the profound impact he’s had on my life, and I hope he lets his wife read it, so she can nod along.

If you’re tired of interactions with people who’d rather talk at you about politics, culture, or their latest hobby, I suggest you “get wise” and invest in a real friendship, where the point of your conversations are to flex your heart muscles and grow. For, as Sir Charles Barkley once said, “Anything less is uncivilized.”

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This week on Coffin Talk: Susan Hensley is a transformational coach, speaker, and author dedicated to helping people navigate life’s transitions with joy, creativity, and resilience. With decades of experience as a corporate executive, Susan has developed a passionate approach to “art journaling.” Listen here!