I gave speeches at three (yes, three!) different
events today and the reaction was the same each time:
"I didn't know you were a
suit-and-tie-guy!"
For some reason, most people perceive me as a “jeans-and-t-shirt
guy,” so when I show up somewhere--anywhere, I guess--wearing a custom-made navy
blue suit, a wildly-striped Italian shirt and contrasting op-art Duchamp tie,
well...Surprise!
The reality though is that I have over 30 suits and
over 100 ties in my closets. It's just
that the Andy Nulman “stereotype” is anything but formal.
My learning in all this is that in the quest for
Surprise, stereotypes are your best and most reliable friend. They’re the lob ball that makes it easy to
really hit one out of the park.
And they’re everywhere. When a TV actor spends her summer in a
Broadway musical, the reaction is usually "I never knew she could
sing!" When the quiet kid at the back of the class stars for the school
basketball team, you’ll inevitably hear “I never knew he was an athlete!”
This is why there’s also such incredible fascination
over cheesy TV shows like “Dancing With the Stars." People like to put
others into boxes. When we break out of
them, it's like the proverbial girl popping out of the birthday cake. Boinnnng!
I use people as an example, but the same goes for
products, stores, companies, ideals—preconceived notions about ‘em lead to
deep-rooted stereotypes; stereotypes you
can easily break, reverse and exploit.
People have asked me “How do you generate Surprise?” There’ll be a lot more "here's how" in posts to come, but today's lesson is perhaps the easiest:
- Find your inner stereotype
- Head in the opposite direction.
- Then watch for the gasps.
In a utopian world, perhaps this could help us
counter racial ignorance. Get a bigot to
spend some quality time with a minority they have long pigeonholed and let them
be Surprised by the reality: "Geez, I always thought you (insert name
of minority here) guys were (insert foolish stereotype here)."
Well, I can dream, can’t I?