Heavy Metal Connections

I recently returned from a trip to Montreal where I attended two Metallica concerts with my son (his first rock concert!). This post won’t be a review of the shows ( they were awesome! 😁😁😁)

The city was buzzing for days before the concerts. I learned a key lesson the day after the second show when my family and I were walking back to our hotel from a day of sightseeing. A complete stranger, noticed the Metallica t-shirts my son and I were proudly wearing asked if we had seen the concert.

This sparked an enthusiastic conversation discussing the band and the concerts. This stranger turned out to be the manager of one Montreal’s top steakhouse restaurants which had been booked solid for weeks. Apparently Metallica’s lead singer and drummer had also dined there the night before the concert. The manager offered us a tour of the restaurant and gladly booked us in for dinner that night.

The lesson I took away from this experience is how quickly one can build a connection with someone based on a common interest.

This experience occurred multiple times over the week. At one point my son asked my wife “What is Dad doing?”.

She replied “He’s just making friends again.” 😁

Granted, we typically aren’t wearing our favourite band shirts or broadcasting our hobbies and interests to strangers on a daily basis.

However, I do believe that if we pay attention and develop our awareness skills to tune into others more, we’ll be able to ‘see’ what may be driving them. As I learned in Montreal, awareness is the key element.

And, with that awareness, common interests appear and relationships are built.