So, What's the first thing you do when you catch up with somebody who you haven't talked to for a little while. I mean if you're being

considerate at all you don't get into all the detail stuff or business you need to

conduct you start by asking about people you know in common and just checking in to make sure everything is good.

It's common sense, it's social common sense.

It's also an obvious expression of the genuine care that we have for the people in our lives, even people we haven't talked to for a while.

So if I run into a buddy and we're going to sit down and talk shop about some stuff, the first thing I want to know is

how's your family, how's your wife?

And usually, of course, the answer there is going to be, she's great.

Now, maybe she got a new job and she's really loving the new job and the kids are doing great and

school's going great. You're like, awesome, and they ask you and you're like,

and you're like, yeah, this, this, and this is kind of our stuff,

and these are the things that we're thinking about right now.

And you're like, great.

And then you're kind of giving each other permission

to take the mental images of all the people who just came up and put them in the green bucket.

Like, all right, green check marks. Stuff's all right. Stuff's good in their world. That's awesome.

Thank you for bringing me up to speed on how they're all doing, but every now and then you ask how somebody's doing and you can see a little hesitation on your conversation partner's face and you realize, oh, something's not great well what's up and then

sometimes that just means you don't get down to business or you don't get to

talking about whatever maybe you imagined you were going to hang out and shoot the

breeze about because instead you're quickly

in the deep water and you're hearing about some stuff that people you care about are going

through or maybe even people you don't know but people who your friend cares about and people like you ask questions because you actually care

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