23 Hacks to Starting Conversations With Strangers
Talking to new people is not as scary as you have first thought.
Talking to new people is a scary prospect for many of us.
We don’t always know what to say, or how to say it… Rejection is always possible and so avoiding conversations with strangers becomes commonplace.
And yet growth nearly always happens through new relationships. Conversations with new people are invigorating and arousing.
On a more metaphysical level when we talk to strangers our world becomes smaller, safer and in a weird way, much more beautiful.
Here are 23 hacks to help you start conversations with strangers.
Remind yourself that you are better at talking to strangers than you realize. Every single person you ever met in your life (aside from your mom) was a stranger once.
Compliment someone’s dog and ask them a follow up question about the dog. It will start a conversation 100% of the time.
Avoid using common greetings and questions as people are practiced at deflecting these. Examples include: Hello. How are you? Lovely day.
If you have a physical injury of any kind, use that injury to start conversations.. see my example here.
Don’t be judgmental when it comes to starting conversations… Don’t rule people in or out based on their appearance. It is fascinating and very enlightening to talk to all sort of different people. All that matters is are they open to talking.
Remember that when you talk to a stranger you may be entertaining an angel. The next thing you want in life is only ever one conversation away.
Look for disruptions in the equilibrium of normality and use these disruptions to talk to strangers. Disruptions include things like: natural disasters, robberies, internet outages, power-cuts, sports victories, sports losses etc… People are extremely open to talking when anything abnormal happens, use it and get talking.
Don’t expect others to initiate conversations with you… be the proactive one.
Expect to feel afraid, nervous and a little anxious, we all feel this way. As a child you were told repeatedly not to talk to strangers… It was necessary then but as an adult you can navigate nearly every situation safely.
Social media is a great place to meet new people and to have safe conversations. Make sure that you are engaging new people and making new connections here. This is a very scalable way of making some captivating new connections. One of our real estate clients used one of our strategies to make 778 new connections in a single week.
Embrace ignorance and curiosity. Not knowing something is a great excuse to start a conversation and ask a question. Sometimes I will say… “I’ve not lived here for long, I was wondering if… ?”
Use “I’m doing some research” as an excuse to talk with strangers. I’ve done this before and made lifelong friends. I went up to strangers and said this: “Hey I’m Geoff, I’m doing some research for my blog. I was wondering if I might ask you a question.” Everyone said yes and then I asked, “What’s one thing you’d like to change about our world?”
An Imagination Exercise: At the start of each day fill yourself up with love for your world, your community, and all the people around you. Each morning, I imagine myself immersed in a sweeping river of love. I reach out to the love and I grab it, pulling it into my heart until it is overflowing. Then in my imagination, I send love out to all the people in my life and to those that I may meet that day. Engaging new people is so much easier when you genuinely care.
Give someone a genuine compliment about something superficial and not related to their physical body (this will be misinterpreted). Comment on their shoes, their outfit, an accessory like a watch, earrings, a tattoo etc.
Smile and make eye contact. If your face is friendly and your heart is open, most people will be unafraid to engage you.
Avoid talking to people who don’t want to talk to you. Don’t throw your pearls to swine when a person is defensive, rude, or pushes you away, move on quickly. They are not ready to talk to you today, tomorrow might be better.
Create a routine that gives you the opportunity to talk to new people. I work regularly from cafes and I will go to the same place over and over again. The environment will become familiar (you relax) and the new people in the environment will begin to engage you.
Put your phone away. If your head is in your phone you will be perceived as unavailable for a conversation and you will miss opportunities.
Time is your friend, don’t rush. Don’t clamber over chairs to embrace new people and start conversations; it might seem a little predatory and scary. Waiting even a few seconds to talk to a stranger and slowing down, tends to build trust.
Whenever you are forced to wait, wonder if there is a divine meeting coming your way. So much of life is spent waiting. We’re waiting for the train, in a queue at the coffee shop. Standing around waiting for the kid’s sports game to start. These are all opportunities to engage and get to know others.
You can only move as fast as the slowest person in the relationship. Sometimes we can want to achieve everything in one conversation and the felt-result is pressure. Take your time. Your first goal is to get the other person to talk with you, that might be all that happens in the first conversation, that is okay.
What if I don’t feel like it? It’s easy to give yourself a pass when you don’t feel like it AND YET honestly it’s on these specific days that talking to a stranger, being kind to another person might be just the thing that shifts you out of your funk.
Use a counter and set a goal. You have to plan to talk to new people and you have to have a clear goal, without setting an intention you will miss opportunities. When we train REALTORS we will often to get them to use a counter and keep in their pocket so they intentionally look to engage and grow.