How To Talk to Strangers

How To! with Mike Pesca

Peach Fish Projects

How To, Education

4.3 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2020

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Every other Friday, Amy's calendar reminds her to make the rounds of her office and say "hello" to her colleagues. As an introvert, Amy deeply struggles with small talk, but as a manager of 55 people she's been told she needs to be more approachable. In this episode of How To!, Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking, helps Amy learn how to use her reserved nature to her advantage. Whether you're anxious about networking at conferences or wondering how to talk to your neighbors—from six feet away—Susan has some tips for how all of us can have better conversations. It takes practice, Susan says, so don't be afraid to have a few opening lines in your back pocket.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Okay, so if I'm standing by the the punch bowl and you walk up, what do you say to strike up a conversation with me?
0:07.2	Oh, jeez, I, well my first instinct is to wait for you to strike up a conversation with me.
0:14.0	Welcome to How-2, I'm Charles Doohig.
0:19.0	On this week's show, we're talking to a listener who you might be surprised is willing to come onto a
0:23.9	podcast like this to talk about her life. I have a team of about 55 people that I
0:29.4	oversee and a lot of the feedback that I hear from them is that people don't find me very
0:35.0	approachable so I know that one of the barriers I have is just making small talk.
0:40.0	This is Amy. She's a manager at a local county government office in Denver, Colorado.
0:46.0	And by her own description, she is an introvert.
0:50.0	Like if I encounter somebody in a break room, I might just say good morning or whatever and that's about it.
0:55.8	The conversation never really goes anywhere.
0:57.8	It also happens like, you know, my husband's Christmas party or at other social gatherings where I find myself sort of kind of
1:05.0	camping out in a corner and talking to the people that I do know but never really
1:09.3	connecting with anybody knew. Amy has tried to be more outgoing. Back when she was
1:14.4	working in her office, back before we all started working from home, she put this
1:18.9	reminder on her calendar to force herself every other Friday to walk around and say hello to all of her employees and try and make
1:25.6	casual conversation with them. And as I was walking around and kind of talking to
1:30.2	everybody I could tell that I was making other people uncomfortable.
1:33.4	Like my discomfort with small talk is like infecting other people it felt like.
1:40.3	And so that's when I thought there's got to be there's got to be a trick to this.
1:44.3	Like what are you feeling in that particular moment like do you freeze up?
1:47.8	I feel like I I always just feel a little bit out of place and not sure where to start.
	...

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