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Chapter 15. ARE YOU FROM AROUND HERE? The Best Way How to Start a Conversation With a Stranger Is With a Question Alright, let's be real. Let's face the facts. Conversation scares the sh*t out of us. But why? One, because we want to control the environment. This whole idea about conversation makes us nervous. It should make you nervous, because you haven't done it. Really, no matter what I do for the first time, or when I learn something, I am nervous. The first major call out is, feel nervous, that's fine. But you still have to do it, right? So you still have to practice speaking, practice being in a convo. Let's say, and to be blunt, you probably suck at conversation, period. I'm gonna be blunt. You don't know how to have a conversation. I did not either. I know how to say a word, or talk. That's different than being in a conversation for 5 minutes, or 10, or 20 minutes. You don't know it yet, because you haven't had a lot of experience. There is an art of having a conversation, which I never learned. Yeah, it's like how to start one, and like how to be in a conversation. Because of your stutter, you probably don't talk much to people. Am I right? "A thousand percent correct." You don't know how, and you've never had a lot of good experience, and you don't know what the flow is like, and you don't know how to extend it or keep a conversation alive or to cut it off. You don't know because when we stutter, we do not have meaningful conversations with many people unless they were close to us, family, friends. What I found from thousands of conversations is when people are talking, or when people are answering questions, they generally like to talk more. Open-ended questions instead I call it my once-a-day challenge, where once a day I would approach a stranger with a question. But not a question that can be responded to by a simple yes or a no. Open-ended questions instead. Let me blow your mind. Are you ready? The best way how to start a conversation with a stranger is with a question. Right? When they respond back, if you say something next, you're in a conversation. It's easy to slip into conversation that way. At first, it'll seem hard. At first, it'll seem hard and forced and tough. I get it. You walk up to an employee inside of Target and ask for where a certain product in the store is. They describe it as, it's back here in the back corner of the store. Then you can say something back, so you could say thanks and walk off, or you could say something funny like this. Wow, I don't know how you all do it. You have to walk all over the whole store in one shift. I bet you walk like 2 miles here. You can have a small laugh. Then what happens, I would guess, is the person would laugh back and say, yeah, it feels like we walk forever here. Then you're in a conversation, and you can stop it and go get the product, or you can keep on. One of my favorite ways how to get someone to start talking. It's to say, you know, where are you from? Or my favorite is, are you from around here? "Are you from around here?" when done right, will get someone to start telling you their life story. Oh, no, I grew up in there. Alright, well, how do you come here? Or how'd you find your way to wherever you live? Which is a great follow-up. Because it seems casual. Because it is casual, and it's by design. This is very intentional, the words that I use. It's because I've tried a bunch of stuff. You don't have to use the exact phrase, but that's something that I use. I always comment about what I see The thing I'm telling you, though, the secret, in my opinion, is that it's mentioning, discussing something that you see in the environment that no one could pre-script or plan. Why? Because this grandma picked up a bag of red grapes. You could not have prescripted it, because no one knew she was going to do that until she did, and you saw it, and then you say the first thing that pops in your mind. That's how it's done, my friend. I swear that's how I learned the stuff that I'm sharing. So I saw my friend today. He stopped by wherever I work and I went downstairs to see him because I wasn't sure if I was going to go up back to wherever I work or go out. There were these two girls, these two ladies, probably 23, on the stairs. They had cookies and some fruit. I'm walking down, and again, I didn't know they were going to be there. I said something like, oh, where's the free cookies and fruit? They have a quick laugh. It doesn't matter what was said, but it's the practice, the practice, and this is what I do all the days of my life. It's the practice, it's the One Stranger Day, it's the speaking spontaneously. It doesn't really matter what is said to start the conversation. I should know. I've started thousands of conversations with thousands of strangers. It doesn't f*cking matter. Because once you're in a conversation, no one remembers how you started it, right? No one remembers what you asked them. Always start it with a comment or a question. I never talk about me. I always comment about what I see, and what's going on, and what we have in common, or something that just happened. A spontaneous spark starts that conversation, and this is a learned skill. I never scripted those questions. Spontaneous questions. No scripting, my friend. Because I think scripting speech, when you pre-script your speech, you pre-plan it. You're pre-planning to stutter, in my opinion. I don't start a conversation by introducing myself. I don't ever do that. It's not that I don't want to introduce myself at the start. It's just that that sh*t never worked for me, and I tried it all. Be very curious about whoever you're speaking to The best way, in my humble opinion, that I've verified by reading a Larry King book, he was some old guy who used to talk to people on TV for like 30 years or more, but the point is I was doing it, and then I read the book when I was fluent. But the concept is that when you're in a conversation, the best way how to do it, from my point and his, is just to be very curious about whoever you're speaking to. The art of conversation, really, according to me, as well as a famous old person who did this on CNN and mainstream TV, was to make it about the other person. Right? So in my follow-ups, in my question about, like, where are you from? Or, are you from around here? Then, like, if they're not, then you can always say, like, well, how did you find your way here? There's many times, my friend, where I'll have a 30 or 40 minute conversation with a stranger who I just meet. It's all about them. The conversation, the questions, are all about them. That's okay, because people want to talk about themselves. I'm under no obligation to fill in the silence Sometimes when you're talking to someone, they'll be silent in a conversation. So you'll be standing there, and the other person will be silent. What I used to do is fill in the gaps and just keep talking, because I was very insecure, which was natural. But what I've learned is I'm under no obligation to fill in the silence. They can if they want to. If not, I'm happy just to stay silent. Right? This is not silent from a stuttering block. It's just a natural pause in a conversation. Some of it you're going to have to figure out on your own, trial and error, and figure out what questions keep a conversation going.