This week, we wanted to talk about how to talk to strangers.
Why?
Well, as a magician, you do it a LOT.
(and both of us have served as volunteers, where we had to do it EVEN more)
During Benji’s work right now in Macedonia, he does all of the below:
- Cold calling ‘leads’ generated on Facebook.
- Stopping random people in the street.
- Welcoming visitors at our community center.
Basically: he meets a lot of new faces most days.
(and not all of them are friendly :))
As a result, he’s constantly trying to improve his ‘talking to strangers’ skillset.
In this ‘essay’, we want to discuss a technique that makes interactions with strangers 10x easier… that you can start using instantly without doing anything ‘new’ or ‘different’.
What’s the secret?
Just two words:
Build trust.
At first glance, it seems obvious. Doesn’t everyone already know this? Who wouldn’t do this?
Well, Steven M R Covey (son of the great Dr. Steven R. Covey) is one of the leading researchers in the field of trust, and here’s what he’s discovered…
“Almost everywhere we turn, trust is on the decline. Trust in our culture at large, in our institutions, and in our companies is significantly lower than a generation ago. Research shows that only 49% of employees trust senior management, and only 28% believe CEOs are a credible source of information. Consider the loss of trust and confidence in the financial markets today. Indeed, “trust makes the world go ’round,” and right now we’re experiencing a crisis of trust.”
According to Covey, the skill of building trust is at once more valuable and more rare than ever before.
And when it comes to building trust, here’s a simple lesson he discovered over decades of study…
Trust is earned not from WHAT you do, but HOW you do it.
In other words, the manner in which you do what you do is more important than the actual content of what you do.
For example, let’s bring this back to being a magician:
When you call up a random spectator, you can say all of the ‘right things’ but still make them uncomfortable if you look like you don’t want to be there and don’t genuinely care about them.
(the ‘what’ was good but the ‘how’ wasn’t)
On the other hand, you can call up a spectator and say something totally weird but if you do it with a smile and give them your complete attention, they trust you and are far more likely to open up—and let’s face it, for a lot of shows audience interaction can x10 the quality of everything.
(the ‘what’ wasn’t good but the ‘how’ was)
The lesson, according to Covey, is that we don’t need to change what we do so much as be more aware of how we do it.
So there you are.
A simple method to make talking to strangers much easier…without ‘doing’ anything crazy special.
Hope you found it useful!
Jacob and Benji.