I think I just figured out how to talk to people?

If you don’t (have the pleasure to :p ) know me personally, I am a bit of an introvert. I tend to recharge my energy by spending time alone vs with a big group of people. Despite this, I do enjoy to talk to people. I love to hear what people experience, figure out how they think, what led them to where they are, etc. I find it fascinating. (My guilty pleasure is watching those people who go ‘undercover’ to the super right wing extremist events and record it. I find it so interesting to think about what lead people to where they are. A story for another time)

I always thought I could hold a decent conversation with randos but recently, I think I finally figured it out???

In one of my classes I’m taking this term, I call it the Kindergarten Class (sorry Dr. Marken if you are reading this, I really love the class loll), we had to interview a person from our group for a group project. This person, J, and I got paired together. Now, you could kind of tell J was a chill and introverted kinda guy. I’d seem him in class but never really spoken to him directly so I was honestly a bit nervous to see how this would go.

We were given a couple of prompts to start out our conversation, such as what makes you creative and when was your first creative moment. Eventually, J got speaking about something he really loves - cut and sew clothes (fashion). His eyes lit up and he all of a sudden gained a lot of confidence. I deviated from the script a bit and asked follow up questions like what are his dreams, where does he see this going and what he would want to do if he had unlimited amount of money. He was with such conviction that I was blown away. It kind of felt like his whole personality changed for just a few minutes. I genuinely felt like I cracked some kind of code??

In the following days, I have another group (for another class) and there was a point where it was just myself and N before class started. N is from Vietnam, and since I briefly just visited there, I asked N where his favourite Viet restaurant is. He told me the name and location and then goes, “You are interested in Vietnamese cuisine??” And I say yes I like Vietnamese food! Then the class starts and the conversation ends.

At the end of class, N calls me over and say, “Max I have another place for you to go, a dessert place.” He was so excited to show me the place, and I made sure to write it down in my ‘Places to go’ tab. We then started to talk about different Vietnamese food and he was so surprised I found interest in them. He told me all about what his favourite foods are, where to get them and about different Vietnamese things he misses from home. I think he was just really surprised someone took interest in his culture.

At this point, I felt on top of the world. I finally figure out how to talk to people: ask them about themselves. I think I openly talked to maybe 4 or 5 more people after these two interactions (for me this is wild).

With my bright eyes and bushy tail, I went to Amendri (she says I love mention her ahahah) and said, “Amendri I think I had a revelation. I figured out that to talk to people, all you need to do is find out something about themselves that they love to talk about.” and she laughs at me and says, “Max, you are just realizing this now?” (She also said her trick is to find something in common for you to talk about, where has this been all my life???)

So then I stepped off my high horse (maybe more like a pony) and thought, how did I not realize this? My mom told me so long ago that people love to talk about themselves and I guess she was right.

Maybe all this time I never really realized how much it was true, or I finally took the time to notice. Maybe the trick is to find what really makes a person happy and just keep the questions flowing. Maybe I just have more confidence in myself in talking to strangers. Who knows?

Regardless, I definitely learnt one thing: I love to hear what people are passionate about. It really makes you feel warm inside when you see a persons eyes light up because you asked that one question that they have been thinking about for a long time, but haven’t got a chance to tell anyone.

A bit of a long one this week, but I hope you all enjoyed this week of Two Steps Ahead. As always, if you have any more (mind blowing) tips for making connections with people, reply to this email!

See you next week,

Max

P.S. Thank you so much for the response last week! Seems like everyone really enjoyed that story and a few people even resonated with it. Gave me a bit more confidence to write something a bit longer this week :)