{"id":13723,"date":"2021-09-29T10:00:25","date_gmt":"2021-09-29T15:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghostblogwriters.com\/?p=13723"},"modified":"2021-09-22T09:57:56","modified_gmt":"2021-09-22T14:57:56","slug":"talking-to-strangers-is-a-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ghostblogwriters.com\/talking-to-strangers-is-a-good-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking To Strangers Is A Good Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_13724\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13724\" style=\"width: 290px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13724\" src=\"https:\/\/ghostblogwriters.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Buying-at-a-Store-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Buying at a Store\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ghostblogwriters.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Buying-at-a-Store-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ghostblogwriters.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Buying-at-a-Store-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ghostblogwriters.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Buying-at-a-Store.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13724\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@christiannkoepke?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Christiann Koepke<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/s\/photos\/store?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I&#8217;ve never been one to talk to strangers much. I&#8217;m an introvert. I like my quiet. I like being alone most of the time. I seem to get energy from recharging my batteries after doing things like reading a book or taking a walk and things like that.<\/p>\n<p>But in recent years I&#8217;ve learned that sparking up conversations with strangers can be a good thing. Obviously you get to meet new people and learn about their lives a little bit. It kind of broadens your worldview and you can really learn a lot about the world outside of your own.<\/p>\n<p>I find that it also helps with my business life. I&#8217;m comfortable talking on the phone with new people. I&#8217;m more likely to reach out to someone new that I haven&#8217;t met before.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve thought a little about this change in my life and I think it comes from my daughter. She is still young, but she is very friendly and excited to meet new people. I drop her off at school in the morning and she&#8217;s saying hello to multiple people before we even walk in the door. Then we get inside and she&#8217;s saying hello to people and waving and they&#8217;re all smiling back.<\/p>\n<p>She&#8217;s the same way wherever we go in the world. Stores, apple orchards, parks and more.<\/p>\n<p>So I&#8217;m definitely learning from her that there are benefits to talking to strangers. Here are some of the things I&#8217;ve been working on a little.<\/p>\n<h2>Talk To Store Clerks<\/h2>\n<p>One of the easiest ways to talk to strangers is to talk to people at local businesses. Again, I&#8217;ve never been great about this. I go about my business and kind of keep to myself. But in recent years I&#8217;ve started smiling at folks in the stores. I&#8217;ve started to say hello to them. Maybe mention something from the day. Maybe ask them a quick question. You kind of learn the more you do it. The small talk gets better. The conversations are comfortable for each person involved.<\/p>\n<p>I find that most people like to feel like others are interested in them. You don&#8217;t want to badger someone with questions, but asking a question or two is usually good and if the person seems interested then a followup can usually do the trick.<\/p>\n<p>Just last week the FedEx delivery guy was dropping off a package. He noticed that it was from an outdoors brand and he asked a simple question. We found some common ground and pretty soon a few minutes had gone by and he let me know that he had to get back on the truck. But it was a nice conversation and a chance to learn a little about each other.<\/p>\n<h2>Leagues &amp; Games<\/h2>\n<p>One of my favorite things is being part of a golf league each week during the summer here in Wisconsin. I enjoy golf, but it&#8217;s also a time for me to get out into the world a little. I&#8217;ve worked at home for a decade so I don&#8217;t have the office setting anymore as part of my social world. At golf I get to see a lot of the same people each week.<\/p>\n<p>But there are also opportunities to meet new people. I might head to the bar before the round for a drink. That usually offers a chance to meet someone new and chat for a bit. Usually there is already a little common interest in golf. So conversations can build from the one piece of common interest.<\/p>\n<h2>Business Networking Events<\/h2>\n<p>These have never been my favorite. But I&#8217;m beginning to see the benefit more and more as I get older. These are opportunities to work on communication skills that are great for business. Again, I find that asking questions usually results in the best conversations. Just getting to know someone a little bit. Maybe finding common ground and expanding from there. When you find a topic of interest people are usually excited to dive into more details.<\/p>\n<h2>Final Thoughts<\/h2>\n<p>My daughter has brought many great things to my life. One of them is the understanding that it can be good to talk to strangers. It can be a learning opportunity. It can lead to great relationships. And it&#8217;s relationships that seem to be a key to a life well lived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Talking to strangers isn&#8217;t comfortable to most people. I&#8217;m one of them. But it&#8217;s something I&#8217;ve come to appreciate in recent years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[134],"class_list":["post-13723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging","tag-life"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Talking To Strangers Is A Good Thing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ghostblogwriters.com\/talking-to-strangers-is-a-good-thing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Talking To Strangers Is A Good Thing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Talking to strangers isn&#039;t comfortable to most people. I&#039;m one of them. But it&#039;s something I&#039;ve come to appreciate in recent years.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ghostblogwriters.com\/talking-to-strangers-is-a-good-thing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Ghost Blog Writers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-09-29T15:00:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-09-22T14:57:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ghostblogwriters.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Buying-at-a-Store-300x200.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dayne Shuda\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dayne Shuda\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" 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