Ep02: Why I Talk To Strangers

What is the #1 Reason you don't talk to strangers?

On this episode, Mike tells us why the  advice "Don't Talk to Strangers" ruined our social life as adults. Here is why believing "stranger danger" is the reason most adults struggle to make friends and have trusted close relationships.

---Transcript---

(Intro)
This is the conversation Iq podcast. I'm your host Mike Ford. Are you sick and tired of dealing with social anxiety? Do you want to overcome your fear of feeling awkward or looking silly in social situations? Do you struggle with just saying hello or maybe keeping a conversation going? Well, welcome to our community of communicators where we are on a mission to rid the world of loneliness by sharing tips, tricks, and techniques from some of the world's best conversationalist. Super excited to have you guys on this journey with us. We'll see you on the other side of this episode.

(Episode)
Oh, all right.

Welcome to this episode of conversation Iq. Just want to thank you guys for tuning in. The other day. You know, I was sitting down and just really going through my experiences when I was younger, just reminiscing on how I ended up, where I ended up, why I ended up, where I ended up, and how all those interactions that I've had in the past have impacted the way that I carry myself today and how it has impacted the way that I show up when I'm interacting with somebody else. And it's so important. Sometimes we overlook that piece. You know? Sometimes we feel that it's not possible to have a conversation where we can make a good connection or we just don't know how to, when really the fault of that is it has to do a lot with what happened when we were younger. What were some of the things that we experienced?

What kind of trauma or you know, in our mind it was a traumatic experience that we had that created these unconscious commitments, right? That created a replay that goes in our mind every time we have an opportunity to step into a conversation. It's funny because if you think about the word strangers, for example, if we say, Hey, I'm going to go meet a stranger, I want to go talk to a stranger. You already have a narrative that is going through your mind. Write that narrative being don't talk to strangers. Right? What was the message that was being conveyed to you by your parents and by the people that were responsible for you and they didn't mean any harm by it, right? They were saying exactly what they had to say or that they felt that they should say because they love and care about your safety and wellbeing.

First off, I agree. You know, when you're young, you obviously you want to be careful about talking to strangers, but when a stranger idea, when you hear that word, it pops up. I don't know about you, but I know that when I used to hear the word stranger, I always imagine someone walking around in our raincoat or a rain jacket, right, with a hat that's like pulled over the brim or their eyes and wait until like flash somebody's right or a, you know, invite me to come into their weird van with candy and you can see how that could create an internal blockage for me to really truly experience the richness in life, which from actually talking to strangers. Yeah. Think about all the friends, those folks that you have developed a relationship already that are in your circle. They didn't just show up as friends.

They were at one point, they were people that you didn't know. There was somebody that that you just, you ran into. Sometimes our relationships are based on the environment that we're in, right? You're in school, so the person that sat next to you, you know was the person who developed the closest relationship with or someone that you met after school or maybe even at work, right? We're working in the folks that we spend all day with. It's normal for us to develop relationships there. Check this out, right? It's not about just having a bunch of relationships, the real delicacy of life, that experience of just feeling rich and full all the time come from having relationships. Check this out, that align with your internal values. I'm going to say that again cause it's not just about having a bunch of relationships, right? Having how many friends are on my friends list, how many people throws me up.

It is truly about having relationships that align with your values and the problem is that we don't necessarily sit down and think about what our values are. I'd even say for you to just take a moment, you know, maybe later on today when you get a chance to sit down, pull out your notebook, pull out your journal and write down, you know, what are my values? What are the things that are absolutely nonnegotiable in my life? You know, a great way to frame it is if a building were on fire and someone said, here's this plank that takes me from one building to the next, I'm going to pay you $5 to walk across this plain that's held together by some duct tape and you know, paper clips for you to walk across this gap to go into this burning building in there. There's a lockbox with five bucks in it.

Would you do that? Obviously the answer is no, unless you just enjoy taking risks. The next thing is, well, what if they said, hey, 100 bucks, 500 bucks, $1,000, right? Is there any amount of money that you would cross over that gap for you to get into that window, to get into a lockbox, to grab at a lockbox? You know, I wouldn't personally, the point of this is this is if they said, hey, your wife, your husband, your son, your daughter, the person that you care about is stranded in that building and the only way across as the go across this make shift bridge that has been put together, are you more willing to now attempt that feet, those things, whatever that is that you would cross over that gap into that burning building for those are the things that should be on that list of these are my values, family, these are my values, right from my wife and I, we have our priorities set, God, family and then business.

When we talk about where we're going to spend our time with people, we run it through that filter. And then the next question we then ask is, is this going to have a negative impact on the levels of relationship that we have? And what do I mean by levels of relationship? Well, the first level of relationship is my wife and I, right? That's our immediate sphere of influence is my wife and I. So I say this, is it going to have a negative impact on level one relationships? If not. Excellent. Next question is, is it going to have an impact on level two relationships and our level two relationships? Or you know, our parents because without our parents we wouldn't be here and we love our parents very much and also our mentors isn't going to impact or be a detriment to the relationship that we have with our mentors.

If so, we've got nothing to do with it. And then our level three relationships are all the people who are, you know, in partnership with us that are helping feed into our level two and level warm relationships, right? We have business partners, we have, you know, other spiritual guys. We have people who have impacted our lives at play, an important role and we want to make sure that we safeguard and protect those relationships as well. Everything else after that, you know, is whatever everybody else is in that level four and above and below category. Right? So so important that when we start to look at relationships, we start asking those questions, what are the things that are blocking me from experiencing richer relationships? What are the things that are preventing me from really truly, you know, living a life that's full of Richardson excitement a lot of times.

Another really great question to ask is what happened because we don't want to dwell on the why. We just want to understand where are feelings and hesitations are coming from when it comes to talking to strangers when it comes to meeting someone new and developing a new relationship and potentially a lifelong partner, right? We were intended to live life on our own, believe it or not. That's why we have strengths and weaknesses. We have strengths because our strength is meant to compliment somebody else's weakness and vice versa. Otherwise you'd be spending your energy not investing. You'd be spending your energy trying to strengthen weaknesses versus looking to compliment somebody else's weaknesses with your strengths and having multiple people because of the nature of who you are, volunteer their life to help you strengthen your weaknesses. So relationships are important. The whole point of this episode is just to relieve some of the pressure or the hesitation or the anxiety that people have about finding and you know, being able to have a conversation because that's really what the hesitation is.

I don't know if I'm good enough sense of unworthiness, a sense of just what happens after the conversation, right. You know, do I have to continue being in a relationship with this person? The conversation doesn't mean anything. All these crazy ideas are running through our mind when in reality, if you will sit down and first identify your values and sit down and say, okay, I kind of get some of your blockages under control, then the next thing you would do is just activate with a new foundation, a new understanding, the new filter so that when you meet people is actually fun. When you meet people and you're starting conversations and you're learning about people, you're in this discovery mode and what you'll find is that a lot of people are actually dying to have someone just say hello to us.

(Outro)
Thank you for joining us on this episode of the conversation Iq podcasts. It's always a pleasure just to spend time and share and to encourage and empower folks to be better conversationalist. If you are picking up things that you can implement and you have positive results from that, please share with us. We'd love to hear about your successes. We'd also like to hear about any challenges you are experiencing so that way we can continue to serve the community. We can continue to provide value and continue to equip you with the tools you need for you to be an awesome conversation on this. Please check us out at www.conversationiq.co for an opportunity to be a part of our Facebook group "Increasing Conversation IQ". It is www.conversationiq.co we'll see you guys on the next episode.