Rating: 3 out of 5

Quick read from the TED kindle singles range. Nice essay about getting to know people. And supplying sometimes usual, sometimes quite odd questions for those amongst us who find it hard to converse with strangers.

Highlighted passages:

He simply believes that our lives are made richer when we engage with strangers and take the time to connect meaningfully with people who cross our paths in everyday life.

“How was your day today? What did you do?” They are questions that are direct, that everyone has answers to, and yet cut slightly deeper than a simple “How are you?” which always leads to a blase response: “good” or “fine.” Questions that are specific in nature (“What did you do today?”) often lead to the kind of detailed response that gets a conversational train rolling out of the station.

I found that even the most challenging questions, when asked with genuine curiosity, were greeted with openness and generosity.

Life is long and the world is small, and I’ve learned that when you cross paths with someone once, you’ll often continue to cross paths again, especially when you’ve exchanged something true and meaningful about yourself with each other.

Small talk can be limited, repetitive, and frustrating, and the value of deep, meaningful connections with the people around us can’t be undersold.

The key to asking people any kind of deeply personal, potentially awkward, private, or embarrassing question is not to show any shyness or awkwardness when posing it, but rather to be clear and direct.

Mutual disclosure has always seemed to me the shortest path to establishing trust and reaching a deeper level of dialogue.

Construct questions with odd presuppositions and you’ll be rewarded by unexpected responses.

Originally posted to my Goodreads account