Subscribe to support the podcast: You're listening to episode nine of our social anxiety podcast! For this episode we're gonna talk about a little bag of tricks you need to keep in your back pocket to have stronger communications in person.
Someone's going to inevitably ask you, "Oh, so where are you from?" This is classic icebreaker question. Most people respond to this question with the worst possible response you can give, and that response is, "I'm from so-and-so," and that's it.
Now, if you're from a place like New York City or Los Angeles or Tokyo or Paris or a major metropolitan hub that has so many other things attached to it, it's not too difficult for the person you're speaking with to be able to pick that up and run with it by questioning you further about that city, what you do there or what it's like living there.
But most of us aren't from those cities. I'll give you an example. I was talking to a person at a party I was at that I was invited to. Someone asked me where I was from. "Well, I'm from a town called Sayreville." Most people have no idea in the world what Sayreville is.
So if someone asks, "Hey, so Brian, where are you from?" "Oh, I'm from Sayreville, New Jersey," they're gonna be like......... and then that's it. Conversation's over. Bye-bye.
Now, what you have to do is keep a bag of tricks attached to your city or your job title or your role, which I'll get to next. Now when people ask me where I'm from, I say, "Oh, well, I'm from Sayreville, New Jersey. "You heard of Bon Jovi? "Yeah, there's a lot of rock stars "that came from the early '80s out of central New Jersey.
"There's also a lotta big mob movie stars "that came out of New Jersey. "In fact, Joe Pesci was born and raised "just a few miles south of where my town is." Well, now when you say something like that, not only, they're not going to be limited to just, "Oh, Sayreville," and then they're gonna have to use their powers of imagination to run with that, you're giving them bait. You're giving them something to grab onto. You're giving them an easier way to continue the conversation. And I say this in every single episode: During your communications with people, you're not the only one who's anxious. You're not the only one who thinks you lack social skill. You're not the only one who's stressed or nervous or not sure what to say or getting a little clammy and your palms are getting sweaty or blushy. You're not the only one. So is the other person you're talking to.
So by giving somebody something to grab onto, you're throwing them a rope to hold onto, because they want to talk to you. But you have to give them something to grab onto. So when I say that, "Oh, I'm from Sayreville. "I'm sure you've heard of Bon Jovi or Bruce Springsteen. "Bruce Springsteen is from Asbury Park, "which is a couple parkway exits south "of where I'm from," or, "Bon Jovi was raised "not too far where I'm from in the same town," you give them something to grab onto. Another interesting fact about where I'm from is that it was the largest brick-making town in the United States at one point in time. That's right. The Sayre-Fisher Brick Company was one of the largest brick, I believe is was the largest brick-laying company.
Another fascinating fact about my town is there's a local park that's a couple miles down the road that was a major munitions port during World War II. And this is another thing I always emphasize, is you need to have a curiosity for all things.
Because if you just give people one-word answers and you show you're not informed and you aren't actually informed, well, you're not gonna be a very compelling person to speak with. And of course that's gonna make you anxious because what you don't know is going to inhibit your ability to actually talk because you don't know enough about anything to talk about.
There is so much you can run with by just having a bit of information about where you're from aside from just the town. How easy is that to know, just the town you're from? So the same thing is true about your job title. If someone asks what you do, it's always good to have a couple of examples, even if they're on the far end of the spectrum of what it is that you're doing, just so you can give them some sort of bait, some sort of rope, some sort of life jacket to throw on so they don't drown in the middle of the conversation with you and wash away to somebody else, so you're not both standing there, awkwardly looking at your feet.
So that's the big takeaway I want you to have, is to cultivate that curiosity of all things and develop an understanding about where you're from so you can speak about it with some kind of authority and some kind of credibility rather than just saying, "This is where I live," or, "This is my birth place," and that's it. That's not going to make you somebody that someone's going to want to speak with.
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