Once Upon a Stranger: Can Small Talk Lead to a Bigger Life? (#305)

Absolutely.

I have had conversations with strangers that have literally changed my life, you know, changed the course of my career, changed the hobbies that I engage in.

I mean, my husband used to be a stranger.

Everyone that you know, unless you're related to them, used to be a stranger, right? So I absolutely believe that individual conversations can change your life.

Can you give a couple of examples of those?

I guess the reason that I do this job and do the research that I do is because it all started with a conversation with a stranger.

I was a very shy kid, and so this wasn't something that I generally did until I hit my 30s and I had this one amazing conversation on the subway in Toronto with a woman.

She had a cupcake in a little plastic container, and I, I just really wanted to know where she got this beautiful cupcake, and so I asked her.

I thought she would just tell me, and that would be it, but we kept talking and she taught me that people can ride ostriches.

And it was just such a surprising, you know, delightful kind of conversation, and that was the starting point of me ending up where I've ended up because I couldn't believe that there was so much to be learned and in how enjoyable it could be to have these little tiny conversations.

So I feel like that conversation changed my life.

It's changed the course of my career, and it was the first of, you know, now hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of conversations with strangers that have really enriched my life.

You met your husband through a stranger conversation, and you also got your job through a stranger conversation.

Yeah, I did.

So the job, it was...

I had gone to a conference, and I'm an introvert.

Conferences are a bit much, and so I always sort of go through this, "Should I go? Should I not go?" And I...

but some friends sort of convinced me to go, and I went to a talk.

And having had some practice at this time talking to strangers, I, you know, I think it helped me feel a little bit braver about putting up my hand and asking a question of the speaker.

And then I saw him later in the, in the hallway and had a little chat and complimented him on his talk.

And that, you know, in a roundabout way over a little while ended up with me getting a new job.

So not a thing you could have predicted, and I think that's one of the fun things about talking to strangers is often things that you never could have expected just sort of manifest, you know? So I think, I think a lot of people have asked, "Why should I do this? What am I gonna get from it?" And I think it's better if we don't expect anything, you know? I think most of these conversations, it's a beautiful moment, and then you walk away, and you never see the person again.

And there's something kind of nice and perfect about that and having that, what might have been.

It's nice to have that feeling.

But then sometimes it does lead to these really concrete things.