Speaking of Psychology - Why you should talk to strangers, with Gillian Sandstrom, PhD, and Jon Levy

Episode Date: April 14, 2021

Despite the fact that so many people profess to dislike making small talk, it turns out that talking to strangers and acquaintances can actually strengthen our mental health and enrich our lives. What do we gain from meeting new people? What have we been missing out on this past year as COVID-19 has restricted these social interactions? And how can we become better at talking to strangers? We discuss these questions with Gillian Sandstrom, PhD, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Essex who studies what she calls “minimal social interactions,” and Jon Levy, a consultant, writer and speaker who founded “the Influencers Dinner,” a regular gathering that brings together strangers who are leaders in their fields. Are you enjoying Speaking of Psychology? We’d love to know what you think of the podcast, what you would change about it, and what you’d like to hear more of. Please take our listener survey at www.apa.org/podcastsurvey. Links Gillian Sandstrom, PhD Jon Levy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The guy who takes tickets in the office parking garage. The colleague in another department who used to take a coffee break at the same time as you. The parents at monthly PTA meetings. The commuters you shared a subway car with every morning. Remember them? Before the pandemic, these wide circles of acquaintances and strangers were the backdrop of our daily lives. Familiar, comforting, something we took for granted. Over the past year, as many of us have lamented our physical separation from close

friends and family, how many of us have thought about missing those casual connections? When's the last time you actually spoke to a stranger? And despite the fact that so many of us profess to dislike making small talk, it turns out that these kinds of connections and conversations actually strengthen our mental health and enrich our lives. So what do we gain from meeting new people and chatting with strangers? What have we been missing out on this past year? And as life begins to go back to normal in the coming months, we hope. How can we become better at meeting new people and embracing the opportunity to talk to strangers?

Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I'm Kim Mills. We have two guests today. Dr. Gillian Sandstrom is a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom.

She studies what she calls minimal social interactions and has found that despite many people's reluctance to talk to strangers, these interactions are usually enjoyable and actually are good for us. She's become an advocate for the benefits of talking to strangers, has spoken widely on the topic and even developed a workshop called How to Talk to Strangers. Our second guest is John Levy, a consultant, writer, and speaker who has had a lot of opportunity to watch strangers talk to one another. More than a decade ago, he founded what he calls the influencers dinner, regular gatherings that brought strangers together who are leaders in their fields, Olympic athletes, business executives, Nobel Prize winners, artists, musicians, and others to cook dinner and converse with each other without at first knowing any other guest's identity. His book, You're Invited, The Art and Science of Cultivating Influence, will be released in May. It talks about the importance of making human connections and building trust and community. to accomplish our goals. Thank you both for joining us today.

I think your different perspectives should make for a really interesting conversation. Looking forward to our chat. I'm super excited to be here. I'm dying to dive into like Jillian's research. I can't wait to see what I can apply to my dinner parties and events. Well, we will get there. Let's start with you, Dr. Sandstrom. As I mentioned in the introduction, you study minimal social interactions.

Can you define that? Well, I think I'll answer that question by kind of giving my origin story or one of my origin stories. So when I started studying my master's degree, which I did at Ryerson University, which is right downtown Toronto in Canada, so just right in the middle of the city. And I would walk from the research lab to my supervisor's office. And when I did that, I would pass a hot dog stand. And I somehow, without meaning to, developed a relationship with the lady who worked at the hot dog stand. And every day when I walked to, I was a hot dog stand. And every day when I walked past her. I would smile and wave and she would wave back. And it just really made me feel good.

And so I just started wondering, what's going on here? Is this just me or is this a thing? And that's how I ended up doing this research. So it started from there. And I guess I look at the kind of relationships that they have that, at least when I started, I was looking at what I call weak ties, which is kind of one step up from a stranger, you know, someone like the hot dog lady or the kind people you mentioned during the intro. So not strangers because there's mutual recognition. So I think that's the sort of, you know, tiny line between a stranger and a weak tie. But I've been more interested in the ones on the more minimal side than the acquaintances that we see on a regular basis and are actually quite close to. So I think that the word acquaintance

can be really, really broad. It encompasses a lot of people. And I've been more interested on the more minimal side. So a lot of your research has found that people were, about talking to strangers. We all are a little uncomfortable with the idea. We don't think that they'll enjoy it or that the other person will enjoy being talked to. Why is that? Are these worries valid? Well, the easy answer to that second part is, no, they are not. I mean, they're not accurate. Maybe it makes sense that we have them. And yeah, my research has found, you know, over the last 10 years I've been doing this research and I've done lots of different studies. And I find people are just worried about so many different things. So they're worried about how they're going to feel

about the conversation and whether they have the skills to maintain the conversation. But they're also equally worried about their conversation partner. Is that person going to like me? Are they going to want to talk to me? Are they going to be able to carry on this conversation? Are we going to have one of those dreaded awkward silences? So yeah, generally speaking, people are quite worried about all sorts of things, but when you actually get them to have a conversation and report back afterwards, they kind of have to admit that none of those things they worried about really happened. And over and over again, I find that people enjoy their conversations much more than they expect to.

So, John, through your influencer dinners and now your influencer Zooms, you've had a lot of opportunity to watch strangers talk to each other. Tell us a little bit about these events and why you started this project. So I was 28 years old, overweight in debt, and literally like the poster child for not living up to your potential. And I came across some research by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler about the spread of obesity. They were curious, does it spread like a cold from person to person or is it a percentage of the population? and they found that if you have a friend who's obese, your probability of obesity increases by 45%.

Your friends who don't know them have a 20% increased chance, and their friends have a 5% increased chance. And so I figured rather than beating myself up for not wanting to set an alarm at 6 a.m. to work out, maybe I could get contagious behaviors like exercise, or better financial habits just by getting to know people. And I realized that that would be compounded if I could get all these strangers that are really successful

to know each other because then they could positively influence one another. And so I started modeling their behavior and trying to figure out what they would want to engage with. And I realized that it needs to be something novel and there are a few other characteristics. And so I think, Jillian, you've probably seen this in your work as well. There's this weird characteristics that we all have called the IKEA effect, which states that we disproportionately care about

our IKEA furniture because we had to assemble it. So because of this ridiculous trait that when we invest effort into something we care about it more, I realized I was going to invite people to do something together. And I ended up falling on cooking a meal. And the big joke is that after a bunch of these dinners, it was probably like five, six years in. We had a famous journalist come and she said, I was expecting a phenomenal meal and decent company. I got the exact opposite. So it's terrible. Like the meals are awful. I mean, they're fine, right? But go to Chipotle, you'll have a better meal. But what I found is that, and the research, I believe, really supports this, is that a shared activity functions as a social catalyst that eliminates a lot of

the awkwardness and concern. So if I ask people to move a table or chop some vegetables, conversation actually flows much faster and more naturally. Does that ring true for you, Jillian? Is that what you see in your research too? I mean, just speaking from personal experience, I mean, I get asked a lot about tips for starting a conversation. And I mean, basically what you're talking about, John, is sort of a built-in conversation starter. And everybody there has something in common. because they've all chosen to take you up on this, you know, crazy, somewhat crazy endeavor. So in some ways, there's sort of built-in things that would make it easier to talk.

But I'm curious to ask you a question. Like, do you sometimes see people worrying about the conversation? Because even, you know, even the kinds of people that you're inviting, surely, there's some among them that are less extroverted and more sort of socially anxious. And so I'm curious if you see that kind of fears that I'm talking about. about. Oh, without a doubt. I think that you're spot on with everything that you've said, both the concern. And there's actually a secondary concern. Because they're coming into the home of a stranger, about like 15 minutes in, the first part we do kind of like cocktails, maybe show people

the house that they're in. But after about 15 minutes in, once like people have relaxed a little, they'll say, oh, I'm so sorry, I just have to call my spouse and let them know that I still have both of my kidneys. Right. Like, I haven't been kidnapped. This isn't some like organ scam. And that's probably like less of a concern when you're on this like a, I don't know, a bus. And you're not worried that the person who turns to you and asks you about the book you're reading is after your kidneys. Well, funny enough though, like when I talk to someone on the bus, I actually assume that there's sort of these three stages that people are going through. And this is not something I've actually tested.

But I assume that people's first thought is, you know, do I know you? because, you know, people don't just talk to each other that often. So it's so they think, well, you know, if you're talking to me, it must, you must have a reason for it. And so the first thought is, you know, maybe I know you. And once they realize, uh-oh, I don't know you, then they do start to worry. I think they think, you know, you must be trying to get something. Maybe you're trying to sell something or maybe you, you know, you're crazy or maybe, like, maybe you do want to harm them. And then I think, you know, if you have to persist a little bit and get to the point where people realize you're just

being friendly. You just want to have a chat. And if you can get to that point, then you're golden. But sometimes, you know, it can take longer with some people to get to that point. And some people will never be able to get there because they just have too much anxiety and get stuck on, stuck in the middle somewhere. So I'm super curious about something. It seems that, uh, that in general, anxiety and concern has increased over the past, let's say, 30, 40 years in terms of our safety, right? So according to most statistics, we're in the U.S., at least, safer in just about every way. But there's this rise of helicopter parenting and, like, this fear of talking to strangers. Over the past 10 years, have you seen that there's greater concern?

Or do you think it's kind of stayed about the same? I mean, as a psychologist, I don't tend to do the sort of studying things over time and looking at the history of it. I'd love to work with someone on those kind of questions. But, I mean, I think, you know, I don't want to be blaming social media for all of the world's problems because that doesn't make any sense. But I think young people especially can use social media and use their phones to sort of avoid having too much. face-to-face interaction with people. And if you don't have that practice to build up the skills, then you could build it up in your head as something that's really fearful.

And then because you don't have a lot of practice, you try it, it doesn't go so well. And then you start to think, I don't have the skills to do this. And then it becomes even scarier. And you get into this sort of negative cycle. So I suspect that, and not just talking about young people, but the world is sort of set up. we're trying to make things more and more efficient, and we're factoring out a lot of the opportunities for social interaction.

You know, there was an article in the news recently about how, you know, there's going to be a new grocery store that has no human checkouts. Like, everybody just sort of swipes and walks out the door. And, you know, like, we're doing these kind of things for certain reasons, but, you know, it has these negative consequences, which is taking away some of this human contact. and I don't know. I think especially right now with the pandemic, I hope it reminds us that we're all kind of,

because we're all going through this crazy thing together, I hope it reminds us of our common humanity and makes people value that human contact, even with people that they don't know or don't know well. I think that's super interesting. And my big concern is, since my entire life is about bringing people together and giving them a sense of belonging,

it seems that those people who already feel lonely fall into the loop of feeling like they're deserving to be lonely. And so as we try to now come out of this pandemic and more vaccines are available and we are seeing rates decrease of infection, my concern is that there'll be a whole collection of people who are moving towards the roaring 20s and then a whole lot of people who will feel more isolated than ever. And if we look back as far as 1985, the average American had just about three close friends besides family. By 2004, that was down to just about two. I think it was the University of Chicago study. And my concern around that is that the reason for it wasn't social

media. It wasn't anything that we currently blame. It was more likely that people moved away from their family after college for work. And so we've set up a very mobile society where social ties are, it becomes acceptable to let them go for the progress, kind of like you said, of, you know, the faster checkout line, the bigger promotion, the bigger office. But at a pretty significant expense. And so I really hope that we can all learn how to like apply your research because I think it would be great to be able to safely talk to strangers again. Yeah, so let's talk for a minute, Jillian, about the mental health benefits to these casual interactions and conversations. What have you found specifically? Well, the first study

I ran, which I did as part of my PhD, I ran at Starbucks. So I just stopped people on on the street and ask them if they would help out with the research study in exchange for a Starbucks gift card. So they had to go into Starbucks right then and there. And the only catch was that they had to follow some instructions when they went in. And so we asked some people to just be as efficient as possible, to have their money ready and avoid unnecessary conversation. We tried to tell them, you know, this will be a good thing for the people working there because they just want to get through their shift. But then other people, we said, when you buy your coffee, try and turn it into a real social interaction. Smile, make eye contact, have a little chat.

And lots of people said, oh yeah, I do that all the time. And I said, okay, try to do it a little bit more. But when people came out with their coffee, what we found is that the people who had had that little chat, who turned that sort of everyday conversation that you might not even notice into something a little bit more social, they were in a better mood and felt more connected to other people. So those are the two findings that come up over and over again in my research and other people's research is just these mood, sort of well-being benefits, and this sense of connection to other people. So before the pandemic, research showed that we'd interact with anywhere from 11 to 16 people per day, whom we didn't know very well. And nowadays, I would venture to say most of us don't see any strangers for days on end.

some social scientists have dubbed this turtling up. I really like that term. Are you concerned, is this going to have a long-term negative effect on people, do you think? I mean, that remains to be seen, of course. I think it could go either way. And like John said, it might go different ways for different people. I mean, I hope that a lot of people will start, well, because of the pandemic, have started to realize that it's not just the close friends and family who they probably have managed to stay in touch with throughout the pandemic. It's, you know, all these other people in our lives really do matter. And hopefully we're noticing that and we're missing them and we're realizing that maybe

we should spend more time building up those relationships. So to the extent that that happens, you know, hopefully when we have more freedom of movement and freedom to be with other people, that people will sort of make even more efforts than they ever have to sort of build those relationships. But on the other hand, you know, we were talking earlier about social anxiety a little bit. Some people might, you know, we've just spent the last year basically being told that we should be scared of other people or we could interpret it that way, right? And so, you know, it's hard to shake that off. I mean, I know myself, like during the first, you know, first month or so of the pandemic, there's a park across the street for me. And the best thing for my sanity is

to go for a walk, which I do almost every day, just get some fresh air. And also it's a chance to see other human beings. But I remember the first couple weeks of the first lockdown, I was just feeling really nervous. You know, other people are possibly contagious and dangerous. And so, you know, if they were standing to walking too close to me, like, I just didn't want to be anywhere neither. I didn't even look at other people. And then I realized, you know, this is an over-the-top reaction. I can still keep a safe distance, but still smile and, you know, acknowledge other humans and our shared humanity. And I could, I can probably make a difference to everybody's feeling really anxious. I could maybe help people by just being friendly and, you know, trying to, again, like,

demonstrate this fellow humanity. It makes people feel good. It makes, it makes me feel good. If someone, you know, smiles at me in the park when I'm in a bad mood, it changes my day. So I hope that I can do that for other people too. So I think we, you know, we don't have to be scared, but we've, there has been a lot of fear over the last year and it would be easy for that to turn into a sustained kind of nervousness about interacting with other people and then have this negative cycle where, you know, we're out of practice. So we feel that we're not any good at it. So we don't do it. So we get even more out of practice. So I think that's the problem is that, you know, there could be this sort of downward spiral that makes it really difficult for people.

So, John, you're coming at this from a different perspective. You've thought a lot about how meeting new people can help build networks and accomplish goals. Is that why most people go to your events, do you think? Or do you think that they just want to meet new people and that there is some interest in, you know, saying hello to strangers? I think that there's a handful of reasons that people come to my events. we've really built it around four or five characteristics. So first and foremost, everything we do is novel, right? It's different than any other format.

We're not inviting people over for a casino-themed fundraiser or for a steak dinner or something like that. We're fundamentally inviting them over for an experience that they can't have anywhere else. And so I think that there's a whole collection of people who are drawn in by novelty. The second characteristic is curation, right? If you look at the really influential people in the world, they're willing to spend a fortune to enter the right rooms. And so you look at Davos, right? It's $250,000 or something to attend a freezing conference where you stand in the snow or slush of Davos hoping to bump into Andrea Merkels, right? And so if you can curate an environment with interesting people, especially from diverse backgrounds, then that becomes novel and interesting.

Now, I don't know if people are coming thinking that they can get a business deal. I think it's more because frankly, like, you know, I'm the one inviting everybody and I can do business with less than, I don't know, maybe 3% of the people. Like, I have no business to be done with Olympic medalists or Nobel laureates. I mean, it's just a completely different world. And so then I also think some people come because it's just a fundamentally generous experience. Most people are of the, at that level, everybody's after something from them. And so since I have no angle, then I think that they're coming for that as well. But so I think that's the starting point.

Now, what we also do digitally is really different than what we do in person. And we found that for digital events right now, everybody's been doing a lift and shift. They just take their in-person programming and make a much junky or worse version of it online. And so you end up on like an 800-person WebEx feeling like you don't matter. And so we try to make everything completely interactive and spend as much time as possible in breakout rooms playing games together and connecting. And the games really function as a social catalyst, both for them to get to know each other. And Jillian, my hunches you have tons of ideas on this, and also function as a great way to reduce stress. Because that pro-social behavior of play, when we're also anxious and wound up these days, I think is really effective at it.

I love what you're saying about not having an angle, like feeling like the people that you're talking to are not trying to get something from you. And it kind of connects to what I said earlier about, you know, what I think is happening if I talk to someone on the bus. And I think that there is that stage where they worry that I am trying to get something from them. But it's also something I think about in terms of networking, you know, because I've done a lot of work on how to talk to strangers. And I've run these how to talk to strangers workshops. I've been approached to help people with networking. And I'm like, I don't teach networking. I mean, you can't network without talking to people.

So in that sense, it is connected, right? And I'll definitely help, happy to help you, you know, train people on how to talk to each other. But I think lots of good things come even when you don't have an intention to get something. And I think the reason networking can feel a little icky is because it feels very instrumental. It feels like you're doing it for a purpose. And so people are sort of focused on the purpose rather than just focused on connecting. And so, yeah, I think when it's just you're doing it for enjoyment. and I definitely agree that it can often be a very pro-social thing to talk to other people as well,

that those motives can result in other outcomes, but I think it goes more smoothly when you don't enter a conversation with that purpose. I love that you called networking icky, because I'm in complete agreement. I think it stinks. Research by Francesca Gino from Harvard Business School looked at the association to networking, and found that people feel the need to wash, because they feel so dirty from the experience. And so my hunch is that we're probably on a similar page in terms of my objective is not for anybody to network because that feels very unnatural, but for people to make friends.

Because everybody wants great friends. But nobody wants to feel like they're using some. I mean, maybe a handful of people do, but most of the people I want to interact with aren't interested in that. So, Jillian, how do you teach people to talk to strangers? How do you get started? Well, so I run these How to Talk to Strangers workshops, and I treat it as, I'm not, I try not to teach. I'm rather just facilitating because I think a lot of times people already know what to do.

They just feel like they don't. Like they sort of build it up in their head as something that's really hard. But for example, starting a conversation, I mean, I've run this workshop, you know, not so many times, but, you know, half a dozen times at least. And people never have trouble coming up with. dozens of ways to start a conversation. So people know what to do. They just feel like maybe they're doing the wrong thing or maybe they should be doing something else. Maybe there's something better. So, yeah, I think it's mostly about helping people realize that it's not just them who feels

nervous and awkward about talking to strangers. It is a common thing. So I think what I've heard as feedback from these workshops is that that's often the biggest takeaway for people that just by talking to each other, because I use breakout rooms a lot, like what John was saying, like putting people into it and getting them to talk to each other and share their experiences, people really walk away realizing it's not just them and that other people are worried about the same things and that, you know, we can just be a little braver knowing that other people are acting the way they are because they feel nervous too. It's not that they don't want to connect. It's just that they're worried about the same things that you are.

So just a lot of reflection, I guess, to answer your question is how do I teach people? It's just I get people to think about, okay, how can you start a conversation? What is your worst fear? Like, what do you think could go wrong? And then maybe think about, well, what could you do if that thing actually happened, which it probably won't. And then I especially talk about rejection because that is a big concern. So I talk about, I get people to think about what does rejection look like? Like how do we decide to interpret something as rejection?

And then how could we, you know, thinking about those things like people not making eye contact or looking at their phone or looking at their watch or, you know, making some physical space? And say, well, what else could be going on? Could it be something other than a personal rejection? And people at first to have a bit of trouble coming up with other alternative explanations. But then once you get the ball rolling, people can quickly see, well, maybe that person doesn't speak English and is having trouble understanding me, or maybe they're worried they had a bad day at work, or maybe they're waiting for, they really are waiting for a phone

call because their dog is at the vet or, you know, like there's a lot of things that could be going on. And so the tricky thing about having a conversation is, of course, you can't read other people's minds. And so what we do is we somehow have this negative voice in our head and we invent all these stories about what's going on in the other person's mind. But most of that is not true. So I've done work on something called the liking gap, which is the fact that when you finish having a conversation with someone who's new, we tend to think that the other person didn't like us as much as we liked them. And it's just not correct. So again, it's just another example of how we worry more than we should. And like I said, it's because we can't read other

people's minds. So I think that really resonates with people and maybe helps people feel a little braver that, you know, if you can convince people, actually, it's not as bad as you think, and people like you more than you think, then people might have a little, might be a little braver about starting a conversation. What about stopping a conversation? Do you explain to people how to do that? I'm thinking, yeah, because we were talking about networking a little while ago, and one of the things that I've always found at networking events is that you go up to somebody, you start talking, and then you say, oh, this person isn't going to be any help to me, and I want this conversation to stop. How can I stop it nicely and get away? Right. Well, I definitely do

talk about ending a conversation at the How to Talk to Strangers workshops, and it is the thing that I find the most difficult. So I said earlier that people can find dozens of ways to start a conversation, but ending one, people seem to find a lot harder and mostly people just lie. So they make up an excuse like they have to go to the toilet or they need to get to. the drink or they have to make a phone call or whatever. And a lot of the time, these are lies. Sometimes they are true. But a lot of times people are just saying this because they just don't know what to say. But every time I run this workshop, at some point, someone will just speak up and say that what they do is just thank the other person for their time and say it's time to go now.

You know, thank you, but we're done. And people kind of look at this person, whoever this one person is and think, what, you can do that? But there's brand new research just published a couple weeks ago from some folks at Harvard and other places looking at ending conversations. And they found that basically conversations never end. I think it was 2% of the times a conversation ends at exactly the moment that both people wished it would end. So sometimes people talk longer than they wish they would have. Sometimes people talk less time than they would have liked to. And again, it's this attempt to sort of coordinate with someone else when you can't read their mind. And so you might think that they, you know, that you can't stop talking because that would be impolite.

But it seems that the best bet is just to, you know, at the networking event, the example that you're giving is just say, you know, thanks. It's been nice talking to you. We're here to network. So let's go and do that. I think we can do it in a polite way. I think it's so interesting because my general view is not to go to a networking event and instead find shared activities that actually interest people. So I'd almost rather go on a hike, right, with people or start a run club or some kind of board games night and give an excuse to either invite people or join ones that already exist. So there's like lists and lists and lists of things on meetup.com or event bright or so on that give us an opportunity to connect with people in a much more natural context than a bunch of overly priced alcohol in a room that has loud music in it.

because it just feels like such an unnatural environment. And I used to, when I was in my single days, I used to explain to people that I'm not a fan of clubs because I'm not so good looking that anybody would want to talk to me at a club because you can't hear the person. But I'm much better at a bus stop because I'm decent at having a conversation. I think another thing that that taps into, John, is just introversion. Like, I'm very much an introvert. And I always try to mention that when I talk about this research because I don't want people to walk away thinking, oh, well, it's just, you know, it's only extroverts that are going to do crazy stuff like talk to a stranger.

I would never want to go to that environment where the music is loud and there's 100 people. Like, that's just overwhelming for an introvert like me, which is a, you know, a large minority of the population. And so these kind of situations that you're describing are much more comfortable for someone like that. And I find these kind of one-to-one conversations are just not scary for an introvert. Like I talk to strangers all the time because it doesn't feel scary to me. I mean, it's taken some time to get there. It's not something I've done my whole life. And there has been some skill building that makes these conversations go better, which makes me feel more comfortable with them.

But I can walk away. These are not conversations that are intended to last for a really long time. And so it's very low stakes to me. And I find that maybe it especially suits an introvert. John, I'm just wondering, I mean, a lot of what you do to bring people together involves reaching out to strangers. What kinds of reactions do you generally get? Oh, I get everything.

I mean, I have literally gotten, I think the best response saying no was I don't do blind dates, which I thought was hilarious. I was like, respect. To speak to what Gillian was pointing to about trying to understand what's going on in another person's head, the incredible amount of social anxiety that highly influential people have was staggeringly shocking to me, like unbelievable. I mean, famous directors, actors, musicians, like all of it. I've even had an actor say to me, I know how to be anybody but myself. And so when I'm me, I'm awkward. And this is somebody that you would know by name. You've seen this person in film and on television. And I think that there's this misperception often of other people's social capability

because you think that they're successful or impressive. And so the most, odd one I've ever gotten. Most odd response was actually from a famous psychologist. I'm not going to say who it was. But you absolutely know who this person is. And the response was something to the extent of how dare you invite expect me to pay for a dinner where I'm usually the person who's honored at the dinner. And we responded very politely and we were like, I don't know. What made you even think that there's a fee? We pay for everything. And everybody in attendance is, you know, very successful and interesting and so on. Unsurprisingly, we never got a response back. But it's, it took us a really long time to figure out what to put into the emails, what frequently asked questions, how frankly not to sound overly exclusive. So we work really hard to curate, but we are not like a.

nightclub. We're not trying to keep people out just for the sake of seeming cool. It's just that I can't afford to pay for millions of people's meals. So we kind of keep it small. And then we also launched a salon series that's more open to the public if kind of people just message me. We're often happy to just host them. And we have a nonprofit arm that just runs programming for the public. So we try to really be inclusive of everybody. But the responses we get are kind of just hilarious at times. So, Gillian, what research are you working on now? What are your next, the next questions that you want to answer?

Well, it occurred to me one day that I've been studying these, you know, conversations with strangers are in some sense a difficult conversation for many people. People find it a difficult thing. And I was talking earlier about all the different fears that people have. And it occurred to me one day that there's other kinds of conversations that might have might involve similar fears. So I'm thinking of things like talking to someone that you know who's just lost their partner or someone who's had a miscarriage or someone who's been diagnosed with cancer. And so I just got really curious about whether there's kind of a common set of

fears that people might have if maybe the fears that people have about talking to strangers might be similar to the fears that people have in these other kind of conversations. So that's what I'm studying right now, and I have an ongoing study that I'd love some help with. So anybody who wants to check out my website at jillian sandstrom.com, if you've experienced one of these things, cancer diagnosis, miscarriage, or bereavement relatively recently and want to talk about what people have said to you in an attempt to be supportive, I would love to hear from you. We'll make sure to put that link in the program notes. Thank you.

And, John, what about you? What's your next project? Oh, wow. Well, so I have the book coming out. You're invited, The Art and Science of Cultivating Influence. And I think that my biggest focus is finding a whole collection of ways to just help people come together. So whether it's wild pop-ups in New York that I get people to volunteer to run and do activities in public at safe distances now that summer's coming, or it's online experiences and events that we can just disseminate so that people can have this, conversations, whether it's with strangers or with their family reunions, because right now everybody's doing like happy hours. And I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of promoting drinking when you're stressed. I don't think it's like the social cues that are the best for us. And also by the third time your company runs the happy hour, you're like, okay, we're going

to have the same conversation, the same, you know, extroverts are going to take over the conversation. I'm going to stay quiet, turn the camera off, wash my dishes, and feel like, okay, I've shown up, so I'm not going to get in trouble. But if we could give people activities, conversations to have games, maybe ways to even include their kids, so people kind of get to know the extended family, right? Right now, we're not having the hallway conversations, the water cooler conversations that reduce anxiety and give us a peek into people's lives. but we're actually seeing directly into their homes. Maybe we could use this as an opportunity to really get to know each other. And so that's the kind of stuff I'm exploring. And then I've a really big mission, which is I find that most of the sales processes that companies go through are like a huge waste of money.

And a lot of the marketing budgets are really wasted because they don't create a meaningful relationship between, the company and people. And so, you know, I'm never going to be remembered for anything. But if I am, it's that I got the most influential people in our culture to come to my home, cook me dinner, wash my dishes, clean my floors, and then thank me for it. And if I can do that with no budget, then companies are spending way too much trying to connect with their customers. And so if we can create actual sense of community or belonging or connection, and it doesn't need to cost a lot, Maybe we could shift the entire marketing world. So your aspirations aren't that big then, just shifting the entire marketing world.

Marketing world, yeah. Well, always aim high, right? Well, I want to thank you both for joining us today. I don't know about you, but I certainly feel happier and healthier having spoken to you both. Thank you. Thank you for having me. This is such a treat. Nice to meet you, John.

Gillian, you're awesome. And I look forward to speaking to more strangers. Great. Well, you can find previous episodes of Speaking of Psychology at www.combeatingof Psychology.org or on Apple Stitcher or wherever you get podcasts. And please leave us a review. If you have comments or ideas for future podcasts, email us at speaking of psychology at APA.org. That's Speaking of Psychology, all one word, at APA.org.

Speaking of Psychology is produced by Lee Wynerman. Our sound editor is Chris Kondyin. Thank you for listening. For the American Psychological Association, I'm Kim Mills. I'm sorry about the bird. I hope they can get him out of the recording. Are you kidding? That's my favorite part.