The goal of Module 2 is to teach you how to meet new people in a way that makes them interested in getting to know you better.
By understanding three critical mindsets and applying five specific tactics, you’ll meet people in a way that makes building a real relationship much easier.
3 Mindsets You Need To Understand When Meeting People
Most people meet new people every day, but rarely turn those people into friends, even when they want to. Unfortunately, people have mindsets—or beliefs—that hold them back and cripple their chances of making new friends.
I don’t want you to make those same mistakes. Read through the following three mindsets, do your best to understand them, and do everything you can to believe them and apply them to your life.
Mindset 1: Prepare and Be Ready to Socialize
Preparation is the mantra of this module. Before you leave your house, you want to be fully equipped with a game plan—we’ll go through these in the next few lessons.
Also, it can be difficult to socialize when you’re not in the mood. When you go somewhere with the specific intent of meeting people, be ready to socialize and meet people.
Get excited. Put yourself in a good mood by listening to music you love. Visualize yourself having fun with other people. Talk to anyone you can leading up to the activity—socializing breeds a more social mood.
Mindset 2: Be Open-minded about Meeting New, Different People
This may sound obvious, but many people blow off potential friends before they have a chance to get to know them. Not everyone will seem like someone you’d typically befriend. Give them a chance anyway. Later, down the line, you can decide you if really don’t like the person.
In the beginning, however, be open and get to know anyone you can. Often, it’s the people you’d never expect to befriend who end up becoming your best friends.
Mindset 3: Don’t be Needy
Don’t be dependent on any relationship working out. If it does, great. If not, no worries. There are plenty of other people out there.
This attitude needs to be instilled in you at all times. It doesn’t mean don’t care about meeting new people. It means there’s no need to brag, try hard, over-explain yourself, or sound super interesting. If someone asks you what you do, say what you do without trying to explain every detail of it. If they care to hear more, they’ll ask.
5 Tactics for Befriending Strangers Anywhere
When you first meet a new person, you both judge each other in a number of ways. You’ll both be looking to see if the other person is trustworthy, interesting, nice, attractive, positive, funny, and a host of other qualities. Trying to show all these great attributes may seem stressful, but there are a few easy tactics that, if you follow, will do most the legwork for you.
Tactic 1: Look Good
You don’t need to be Brad Pitt or Jessica Alba, but you want to put effort into looking good. Keep up with good hygiene, make your hair look good, and wear a good-looking outfit.
Tactic 2: Meet Them Like You’d Meet a Friend
There are three components to this:
- Smile
- Eyebrow-flash
- Head-nod
When you walk up to the person, smile. Simultaneously, you want to quickly raise your eyebrows (should take less than a second) and nod your head upward. Imagine when you meet a friend and say, “Hey, what’s up?!” You probably do this already. That’s what you are aiming to do.
This builds comfort and trust with the other person and makes them feel like you already have a connection together.
Tactic 3: Don’t Be Boring
Come in with high, positive energy. You don’t need to be “guns blazing,” but you need to have more energy than you probably think. Increase your speaking volume by about ten percent.
Also, vary your vocal tonality. If this seems weird, you’re overthinking it. You should be able to do it naturally. But sometimes when we’re not thinking about it, we speak very monotonously. Don’t do that. You’re questions, curiosity and intrigue should be obvious by the changes in your voice tone.
Tactic 4: Connect
Physically, you want to connect with the other person by shaking their hand. A handshake builds comfort, which is critical for building relationships. This should happen as soon as you meet the person, if possible. If you’re in a group setting and it doesn’t make sense, try to do it after the group dissolves by saying, “Hey, it’s good meeting you Sandra,” and shake her hand. The point is that you want to shake their hand ASAP.
Secondly, you need to make strong eye contact. Nothing disconnects two people more than a lack of eye contact. It raises all sorts of red flags. Instead, open yourself up to the other person by looking them in the eyes when you talk to each other. You don’t need to maintain eye contact the entire time, but roughly 50 – 70% of the time is about right.
Tactic 5: Get on a First-name Basis
Introduce yourself and get their name within the first few minutes of meeting each other. You need to get their name so you can start using it. Once you have it, talk to them as you would a friend—“Hey John, you’d love this…”
This is critical. There’s nothing worse than forgetting someone’s name and just saying, “hey” when you need their attention. Instead, use these opportunities to build a stronger connection.
Everyone person’s favorite word is their own name. Use it often if you want to befriend someone quickly.
Action Steps
1. Print, save or download Worksheet #4: Meeting People the Right Way.
2. Review Worksheet #4 before going out to meet new people.
Note: The best way to instill tactics 2-4 as habits is to focus on just one at a time. As you get better at one, move onto another one. You don’t need to be anywhere near perfect with them to make friends. But the better you incorporate them, the better you’ll connect with people.
In the next lessons, you’ll go through the different scenarios where you can meet new people so you start conversations correctly, giving you the best chance to build a true friendship.