 Hey, what's up YouTube? A.J. here with my good friend Gia Helena and today we're gonna be talking about how to overcome social anxiety to have great conversations with strangers. Now if you get a little nervous talking to strangers, maybe you run out of things to say or you feel awkward, then you're gonna want to stay tuned because we're gonna talk all about overcoming social anxiety, how to be more vulnerable, and we're gonna give you six quick tips to strike up conversations with anyone. We all know how difficult it can really be to talk to strangers and at times it could be not even scary but even nerve-wracking. Absolutely, whether you're extroverted or introverted, sometimes our social anxiety trips us up and we run out of things to say. Social anxiety is the fear that most of us have of being judged negatively or even rejected in some social or performance situations and this could be actually one of the biggest reasons why it might be very hard for some of us to start conversations with strangers. And listen, we get it. You're behind your phone screen on a daily basis and because of that we're feeling more and more disconnected and unfortunately we're losing some of our social skills. But here's the great news. These are muscles that you can train. You can get better at growing and strengthening your social skills so that you can find a great relationship, you can get that job offer or even make a great friend and here's the best part. We all struggle with social anxiety. I remember myself back in the day when I was getting started trying to learn how to be more social and going to events feeling nervous, feeling awkward and of course it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'd get in a conversation, I'd freeze up, I'd feel awkward and then I'd struggle. Now there is power in talking to strangers. In fact, if you think about it, every single person in your life at one point was a stranger outside of your family. So your ability to strike up a conversation waiting for coffee at the bus stop or at a friend's get-together is incredibly powerful for you to grow that social circle. It's so true. Being able to strike a conversation out of the blue opens yourself to a lot of possibilities and also your social network. People that are much more restrained and maybe even a little bit afraid to do that or to start a conversation might be limiting themselves also to stay in their normal network and very limited to getting to know different kind of people and other opportunities as such. Now, how do we do this? Well, it starts with being vulnerable. We understand it's a little scary to walk up to people and strike up a conversation but if we lead with vulnerability, you're gonna find conversation happens a lot easier. So when we talk about vulnerability, we're not talking about spilling it all out in front of other people or maybe showing some sort of weakness. Leading with vulnerability, we're talking about connecting with people at a deeper level from you being yourself. Vulnerability is not disclosure as such and it's important for us to leave from that perspective. Absolutely. Being vulnerable is about being open to meeting new people, not closing yourself off or being stuck in your head. We don't have to spill everything about ourselves to be vulnerable but we should at least go out with an openness to getting to know other people. You being vulnerable is the permission that you are giving yourself to be yourself and be perfectly okay with that and at the same time giving the other person in that conversation the same permission to feel comfortable and safe around you. And we get it. It's scary but guess what? Rejection doesn't have to be scary because the people that we're talking about, strangers, they don't know you on a deep level. All they're rejecting is your approach. So fixing your body language, changing your posture a little bit can have a drastically different result and you don't have to hold on to that negative rejection. Now we are vulnerable and we can speak about our emotions and there's nothing wrong with being a little honest and saying I'm a little bit nervous to be here today but I'm so excited to meet new people. Believe it or not, it's far more easy to be vulnerable with strangers than at times it would be to be vulnerable with our friends or people that really know us due to the fact that there's no expectations and sometimes, you know, we might not even see that people again. And their judgments really don't matter. I can't stress that enough. As you get better with this stuff and strengthen these skills, you'll find that those rejections are not nearly as scary as you think. Practicing confidence is about you going through that fear and being able to continuously show up as to strengthen that muscle of starting and sparking conversations with strangers out of the blue. Now let's give you six quick tips to help you start striking up more conversations with strangers. And the first is smile. When we smile, we open ourselves up to conversation. And I can't tell you here in our bootcamp how many of our clients, when they are on film, when we're interacting with one another, they lose that smile and immediately the energy is set from the interaction. So smiling and being open to conversation is our first tip. What's the second one? Saying hello is our next tip. It's important for you to get your eyes off your devices, open up a little bit of your body posture and glance around making eye contact with somebody and just give them a nice smile. Exactly. If they hold eye contact for a few seconds, that's a welcome opportunity to walk over and say hello. And don't be surprised if they will be the ones approaching you. Now the third tip we have for you is lead with a simple compliment. Let people know what you like about them, something they're wearing or even better, something about their personality. One of AJ's favorites always to open up a conversation is asking somebody, Hey, what are you excited about? The reason I love this is because it gives them the freedom to pick something maybe professionally that they're excited about or something personally they're excited about. So it doesn't force them to talk about things that are boring or uninteresting. Also psychologically, you are kind of inviting the person to have a positive thought and to find somebody, something also that they're proud about. In that direction, they will be happy to share it with you. And then already there, you're leaning with some positive emotions. Small talk can go a long way. And one of my favorites is like a casual comment about a shared space. Often here in LA for what I know is the traffic topic. It's always a topic, perhaps the weather or maybe one of those situations you're currently going through at the moment wherever it is that you're hanging out, anything that might be relatable to each other. It's always a good place to start. So let's not underestimate also the power of small talk that might lead you to great deep talk. Now, number six, we have to be open to share. That means coming a little prepared with something to talk about yourself. What are you excited about? What's going on in your life that you're looking forward to? Adding that to the conversation allows the other person to get to know you and we're off to a great start. Because how often we have seen conversations falling short or abruptly ending due to the fact that the other person has nothing, nothing much to share. Sometimes they end up with somebody saying, awesome, cool. But we need to follow up in that conversation. I think that what you're saying is very interesting because and also giving something a little bit about yourself. That's the key word because whenever you feel yourself saying cool, awesome, agreeing with someone, add a because statement at the end of it so they get to know a little bit more about you. Now, to recap, we talked all about social anxiety and how we've even struggled with it in the past and it's totally normal, but it's something that we need to work through and our devices may be causing it. And what about that power of vulnerability? Vulnerability, please remember, is not exposing yourself and giving out all the way. It's allowing yourself to be who you are and giving permission also to the other person to feel very comfortable being themselves. And of course, six quick tips to strike up that conversation because we know that almost everyone in our life started as a stranger. So go out there and have some fun. Open your circle, open your network and prepare yourself to be amazed of what the power of supporting conversations with strangers can do for you. And if this sounds overwhelming to you or you want to take your conversations to the next level, then check out our communication accelerator where in 30 days or less, we're going to get you walking up to people, having great conversations and welcoming them into your life. You can click the link below to join now and get that experience. If you like this video, then you're going to love our podcast, The Art of Talking to Strangers, where we go even deeper. So if you're interested in learning more of the science behind talking to strangers, check out the podcast link below, like, comment. Let us know what your favorite tips are or strategies for striking up conversations with strangers. We'd love to hear that.