Effective Evangelism | How to Start Conversations

Starting Conversations by Recognizing People

Tip number two, how to start conversations off. Some of us struggle to start conversations off with complete strangers, okay? Some of us are so awkward that even thinking about starting conversations makes us immediately die of cringe.

Or maybe we're with people who we don't really know very well and we kind of run out of things to talk about very quickly because they don't really talk back, okay? This next tip addresses these scenarios and situations just like them.

Here's two important things that you need to remember about people, and this is true. Nine times out of 10, this is true. Number one, people love to talk about themselves, all right? They love it more than anything.

They love to talk about themselves. And number two, people love to be recognized and they love to be affirmed. You guys are good, I like that. Let me say that again. People love to talk about themselves more than anything else.

And also, people love to be recognized and they love to be affirmed. So this tip basically takes those two important truths about people and gets meaningful conversations out of it. Because all you have to do, if you want to start a conversation off with a total stranger or somebody you don't know very well, is just ask them about themselves in a way that recognizes them.

Using Sherlock Holmes as a Model for Conversation

Sherlock Holmes, the greatest detective of all time. Don't fight me on that. Sherlock Holmes would do this all the time. He would amaze people by his skill of deduction and he would look at somebody and he would read the clues off their person and then blow their minds in a way that actually started a conversation very well, okay?

I'm gonna read to you an excerpt from The Adventure of the Speckled Band. What'd you guys do tonight? We read Sherlock Holmes, that's fine. This is from a story called The Adventure of the Speckled Band, listen to this.

Sherlock Holmes ran her over with one of his quick, all-comprehensive glances. Stop, this was a lady who came in because she was afraid that her sister's ghost had come to haunt her in her house. So Sherlock Holmes, he runs over her with one of his quick, all-comprehensive glances.

You must not fear, said he soothingly, bending forward and patting her forearm. We shall soon sit matters right, I have no doubt. You've come in by train this morning, I see. Oh, you know me then, said the lady.

No, but I observed the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left glove. You must have started early, and yet you had a good drive in a dog cart along heavy roads before you reached the station.

The lady gave a violent start and stared in bewilderment at my companion. There's no mystery, my dear madam, said he smiling. The left arm of your jacket is sputtered with mud in no less than seven places.

The marks are perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle save the dog cart which throws up mud in that way and then only when you sit on the left-hand side of the driver. So here's what just happened. Holmes read the clues off this lady, never seen her before, and he used those clues to start a conversation.

Applying the Principle in a Real Classroom Conversation

This is exactly what I'm suggesting you do. In one of my English classes, I had a student named David, and David, for the first half of the school year, wasn't there, and then in the second half of the school year, he appeared, and it was time to do a lot of makeup work.

So I had him off to the side working on his own makeup assignments. He wasn't very talkative. I hadn't really engaged him all that much, but anyway, one day he was doing a bunch of makeup assignments, and I walked over, and I noticed that he was wearing a rosary around his neck.

Does anybody know what that is? Who can tell me what a rosary is?

Yes.

Yeah, it's a necklace with a cross on it, and there's also these little tiny beads or balls, right? And they're meant for prayer. Catholics wear them. As soon as I saw that necklace, I realized I had an opportunity to get into a conversation with him, and so what I said was, I see that you're wearing a rosary necklace.

So I'm reading the clues off him. I identified it. I recognized him, and I said, is that just jewelry for you, or does that have some kind of religious significance? He laughed at me, and he said, well, I'm an atheist.

I just wear it because I think it looks cool.

So I go, okay.

Well, then I said, let me ask you a question. How come you're an atheist? You see how in two questions, I'm already talking about his religious convictions, and it was just normal. It was innocent. It really wasn't anything really, there was no argument.

He explained to me what was going on with his religious convictions, and we had a really great conversation about that, but in two questions, I got there, and it was really easy, and that's what I'm suggesting for you.

You can get there very quickly and very easily. You with me so far? You don't even have to be good at Sherlock, okay? You can mess up. People love to correct you. Again, if the focus is on them, and they're talking about themselves, they don't mind correcting you.

It's totally fine. You're asking people to talk about themselves in a way that recognizes who they are in some small way. Sorry, I should have put that up there. So again, we're putting two fundamental truths that I mentioned, and we're turning them into questions.

That's it.

Thank you.