When I first read the quote that started this whole Coffee With A Stranger project, I felt rather proud. I may have even patted myself on the back.

Here is the quote:

 

As an avid reader, I felt pretty good about the book part of the quote. And as someone who has spent their career in sales, I found myself meeting new people constantly. Not to mention, I served on boards, volunteered with several organizations, attended happy hours and business lunches every week, and had no shortage of friends. I was feeling really good.

But the quote wouldn’t go away. It would pop in my head at the most random times, almost as a challenge. As if Mr. Jones was calling to me from another world, imploring me to take another look at my rosy self-evaluation.

So I did. And I felt less proud.

This lesson is the first the Coffee With A Stranger project taught me. In fact, the lesson is what provided the spark for there to even be a project at all.

The lesson is:

It’s important to engage, listen to, and get to know people NOT like you.

When I looked at the people in my life – the people I felt honored to call my colleagues, business associates and friends – I had to admit, we sure had a ton in common. We looked a lot alike, we had similar upbringings, we lived in similar neighborhoods, drove similar cars, shopped in the same stores and ate at the same restaurants. The people in my life all fit very neatly into a handful of silos. I invite you to take a look at the people in your life and see if you find a similar pattern.

Business contacts, neighbors, college friends, people from church, your kids’ parents, people you volunteer with, your tailgating buddies, your fantasy football pals, the people you’ve invited to lunch or happy hour in the last three months. Whatever your groups are – do you notice the people are all a little similar?

Maybe you’re different and you’ve got a wide variety of people around you from all walks of life, socioeconomic backgrounds, various ethnicities and religious and political afflictions. If so – good for you! You’ve already learned the lesson that life is richer when the variety of people around you is wider.

If you’re like me, and you found a lot more homogeneity than variety, I get it! And here’s the thing – it’s normal and it’s nothing to feel bad about.

We can blame it on our caveman ancestors.

No, really, it’s true. Long, long ago, familiarity meant safety. When we looked around, we saw familiar faces and we knew we were going to be okay. But if we saw an unfamiliar face; a stranger, we immediately became fearful and assumed danger was imminent.

Fast forward to modern times, when we no longer live in tribes, surrounded only by our own people. We live in a society where strangers are all around us. Day in and day out. Most of us see hundreds more strangers in a day than people we know. It’s life. But that doesn’t make it less stressful. We’ve just adapted to the stress and we’ve learned to repress the urge to flee.

What we do, instead of running away, is to structure our lives in such a way so as to create safe places. We form groups and when we’re among these people we feel safe. It’s not on the forefront of our minds, but the low-level stress is there – running in the background.

In light of this, it makes complete sense that we often avoid talking to strangers when we don’t have to. Especially if our stress levels are already a little high. Familiarity means safety, and feeling safe helps us remain calm.

But here’s what I’ve learned.

Your life experience is much BIGGER when the variety of people you engage with is diverse.

Why did I just spend all that time explaining how normal and natural it is to avoid strangers and now I’m suggesting you need to talk to them anyhow? Because there is no surer way to grow, than to stretch outside your comfort zone. Or, to put it more eloquently (thank you Neale Donald Walsch):

Like many things in life, talking to strangers is simple, but it’s not easy. At least not at first. But it’s always worth it!

Don’t just take my word for it. I recently came across a TED Talk (don’t you LOVE TED!?!) from Maria Bezaitis called, The Surprising Need For Strangeness. I encourage you to take 8 minutes and watch the video.

Maria makes several useful and interesting points about the value of connecting with strangers. Once line I especially liked was:

“When we’re at our best, we reach out to people who are not like us, because when we do that, we learn from people who are not like us.”

I will refrain from getting on a soapbox, if for no other reason than the fact that I am still learning this lesson – daily, and am therefore in no position to preach. But, it’s been my experience that meeting people not like me, and learning about lives that look nothing like mine, has made it much easier to listen to viewpoints different from my own. And I don’t expect that fact alone to change the world, but I’d say that’s gotta be a good place to start.

Give it a whirl and let me know how it goes. If you’re feeling ambitious, or even just curious, I invite you to take a look at the Coffee With A Stranger Mini Series. If you’d like to talk to strangers, but want a roadmap on how to do so, I’ve written an ebook that should have the answers to all your questions. Well, that’s an ambitious statement, isn’t it!?! How about this: If you have a question and don’t find the answer, I’m always just an email away!