How To Make Friends with Uber Drivers Part 2: Conversational hooks
Answering the dreaded “What do you do?”
The Backstory
Last year, I moved to America and in about 6 months, I took around 700 Ubers.
That’s a lot of Ubers 🤣
I quickly noticed that it was difficult to build meaningful relationships because we were both ‘on-script’.
So, I experimented a little: how can I try to build the most meaningful relationship with my fellow driver in 11 minutes?
As a result of these experiments, I learnt more about the art of conversation than I have in 20 years.
Last week, I shared my explorations using different opening questions, and how the following question seemed to do a good job at building the foundations for deep connection
What’s on your mind these days?
But what about when they open with “What do you do?”
I hate this question.
This is how I feel when someone asks me that question
What if it’s difficult for me to explain my job in one or two sentences?
What if I’m stressed out by work right now and don’t want to talk about it?
What if I do a tonne of things?
More importantly, however, is that this question so often leads to a conversation like this
Person 1: So, what do you do?
Person 2: Ah, well, I’m a [insert job title]. What about you?
Person 1: Oh, cool, well, I work in sales but do Uber on the side.
Person 2: Cool.
Awkward silence.
Person 2: So…. do you enjoy it?
Person 1: Yeah, it’s not bad, pays the bills! How about you?
Person 2: Haha, yeah, exactly. Good days and bad days.
Person 1: For sure.
Awkward silence.
^^The definition of small-talk^^
We’re both so scripted: just going through the motions rather than being led by our curiosity and trying to build meaningful connections.
So what should you do instead?
Firstly, if you open with “What’s on your mind these days?”, you’ll find that you’ll almost never get asked “What do you do” because the conversation will organically flow into something more unique.
But if you are asked “What do you do?”, try and give as many conversational hooks as possible.
If you are optimising to increase the chance of a meaningful connection, instead of
I work in finance
Try
I am a [insert job], but I’ve recently started getting into books about religion — oh, and I also love hosting intentional dinner parties.
Suddenly, my Uber driver has a lot more to go on.
Intentional dinner parties? That sounds kinda weird and cool! Omg, I’ve also been getting into books about religion!
Christian Busch, author of the excellent book The Serendipity Mindset on Expanding Your Luck and Serendipity, writes in detail about the value of these hooks in creating serendipity. He highlights that creating hooks increases the “surface area that has all these potential dots that could be connected.”
An excellent shortcut to building meaningful relationships with people is through bonding about a mutual shared interest/hobby.
The more hooks you create, the more you increase the probability of your conversational counterpart to relate to one of your hooks, and then making conversation is no longer effort; it feels like a flow state where you’re authentically vibing with each other.
In effect, all you’re really doing here is answering both “What do you do?” and “What’s on your mind these days?”, even though you haven’t been asked the latter.
Sometimes, I would give about 5 or 6 hooks. Sometimes even 7 or 8!
Whilst you may think it sounds strange, my experience is that it doesn’t feel it.
All that’s happening is that I’m increasing my probability of finding something for us to both “click” on. So often after giving these hooks, I find myself connecting with my Uber driver about something we’re both passionate about, whether it’s arguing over which Jacob Collier song is his best, how much of a profound impact Peter Crone has had on our life, or how listening to Esther Perel has transformed how we view relationships.
Suddenly, that 11 minute Uber drive feels like 11 seconds 😎
