Do Not Ask People "How Are You"

A simple and cheap change in your day-to-day dealings with friends, colleagues or acquaintances can bring beneficial effects and improve your quality of life.

We do it all and we do it all the time, so much so that we do it without much thinking. We meet someone and ask how they are (doing). The answer usually goes “fine”, “good”, “very well” or as one Italian friend always used to say “not too bad”. Then you ask back about your conversational partner’s state of being. The answer is of the same kind.

My proposal is to stir things up and change this very ancient paradigm.

Ask slightly different questions and see the shift in behaviour of your conversational partners. You will immediately realise how they start pondering about your question, some of them even drifting off into deep-reflection mode.

Language Can Work Magic

Instead of the usual “how are you (doing)”: “what keeps you up at night”, “what are you struggling with currently”, “what are the things most bothering you currently”; or in a slight opposite approach: “what has brought you the most joy recently”, “what are you currently most looking forward to”; or my favourite: “How has life been treating you lately?”.

I admit, some of the suggested phrases cannot go immediately after a casual “hi” or “hello”, but I am sure you can think of an acceptable segue during a conversation. Go ahead, think about one now, I will wait.

This paradigm shift can be applied in other situations as well. This is not me suggesting you ought to ask deep questions in all your encounters. I hope you did not envision yourself going through the hall of your office and asking every single person about their current challenges. You do not have to be friends with everyone. A simple “Hello!” will do for most of the people — believe me.

The suggested approach works well when you meet someone and you anticipate the conversation will go beyond a casual greeting or with friends and colleagues whose friendship or comradeship you cherish.

Back from Vacation

Assume, for the sake of imagining a hypothetical, yet very realistic, scenario, like someone returning from a trip or vacation. We usually ask “how was your vacation”. The spectre of answers goes from it was wonderful, without expanding, or people tell the most tellable parts of the vacation. You miss out on the deep insights and on the juicy stories with this approach. It has a bit of an Instagram problem, you only get to see the most representative moments.

Instead, I suggest to replace it by a slightly different approach. For example you could be asking: “What was the moment of your vacation that most stunned you?”, “What place/event left the most cherished impression on you?” or try something more avant-garde like “What new did you learn about yourself?”.

I know it sounds a bit nerdish. There are people you simply cannot ask question like these for the sake of complying to social norms and keeping e.g. your job or status membership of your nearest golf club. I suggest that you either do not engage in useless small talk with people or you ask slightly nuanced questions that are a game changer. Not only does that paradigm change your perception, it also changes your conversational partners because you suddenly see people switching mode from giving well-prepared, automatic answers to a deep thinking and introspective mode.

This kind of approach can be too much if you do it too many times with the same persons or if you do it when the person is obviously not in the mood talking to you beyond just a minimalist exchange of formal greetings.

Change Your Answers to Other People’s “How are you?”

Now, be prepared for the next step: after someone asks how you are doing, you could elaborate on your current challenge you are facing or on something that you would like to have the person’s perspective on.

Just observe the reactions, if the person sincerely engages in your shared thoughts, or just tries to wave it off with some usual platitudes. It tells you something about your relationship, but do not judge too quickly, maybe someone just needs to be places at exactly that moment.

I am sure you get the gist of it and I am sure you can think of similar situations where a different approach bears lots of unexpected fruits. In our fast-paced world we got used to some “traditions” and often end up acting impulsively. At least in this case you could change your day-to-day behaviour, at least sometimes — trust me, it can be very rewarding.

Observe Your Surroundings and Ask (provocative) Questions

People will remember you differently, they will also remember that encounter with you differently. Some might even think about your question days after your encounter. For us hustlers fast-paced modern life does not leave much space for introspection and light philosophical discourse — because it does not yield more money nor does it seal a deal our careers heavily depend on.

Further Reading

If you liked this article and this kind of topics, you might want to read another article from me. It is about a parenting advice:

Usually I write about investing your own money or about the pitfalls of investing and trading equities (aka stocks). One of my most-read articles was published on the investing platform seeking alpha.

Full disclosure: I was writing about this topic over few months and only afterwards found an article on cnbc.com with a similar thesis. I recommend, you give it a read as well.

Conclusion

Use this piece of advice cautiously. This article was meant to be adding value to your life, at least from an entertaining perspective. Anything beyond is a huge compliment to my writing.

Observe your conversational partner and his or her reaction to your questions. You will maybe experience some people dodging a deeper conversation, for whatever reason. However, this will change your relationship with them in the end and you will benefit either way.

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