Let think about the time when you first meeting someone or meeting a friend who you don’t really familiar with on the campus. Have you ever feel awkward when do not know how to start the conversation with them?

Or you usually face with the “social scripts” questions such as: How are you?/ What do you do?/ Where are you from?

And how your friends replied you, do them automatically response that: “I’m good, thanks”/ “OK”/ “Not bad”/ “Fine”.

This kind of greeting is very popular in our society, but actually, the popular doesn’t mean that it is useful and effective. Because people have a tendency to use fake answers, fake emotions with these kinds of questions.

So, if you looking for a real answer from the person who you really care or want to spend more time with, let change the way how you approach the problem and make the responder gives you more detailed about them.

I call these following questions are “trigger excitement” because these questions can dig a little deeper information and emotion. When I applied it in real conversations, people love to share more and make the conversation to be more interesting.

These “trigger excitement” could be:

• “Anything good happen today?” instead of asking “How are you?”
• “Do you have any vacation coming up?”
• “Are you reading anything interesting lately?”
• “Are you doing any personal passion project?”
• “What’s highlight of your week?

Let try these opening questions in your next conversation to see how great it can help you to start an interesting conversation.