A Hollywood celebrity once spent an afternoon chatting about gardening with an ordinary man in a hotel lobby. This ordinary man was our author, Malcolm Gladwell's father, completely unaware he was talking to someone famous. Interactions with strangers are weird like that. You can have a memorable conversation with someone and still don’t know much about them. And this is the stuff Gladwell wants us to ponder!Talking to strangers is unavoidable in daily life - but it’s not always rosy....
Strangers Are NOT Easy to know
We've all been there. Met someone new and instantly felt we had them figured out. It's human nature to think we can size up strangers in a snap. But as you’ll soon learn, this confidence is almost always misplaced! That's right - strangers are not the open books we think they are.Take the Cold War spy story of Florentino Aspillaga, a Cuban intelligence officer who defected to the US in 1987 and dropped this boombshell: Nearly every CIA spy in...
We Default To Truth
Ever wonder why your friend's terrible lie about being "stuck in traffic" actually worked? It's not because they're master deceivers. It's because you're hardwired to believe them. That’s the Truth-Default Theory (TDT) for you! Developed by psychologist Tim Levine, it explains why we're all walking around with our lie detectors set to "off."Consider Ana Belen Montes, the "Queen of Cuba." For nearly two decades, she worked as a top analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency while secretly spying for Cuba....
Should You Be The Holy Fool?
Bernie Madoff,now a famous American criminal and financier, stole $65 billion, and only one man saw it coming!Harry Markopolos tried to warn the world about Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme for years. He was right, but no one listened. Why? Because Markopolos was unconventional. He was awesome with numbers, but he was also a bit… obsessive. The sort who wipes down his keyboard with disinfectant before every use. But his weirdness doesn’t mean he’s stupid or wrong. Agreed?Markopolos had been sounding...
The Transparency Problem
Ever watched the TV show Friends with the sound off? You’d probably be able to follow along, right? Ross's comically exaggerated expressions of shock, Chandler's sarcastic smirks, Rachel's perfectly timed eye rolls - it's all crystal clear. Plus, you’re likely to know the context of the episode.In Friends, every emotion is written on the actors' faces like a billboard. Angry Ross doesn't just say he's angry; his face becomes a roadmap of fury. One expert even broke down Ross's angry...
Assuming we can read people accurately can have grave consequences
On November 1, 2007, Meredith Kercher, a 21 year-old British student, was brutally murdered in Perugia, Italy. The guilty party? Rudy Guede. A random acquaintance of the people residing in the lower-level of Kercher’s rented apartment block. The person who spent four years in prison for it? Amanda Knox, Kercher's roommate. This shocking miscarriage of justice is a stark example of how our “assumptions” about human behavior can lead us terribly astray.We see someone fidget during a conversation and think,...
The Transparency Assumption and Alcohol
Now you understand, with the transparency assumption we wrongly believe we can easily read others' intentions. Add alcohol to the mix, and this already flawed belief becomes downright dangerous. Alcohol doesn't just lower inhibitions; it creates what researchers call "alcohol myopia." This means drunk people focus intensely on what's right in front of them, ignoring long-term consequences. On a chilly January night in 2015, two Swedish graduate students biking across Stanford University's campus stumbled upon a scene that would ignite...
Show A Little Empathy
On a hot July afternoon in 2015, Sandra Bland was driving down a Texas highway when she was pulled over by State Trooper Brian Encinia. What should have been a routine traffic stop spiraled into a confrontation that ended with Bland's arrest and, three days later, her death in a jail cell. Know what this tells us? We, as a society, have forgotten how to interact with strangers.Let's start with Encinia. He was a product of modern policing strategies. Which...
Chapter 10
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Summary
In the end, talking to strangers isn't necessary at all, is it? But if you do it, do it properly! It's how we build a better world. And to do it right, we need to lead with our humanity, not our fear. The way we interact with strangers shapes our society. It's high time we started examining the assumptions that we carry with us, and make way for a better world!
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About the Author
The best-selling author of five books, including: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and Outliers: The Story of Success, is journalist Malcolm Gladwell.
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