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Tips & Inspiration

Connecting with strangers can enhance our happiness, optimism, empathy, and sense of belonging, grounding us in the world.

5 tips to connect

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We want to empower Canadians with five tips for a more connected fall and set the tone for the holiday season and beyond. Here's what we suggest:

  1. Be heads up, literally and figuratively, about the opportunity to use eye contact as a catalyst to connect with a stranger.

  2. Make the extra effort to connect with someone who may be a little preoccupied. They will likely appreciate the effort.

  3. Look out for those common faces that you see on your typical route to work, to the classroom, in the neighbourhood or while you are out for some exercise. That face you see every day may be the connection to greater happiness: a new friend, a new colleague, someone who might teach you something.

  4. Recognize that the simple act of saying hello to someone struggling can also provide a greater sense of empathy, compassion, connection and belonging.

  5. If you don't succeed at first, and someone doesn't respond to your outreach, try the next person you come across. Not everyone understands the power of talking to strangers like you do...yet.

Connecting with strangers may also be a great way for some introverts or people who are socially anxious to build a sense of connection without the commitment of a longer conversation. 

Tips to Connect

Try it out.

  • Say hello

  • Compliment someone
  • Make eye contact and smile
  • Celebrate or complain about the weather

  • Strike up a conversation in a line-up

  • Speak about a current event

  • Ask for advice

  • Tell a joke or make light of a situation

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Inspiration

Get inspired by these videos that highlight the power of talking to strangers.

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