Vanessa Van Edwards says "How are you?" puts people on autopilot. Instead, ask context cues tied to your shared situation: "What was the highlight of your day?" or "Are you working on anything exciting?" They feel safer and spark real conversation.
Your grand entrance ends the moment you start a conversation. The transition period from coming in and greeting people into conversation is where a little bit of awkwardness can happen or autopilot burnout, sterile conversations. Unfortunately, most people will come into a group and they'll say, "How are ya?" Or they'll walk up to a person, "How's it going?" Or, "What's up?" Those are all fine, but the problem is, is you're inviting the other person to stay on a social script, right? If I get asked, "How are ya?" without even thinking, I answer, "Fine." If someone says, "How's it going?" "Good." I don't even think of the answer. It's so autopilot. So what I want you to do instead is have those quick personal greetings and then ask something slightly sparking, a little conversation starter that gets people out of autopilot. My favorite way to do this is with a context cue. A context cue is when you take a cue from your environment and you ask a little interesting question based on that cue. The reason why context cues are so helpful is because one, you're always in some kind of context, so they're easy to come up with. And two, they're typically safe because it's about a shared experience. So if you feel brave, I definitely recommend asking something like, "Oh, what was the highlight of your day?" or "Working on anything exciting?" But if that seems too far, I want you to try a context cue.
