summary

You walk up to a new person, maybe you're introduced, you shake hands, Hi! My name is metalaggeddon, what's yours? How are you doing?

Ensue awkward silence.

If you have this problem you need to understand icebreakers. Here's a quick experience based lesson.

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Icebreakers, in my experience, are best orchestrated based on the following 3 rules.

Invoke likeability. (Practice an hour a day for a week).

Invoke action. (Practice an hour a day the following week)

Invoke emotions. (Practice an hour a day the final week)

In that order.

Likeability when breaking the ice beyond the introduction, you need to come across as likeable. Presuming you've already covered basic tenants, such as being comfortable in your own skin, setting boundaries, being physically fit and attractive, now you must work on appeal. How do you appeal to a random person? presuming no knowledge of their personal predilections?

Simple actually. You swap highlighting what you know for what you don't. Instead of reaching on topics you're informed in, ask what they enjoy their biggest highlight today. If you don't know anything about it, that's fine, ask questions! Most People love talking about themselves, it feeds the ego, women especially.

Ask them what they're doing in their life and take a stance as an interviewer doing a biography. You want the truth, but you want it to look and feel exciting. and by God you will amplify what they're saying to make it better sounding or dismiss it

tips for this stage -  ask them what the highlights of their day were. Good, bad, confusing, let them speak on it. Good tip, I say "speak on that" frequently. Very frequently. Works well, just maintain your curious poise and let them bury themselves, or, qualify themselves.

-  repeat their core perspectives to themselves. so you felt really excited! Why did that mean so much to you? What spurred this on? What will you do with it? Use open involved questions. -  stay active and present. missing what they've said is okay, ask them to repeat but always say it as a clarification, did you mean this? Wow that's a bit new to me, could you explain it differently?

invoke action

If you've already gotten down likeability, you're halfway to invoking action. One of the most important facets of breaking the ice is setting a dynamic that is dependable. Dominant vs submissive. Interrogator vs qualifier. You invoke action by using commands, usually formed in a way that begs deference to context. This is the area where you ask the small favor, borrowing a pencil or pen, checking the time, saving your seat, etc. Allow me to create an example.

incorrect Hey, buy me a drink, I'm going to use the bathroom.

correct You look like you could use a drink, how about you grab us something and I'll lock down a table?

incorrect Well this is how you fix the situation.

correct Of course you'd probably do x right? on affirmation yeah that's what I was thinking. on negation interesting I hadn't thought of it that way, what would you do?

Remember, every statement made should be a call to action. Simply open questions, such as do you have the time are worthless to break the ice. They must be accompanied by a command or proposition. propositions are about things, and necessarily include a judgement, a judgement necessitates involvement and a truth or falsity. In short, it forces people to choose a stance.

emotion

Now that you've gotten them speaking, qualifying themselves happily, sating their thirsty ego, you need to harbour that emotional connection. An appeal to emotion is a tricky thing. It must be an appeal to a seemingly moral judgement, which directly implies a stake. in either how the world should be or ought not to be. People, especially women, live heavily inside their emotional preferences, so making statements that appeal to morality are a quick easy way to have people break that last barrier to comfort with you personally. Take advantage of the information already garnered, you know what they consider a high or low point, it's almost guaranteed there's an emotional attachment to that.

Correct: that's quite unfair, getting skipped for the promotion isn't it? It always hurts a little knowing my effort goes unrewarded

-  notice you are not attacking the other party in this. It's much better than outright agreeing the person who was promoted is somehow in the wrong. That's up for the conversational partner to decide. Here's where you should also be heavily escalating comfort kino. Obviously not to finger banging, but touching cheek, shoulder, small of the back, brushing away their hair, locking eyes close up to drive a point, etc.

Incorrect: man that sucks. Bet the boss is an idiot amirite?

-  red flag! You do not place blame without knowing precisely what the emotional reaction of the conversational partner is towards their boss. A LOT of girls I've played absolutely love their "male" boss, and funnel anger towards their competitor for the raise.

Be a risk taker, but don't volunteer your head for the chopping block. THEN AGAIN, any emotional response is better than none, but you're not here looking for mediocrity are you?

lessons learned

  • ice breaking requires three connections IMO. Likeability, a call to action, and emotion.

  •  you should be using kino from start to finish, by the emotional segment you should be heavily escalating.

  •  even if you're shredded, 6'6, manly man, custom suits and hundos for days, failing ice breaking is a practice in self destruction.

  • be present in your interactions.

  • practice practice practice, BEFORE doing an fr or asking for help. As a always, we can't help those who don't try. And our help is limited in effectiveness to those who don't have solid data.

addendum Thank you to those who have signed up for the PDF. I'll be doing a weekly every Sunday morning based on what the previous comments have asked for. The upcoming post will be on ice making. The flip to introductions. How to bar a bridge without burning it.

addendum 2 HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE BY CARBURETOR CARNEGIE.

I'm completely the fool for not mentioning that in the first place.