Reply To: Stories challenge

[The_Hurricane]

You can certainly get away with something this inappropriate right after the opener – especially in a bar – but it’s not a requirement. Unless you’re going direct, the opener should NOT be a 10 on the heat meter. It should be about a 2. After the opener, you can tell a story that’s like a 5 or a 6. Then there’ some normal conversation where you actually find out some stuff about each other – this is the work / interests / where you came from / how you got here / family / childhood part. This part of the conversation is about a 4. Finally, right before you get out, you hit them with your bad-ass inappropriate 10 out of 10 peg-the-meter-in-the-red relationships / sex story. That’s your approach.

Hopefully, they’re playing along, because the whole point of doing all of this is not to entertain them but to get them talking about stuff that’s equally interesting or important to them. You’re not going to give them a free pass either. As they’re telling you stuff, you’re going to call them out on it. You’re going to make sure they know you have standards.

So this story that I modified for you as an example – of course, you know that all else held equal your own true stories are always more emotionally charged than something you make up – is kind of an 8 – a little too ballsy for the very beginning, and not ballsy enough for the very end. However, do play with it. It’s better to get blown out and have a few big successes than it is to just play it safe and have a bunch of lukewarm conversations that basically establish you have no balls.

I’ll come back and give you another example in the next few days.

–Lee