{"id":13401,"date":"2025-12-17T01:25:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T08:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/2c61fc79-9abe-11e8-99ad-ca52c1e5b2af"},"modified":"2025-12-17T01:26:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T08:26:32","slug":"how-make-friends-encourage-people","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/blog\/how-make-friends-encourage-people\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Make Friends and Encourage People"},"content":{"rendered":"

I used to be so shy and worried about the opinions of others\u00a0that I’d become a spineless blob of yogurt around anyone I wanted to like me. You should have seen me on “dates.”\u00a0I still have interactions like that every now and then, especially if I’m with\u00a0someone I want to ask out. But since about ten years ago, I started having the opposite problem. Now, I keep forgetting the names of those I’ve had good conversations with because I end up meeting so many new people each week.<\/p>\n

From shy to showing up<\/h4>\n

Something along the line changed me.\u00a0Dale Carnegie\u2019s How to Win Friends and Influence People<\/em><\/a> helped frame\u00a0conversations in terms of what I could\u00a0give<\/em>\u00a0to<\/em> people\u00a0instead of what I could\u00a0get<\/em>\u00a0from<\/em> them. After all my\u00a0conversations I want other people\u00a0to feel better about themselves. Conversations and careful listening are ways we can actually serve one another. Ultimately, you can give to others\u00a0by the way you converse with them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The secret: Ask better questions<\/h4>\n

When I’m trying to give encouragement or affirmation instead of seeking to get validation, I have more confidence in approaching people, and many\u00a0first-time interactions turn into friendships. But how does that happen? How do you turn an anxiety-filled interaction into a relationship? Well, I think questions are a great place to start. A\u00a0friend recently shared some advice she’d been given on conversing with others:\u00a0\u201cThe easiest way to love people\u00a0is to find out what they’re excited about and\u00a0ask them questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of wasting time talking about the weather, we can seek to hear about other people’s\u00a0passions \u2014 and then get excited with them. But it’s not always easy.\u00a0Because we’d never\u00a0want to be disingenuous about it, I do have\u00a0a little hack for interacting with people who don\u2019t seem interesting. If my memory from sophomore English serves me well,\u00a0Annie Dillard’s\u00a0Pilgrim at Tinker Creek<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>talks about cultivating an appreciation for the smallest of things:<\/p>\n

It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won’t stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To adjust for inflation, I might modify pennies to be quarters (and then for my purposes you have to replace quarters for people), but this is essentially what I learned from it: If we can set aside competition, pride and insecurity, we can appreciate even the most uninteresting person for the sheer miracle it is to be human.\u00a0And when we treat people as rare and precious creations, the whole act of meeting and talking becomes a lot more enjoyable.<\/p>\n

Call out the good you see<\/h4>\n

But our conversations don\u2019t have to only center around how the other person is interesting (though each of us\u00a0is <\/em>interesting, so\u00a0there\u2019s plenty of material there), we can also intentionally work on\u00a0affirming the gifts and talents in others, a topic Karina reinforces in her blog for this week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t it always the old ladies who do this best? Pastors\u2019 wives, friends\u2019 moms, grandmas. I recently heard a story of a friend who refused to work hard in elementary school, and one day she bombed a spelling quiz. As the teacher\u00a0handed back her graded quiz, she\u00a0said, \u201cYou\u2019re smarter than this. Start acting like it.\u201d My friend thought, I <\/em>am smarter than this <\/em>\u2014 and it was honor roll from there on out. Maybe don\u2019t tell someone you just met to start acting smarter, but do seek to identify the strengths in others, and who knows what difference that could make in their lives.<\/p>\n

After only a few hours together at an orientation for my seminary, one of my classmates told me, \u201cYou have a real gift for engaging people.\u201d That\u2019s one of the few things I remember from that weekend, and it\u2019s really empowered me to hone these listening skills so I can better minister to people.<\/p>\n

How many people in our daily lives have gifts that are fading because they haven\u2019t been recognized and called out? The next time you enter a room and you feel fear of rejection pushing you back into your shell, remember this: You have nothing to lose … because you are here to give.<\/p>\n

(And then try extra hard to remember the names of all the people you meet.)<\/p>\n

Copyright 2016 Ross Boone. All rights reserved.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even if you forget everything else, remember this: You have a gift to give others in the way you interact with them and listen to them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":44312,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13401","blog","type-blog","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-with-others"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Make Friends and Encourage People - Boundless<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Even if you forget everything else, remember this: You have a gift to give others in the way you interact with them and listen to them.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/blog\/how-make-friends-encourage-people\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Make Friends and Encourage People\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Even if you forget everything else, remember this: You have a gift to give others in the way you interact with them and listen to them.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/blog\/how-make-friends-encourage-people\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Boundless\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/boundless.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-17T08:26:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/how-to-make-friends-and-encourage-people-68f8f768ca048.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"How to Make Friends and Encourage People\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Even if you forget everything else, remember this: You have a gift to give others in the way you interact with them and listen to them.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/blog\/how-make-friends-encourage-people\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/blog\/how-make-friends-encourage-people\/\",\"name\":\"How to Make Friends and Encourage People - Boundless\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/blog\/how-make-friends-encourage-people\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/blog\/how-make-friends-encourage-people\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/how-to-make-friends-and-encourage-people-68f8f768ca048.webp\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-12-17T08:25:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-17T08:26:32+00:00\",\"description\":\"Even if you forget everything else, remember this: You have a gift to give others in the way you interact with them and listen to them.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/blog\/how-make-friends-encourage-people\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/blog\/how-make-friends-encourage-people\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/blog\/how-make-friends-encourage-people\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/how-to-make-friends-and-encourage-people-68f8f768ca048.webp\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/how-to-make-friends-and-encourage-people-68f8f768ca048.webp\",\"width\":1500,\"height\":1000,\"caption\":\"two friends having coffee together\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/blog\/how-make-friends-encourage-people\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Blog Posts\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How to Make Friends and Encourage People\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/\",\"name\":\"Boundless\",\"description\":\"Find your place. 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