Welcome back to the daily gratitude minute. This is Scott Colby with say it with gratitude and you know, over the past several weeks I've been updating my keynote talk as. I'll be headed to Spokane Washington in just a few days to deliver my first. In-person talk since COVID. Now I'm digging into the topic of loneliness in the workplace and stumbled upon some research from several decades ago that I actually hadn't heard of before.

So there was a psychologist named Arthur Aron, who set out to find the question, the answer to the question. How might we in a laboratory setting? Find a way to create instant intimacy between strangers. Through his research, he was able to come up with a set of 36 questions, which were designed to be asked in a specific

order.

The question start more surface level, like given your choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as your dinner guests? But quickly the questions turn more deeper with questions like this. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone. What would you most regret?

Not having told somebody. And why haven't you told them yet?

So Aaron brought in strangers. Into his laboratory, they paired up and took turns entering the 36 questions. And here's the interesting finding. 57% of the participants bonded enough to get together after the study on their own. And one pair even went on to get married in VR and invited all of the participants from the study to the wedding.

According to this research, you can create intimacy by asking meaningful questions.

Now in January of 2015, an article came out in the New York times written by mainly Lynn caldron titled. To fall in love with anyone do this, where she shared her story of going through the 36 questions with a man who wasn't a stranger. But was actually an acquaintance. And they did indeed fall in love and later got married.

So the point of this, I want you to start to become more conscious of the interactions that you have. Get beyond small talk, ask meaningful questions, be an active listener. And use conversations as a tool for cultivating deeper connections with the people in your life. Or even strangers.

I'm Scott Colby with say it with gratitude. And this has been the daily gratitude minute. Cheers.