* Copy courtesy of Publish Central *
When I learned Nick Bendel had lunch with 500 different people over the course of a few years and wrote about his experience in a book, I had to read it! At first I was deeply curious about The 500 Lunches Effect - How Social Courage Changes Everything by Nick Bendel. Would the author provide highlights in chronological order, group the conversations by person, occupation, theme of conversation, level of impact or something else entirely? Turns out it was something else entirely and Bendel takes the helicopter view to set out the life lessons he learned about social courage as part of this mammoth social experiment.
Inspired after reading 100 Lunches with Strangers by Kaley Chu, Nick Bendel decided he wanted to go one step - or 400 steps - further and have lunch with 500 strangers. He contacted Kaley in August 2019 and flew to her city to meet up with her for his very first lunch of the experiment. One down, 499 to go! Bendel points out that Kaley's immediate acceptance was an anomaly and that he rarely received an acceptance or even a reply to his invitations.
"During the six years it took to complete the project, I sent thousands of cold messages on LinkedIn* and email. Roughly 90 per cent never replied. Over the years, fewer than a dozen people responded to explicitly decline. Everyone else simply didn't answer. But eventually, 500 people said yes. And those 500 yeses changed my life." Page 16I found it interesting that some of the lunch guests the author thought would be impressive weren't. And some of the people he had low expectations of ended up teaching him something important. There was no way of predicting which conversations would be challenging or profound, and people who looked accomplished and successful on paper often disappointed him in person. Bendel shares that a few conversations shifted his thinking entirely and a handful of them even changed the trajectory of his life.
Several themes kept showing up, and essentially:
"People want to feel seen. They want to feel heard. They want to feel interesting, valued and safe. When those conditions exist, trust forms quickly." Page 24Nick Bendel was a socially withdrawn introvert and he takes the time to reiterate that this project didn't automatically make him into a gregarious extrovert. He's noticed some people wait for the confidence to act in a social setting, whereas he's now of the opinion that you need to act before feeling confident and that confidence will follow.
Bendel also advises that the more times you do something, the less difficult it feels and after reaching out to strangers on a regular basis, this act of social courage began to feel routine to him as time passed. As a consequence, his ability to tolerate mild discomfort improved and his threshold for social discomfort shifted which unlocked behaviours for him that would previously have felt out of reach.
The author offers advice on how to start a conversation and equally points out what 'not to do' which often causes more social anxiety. Much of it makes sense to me but could be life changing for readers who live in their head, focus on trying to impress a person they're in conversation with or lose time worrying about how they're coming across instead of relaxing and being present in the moment.
I did find myself wishing he'd included the content of his cold call lunch invitations in full as an appendix to the book. I'm sure every reader would be curious to see his approach and find out if he tweaked his invitations as the years ticked by. I also wanted more details on the 500 lunch participants and a breakdown of stats for those into that sort of thing would certainly have earned the book another star in this review. Definitely two missed opportunities in my opinion.
Reading The 500 Lunches Effect so soon after Once Upon a Stranger - The Science of How 'Small Talk' Can Add Up to a Big Life by Dr Gillian Sandstrom turned out to be a good move as they complement each other with surprisingly little overlap.
I think I'm warming up more and more to the idea of stunt non fiction like this where a person makes a commitment to take on an unusual and extremely challenging experiment for a fixed period of time or until a specific goal is met and then writes a book about their experience. Another stunt fiction book I've enjoyed is 365 Thank Yous - The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life by John Kralik and The 500 Lunches Effect is an excellent addition to this sub genre of non fiction.
The 500 Lunches Effect - How Social Courage Changes Everything by Nick Bendel will appeal to readers looking to expand their social and/or professional circle who perhaps lack the incentive, motivation, courage or communication skills to do so.
* Hopefully I'm not the only one who read this and rushed to check my LinkedIn messages just in case Nick Bendel had asked me to lunch and I missed it.
* Hopefully I'm not the only one who read this and rushed to check my LinkedIn messages just in case Nick Bendel had asked me to lunch and I missed it.
Carpe Librum!
