The table was not interested in me.
I knew this within half a second of beginning my approach, but I kept walking anyway, because I had been hired to entertain at this corporate dinner in Graz and I had a job to do. Six people at a round table. Two of them mid-conversation, leaning in close. One checking her phone under the table. One refilling his wine glass. Two others staring at me with the expression that I have learned to translate as: Who is this person and how quickly can he leave?
I introduced myself. I said something about being part of the evening's entertainment. I reached for a deck of cards. And before I could finish my opening line, the man with the wine glass said, "We're fine, thanks," in the same tone you use to dismiss a waiter offering dessert you did not order. I explored this further in Three Tables, Three Frames: Magician, Mentalist, or Mystic Changes Everything.
That was it. I smiled, nodded, moved to another table. The whole interaction lasted maybe twelve seconds. But it stayed with me for months. Not because the rejection hurt — though it did, a little — but because I could feel that I had done something wrong. I had walked into a situation I did not understand, tried to impose an experience nobody had asked for, and been politely dismissed. The question that kept nagging me was not why did they say no but what were they thinking in the five seconds before I opened my mouth?
The Internal Monologue You Cannot Hear
Months later, I picked up Oz Pearlman's Read Your Mind, and a passage stopped me cold. Pearlman describes the experience of approaching a table of strangers — specifically restaurant diners — and lays out roughly ten questions that are silently racing through every person's mind the moment an unfamiliar figure walks toward them. Questions like: Is this person any good? How long is this going to take? Will this be awkward? Am I going to be singled out? Is he going to touch my stuff? Can I still eat my dinner? Is this going to be embarrassing?
Reading that list was like having the lights turned on in a room I had been stumbling through in the dark. Because those questions were exactly what the table in Graz had been asking — silently, unconsciously, in the three seconds between the moment they noticed me approaching and the moment I opened my mouth. And I had answered none of them. I had simply arrived, announced my presence, and expected them to be excited.
This is what psychologists call Theory of Mind — the ability to model what another person is thinking and feeling. It sounds academic, but it is the most practical skill a performer can develop. Because the approach is not a prelude to the performance. The approach is the performance. Everything that happens afterward is shaped by those first few seconds, by whether you answered the internal questions or ignored them.
What They Are Really Asking
Here is what I have come to understand about those ten questions, after years of approaching tables at corporate events across Austria. They are not actually ten separate questions. They are variations on three deeper concerns.
The first concern is safety. Will this be embarrassing? Will I look foolish? Is this person going to single me out, make me the butt of a joke, put me in a position I did not choose? This concern is especially strong at corporate events, where people are surrounded by colleagues and superiors. Nobody wants to be the person who got tricked in front of the CFO.
The second concern is time. How long will this take? Am I trapped? Can I get out of this if I want to? People at a dinner table are having conversations, eating food, checking phones, living their evening. Your arrival is an interruption. They need to know, immediately, that this interruption has boundaries.
The third concern is quality. Is this going to be worth my attention? Is this person actually good at what they do, or am I about to endure three minutes of fumbling card tricks from someone the event organizer hired because they were cheap? This concern is unspoken and often unconscious, but it is operating. People are constantly evaluating whether an experience deserves their limited attention.
Safety, time, quality. Three concerns. Ten questions. All of them running in the background before you say a single word.
The Mehrabian Problem
There is a piece of research that gets cited constantly in communication training — Albert Mehrabian's finding that communication is 55% body language, 38% tone of voice, and 7% words. The actual study was much more narrow and specific than how it gets used, and Mehrabian himself has said it is misapplied. But the broad principle contains a useful truth for performers: in the first moments of an interaction, before you have said anything meaningful, people are reading your body, your posture, your pace, your expression. They are forming judgments before your content arrives.
This means the approach is primarily a physical act, not a verbal one. Your words matter — I will get to that — but your body arrives first. And your body is either answering the three concerns or amplifying them.
Think about what a head-on approach communicates. Someone walking directly toward your table, making eye contact, moving with purpose. That is the body language of a salesperson, a waiter, or someone who wants something from you. It triggers the defensive response immediately. The internal monologue accelerates: Here comes someone who wants my attention. How do I get out of this? I wrote about this in Opening and Closing Tricks Are More Memorable -- But Only for Ten Days.
Now think about an angled approach. Someone who arrives at the periphery of the table, slightly to the side, as if they are part of the general flow of the room and happened to drift in your direction. That is the body language of someone joining a conversation rather than interrupting one. The defensive response stays low. The internal monologue shifts: Oh, someone is nearby. Let me see what this is about.
The difference between those two approaches is perhaps thirty degrees of angle and half a meter of positioning. But the psychological difference is enormous.
Timing Is Not a Detail
The second thing I learned — partly from Pearlman, partly from painful trial and error — is that when you approach matters almost as much as how.
At a corporate dinner, there is a rhythm to the evening. People arrive. They find seats. They study the menu. They order. They wait for food. The food arrives. They eat. They finish. They talk over empty plates. Each of these phases has a different level of openness to interruption.
The worst time to approach is when people are studying the menu or waiting for their food. They are in a state of mild anticipation — focused on something specific, not open to unplanned experiences. Approaching during this window feels like cutting in line. You are inserting yourself into a process that has its own momentum.
The best time — and this took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out — is after the main course has been cleared and before dessert arrives, or during the natural lull between courses when people have finished their immediate conversations and are casting about for the next thing. In that window, the table is psychologically available. They are not waiting for something. They are open. The internal monologue shifts from I am busy to I wonder what happens next.
At the Graz dinner, I had approached the table while they were waiting for their first course. They were mid-conversation, mid-anticipation, mid-evening. I was not what they were waiting for. Of course they dismissed me. I was a distraction from the thing they actually wanted, which was their food.
The Opening Line That Changes Everything
Words are only 7% of first impressions, if you believe the Mehrabian numbers. But that 7% does a lot of work. Because the opening line is where you explicitly answer the three concerns — safety, time, quality — in a single sentence.
Here is what I used to say: "Hi, I'm Felix. Would you like to see some magic?"
Read that sentence through the lens of the three concerns. Does it address safety? No — "some magic" could mean anything from a card trick to being pulled on stage. Does it address time? No — "some magic" has no implied duration. Does it address quality? No — anyone can claim to do magic. The sentence answers nothing. It just asks for permission, which puts the decision burden on the audience and gives them an easy path to "no."
Here is what I say now: "The organizer asked me to share something special with your table — it takes about two minutes and I think you'll enjoy it."
Read that through the same lens. Safety: "something special with your table" implies a shared experience, not a solo spotlight. The word "share" is inclusive, not confrontational. Time: "about two minutes" answers the duration question immediately. They know the boundaries. Quality: "the organizer asked me" is an endorsement. Someone in authority vetted this. You are not a random intruder; you are a planned part of the evening.
One sentence. Three concerns addressed. And critically, no question mark at the end. I am not asking permission. I am announcing a gift. The psychology is completely different. Permission-seeking invites refusal. Gift-giving invites curiosity. This connects to what I found in System One Does the Choosing: How Fast Thinking Makes Forces Work.
The Deeper Principle: Answer Before They Ask
What all of this comes down to — the approach angle, the timing, the opening line — is a single principle: answer their objections before they become conscious of them.
This is not manipulation. It is empathy applied strategically. You are recognizing that the person in front of you has legitimate concerns — about their time, their comfort, their experience — and you are addressing those concerns proactively rather than forcing them to voice objections or, worse, to silently simmer with discomfort while you perform.
In my consulting work, I would call this stakeholder management. You do not walk into a board meeting and start presenting without understanding what the board members are worried about. You anticipate their questions, their objections, their priorities. You shape your presentation to address those concerns before they are raised. The best presentations feel effortless because the audience never has to push back — their concerns are dissolved before they crystallize.
The approach to a dinner table is the same thing on a smaller, faster, more visceral scale. You have maybe five seconds instead of five minutes. The concerns are emotional rather than analytical. But the principle is identical: understand what they are thinking, and address it before they have to say it out loud.
What I Do Now
These days, when I approach a table at a corporate event in Vienna or Salzburg or Linz, I do a version of what I think of as the silent read. Before I take a single step toward the table, I spend ten seconds observing. Who is talking? Who is listening? Who looks bored? Who looks engaged? Are they between courses or mid-meal? Is the energy high or low? Is there an obvious leader at the table — someone whose body language suggests authority?
Then I approach at an angle, drifting into the periphery of the table rather than marching toward it. I make eye contact with the person who seems most open — usually the one who is not currently mid-sentence, the one whose gaze is wandering. I deliver my opening line to that person first, because one person's curiosity is contagious. If they lean in, the table follows.
And I watch their bodies for the response. Not their words — their bodies. A slight lean forward means interest. A lean back means resistance. Arms crossing means defense. A smile means an opening. I am reading the room the way a consultant reads a board meeting, the way a negotiator reads a counterpart, the way anyone who works with people learns to read the unspoken signals that carry more truth than any words.
It is not foolproof. Some tables will say no regardless. Some evenings, the energy in the room is simply not receptive. But since I started thinking about the approach this way — since I started answering the ten questions before they are asked — the rejection rate has dropped dramatically. More importantly, the quality of the interactions has changed. People are not just tolerating the experience; they are inviting it. They lean in. They pull their chairs closer. They put down their phones.
Because I answered their questions before they knew they were asking them.
Beyond the Dinner Table
Here is the thing that makes this principle universal, the reason I am writing about it even though most of you reading this are not approaching dinner tables with a deck of cards.
Every time you walk into a room to present an idea, pitch a product, ask for a raise, propose a change, or introduce yourself to a stranger, the people in that room have their own version of the ten questions. They are wondering: Is this going to be worth my time? How long will this take? Will this be awkward? Is this person credible? What do they want from me?
Most people ignore those questions. They launch into their pitch, their presentation, their request, assuming that the content will speak for itself. But the content never speaks for itself. The content arrives after the judgment has already been formed — in those first few seconds, when your body, your timing, and your opening words have either opened a door or closed one.
The principle is simple, even if the execution takes years of practice: step into their shoes for ten seconds before you step into the room. Imagine their internal monologue. Answer it.
Then, and only then, begin.