How to Actually Make Friends: Stop Treating Everyone Like Strangers!
Better Small Talk: Talk to Anyone, Avoid Awkwardness, Generate Deep Conversations, and Make Real Friends By Patrick King
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00:00:00 Initial Impressions
00:10:41 Make the First Move
00:16:50 Find Similarity
00:27:35 Manufacture Connection
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0871N22LF
Networking events suck, but they can suck less. What to say and when to say to be likable, connect, and make a memorable impression.
Actionable and applicable verbal maneuvers for just about every phase of conversation. From hello to goodbye, with strangers or old friends, you'll learn how to simply go deeper.
NO MORE: interview mode, awkward silence, or struggling to hold people’s attention.
Better Small Talk is a unique read. Imagine the following situation: you've just put on your name tag, and you're approached by a stranger. What do you say? Nice weather today. No, we can do better than this. Learn better small talk to avoid awkwardness, put people at ease, and build real rapport.
Learn to open people up without them even realizing it.
Patrick King is an internationally bestselling author and social skills coach. His writing draws of a variety of sources, from scientific research, academic experience, coaching, and real life experience. He suffered for years as a shy introvert and managed to boil human interaction down to a science - first for himself, and now for you.
You'll learn exact dialogues, responses, phrases, and questions to use.
•How to tell captivating stories and what to actually focus on. •Four ways to warm yourself up and prepare for even the most unpredictable conversations. •Instantly setting a tone of friendship and openness with strangers. •Common and subtle conversational habits you need to stop right now
Become someone who is magnetic and who can make new friends in any situation.
Simple conversation is the gatekeeper to friendships, your dream career, romance, and overall happiness. The ability to connect with anyone is an underrated superpower. People will be more drawn to you without even knowing why, and never again people will people be bored talking to you. You’ll never run out of things to say when you master these conversation tactic
#EllenNaylor #RussellNewton #NewtonMG #BetterSmallTalk #InitialImpressions #PatrickKing #SocialSkillsCoaching #
Transcript
Better small talk. Talk to anyone, avoid awkwardness,
Speaker:generate deep conversations, and make real
Speaker:friends. Written by Patrick King. Narrated by Russell Newton.
Speaker:Most people don’t barrel into conversation headfirst.
Speaker:Rather, they gently dip a toe in and test the waters.
Speaker:If you’ve never met someone before, you naturally feel like you should first
Speaker:remain reserved so you can calibrate your interactions, read your new acquaintance,
Speaker:and determine how familiar or relaxed you can be.
Speaker:For instance, remember when you were in elementary school and you found out
Speaker:you would have a substitute teacher the next day?
Speaker:It was a scary moment for most, unless you hated your normal teacher.
Speaker:It was scary because you never knew how strict or vicious the substitute would be,
Speaker:and you would have to be on your best behavior for a few days until you figured them out.
Speaker:Who knew if this substitute was the type to whip out a ruler and smack you across your knuckles,
Speaker:or ferociously dress you down for daring to step out of line?
Speaker:The next morning, suppose the substitute teacher walks in with impeccable posture
Speaker:and addresses everyone as “mister” and “miss” even though you are eight years old.
Speaker:That’s the tone they chose to set, which is obviously not ideal for you.
Speaker:But what if the substitute teacher were to walk in with an untucked shirt
Speaker:and sandals and immediately address the class as “buddies” and “dudes”?
Speaker:I’m not saying one is superior to the other,
Speaker:but a tone is intentionally being set by each of these teachers.
Speaker:It shows you how they prefer to interact with the students, and how they want to be treated.
Speaker:In conversation and especially when small talk commences,
Speaker:we are sending the same signals, but we probably don’t realize it.
Speaker:We are all sizing others up in a similar way, and people are doing the same to you.
Speaker:They look at how you carry yourself,
Speaker:which lets them know what kind of interaction you might prefer.
Speaker:So what kind of substitute teacher do you appear to be to strangers,
Speaker:acquaintances, and even friends?
Speaker:Knowing you are making an impression on everyone
Speaker:you meet, you should be cognizant of setting the right tone with others.
Speaker:What kind of signals are you sending?
Speaker:For our purposes, we ideally want to send a signal of comfort and familiarity.
Speaker:It’s understandable that you may not feel comfortable being the first to reach out,
Speaker:but it’s too often that this causes a game of chicken where there is no movement at all.
Speaker:We keep ourselves from small talk success by talking like strangers,
Speaker:sending signals of discomfort and distance, and simply acting as if we aren’t yet friends.
Speaker:When you treat people like strangers, strangers they will remain.
Speaker:Setting the tone means making the mental leap to “we’re friends now” and treating them as such.
Speaker:Set the Tone.
Speaker:At the risk of sounding redundant, at the most basic level, this means to speak like friends
Speaker:and stop conversing with everyone like you’ve just met them at a professional networking event.
Speaker:How do friends speak, exactly?
Speaker:I’ve got a useful personal anecdote to share on how friends,
Speaker:familiar acquaintances, and those who quickly make friends speak.
Speaker:It was a couple of years ago, and you’ll never guess who the other party was.
Speaker:We had a short back and forth exchanging the normal pleasantries and how-do-you-dos,
Speaker:and then we got right to business.
Speaker:It wasn’t particularly what my conversation partner said to me; it was the approach she had.
Speaker:My conversation partner essentially had no filter, and whatever came to her mind, she asked.
Speaker:This was refreshing, as most day-to-day banter can be uniform and vanilla,
Speaker:without a clear path to something more substantive or interesting.
Speaker:Some people like to shallowly jump from topic to topic and not truly engage,
Speaker:and this was the opposite experience.
Speaker:The lack of a filter means the conversation will go places that are interesting,
Speaker:emotion-driven, and somewhat inappropriate.
Speaker:(Of course, the best topics are always somewhat inappropriate.
Speaker:Very few topics are truly inappropriate—you just have
Speaker:to speak about those topics in an appropriate manner.).
Speaker:Speaking to someone who wasn’t beating around the bush for the
Speaker:sake of remaining appropriate was refreshing.
Speaker:She wasn’t afraid of asking the deep and tough questions,
Speaker:no matter how often she had to ask, “But why?” to understand something.
Speaker:Often, our conversation went down a hole that others would have avoided.
Speaker:She had to ask a few times before I realized myself what I was saying.
Speaker:There was no judgment, and it was apparent that
Speaker:her questions were motivated by sheer, genuine curiosity.
Speaker:It made me feel comfortable being vulnerable and sharing my more private thoughts.
Speaker:In essence, we had skipped past most phases of small talk and sniffing each other out, and dove
Speaker:right into the deep end and spoke like people who had known each other for a long, long time.
Speaker:Surely this is the type of interaction correlated with general well-being and
Speaker:happiness that was discussed at the opening of this book.
Speaker:You got me—the conversation partner was
Speaker:an eight-year-old I met at an acquaintance’s barbecue.
Speaker:For most of us, we have trouble with conversation when we think about it too much.
Speaker:We analyze in our heads, attempt to plan, and unnecessarily filter what we have to say.
Speaker:What comes out may be overly formal or stilted through overthinking.
Speaker:No matter how exciting or emotionally engaging the thoughts swimming around
Speaker:our noodles may be, what makes it out of our mouths can be downright dull.
Speaker:We stick to the tried and proven safe topics.
Speaker:We filter out the excitement and intrigue because we don’t want
Speaker:to rile any feathers or because we are self-conscious ourselves.
Speaker:Children do not have this problem, and that’s the tone they set.
Speaker:As a result, we all act a certain way toward inquisitive and social children, don’t we?
Speaker:We follow their lead.
Speaker:This is always the choice you have as well.
Speaker:Just to be clear, the point is certainly not to act like a child, nor even childlike necessarily.
Speaker:It’s just to understand that we all send certain signals when we interact with others, and children
Speaker:send very unique ones that typically open us up and make interactions fun and entertaining.
Speaker:Remember not to be so literal and serious;
Speaker:a playful, relaxed attitude like the one you already have with your friends is just right.
Speaker:Be less predictable and give unexpected, unconventional answers.
Speaker:If someone asks how you the traffic was, don’t offer a merely descriptive, accurate answer.
Speaker:Make something up, or say the opposite of what you mean (sarcasm in a nutshell).
Speaker:Play with language and use colorful phrases and expressions.
Speaker:Your car is your chariot, the sun is as bright as Elton John’s sunglasses,
Speaker:and the orange is as sweet as a truck full of synthetic sugar.
Speaker:You can bring in some lightheartedness simply by exaggerating a little,
Speaker:being absurd or going over the top in a way that makes people sit up and take notice.
Speaker:At a stressful doctor’s appointment, a father may lighten the mood by looking
Speaker:at his pouting toddler with a deadpan expression and saying, “Doctor, is it too late for adoption?”
Speaker:You may find it effective to deliberately misinterpret a
Speaker:situation in a completely absurd way.
Speaker:If someone says that they love little kids, well, you can fill in the blank there.
Speaker:Pose hypothetical questions to gently break people out of the
Speaker:regular humdrum of life, or do a silly role play.
Speaker:You’re at the library and someone’s pencil rolls off the desk and toward you.
Speaker:You catch it and pretend to scold the pencil but then look sadly at the other person.
Speaker:“I’m really sorry, but I don’t think your pencil likes you anymore…”
Speaker:Sarcasm is another tool.
Speaker:An acquaintance asks you how your day at the DMV was and you smile broadly and exclaim, “Fantastic!
Speaker:Have you been?
Speaker:It’s just gorgeous this time of year stuck inside that luxury hotel.”
Speaker:Sometimes, deliberately drawing attention to the
Speaker:situation you’re both in can also create a feeling of camaraderie.
Speaker:When you “break the fourth wall” you talk about exactly what’s going on,
Speaker:perhaps having a conversation about the conversation you’re having.
Speaker:Many difficult exchanges have actually been
Speaker:revived by someone having the courage to say, “Wow.
Speaker:So this is a little awkward, huh?".
Speaker:If you for some unforeseeable reason happen to spend twenty minutes discussing the merits
Speaker:of chest hair, this would be fair game to point out as a self-referential dig.
Speaker:How do you act like friends otherwise?
Speaker:There is no pretense, there is assumed familiarity, you say what’s on your mind,
Speaker:you show your emotions, and you ask deeper questions borne out of curiosity.
Speaker:The next time you spend time with a group of friends,
Speaker:try to sit back and analyze the interaction in front of you.
Speaker:How are people relating to each other, what kind of questions is everyone asking,
Speaker:and what are the signs that you are all comfortable and familiar with each other?
Speaker:Also pay close attention to the topics being thrown around.
Speaker:You will notice very quickly that they adhere to the small talk stages from the previous chapter.
Speaker:Some facts will be shared, such as stories from people’s lives or funny events.
Speaker:Then people will engage in opinion sharing and exchange,
Speaker:and delve even more deeply into how those opinions impact emotions.
Speaker:Sometimes it is better to play it safe and be cautious with how we present ourselves.
Speaker:However, those instances do not comprise the majority of our lives.
Speaker:The biggest lesson from this section should be that we are indeed capable of setting the tone,
Speaker:and most of us do it in a way that is self-defeating—but we
Speaker:are capable of changing that if we put in a little effort.
Speaker:Make the First Move.
Speaker:We’re ready to start chatting.
Speaker:Of course, I’m talking about breaking the ice.
Speaker:For most of us, this is what we imagine when we are trying to create an initial impression.
Speaker:To be frank, it’s not that we don’t know what to say—just like with when
Speaker:we forget someone’s name, we know the most direct path to getting what we want.
Speaker:We should just ask.
Speaker:And so the easiest and most direct way of breaking the
Speaker:ice is to just say hello and introduce your name.
Speaker:But this isn’t helpful for most of us because we typically feel too uncomfortable to be so direct.
Speaker:Thus arises the need for sly tactics to accomplish what we want through indirect means.
Speaker:Our discomfort happens for a multitude of reasons,
Speaker:summed up by the feeling that we are interrupting people or otherwise inconveniencing them.
Speaker:We have trouble breaking the ice with strangers, even though it’s such a simple thing,
Speaker:because we create a “they’ll think” or “what if” feedback loop in our brains.
Speaker:What can I say to avoid being awkward?
Speaker:What if I’m interrupting them?
Speaker:Will they think I’m stupid?
Speaker:What if they are busy?
Speaker:What should I say?
Speaker:What can I say?
Speaker:For instance, if we chat up a stranger or barge
Speaker:into two people already having a conversation, we are afraid -
Speaker:•They’ll think I’m a weirdo.
Speaker:•They’ll think I’m a creep.
Speaker:•They’ll think I’m rude.
Speaker:•They’ll be annoyed.
Speaker:•What if they want to speak in private?
Speaker:•What if they hate my face already?
Speaker:It doesn’t matter that these aren’t true—we think they are true,
Speaker:so they block us from easy solutions to the problem of breaking the ice.
Speaker:In the matter of making introductions, we need to
Speaker:find tactics to undercut the judgments and assumptions we make of ourselves.
Speaker:So how can you feel okay about breaking the ice?
Speaker:By doing it indirectly.
Speaker:In other words, having some sort of excuse or justification to speak to someone—when we
Speaker:have come up with a reason, suddenly it’s easy to interrupt people or walk up to a stranger.
Speaker:For instance, suppose that you are intensely shy and nervous.
Speaker:You eschew most forms of social interaction.
Speaker:But if you were utterly lost and on the verge of exhaustion,
Speaker:would you have a problem walking up to someone and asking for directions?
Speaker:Doubtful, and not just because of necessity.
Speaker:You’d feel that you have a compelling reason to speak,
Speaker:and that would override your fear of judgment.
Speaker:That’s the meaning of indirect in this context - you have an actual reason to approach someone,
Speaker:and when we can create one for ourselves, we can convince ourselves to take action more easily.
Speaker:In other instances, you might refer to this as the
Speaker:feeling of plausible deniability—where you have a plausible reason to walk up
Speaker:and start a conversation in a way that no one can think you’re rude or weird.
Speaker:Actually, if they think you’re rude or weird, they’re the rude or weird ones.
Speaker:Therefore, I want to present three indirect methods of breaking the ice
Speaker:that help you feel safe because you aren’t necessarily walking up
Speaker:to someone just for the sake of starting a conversation.
Speaker:The biggest part of the battle is making breaking the ice feel acceptable—it’s an
Speaker:“I don’t feel confident or comfortable” issue more than an “I don’t know what to say” issue.
Speaker:Recall that asking for directions on the verge of exhaustion makes all of those worries secondary.
Speaker:The first, indirect method of breaking the
Speaker:ice is to ask people for objective information or a subjective opinion.
Speaker:These can be very legitimate and important questions that
Speaker:would necessitate speaking to a stranger.
Speaker:It doesn’t necessarily matter that the person you are asking knows the answer;
Speaker:it’s just a way to begin a dialogue.
Speaker:For that matter, it doesn’t even matter that you don’t know the answer.
Speaker:•Excuse me, do you know what time the speeches begin?
Speaker:•Do you know where the closest Starbucks is?
Speaker:•What did you think of the Chief Executive Officer’s speech?
Speaker:•Do you like the food here?
Speaker:The first two examples are inquiring about objective information, while the
Speaker:latter two are asking for a subjective opinion.
Speaker:The second, indirect method of breaking the ice is to comment
Speaker:on something in the environment, context, or specific situation.
Speaker:It can be as simple as an observation.
Speaker:Imagine you are thinking out loud and prompting people to answer.
Speaker:•Did you see that piece of art on the wall?
Speaker:What a crazy concept.
Speaker:•The lighting in here is beautiful.
Speaker:I think it’s worth more than my house.
Speaker:•This is an amazing DJ. All the rock ballads of the ’80s.
Speaker:Notice how these are all statements and not direct questions.
Speaker:You are inviting someone to comment on your statement instead of asking them to engage.
Speaker:If they don’t choose to engage, no harm no foul.
Speaker:You are not putting any pressure on them to respond,
Speaker:and you don’t necessarily need to expect an answer.
Speaker:The third and final indirect method of breaking
Speaker:the ice is to comment on a commonality you both share.
Speaker:For instance, why are you both at your friend Jack’s apartment?
Speaker:What business brings you both to this networking conference in Tallahassee?
Speaker:What stroke of misfortune brought you to the DMV this morning?
Speaker:•So who do you know here?
Speaker:•So how do you know Jack?
Speaker:•Has Jack told you about the time he went skiing with his dog?
Speaker:The idea with these commonalities is that they are instant topics of
Speaker:conversation because there will be a clear answer behind them.
Speaker:These indirect icebreakers aren’t rocket science, but their main value is to make
Speaker:you feel okay with engaging someone in conversation, which is the real problem.
Speaker:Eventually you may get to the point where you feel comfortable just walking up to
Speaker:someone and shaking their hand, but in the meantime, you can get started here.
Speaker:Find Similarity.
Speaker:Think back to the last time you met someone new at a networking event or party.
Speaker:What was the first topic out of your mouth?
Speaker:It was probably one of the following -
Speaker:•Where are you from?
Speaker:•Who do you know here?
Speaker:•How was your weekend?
Speaker:•Where did you go to school?
Speaker:•What do you do?
Speaker:•Do you live far from here?
Speaker:While these are normal small-talk questions,
Speaker:we ask them instinctively not because they are great at breaking the ice.
Speaker:In fact, as you well know, they are usually terrible for breaking the
Speaker:ice and can make people feel immediately bored.
Speaker:You may have had a negative physical reaction at reading those prompts.
Speaker:We actually ask these questions instinctively because we are searching for commonalities.
Speaker:We are searching for the “me too!” moment that can spark a deeper discussion,
Speaker:and thus improve the first impression.
Speaker:For instance, if we ask the question “Where did you go to school?” we are hoping they
Speaker:attended the same university as us or a university where we have mutual friends.
Speaker:The next natural question is a variation of “Oh wow!
Speaker:What a small world.
Speaker:Do you know James Taylor?
Speaker:He also went there around your time.”
Speaker:While you may not realize it, you are always hunting for similarities,
Speaker:and similarities are another way of setting a tone of friendship, familiarity, comfort, and openness.
Speaker:It’s the type of feeling you share with your friends,
Speaker:and the same feeling that can instantly skyrocket your rapport.
Speaker:As much as we would like to think that we are open-minded and can
Speaker:get along with people from every background and origin,
Speaker:the reality is that we usually get along best with people who we think are like us.
Speaker:In fact, we seek them out.
Speaker:This trait is why places like Little Italy, Chinatown, and Koreatown exist.
Speaker:But I’m not just talking about race, skin color, religion, or sexual orientation.
Speaker:I’m talking about people who share our values,
Speaker:look at the world the same way we do, and have the same take on things as we do.
Speaker:As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together.
Speaker:This is a common human tendency that is rooted in how our species developed.
Speaker:Walking out on the tundra or in a forest, you would be conditioned to avoid that which
Speaker:is unfamiliar or foreign because there is a high likelihood it would be interested in killing you.
Speaker:Similarities make us relate better to other
Speaker:people because we think they’ll understand us on a deeper level.
Speaker:If we share at least one significant similarity, then all sorts of positive traits follow,
Speaker:because we see them as our contemporary, essentially an extension of ourselves.
Speaker:When you think someone is on your level,
Speaker:you want to connect with them because they will probably understand you better than most.
Speaker:Suppose you were born in a small village in South Africa.
Speaker:The population of the village ranges from 900 to 1000 people.
Speaker:You now live in London and you are attending a party at a friend’s home.
Speaker:You meet someone that also happens to be from that small village in South Africa,
Speaker:just eight years older so you never encountered each other.
Speaker:What warm feelings will you immediately have toward this other person,
Speaker:and what assumptions will you make about them?
Speaker:How interested will you be in connecting with them and spending more time together in the future?
Speaker:What inside jokes or specialized points of reference can you discuss
Speaker:that you haven’t been able to with anyone else, ever?
Speaker:Hopefully that illustration drives home
Speaker:the value of similarity and how it drives conversational connection.
Speaker:So as mentioned, we typically use small-talk questions to find similarity,
Speaker:but there are better, more effective ways to discover commonalities with people.
Speaker:For instance, we should always be searching for similarities or creating opportunities for them.
Speaker:They both take effort and initiative.
Speaker:Let’s talk about searching for similarities first.
Speaker:We can search for similarities by asking probing questions of people
Speaker:and using their answers as the basis to show connections, no matter how small.
Speaker:Ask questions to figure out what people are about, what they like, and how they think.
Speaker:Then dig deep into yourself to find small commonalities at first,
Speaker:such as favorite baseball teams or alcoholic drinks.
Speaker:Through those smaller commonalities, you’ll be able to figure out what
Speaker:makes them tick and find deeper similarities to instantly bond over.
Speaker:Just as you’d be thrilled to meet someone from that small South African town,
Speaker:you’d be ecstatic to meet someone who shared a love of the same obscure hobby as you.
Speaker:It doesn’t take months or years, and it doesn’t
Speaker:take a special circumstance like going through military boot camp together.
Speaker:It just requires you to look outside of yourself and realize that people share
Speaker:common attitudes, experiences, and emotions—you just have to find them.
Speaker:Get comfortable asking questions and digging deeper than you naturally would.
Speaker:(Is it odd for you to ask five questions in a row?
Speaker:It shouldn’t be.).
Speaker:It might even feel a little invasive at first.
Speaker:Find the shared experiences and use them.
Speaker:For each topic, you can find some part to relate to and connect on,
Speaker:instead of digging around a variety of shallow topics like a job interview.
Speaker:Don’t stop at the initial topic—if someone says they love baseball, for instance,
Speaker:you could try to understand why that is and what makes them such a fanatic
Speaker:for a game involving hitting a ball with an oversized stick.
Speaker:Suppose their love for baseball came from their father, to whom they are particularly close—well,
Speaker:you have (or had) a father at some point, also with a relationship (hopefully good).
Speaker:That’s quite a powerful similarity.
Speaker:Searching for similarities will come more easily in most cases.
Speaker:In addition to searching out what is already there,
Speaker:we can create opportunities for similarities in a few ways—first physically by mimicking
Speaker:people’s body language, voice tonality, rate of speech, and overall manner of appearance.
Speaker:This is known as mirroring, and it has also been shown to
Speaker:produce feelings of positivity when tested (Anderson, 1998).
Speaker:All you have to do is arrange yourself to resemble others in order to benefit
Speaker:from feelings of similarity, from how they are posed to how they gesture.
Speaker:You can mirror their words, their tone of voice, and their mannerisms.
Speaker:Keep in mind that mirroring is not just about reflecting the person on a wholesale basis.
Speaker:Instead, it is all about communicating to them
Speaker:that you share similar values and have the potential to connect intimately.
Speaker:You can mirror physical signals, gestures, tics, and mannerisms.
Speaker:For example, if you notice that someone uses a lot of gestures when talking, you should do the same.
Speaker:Similarly, if you notice that someone’s body language involves a lot of leaning
Speaker:and crossing of arms, you should follow their lead.
Speaker:You can mirror their verbal expressions and expressiveness—tone of voice, inflection,
Speaker:word choice, slang and vocabulary, emotional intonation, and excitement and energy.
Speaker:This has the overall effect of making people feel more heard, feel more subconsciously comfortable
Speaker:and familiar with you, and fostering feelings of closeness relatively quickly.
Speaker:The second way to create opportunities for similarities is to ensure that you share a
Speaker:healthy amount of personal information and divulge details—probably more than what you are used to.
Speaker:What did you do last month?
Speaker:Statement one - You went skiing last month.
Speaker:Statement two - You went skiing last month with your two brothers and you almost broke your foot.
Speaker:Thank goodness you have a background in dance so you
Speaker:were able to keep yourself from serious injury.
Speaker:Which of those stories is easier to relate to and find a similarity with?
Speaker:Obviously, the second version since there is literally four times as much information.
Speaker:If you are having trouble connecting with others,
Speaker:it’s likely you are expecting to find a similarity without sharing anything yourself.
Speaker:Let’s do another one.
Speaker:How does your week look?
Speaker:Statement one - This week seems pretty busy.
Speaker:Statement two - Pretty busy, my mother-in-law is coming into town so that should be “fun.".
Speaker:I think I also need to find a cobbler and an ice-cream cake for a party I’m going to.
Speaker:If sharing even this amount of detail feels uncomfortable and unnatural for you,
Speaker:it’s a sign you probably don’t give your conversation partners much to work with,
Speaker:and you are essentially dropping the conversational ball when it is hit back to you.
Speaker:You may be the cause of awkward silence more often than not, because others will expect a
Speaker:back and forth flow, but they end up doing all the work while you wonder what’s wrong.
Speaker:In other words, get used to this feeling of discomfort
Speaker:because it’s something you need to improve upon.
Speaker:Aside from searching for similarities and creating opportunities for them,
Speaker:consider that mutual dislike is a useful bonding agent.
Speaker:Have you noticed that it is sometimes impossible for the conversation to remain positive,
Speaker:and the conversation will veer into a set of complaints about something you both dislike?
Speaker:Simply put, mutual dislike creates a sense
Speaker:of excitement that can often be more powerful than mutual like.
Speaker:For instance, discovering that you both went to the same restaurant,
Speaker:were served by the same waiter, and both hated him.
Speaker:It’s easy to discount these interactions
Speaker:because people think talking about negativity is a negative thing.
Speaker:However, it’s not negative to talk about negativity because it’s an emotion like
Speaker:any other, and the more emotion you can generate in your interaction,
Speaker:the greater an impression you will make.
Speaker:What’s ultimately important is seeing eye-to-eye in some fashion,
Speaker:preferably one that is about your opinions, views, emotions, or choices/decisions.
Speaker:They can be positive or negative—the goal is just to converge on something.
Speaker:Manufacture Connection.
Speaker:Sometimes, despite all the groundwork you’ve put into setting a friendly tone, making the first
Speaker:move, and even digging out some underrated similarities, people won’t engage too much.
Speaker:Some people just aren’t very forthcoming.
Speaker:Conversing with them can be like talking to walls for no apparent reason.
Speaker:You can ask them something seemingly innocent,
Speaker:and they just dodge, demur, or give you a one-word answer.
Speaker:Whatever the case, conversation has now come to a full stop.
Speaker:Unfortunately, they have set the tone to treat you as a stranger and hold you
Speaker:at arm’s length, which is something we are making sure we don’t do ourselves.
Speaker:The reasons for this can vary, but most of them are not related to you.
Speaker:Moreover, often we cannot control this.
Speaker:But that’s okay, there are ways to move past this type of engagement (if you are
Speaker:certain that they are actually interested in engaging with you,
Speaker:versus stonewalling you in the hopes that you leave them alone).
Speaker:In a sense, this is you manufacturing a connection out of nothing at all—at least,
Speaker:whatever your conversation/small talk partner is giving you.
Speaker:This is where the practice of elicitation comes in.
Speaker:It is a type of questioning that uses a specific
Speaker:conversational style to encourage people to share and speak more.
Speaker:It was originally developed by the Federal Bureau
Speaker:of Investigation (FBI) for use during interrogations,
Speaker:but was quickly adopted by corporate spies to obtain confidential information from competitors.
Speaker:Its origins will probably give you pause,
Speaker:but all of these techniques can be used for both good and evil.
Speaker:The methods themselves are neutral and are a result of taking a look into the human psyche.
Speaker:To use elicitation, you make a statement that
Speaker:plays on the other person’s desire to respond for a variety of reasons.
Speaker:The other person will feel driven to respond, even if they had no prior interest in engaging.
Speaker:They will almost feel like they have no choice.
Speaker:A direct question will not always get an answer; thus,
Speaker:it becomes important to ask indirect questions to encourage opening up and creating engagement.
Speaker:Here is an example of how elicitation works.
Speaker:You are trying to plan a surprise party for someone, so you need to know his schedule,
Speaker:his friends’ contact information, and his food and drink preferences.
Speaker:Of course, you can’t ask him for this information directly.
Speaker:So how might you indirectly obtain this information from him?
Speaker:Ellen Naylor, in her 2016 book Win/Loss Analysis,
Speaker:wrote about a few elicitation techniques to get people talking.
Speaker:Recognition.
Speaker:People thrive when you recognize something good about them.
Speaker:Mention “I love your sweater” and you will get a story about how the wearer obtained the sweater.
Speaker:Mention “You are very thorough” and you will get a story about how the
Speaker:person went to military school and learned to be thorough at all times.
Speaker:They may have been tight-lipped before, but any chance to enhance praise is welcome.
Speaker:People have a natural desire to feel recognized and appreciated,
Speaker:so give them an opening to show off a little.
Speaker:You can also show appreciation to someone and compliment them.
Speaker:This is similar to recognition;
Speaker:people rarely turn down an opportunity to explain their accomplishments.
Speaker:Complaining.
Speaker:We’ve covered this a bit in talking about how people love mutual dislike.
Speaker:People also love to complain,
Speaker:so it is easy to get someone to open up by giving them something to commiserate with.
Speaker:You complain first, and they will jump at the opportunity.
Speaker:If they don’t join in, they might open up the other way
Speaker:by feeling compelled to defend what you are complaining about.
Speaker:Either way, you’ve opened them up.
Speaker:You might tell someone at work, “I hate these long hours without overtime pay,”
Speaker:and he will agree and go into more detail about how he needs money from not being paid enough.
Speaker:This may lead him to disclose more about his home life and
Speaker:how many kids he has and marital issues he has related to finances.
Speaker:It may also lead him to defend the long hours.
Speaker:Either way, you have more information now.
Speaker:Key to this technique is creating a safe environment for people to brag,
Speaker:complain, or show other raw emotion.
Speaker:If you complain first, you establish a judgment-free zone.
Speaker:They don’t feel like they will get in trouble with you.
Speaker:You don’t have to complain to kickstart this;
Speaker:just express your own negative emotions, vulnerabilities, or disappointments.
Speaker:Correction.
Speaker:People love to be right.
Speaker:This is truly the backbone of any Internet argument.
Speaker:So if you say something wrong, they will gladly jump at the chance to correct you.
Speaker:If you give people an opportunity to flex their ego, most will seize it happily.
Speaker:An easy way to do this is to state something you know to
Speaker:be obviously incorrect to see if they will step in and break their silence.
Speaker:See if they can resist this primal urge.
Speaker:Naïveté.
Speaker:To be clear, this does not mean to act stupid;
Speaker:it means to act like you’re on the cusp of understanding.
Speaker:Acting naïve makes people feel compelled to teach, instruct, and show off their knowledge.
Speaker:People just can’t resist enlightening you, especially if you’re 95 percent of
Speaker:the way there and all people have to do is figuratively finish your sentence.
Speaker:“I understand most of this theory, but there’s just this one thing I’m unclear on.
Speaker:It could mean so many things…” People won’t be able to stop themselves from jumping in.
Speaker:In the spirit of elicitation, here are a few indirect methods that
Speaker:I’ve discovered work quite well for me personally.
Speaker:When you ask a question you think may not be answered,
Speaker:act as if they answered it and react to that hypothetical answer.
Speaker:You - So I hear that project didn’t go so well at work?
Speaker:Bob - Yeah.
Speaker:Not great.
Speaker:You - Yeah, I heard things were going excellent minus that little snafu at the end of the quarter.
Speaker:But that’s no one’s fault.
Speaker:That part of the project is super complex.
Speaker:It’s crazy.
Speaker:I can’t believe it even got the green light.
Speaker:When you put all of this on the table, it’s going to be nearly irresistible
Speaker:for them to step in and answer, reply, correct, confirm, or deny.
Speaker:That’s the important part—you are (1) asking a question, (2) acting as if they answered
Speaker:the question, and (3) then seeing how they react to your assumption of their answer.
Speaker:Don’t wait for them to react to your question;
Speaker:just give them the opportunity to react to your subsequent answer.
Speaker:The premise here is that even if they don’t want to talk to you,
Speaker:they’ll be forced to engage and step in to intervene in some way.
Speaker:You may not get the merriest of answers, but the important thing is that you’ve gotten them
Speaker:to open their traps in the first place, and that can be the hardest part of all.
Speaker:There’s another variation on this method of getting people to engage or otherwise speak up.
Speaker:When you ask someone a question,
Speaker:assume they are going to answer a certain way and keep elaborating on that sentiment.
Speaker:Again, if you’re lucky, people will feel compelled
Speaker:to correct you and clarify what their actual answer to the question is.
Speaker:You - So how was the vacation?
Speaker:I bet it was terrible with all of those worms and alligators.
Speaker:I hate the water and humidity so much.
Speaker:Bobby - Well, actually….
Speaker:Gotcha!
Speaker:In the same vein, you can elicit people to speak and open up more by talking
Speaker:about something you know is obviously wrong and waiting for them to jump in.
Speaker:You - That relationship seemed so good because he has a nice car, right?
Speaker:That’s all you need.
Speaker:I guess when it’s a Corvette it’s enough.
Speaker:Money is life.
Speaker:Bobby - Well, actually….
Speaker:These methods capitalize on people’s instinct to set the record straight.
Speaker:Even if they don’t want to talk about something,
Speaker:they don’t want the incorrect or negative perception floating around about them.
Speaker:If you were only getting one word out of them, and you are able to eke two
Speaker:sentences out of them by using this tactic, consider it a win to keep building on.
Speaker:Remember that the tone of an exchange is something you have 100 percent ability to set.
Speaker:Many of us feel that conversations are a matter of luck—you strike it lucky by finding a mutual
Speaker:topic of interest or similarity, and those instances are necessary to create rapport.
Speaker:Of course, if you believe this to be the case, it will be the case for you.
Speaker:Takeaways -
Speaker:•What determines whether you hit it off with someone?
Speaker:It’s not circumstantial; rather,
Speaker:it’s a matter of you taking charge and setting the tone to be friendly and open.
Speaker:Most people treat others like strangers and thus won’t become friends.
Speaker:So change that script from the very beginning,
Speaker:put people at ease and let them be comfortable around you.
Speaker:•The first way to set the tone is to speak like friends - topic-wise,
Speaker:tone-wise, and even privacy-wise.
Speaker:People will go along with the tone you set as long as you aren’t outright offensive.
Speaker:A powerful aspect of this is showing emotion as friends do, instead of filtering yourself
Speaker:and putting up a wall for the literal purpose of keeping people insulated at a distance.
Speaker:And stop being so darned literal and serious.
Speaker:A conversation does not have to be about sharing facts, and some
Speaker:comments can be used solely for the purpose of seeing how the other person will react.
Speaker:•Another aspect of setting the right tone is to search
Speaker:for similarities and also allow the opportunity to create them.
Speaker:When people observe similarity,
Speaker:they instantly open up and embrace it because it is a reflection of themselves.
Speaker:There are only good assumptions and connotations, so we should actively seek them out.
Speaker:You can do this by digging more deeply into people’s
Speaker:lives and asking questions to find seemingly unrelated similarities,
Speaker:divulging more information yourself, and also mirroring them physically.
Speaker:Also, don’t discount the value of mutual dislike—it’s not
Speaker:negative to talk about negative things, per se.
Speaker:•Finally, even if you follow these steps,
Speaker:sometimes people either aren’t willing to engage or not good at opening up themselves.
Speaker:You can blast past this by using forms of elicitation, in which you put forth
Speaker:a topic or question in a way that a person will feel compelled to engage or elaborate.
Speaker:These take the form of prompting the person to reply to your recognition,
Speaker:encouraging mutual complaining,
Speaker:assisting your naiveté, and correcting your incorrect assumption or information.
Speaker:This has been Better Small Talk. Talk to anyone, avoid awkwardness, generate deep conversations,
Speaker:and make real friends.
