How to Get Good at Small Talk, and Even Enjoy It

This is great. Sometimes I feel like I need a manual for being a person.

1. be Interested not Interesting 2. Pause, don't react too quick (Use Paraphrasing) 3. "Tell me more" 4. Ok to make mis"take" - Connection not perfection 5. Be concise - tell the time not tell how to make the clock 6. Use Structure - a logical connection of your points (What - So What (Why) - Now What (What's Next)) 7. Curious about something around and start conversation 8. White flag ending (Tell them it's about to end)

"Nice weather eh?" "Aaahmmm... t- te- tell me more"

"Goal is to be interested not interesting" brilliant.

I remember watching a lecture from this professor like 10 years ago. It was in the era YouTube didn’t have transcripts, so I wanted to have it printed, so I transcribed it myself. The “What? — So what? — Now what?” structure was presented in that talk. Nice memories. It felt like finding a gem in an ocean of videos. Cool times 😊

as an introvert and a socially awkward person, thank you so much for this tips professor, I'll try to put this in action

"Reframe the mistake to be a missed take. What you did wasn't wrong but maybe there is another way to do it and we can try it again" Nice :) this method could be applied to any case in life as well

I use the "I have to return some video tapes" to get our of small talk, I like the confused look on people's faces

Small talk is easy, but today people really don't have intimate conversations enough. This really struck me at a family reunion where come people will only talk completely superficially about stuff like baseball and the weather

This was very helpful. I’m naturally an introvert, but I’m also a Sr leader within my organization so networking is necessary. These tips definitely help. 👍

Mistake = Missed take. Amazing.

seeing as this has over 900k views makes me feel a little less alone in attempting to be human

I'm autistic and I can't stand small talk. I know some are important for building rapport, but I truly feel they are useless. Will definitely try this, because in my country small talk is more important than everything else to survive.

I think slowing down is the hard part for me. Sometimes it is almost literally painful to listen to unimportant streams of consciousness that some people use as small-talk. That’s why I prefer conversations with more depth. The “What, So What, Now What” concept seems like a good approach. I will definitely try that!

- View small talk as a collaborative effort to keep the conversation going (00:36). - Enter small talk with the goal to be interested, not interesting (1:06). - Focus attention on others to reduce the feeling of being judged (1:42). - Slow down your response to ensure appropriateness by paraphrasing (2:23). - Ask questions like "Tell me more" to engage others and buy time (3:38). - Treat communication mistakes as opportunities for a different 'take' (4:26). - Practice concision by getting to the point without over-explaining (5:11). - Use structured questions like "What? So what? Now what?" to guide conversations (6:09). - Initiate small talk with context-specific comments to pique curiosity (8:16). - Signal the end of a conversation with the 'white flag' approach (9:19).

For a while now I'm feeling I'm doing better socially in life, and now watching this I realize my small talk got better without noticing. That's really exciting news for me.

Totally agree, i have definitely been the guy trying to land something. Not necessarily to be interesting, but to feel the other person out to see what they like and don't like.

Love the ending part. Not a trick but actually a respectful way to close a conversation

When I watch this, it feels like you are having small talk to me, and you really put it nicely to end the video. I found many nice insights in this video and I'm going to apply it in my next conversation!

I am having conversations with clients and sometimes it becomes awkward. I will keep in mind all of the notes that you said here. Thank you!!