Hello, listeners. Welcome to Social Skills Coaching, where you learn to be more likable,
more charismatic, and more productive. Today is April 10, 2024.
Today we dive into the world of better conversations. Based on the book, Improve Your Conversations
by Patrick King will be uncovering strategies to go beyond what's literally said and truly
connect with others. Thanks for joining us today.
Rule of Improv Comedy: Whatever someone is communicating, they did for a reason, so react
to further that reason.
One of the biggest challenges faced by neophyte conversationalists and improv players is reading
people accurately. It’s definitely a skill that requires practice.
I distinctly remember an instance of speaking to a fellow attorney at a networking event
years ago. I had said multiple times that I needed to find the bathroom, and that I
needed to go soon, but he just didn’t take the hint. Every time I would say it, he would
launch into another story about himself. I eventually realized he couldn’t read people;
it was like trying to read Chinese for him, and he was not Chinese. Finally, I interrupted
him mid-story and waltzed away gracefully. Learn to hear between the lines
It didn’t take a mastermind to read me in that situation, but rarely is reading people’s
emotions and state of mind so clear and obvious. Players in improv comedy have to do the impossible
on a daily basis—ascertain what someone is trying to communicate based on very few
cues.
At first, you might not catch the cues. Once you learn what they are, you’ll start to
spot them more and more. As you get better, you’ll be able to see them coming before
they even emerge, because there are certain patterns that always arise. That’s how it
is with improv comedy and that’s how it is with conversation.
For instance, an eye roll can mean many things in isolation, but when you pair an eye roll
with bored body language and a scoff, it probably means that someone is bored with you.
Getting better at reading people is the first step to this chapter’s rule of reacting
to everything, as it allows you to know exactly what you are reacting to. You wouldn’t react
to a story about a friend’s death with laughter, so it’s important that your read and your
response are congruent with each other. Sometimes we instinctually just know, like when we laugh
when a friend tells a bad joke, or when someone shows you a video and you know that you’re
supposed to laugh when they do.
How can you read people better? It starts with what they talk about, and how much they
talk about it. In fact, for the purposes of this book, that’s the most important part.
Just listen to them.
Sounds easy, but many people mess this part up because they’re simply not paying attention
to the information right in front of them (kind of like that attorney I mentioned).
Once you understand that conversation is actually about so much more than the words coming out
of people’s mouths, you start to notice all the things you never paid attention to
before.
People drop hints in conversation all the time. There’s a reason they bring up what
they bring up, and a meaning behind what they seem to want to dwell on.
It’s a useful thought to keep in the back of your mind: why did they do such-and-such?
Why did they say this and not that? What is the point of this story they’re telling?
There’s a reason people speak in deeper, specific detail about some things, and will
continually steer the conversation back even after they go on a tangent. The subject is
important to them and they want to share it with you.
For example, if someone keeps talking about their dog, or seems to mention their pet in
an offhand manner multiple times, this is a breadcrumb for you to follow, Inspector
Holmes. Rarely will people say, “I want to talk about my dog, listen to me now,”
as opposed to shoehorning it semi-organically into an existing conversation.
You’re looking for these breadcrumbs that others want you to pick up on so they can
talk about what they want.
Let me backtrack and reiterate. People will literally tell you what they’re interested
in by what they talk about. They’ll either bring it up spontaneously and on their own,
or speak about a subject with a measure of excitement and joy. Those are your indicators
for how to read people, but they require you to really pay attention to the other person
and above all else, stop speaking so you can hear them.
If your conversation partner doesn’t have energy or excitement about a topic, or they
appear to switch topics spontaneously, then it’s clear that they aren’t interested
in it. People won’t outright say that they want to talk about certain topics, so it’s
up to you to pick up on their hints and react accordingly.
Of course, there is also the non-verbal portion of reading people. For the purposes of this
book, we’ll keep it simple. You have to know only one thing: the baseline of body
language of the other person. In other words, what are someone’s facial expressions and
body language when they feel normal and aren’t expressing a strong emotion?
For example, some people might naturally be bubbly and speak with their hands, and others
might be as still as a wooden doll even when they’re ecstatic. This baseline can let
you know when someone deviates from it, and then you can interpret their body language
accordingly. If the aforementioned person who is incredibly still even when happy shows
a hint of motion and emotion, you can safely assume that they are overjoyed, or upset,
by something.
Again, these are the breadcrumbs that people want you to find, and this is especially true
the better people get with conversation. Conversation at the highest levels becomes all shades of
gray and subtlety because both parties pick up on the signals being exchanged. Much of
what it is said during an exchange of witty banter is subtext and between the lines, so
to speak, because both parties operate on multiple levels.
Here are some common breadcrumbs:
The excitement, or lack thereof, in someone’s voice when you bring up a topic.
If someone keeps trying to bring up a topic, this means they want to talk about it.
If someone keeps looking away, this means that they are bored.
If someone’s feet are pointed away from you, this means they want to stop talking
to you.
If you interrupted someone right as they were about to speak, ask them about it after you
finish speaking to see what direction they were interested in going.
See if you can tell if their smiles and laughs are fake or real, depending on how big they
are and how quickly they fade or stop.
If someone ignores what you say and goes back to what they were talking about before you
spoke, they feel strongly about their point and want to expand on it.
If someone leans their head on their hand, this means they might be bored with the current
flow of the conversation.
Look for how strongly someone nods in agreement with you, and on the flip side, how little
excitement or emotion there is in their reaction. Listen for emotion
The final aspect of getting better at instantly reading people is to think in terms of emotions.
Whatever someone says or demonstrates to you through their body, they are doing it to create
an emotional response. People talk to each other for a reason—they want to make some
kind of impact on the world, or influence your opinion somehow, or simply get you to
like them.
A story about their dog feeding a kitten? They want a happy smile.
A story about being cut off in traffic? They want shared agony.
A statement about their foot being run over by a bike? They want a laugh.
These are all emotions that people want to evoke in you, so give it to them! That’s
the final aspect in a nutshell: proactively think about the underlying emotion people
want to evoke in you, and then give it to them. It sounds like it would be incredibly
difficult to do in the spur of the moment, but it’s easier than you think since there
are only so many emotions that others might want back from you.
Joy. Anger. Humor. Annoyance. Amazement. Curiosity.
If you think about most of what people have told you in the past week, and what you have
told others, that short list covers almost all the bases for the emotional responses
that were sought. They encompass the bulk of the reasons that we share stories about
our lives. It’s a simple switch in perspective, but look beyond the story to see the reason
for the story.
A story about their dog feeding a kitten—what is the reason that someone is telling you
about this? Is it so you can feel annoyance? Amazement? Joy? It’s probably a combination
of humor and joy. Show them that you understand and give them the reaction they expected.
In fact, exaggerate your reactions. Not by too much, just enough so that the emotion
you’re feeling is unmistakable. Just like that, you’ve communicated with someone,
and made a connection. You’ve made someone feel heard. That special something that makes
good conversations feel so satisfying? This is what it’s made of.
There is a thin line between being emotionally touched by somebody's shared information,
and mocking that person by caricaturing their emotions. If you go overboard, you may seem
like you're mocking and patronizing your conversation partner. They will feel judged and insulted.
Instead, jump on board with them and their emotion. If they come to you with a story
about how they were slighted, first show the appropriate matching emotion in a way that
will make them feel acknowledged and validated. That’s what matters first in reacting. What
you do next can be any mixture of asking questions or validating their experience more thoroughly,
but the initial reaction makes the biggest impact.
People have different levels of emotional intensity, and the middle of the bell curve
as far as emotional expression is concerned can be quite wide. This simply means that
people perceive and experience emotions differently, so what you think is an indulgent and overboard
reaction may not register at all for someone else. This is the case for most people. They
think they are conveying a message, but in reality have only managed a frown or smile.
It therefore pays to be slightly dramatic and overboard with your emotional reaction,
just to ensure that you aren’t being too subtle for your own good. Some of us have
poker faces far more than we realize, so exaggeration is sometimes necessary to get our message
across. Plus, a big reaction makes people feel good, as if they have bestowed us with
valuable information. Be generous with your attention
A conversation is a two-way street.
You can't just say what you want, wait while the other person is talking, and then say
what you want again as if they merely interrupted you. It's not just a simple matter of waiting
for your turn to speak.
Conversation is about mutual sharing that leads to mutual listening and learning, otherwise
it’s just two monologues being directed toward each other. Hopefully, if you can acknowledge
the importance of what the other person is saying when speaking back to them, then they
will do the same to you because they’ll feel heard, validated, respected, and important.
This is going to feel unnatural and uncomfortable for some, but if you want your conversations
to go deeper and last longer, you need to play this game. Reactions aren’t natural
to all of us, and we may not even care about most of the things that people say. However,
the goal is to improve our conversations, and you can’t improve if you don’t investigate
new things that are outside of your comfort zone.
One final thing: React to everything. This includes stories, gestures, the person looking
at their phone, taking their jacket off, stretching their arms, questions about the same topic,
a puzzled facial expression, tilting their head, an eye roll, an uncomfortable smile,
and so on.
There may not be a flashing emotion to demonstrate, but they still did these things for a reason,
and if you react to everything, you will show yourself to be one hundred percent present
with the other person. You’re paying attention. You’re listening. The conversation matters
to you.
Here’s a good exercise to practice your reactions:
Pretend that you are mute while watching a television show, and react non-verbally to
express the emotions that you interpret from the characters. Exaggerate these non-verbal
reactions. Be sure to pause occasionally. You may be surprised at how easy this is to do—once
you forget about the verbal communication for a second. We’re all born to feel and
express emotion, but ego can sometimes get in the way.
Rely on facial expressions, body language, gestures, and eye contact. Make sure that
your true message is getting across. This is practice for you to respond to others,
and see what the range of reactions can be to demonstrate that you’ve heard them. You
may also discover that you have to exaggerate your reactions a bit to be understood, and
that something that seemed so obvious to you actually was not.
Takeaways
• People generally talk about things for a specific reason. If you can hear between
the lines and find out what that reason is, you can have deeper conversations with others
that are enjoyable for both of you. • Doing this isn’t especially hard; all
you need to do is pay attention to what is being said. People organically bring up topics
they are interested in, and their body language will very obviously indicate excitement or
happiness while talking about that subject. With practice, you’ll be able to spot these
telltale signs better and use them to have more fun and engaging conversations.
• When someone is telling you something, try to determine what emotion is being conveyed.
People are generally looking for some specific emotional reaction from you when they say
something. It could be anger, a smile, amazement, curiosity, or something else. If you can figure
out what emotion they’re trying to convey and what they’re expecting in return, you’ll
make the other person feel understood and appreciated.
Remember that conversations aren’t all about you. It’s an activity that involves mutual
sharing and listening. Reacting to the other person’s emotions appropriately shows that
you’re paying attention and actually care about what they’re saying. This is why you
should react to everything. don’t ignore or let comments or nonverbal gestures just
pass with no response. All right, listeners, that's all we have for
today on the art of conversation based on
insights from Improve Your Conversations by Patrick King. Remember, strong communication
skills are the foundation of all successful relationships. By truly listening and responding
to what people are saying, both verbally and nonverbally, you can have more meaningful
interactions
and build stronger connections. If you want to dive deeper into this topic, check out
the book by
Patrick King, Improve Your Conversations. And for more tips on social skills and building
charisma,
head over to our author's website at bit.ly-pk-consulting. Thanks for joining us today. See you next
week.