Hello listeners, welcome to Social Skills Coaching on this beautiful May 7th, 2025, where you become more likeable, more charismatic and more productive.
Today's featured book is How to Engage, Connect and Captivate.
Become the social presence you've always wanted to be, small talk, meaningful communication and deep connections by Patrick King.
So, if you're looking to up your social game, this book has caught you covered.
Patrick King's guide is a comprehensive toolkit offering insights on how to navigate small talk like a pro and build deep connections effortlessly.
It's an essential read for anyone wanting to boost their charisma and make a lasting impression.
Today's episode specifically is Master the Art of Small Talk and Deep Connections.
In this episode, we explore Chapter 2 of Patrick King's book.
We'll discover powerful strategies to enhance your social presence and transform mundane conversations into meaningful connections.
We'll learn why reading out loud is an essential practice for improving communication skills and how choosing a role model can inspire your own charisma.
We'll uncover the secret to crafting captivating stories from everyday life experiences and discuss practical ways to pump up your conversation resume.
Don't miss this insightful episode.
Take control of your interpersonal relationships and become the confident, engaging presence you've always wanted to be.
Get ready to embark on a journey towards more fulfilling connections.
There’s more to conversation than thinking off the cuff and creating witty banter out of nothing at all.
Very few of us are capable of doing that on a consistent basis.
What’s far more sustainable, easy, and practical is preparing for a conversation beforehand.
This means almost front-loading what you’re going to say, which has two benefits—one, you’re ready and able to respond in conversations, and two, you’re probably more comfortable because you feel prepared.
But to be clear, you’re not preparing for particular conversations like they are job interviews—rather, you are priming yourself to be able to shine in social exchanges in general.
There’s a distinct difference between the two.
We’ve already seen that trying too hard to be the cool guy can have the opposite effect.
Rather, being prepared is like turning up to an exercise class wearing trainers and sweatpants.
You might not know exactly what exercise you’ll be doing that day, but by being dressed appropriately, you’re ready to respond more spontaneously to whatever happens.
Good conversation is like that—you come prepared, but not necessarily with a script written in stone.
Don’t worry about appearing forced or tackling the problem in a serious and overly formal way.
Though it might seem counterintuitive, preparing well and making deliberate efforts to perform better in natural conversation can actually make you more spontaneous and relaxed.
When you prepare for conversations, you’ll find being witty much easier.
So, the first step to witty banter and small talk is to get ready psychologically—so you’re not caught with your pants down in meeting someone new.
What exactly does this mean?
Think about when you just wake up and your voice is gravelly and incomprehensible.
Your thoughts are unorganized and swirling, and anything that comes out of your mouth is likely to be responded to with a “.
.
what did you say?”
When you’re only half-awake, you’re caught off guard when you have to respond to anything, and you have a lack of focus and awareness.
This is our social status quo—how we normally move through and navigate the world.
So, warming up mentally is about beginning to stretch and gingerly flex our social muscles so we’re ready for action.
If you’re out at a bar or networking event, you only have one shot at making the right impression.
If you fall flat on your face, as will inevitably happen from time to time, guess what?
That was your one shot at the goal—will you make the most of it?
Recall that as children, we were always admonished to never talk to strangers.
This well-meaning instruction might have served us well in our childhood, when we were likely to be gullible prey to sly criminals.
Stranger danger was a real thing to be avoided.
In public places, we plug our ears with headphones and glue our faces to our phones, preferring to keep our interactions with people we don’t know to the bare minimum.
But is this habit still serving us well?
Likely not if our goal is to become better at conversation and charm.
We should quickly let go of this tendency because, as adults, it only serves to keep us isolated from others.
It locks us in a social prison of our own making, and it keeps us socially cold for occasions when we need to be on.
At the very least, it leaves us woefully unprepared for engaging with people, exposed as if we were ambushed in the middle of the night.
A 2014 study by Epley and Schroeder divided commuters on trains and buses into three groups—the first was instructed to interact with a stranger near them, the second to keep to themselves, and the third to commute as normal.
Even though participants in each group predicted feeling more positive if they kept to themselves, the outcome of the experiment was the opposite.
At the end of their ride, the group of commuters who connected with a stranger reported a more positive experience than those who remained disconnected.
It seems we believe that only awkwardness will ensue with a stranger, when instead an unexpected connection creates good vibrations.
In support of the above findings, another study by Sandstrom and Dunn (2013) revealed how being our usual, efficiency-driven selves while buying our daily cup of coffee is robbing us of an opportunity to be happier.
While we routinely rush through the transaction without so much as a smile, the study found that people who smiled and engaged in a brief conversation with the barista experienced more positive feelings than those who stuck to the impersonal, efficient approach.
These studies have two main findings.
First, we tend to think or assume we’re better off keeping to ourselves than having short interactions with strangers.
Second, we’re wrong about the first point.
The simple act of engaging people in short bursts has been shown to make us happier and more inclined to be social, and it will also help us mentally and psychologically warm up to be our best in conversations and small talk no matter the context.
There seems to be a question of inertia.
As we go through our days, we’re typically a little caught up in our own heads, or distracted with whatever we’re doing.
It’s as though the default setting is to be turned “off” socially.
What does this tell us?
That if we want to become more sociable, master the art of conversation, make more friends, or simply be that person who can easily make people laugh and like them, then we need to find a way to move ourselves out of this antisocial mode.
We need to become more comfortable and skilled at being “on” socially—a bit like a well-trained athlete might find it easier to start running than someone who hasn’t run for years!
We need to engage in more short interactions—or what researcher Steven Handel calls “ten-second relationships”—with others, because they have the potential to boost our moods, change our perspectives, and warm us up socially.
It’s as though these interactions keep the social engagement engine running.
If you’re out of practice, small interactions like this might seem pointless or even aggravating, but remember, you might be completely biased and incorrect in this belief.
Also remember that even if you crave “big talk” with people, you inevitably have to move through the smaller talk first.
Of course, though we may now recognize the benefits of short interactions, it’s still understandable how the thought of striking up a conversation with a total stranger may be uninviting or even repulsive to those of us who aren’t social butterflies.
We feel ill-equipped to engage in fruitful social interactions, so we prefer the loneliness of keeping to ourselves.
But if this is your knee-jerk response to approaching people cold or striking up conversations with strangers, just remind yourself that you have a natural bias to assume that you prefer keeping to yourself.
You can probably recall a situation where you were glad you reached out and engaged with someone, even if you were reluctant at first.
A lot of people hate small talk simply because shifting gears into socializing mode can feel awkward or uncomfortable.
But they forget that, once warmed up, the benefits far outweigh the initial costs.
It’s a bit like exercise in the morning.
Sure, it takes your muscles time to warm up, but you soon start to enjoy yourself, and gain the benefits of physical activity.
How do we counter our natural tendency to avoid small interactions and warm ourselves up for routinely conversing with others?
How do we get into the habit of being interested in people and build enough social confidence so we can turn that interest into meaningful interactions?
Well, that’s part of the logic behind only trying for ten-second interactions.
It’s practice!
And what you practice will become easier and more natural with time.
Hey, you can make it one second (Hello there!)
or five seconds (Hi, how’s your day going?
Great to hear, bye!)
depending on your level of comfort.
But keep the goal small and stay consistent.
Wondering where to find willing subjects for your small talk practice?
Luckily, they’re all around you.
You constantly encounter multiple opportunities for warming up to interactions and building your social confidence.
For instance, think of your typical day.
On your way to work, how many people do you spend at least some time ignoring, whether those you pass by on the street, sit with on your commute, or stand beside in elevators?
Greet at least one of those people with “Good morning” and offer either a compliment (“Nice coat.
The fabric looks cozy.”), an observation (“The sky’s cloudless today.
Looks like the showers are letting up.”), or a question (“I see you’re reading John Grisham.
Which of his novels is your favorite?”).
For lunch, do you eat solo, hunched over your work desk?
Try instead to spend your lunch hour someplace with shared seating, such as your office pantry or a nearby picnic area.
Sit beside a colleague you always see in your building yet never got the chance to talk to, and get the conversation rolling by asking about recent company events (“I heard your department is starting a new leg of research.
How’s it going?”).
Finally, as you pick up groceries on your way home, chat with another shopper mulling over products in the same grocery aisle you’re in (“I saw this sauce in an online recipe.
Have you tried cooking with it?”).
At the checkout counter, smile and greet the cashier (“How’s your shift going so far?”).
This segment of society is especially suited to help you practice and warm up—in fact, they don’t really have much of a choice.
Baristas.
Cab drivers.
Cashiers.
The grocery bag boy.
Waiters.
Doormen.
Valets.
You get the picture!
Their job performance depends on their customer service skills, and if they want to keep their jobs, they have to be courteous to you.
This alone should eliminate the fear you have of crashing and burning in any social interaction, because, well, it’s their job to prevent that and probably laugh at your jokes.
You’ll see that crashing and burning is never really that bad, and people move on quickly—they’ll probably forget the interaction within the next ten minutes.
There’s also typically a captive audience behind the store counter or cash register.
These employees are usually stuck being stationary in a position for long periods of time, and for those who have held the above jobs… you know that it’s not the most thrilling life.
Most of the time, they are bored out of their minds, so having someone engage them will be a positive experience for them.
You will make their day pass faster and just give them something to do.
You might be the only one to treat them with respect and show actual interest in them as a person, which would undoubtedly make you the highlight of their day.
In other words, they’ll be glad to talk to you.
With service people, you can test different stories, reactions, phrases, greetings, facial expressions, and so on.
It’s a low-risk way to test the waters.
Unless you offend them in a deeply personal way, these people will still be courteous to you, but you can gauge how positive their reactions are to all of your tactics to know what works best.
You can continuously improve and hone your skills.
You can witness your progress with future interactions.
As you see their reactions change, you can fine-tune what you're doing and keep stepping up your game.
Essentially, you’re in a safe environment to practice and polish your social skills without fear of any judgment or consequences.
More than that, you can learn to read people, process their signals, and calibrate your interactions to different types of people.
This is a process that takes trial and error, but you can speed it up exponentially by engaging with the people you come across.
Even if you do put your foot in it somehow, chances are the interaction is over quickly and the fallout minimal.
So, make it a goal to initiate and create a ten-second interaction with a stranger each day, and especially on the way to functions, events, and parties.
This will warm you up for conversation and build the habit of being interested in people.
Reading Out Loud
Think of it this way: conversation is a bit like a race, and you have to warm up and prepare yourself accordingly (or pull the proverbial muscle and have to drop out .
.
).
When we want our best race, whether athletic or academic, we always engage in some type of warm-up.
It’s almost common sense at this point that you need to prime your body and mind to the kind of performance that you want.
Runners stretch, singers sing scales.
What about people engaging in conversation?
Well, you might be surprised by how much your speaking muscles need help and how much getting them in shape can make you instantly more charismatic.
Recall back in grade school when you weren’t paying attention, the teacher called on you, and you had to spend five seconds clearing your throat while still sounding meek and awkward because you weren’t prepared.
That’s what we are seeking to eliminate, as well as imbue you with a sense of confidence.
To warm up your conversation skills, you just need to do something we’ve done almost every day in our lives: read out loud.
It sounds simple, but reading out loud this time will be different from any other time you’ve previously done it because now, you will have a purpose.
I’ve provided an excerpt from the Wizard of Oz, which is in the public domain, for those copyright police out there.
If this doesn’t pique your interest, you can feel free to find your own excerpt.
Just try to make sure there is a multitude of emotions included, preferably with dialogue from different characters.
Here it is:
After climbing down from the china wall the travelers found themselves in a disagreeable country, full of bogs and marshes and covered with tall, rank grass.
It was difficult to walk without falling into muddy holes, for the grass was so thick that it hid them from sight.
However, by carefully picking their way, they got safely along until they reached solid ground.
But here the country seemed wilder than ever, and after a long and tiresome walk through the underbrush they entered another forest, where the trees were bigger and older than any they had ever seen.
“This forest is perfectly delightful,” declared the Lion, looking around him with joy.
“Never have I seen a more beautiful place.”
“It seems gloomy,” said the Scarecrow.
“Not a bit of it,” answered the Lion.
“I should like to live here all my life.
See how soft the dried leaves are under your feet and how rich and green the moss is that clings to these old trees.
Surely no wild beast could wish a pleasanter home.”
“Perhaps there are wild beasts in the forest now,” said Dorothy.
“I suppose there are,” returned the Lion, “but I do not see any of them about.”
They walked through the forest until it became too dark to go any farther.
Dorothy and Toto and the Lion lay down to sleep, while the Woodman and the Scarecrow kept watch over them as usual.
Seems like an easy task, right?
Go ahead and try to read the above excerpt out loud to yourself.
Don’t be shy.
If you actually did it, you’ll notice that you do literally feel warmed up and readier to keep speaking and conversing after just using your vocal cords for a bit.
Vocal cords are, after all, muscles too.
But that’s just the beginning.
Now comes the instruction.
Pretend like you are reading the excerpt out loud to a class of second graders.
Read the excerpt like you’re giving a performance in a contest, and the winner is judged on how emotional and ridiculous they can be!
Pretend you’re a voice actor for a movie trailer and you have only your voice to get a wide range of emotion across.
Go over the top as much as possible—which, granted, won’t be much at first.
Exaggerate every emotion you can find to the tenth degree.
Scream parts of it loudly while whispering softly in other parts.
Use different and zany voices for different characters.
Here’s your chance to try some accents out.
Make any laughter maniacal, make any rage boiling, make any happiness manic—you get the idea.
For that matter, what emotions are you picking up in the text?
Even in such a short excerpt, there are emotional high and low points.
Find them, or create them, and make them sound like climaxes to stretch your range of emotion.
Pay attention to your voice tonality.
Are you accustomed to using a monotone?
Would someone be able to tell what the character or narrator is thinking or trying to convey by listening to you?
Use the excerpt to practice your range of vocal expressiveness—try to embody the term emotional diversity.
Go ahead and try it for the second time with all this newfound instruction (preferably while alone unless you don’t mind getting some serious side eye).
Did you hear a difference?
Here is some additional instruction: pay attention to your diction and how you enunciate.
Your tongue, too, is a muscle.
In a sense, you are literally warming your tongue up so you don’t stutter or stumble on your words when you talk to others.
This is another reason to have an excerpt with dialogue—the more diversity of the text you are reading, the better warmed up you will be.
If you have the habit of muttering like a curmudgeon, put a stop to it and make sure you are speaking and articulating your words as clear as a bell.
Pay attention to your breathing.
Do you feel like you’re running out of breath?
It’s because your diaphragm is weak and not used to projecting or sounding confident.
That’s the reason singers put their hands on their stomachs—it’s to check that their diaphragms are engaged.
Try it and make sure that your stomach is taut and tight.
Sit up straight and open up your body.
Picture the breath in your lungs feeding the words coming from your mouth and play around with how to control its release gradually.
The point here is to literally breathe life into the words that you are speaking.
Those who speak without their diaphragm inevitably come off as quiet, meek, and mouse-like.
Running out of air at the end of a sentence can signal anxiety—or make your listeners anxious on your behalf.
But the better you can project your voice, the wider the emotional range you can create.
Another key element of how you say something is, of course, your pacing—the speed at which you talk.
Your speaking speed can either be your friend or undermine what you’re trying to say.
Rate of speech can imply an emotion all by itself—for instance, when making a big point, you should slow down your pace to allow the impact to be felt.
If you use the wrong speed or your pacing is off, a lot of what you have to say can easily be lost or confused and misinterpreted.
Rushing can make you seem stressed or unconfident, speaking to slow will likely bore people.
But just the right pauses here and there can add real depth and nuance to the way you’re perceived.
Ready to read through the excerpt one more time?
Try again, but this time, make sure you’re utilizing everything you just read about breath, pace, and tone.
Now compare your third version to the first version you did without any instruction.
That’s the difference between warming yourself up and not, and most likely.
Importantly, the first version is how you’re probably coming across the vast majority of the time.
Potentially flat or weak.
Hopefully, this exercise has illustrated to you just how much of a difference you can make with warming up alone.
The added bonus is that while you are feeling silly and over the top, you are actually stretching your limits in terms of emotional and vocal expressiveness.
The simple act of getting out of your comfort zone, even in private, will stretch your boundaries and make you more expressive and confident sounding in general.
All this from reading out loud?
Yes, if done with purpose and deliberation!
Choose a Role Model
No matter how charismatic or charming you feel you are, you probably started with a role model in mind—even just a general picture of who you wanted to be.
I make no secret of the fact that I treat Will Smith’s character from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air as my role model.
The Fresh Prince of Bel Air was a television show that ran from 1990-1996 and lives on through constant reruns.
Seeing that show and the main character was one of the first instances where I took notice of how someone interacted differently with people, and I wanted to create that feeling too.
So why the Fresh Prince?
To me, he is simply the epitome of a charismatic personality.
He says what he wants, is amazingly likeable, is comfortable being the center of attention, is confident to the point of being arrogant, can verbally spar with anyone, and is flat-out hilarious.
Because of how much people like him and his presence, he gets away with far more than he should be able to, and can generally use charm to shape his life.
It was amazing.
Of course, I knew it was a television show and people were scripted to react to him with positivity, but you can give the same script to one hundred people and ninety-nine of them won’t come close to the delivery and presence Will Smith had.
Again, I knew it was a television show, but it still felt realistic in how charisma like that would affect people in a positive manner.
When I was first starting to diligently figure out the kind of person I wanted to evolve into, the Fresh Prince was an important concept for me.
Since he embodied many of the things I wanted, I was able to grow, albeit sometimes in a forced and artificial way, closer to my personal ideal simply by asking myself one question:
What would the Fresh Prince do?
The next technique we’ll look at is how you can ask what your charismatic role model would do in any social situation.
I know, it’s a little cheesy.
You might feel like you are doing a pale imitation at first, but soon you will find your true voice as a synthesis of your personality and what elements from your role model suit you—that’s why this chapter is about finding your role model, and not just using mine.
Putting yourself in someone’s shoes has a surprising number of benefits for growing your sense of charisma.
It’s a powerful question to ask yourself for a few reasons.
First, asking what your role model would do in that particular social situation diverts your attention from the situation at hand.
When we are too focused on a situation, it is too personal, or we are too invested, it suddenly becomes very difficult to make a decision because the stakes seem so high, and the consequences seem so large.
For example, it’s near impossible for us to abide by the amazing advice we dole out to our friends because we can’t assess our own situations objectively.
It’s far easier to give advice, act, and even be charismatic when we are detached from the outcome and can think about it without fear or anxiety playing a part.
In other words, when you divert your attention from yourself and onto your role model, you remove a lot of the social pressure that keeps you from saying what you really want to, or acting in a way that you are scared to.
Viewing social situations through an objective, relatively impersonal perspective by framing it through someone else will allow you to analyze the social situation you are in and calibrate your next move.
The more you ask yourself this question, the more habitual and second nature it will become, which is positive because you will essentially be able to condition yourself in the heat of the moment to act reflexively.
Second, having a charisma role model (or three) in mind allows you to understand how you actually want to be.
For instance, perhaps you want to develop more confidence and be more outspoken in social situations.
In that case, you might ask yourself what someone like Robert Downey, Jr. would do.
For another trait you want to develop—for example, a razor-sharp sense of wit and humor—perhaps you could ask yourself what Conan O’Brien would do (again, these are just my examples, you might have completely different people in mind).
Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, and has a different conception of how they want to be perceived.
Not everyone fits the extrovert ideal of magnetic charisma, and that’s perfectly fine.
Not everyone wants to fit that ideal, either.
So, who fits you best in terms of what you aspire to?
Men: Tyler Durden, Don Draper, Charles Xavier, Jack Donaghy, Ari Gold, John Wayne.
Women: Sheryl Sandberg, Jennifer Lawrence, Michelle Obama, Hilary Clinton, Sarah Silverman, Tina Fey.
The list could go on forever because we are not all looking for the same thing.
You might even have a real-life friend or family member on that list that inspires you, or a blend of a few key personalities you’ve encountered throughout your life.
But just the act of going through this exercise should inform you as to what you feel your weaknesses are, the ways you want to be perceived, and what you ultimately feel you are missing.
Get the feeling and essence of the person and how they work on the inside, rather than imitating their exact behaviors.
I would encourage you to choose a handful of role models for charisma, and then list out three specific traits you like from each of them.
For instance, Robert Downey Jr.: (1) witty, (2) irreverent, and (3) brutally confident.
Most of our charismatic role models will have quite a lot in common with each other, and it will allow you to see the traits that you are really chasing.
This chapter is about choosing people that excel in areas that you currently do not, and embodying them to make their reactions your habits.
Third, getting into the habit of asking what your role model would do is like donning a mask or playing a role.
If you’ve ever acted on stage, in front of a camera, or even dressed up for Halloween, you may have noticed how differently you feel.
You’re not quite yourself, and that is an extremely empowering feeling.
When you’re not yourself and are immersed in a mask or role, you can say and think things that you wouldn’t dare to otherwise.
This happens because you are literally thinking through another perspective and becoming detached from yours, and also because you know in the back of your mind that you are safe from repercussions.
There’s a reason that Halloween is associated with pranks, riots, and crime — because people relish the fact that they are in different roles and can do things they’ve always wanted to without consequence.
You feel safe, you feel empowered, and you feel confident, because it’s not necessarily you that you are channeling; it’s your role model.
Now, you’re probably wondering how this reconciles, again, with not being fake or trying too hard to be the cool guy.
The secret is this: by incorporating your role model’s characteristics, you actually end up portraying a totally unique blend of characteristics that is one hundred percent you.
Remember, you identified your role model specifically because you admired and valued those traits—in other words, they are a part of you already, because you gravitated toward those traits and not others.
As part of you (albeit a small, undeveloped part) wants to be like that, or sees something of yourself in that other person.
If you use this technique successfully, what you ultimately do is use your role models as a kind of bootstrap to discover your own hidden traits.
Obviously, the end result is not that I closely resemble the Fresh Prince—in fact, nobody would guess that he was my inspiration.
Rather, by using his persona as a step on the ladder, I make it a little easier to be more like myself.
Pick a few difficult or confusing situations you may have stuck in your head from the past few weeks.
What did you do?
Now, how would your role model have responded, instead?
Document these, rehearse them mentally, and run through them periodically so you are able to start thinking like your role model instead of just emulating them.
There’s a big difference, isn’t there?
Logically, after the fact, you are able to come up with these differences, but again, it’s difficult to fight against your emotions and fears in the heat of the moment.
In a sense, asking, “What would they do?” becomes a safe place for you to retreat you when you are in an unfamiliar social situation.
In time, you stop having to ask yourself this deliberately because you end up doing it automatically.
You are no longer pretending to be someone with confidence—you really do have confidence.
The notion of choosing a role model is not only socially proven, but also has roots in the psychology of learning.
It’s known as modeling, and it is a method where people learn by observation and subsequent imitation alone, without instruction or explicit guidance.
Patients and clients have been taught skills, behaviors, and habits just through modeling for decades—which means that finding your role model is more powerful than you probably imagined.
Modeling accounts for how we learned social cues, social norms, and even how to act at the dinner table.
The landmark study on modeling and social learning was known as the Bobo Doll Experiment, conducted by Albert Bandura in 1961.
In the experiment, children observed adults acting aggressively toward a Bobo doll—a doll which springs back upright after it is knocked down.
One group of children observed the adults being rewarded after knocking the Bobo doll down, and subsequently began to model and imitate their aggressive behavior.
Granted, the Bobo doll experiment didn’t have very flattering conclusions because of the behavior modeled, but it does suggest that if we choose positive role models, we can and will begin to adopt that behavior as our own, with time.
Life is a Series of Stories
No, seriously.
We don’t think of our lives as being very interesting on a day-to-day basis, but we do quite a bit more than we realize.
Do you think that you’re a boring person?
Do you sometimes freeze when a stranger asks you something about yourself, suddenly going blank at the prospect of having to say something interesting?
It’s probably because you have the small, day-to-day view of yourself, rather than the expanded narrative—the more interesting big picture.
Imagine the most interesting person you know.
They might seem like fascinating people, but if you picked any random Tuesday morning to drop in on their lives, it probably wouldn’t be all that exciting.
It’s only when you zoom out a little that the full narrative of their life looks more coherent, more engrossing.
Have you ever noticed that an event seems to get bigger, funnier or more interesting only afterwards, when you tell it?
The interest is in the telling.
It’s all in how the story is told.
This fact, combined with the fact that nothing stops a conversation cold quite like a one-word answer, means that you should strive to present your life as a series of mini stories.
Keep in mind that we’re not talking about becoming good at stand up or fashioning a massive epic sage for yourself, quite the contrary.
It’s more about connecting with others by using mini stories about the small details in every day of your life.
What is the definition of a mini story in this context?
“So what do you do?”
“I’m a marketing executive.”
“Oh, cool.
Well, I’m going to find the bathroom now.”
Let’s try again.
“So what do you do?”
“I’m a marketing executive.
I deal mostly with clients.
Just last week we had a crazy client that threatened to send his bodyguards to our office!
I definitely wish I dealt more with the creative side.”
“Oh my God!
Did he actually send them?”
That’s a mini story.
It’s answering questions briefly using the elements of a story—an action that occurs to a subject with some sort of conclusion.
As you can see above, a brief mini story will create exponentially more conversation and interest than any answer to the question “What do you do?” All you needed was three sentences.
And this is all you need to make yourself an exponentially more captivating conversationalist.
Yes, the technically correct answer is in the first exchange, and you probably have it stored away in your mind that your occupation is, in fact, a marketing executive.
But good conversationalists learn the knack of presenting even boring information as an engrossing story.
When people make small talk with you and ask you small talk questions, they probably aren’t interested in your one-word answers or boring recaps of boring weekends.
They want to hear something interesting, so give it to them.
Not only that, stories are an inside view to the way you think and feel.
They’re a foot in the door.
Learning those about you is the first step in allowing anyone to relate and feel connected to you, so it’s imperative that you learn how to take a closed-ended question and expand it to your advantage.
The great thing is it gives you an opportunity to run with the story in any direction you like.
You can play up any aspect of the story, divert away from one aspect, or introduce a completely new theme.
It’s up to you.
Using a mini story will also encourage them to reciprocate, and suddenly trading war stories from college parties is on the table.
It doesn’t have to be complicated.
When you break down what a mini story actually needs to be compelling, they become much simpler to make on the spur of the moment.
What’s great about mini stories is you can also create these before a conversation so you can have compelling anecdotes at hand in response to very common and widespread questions.
The main benefit to creating mini stories ahead of time is to be able to avoid one-word answers that you may be accustomed to using.
I would implore you to cue up similar mini stories of roughly three sentences in length for some of the most common conversation topics that will arise, such as:
1.
Your occupation (If you have a job that is unusual or nebulous, make sure that you have a layman’s description of your job that people can relate to.)
2.
Your week
3.
Your upcoming weekend
4.
Your hometown
5.
Your hobbies and so on
When you are using a mini story to answer a question, make sure to first acknowledge the question that was asked.
Remember, you don’t want anything to appear rehearsed or fake.
But then, realizing that you have something far more interesting to say, you can jump into the mini story, which should be able to stand by itself.
“How was your weekend?”
“It was fine.
I watched four Star Wars movies.”
“Okay, I’m going to go talk to someone else now.”
Let’s try again.
“How was your weekend?”
“It was fine, but did I tell you about what happened last weekend?
A dog wearing a tuxedo walked into my office.”
“Wait.
Tell me more.”
Using mini stories allows you to avoid the tired back of forth of “Good, how about you” you’ll find in everyday small talk.
That’s the first step to being captivating.
Mini stories also underscore the importance of providing more details, as mentioned in an earlier chapter, and avoiding one-word answers.
Details provide a three-dimensional description of you and your life.
That automatically makes people more interested and invested because they are already painting a mental picture in their minds and visualizing everything.
Details also give people more to connect to, think about, and attach themselves to.
With more details, there is a substantially higher likelihood that people will find something funny, interesting, in common, poignant, curious, and worthy of comment.
You’ll seem more human, and it will be easier for people to identify with and empathize with you.
Detail and specificity put people into a specific place and time.
It allows them to imagine exactly what’s happening and start caring about it.
Think about why it’s so easy to get sucked into a movie.
We experience enormous sensory stimulation and almost can’t escape all of the visual and auditory detail, which is designed to get us invested in the outcome.
Detailed stories and conversations are inviting others to share a mental movie with you—and the invitation itself can be a subtle signal that you’d like to introduce just that tiny bit extra closeness into the conversation.
Beyond giving flavor to your conversation and storytelling, and giving the other person something to ask about, details are important because they are what make people emotionally engaged.
Details remind people of their own lives and memories and make them feel more drawn to whatever is presenting them.
People love to hear themselves reflected in others’ stories.
Details can compel others to laugh, feel mad, feel sad, or feel surprise.
It sounds grandiose, but stories really can control moods and emotions.
For example, if you include details about specific songs that played during your high school dances, it’s likely that someone will have memories attached to those songs and become more emotionally interested in your story.
There is no such thing as TMI—too much information.
Share details about all the figurative nooks and crannies, because that’s what makes you interesting on an emotional level.
Plumping up Your Conversation Resume
Previous points in this chapter about pre-conversation have centered around your psychology and your physiology.
In other words, to hit the ground running and have great conversations, you’ve got to find ways to put yourself in the mood for them.
This means warming and loosening up your vocal cords, as well as getting gout of your rut and allowing yourself to connect to others genuinely, for example with mini stories.
However, we haven’t covered what to actually say yet, have we?
This is when we rectify that.
As mentioned before, conversation isn’t always about thinking quickly on your feet in the heat of the moment.
That’s an entirely different skill that can be trained, but what’s easier and more useful on a daily basis is to create for yourself a conversation résumé, which you can draw from in nearly every conversation.
What the heck does this mean?
It means that when you’re in the heat of a conversation, and an awkward silence is looming, sometimes we stress and our minds blank completely.
We try to think on our feet, but our feet are frozen to the floor.
A conversation résumé comes to the rescue because it is basically an annotated overview of who you are.
It’s a brief list of your best and funniest stories, your notable accomplishments, your unique experiences, and viewpoints on salient and topical issues.
It allows you to keep your best bits ready for usage.
It’s no different from a résumé you would use for a job interview—but with a very different purpose in mind here.
Know your personal talking points, rehearse them, and be ready to unleash them whenever necessary, with ease.
However, just like in a job interview, having this résumé allows you to present the version of yourself that you most want.
You might need to adapt it slightly depending on the situation, but it’s a conversational tool kit that you can always rely on.
It may seem inconsequential to have such thoughts prepared, but imagine how excruciating the silence is in a job interview when you have to scramble, think of an answer on the fly, and say it while knowing it’s generic or useless.
It’s simply the difference between having a good answer or story when someone asks, “What did you do last weekend?” versus simply saying, “Oh, not too much.
Some TV.
What about you?” How about how few of us can answer the following without stuttering and stalling: “So what’s your story?” The conversation résumé allows you to remind yourself that you’re not such a boring person after all and that people should have reason to be interested in you.
As we mentioned earlier, we’re not naturally in this state of mind.
We generally don’t think of ourselves in terms of sound bites but just expect that in the moment, we’ll think of something.
But developing and constantly updating your conversation résumé can save you from awkward silences and make it supremely easy to connect with others.
It’s like a way to quickly move through those beginning phases of small talk, putting you and the other person more quickly at ease.
It may feel difficult to come up with right now, but imagine how much easier it is without the stress of someone staring at you, waiting for your reply.
It’s this process of mental preparation that will translate to real conversational success.
What you come up with on your résumé won’t always make it into everyday conversation, but the more you have it on your brain, the more it will, and the more captivating you will appear become.
Have you ever been told by good friends that they had no idea how awesome you were until they got to know you a bit better?
That’s a sure-fire clue that you could benefit from have a solid conversation résumé.
There are four sections to your conversation résumé, and it’s not a bad idea to update them every couple of weeks.
Admittedly, you may never have thought to answer any of these questions before, which means they definitely aren’t coming through in conversation.
Don’t sell yourself short!
Daily life:
• What did you do over the weekend?
Anything notable?
• How is your week/day going?
Anything notable?
• How is your family/significant other?
Anything notable?
• How is work going?
Anything notable?
Personal:
• What are your hobbies?
Anything notable?
• What’s your biggest passion or interest outside of work?
Anything notable?
• Where are you from?
Anything notable?
• How long have you lived at your current location and worked at your current job?
Anything notable?
• Where did you go to school and what were you involved in?
Anything notable?
• What do you do for work?
Anything notable?
Notable:
• What are your five most unique experiences?
• What are your five most personally significant accomplishments?
• What are ten strengths—things you are above average at, no matter how big or small?
• Name ten places you have traveled in the past five years.
• Name the past five times you have gone out to a social event.
• Name ten things you cannot live without—don’t take this question too literally.
It is asking about your interests.
Staying Current:
• What are the top five current events of the week and month?
Learn the basics and develop an opinion and stance on them.
• What are four funny personal situations from the past week?
Be able to summarize them as a brief story.
• What are the four most interesting things you’ve read or heard about in the past week?
Be able to summarize them as a brief story.
If you’ve ever felt like your mind was going blank, this is the cure.
There are so many pieces of information that you’ve just dug out of yourself that it should be nearly impossible to run out of things to say.
Occasionally update your anecdotes, and tweak those that don’t get good feedback—you don’t want to end up saying the same stories over and over!
Why not do a quick run through as well as a vocal warm up exercise so you feel relaxed, confident, and prepared?
Remember to review this before you head into socially intense situations, and you will be able to keep up with just about anyone.
You just may realize that while some people appear to be quicker than lightning, they may simply remember more about themselves at that moment.
Alright listeners, we've reached the end of this podcast episode, but before you go, let's recap some of the key takeaways from Patrick King's book on social presence and small talk mastery.
Being a great conversationalist takes practice.
Prepare your mindset beforehand to ensure you're ready for any chat.
One fun way to get into that socializing mode is through barista practice.
Just strike up many conversations with service staff like waiters or cashiers.
It's an easy, low pressure way to warm up, and soon it will become second nature.
If you need a physical boost, try reading out loud as an exercise.
Read passages with varying emotions, tones and volumes to stretch your vocal cords and get comfortable using your voice.
It might feel silly at first, but this is a great confidence builder, and finally, create a role model.
Someone who embodies the social skills you admire.
Imagine what they would do in tricky situations and emulate their traits.
This psychological distance can give you that extra boost of confidence to tackle any socially tense moment with ease.
And remember, practice makes perfect, so get out there, warm up those vocal cords and connect with others.
And here's a quote from Patrick King that we should keep in mind throughout the week.
Small talk is not just about the words we say, it's about building meaningful connections.