Key insights from
Better Small Talk: Talk to Anyone, Avoid Awkwardness, Generate Deep Conversations, and Make Real Friends
What you'll learn
We all know that feeling of dread that shows up with us at a networking event, a party, or a pub when we realize we don’t know anyone there. The idea of initiating small talk or trying to join a circle of strangers in a way that doesn’t feel forced or awkward is enough to send many people turning tail and heading home. In Better Small Talk, a business consultant and social skills coach based in San Francisco offers suggestions on how to engage people in a way that is natural, disarming, and can lead to conversations and relationships that venture below the surface, whether in long-time relationships or in friends to-be.
Key insights
- • What you'll learn
- 1 The “stranger danger” paradigm helped us as kids, but it hamstrings us as adults.
- 2 Workers in the service industry are some of the best people to practice your small talk skills with because they are paid to be friendly.
- 3 Social warm ups can help us become more comfortable with others—and with ourselves.
- 4 The better you get at small talk, the faster you can take conversations deeper.
- 5 Develop and update your conversational résumé to avoid awkward silences and that deer-in-the-headlights social freeze.
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