Key Insights From:
Better Small Talk: Talk to Anyone, Avoid Awkwardness, Generate Deep Conversations, and Make Real Friends
By Patrick King
Key Insights From:
Better Small Talk: Talk to Anyone, Avoid Awkwardness, Generate Deep Conversations, and Make Real Friends
By Patrick King
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:
- The “stranger danger” paradigm helped us as kids, but it hamstrings us as adults.
- 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.
- Social warm ups can help us become more comfortable with others—and with ourselves.
- The better you get at small talk, the faster you can take conversations deeper.
- Develop and update your conversational résumé to avoid awkward silences and that deer-in-the-headlights social freeze.
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