#44 - Small Talk Secrets: Transform Boring Chats into Memorable Moments

Welcome to the Talk to People Podcast.

My name is Chris Miller, and if you have never been here before, let me quickly tell you, this whole podcast is dedicated to the importance of human relationships and why life is better when you talk to people.

I believe that social connection, aka the quality of your relationships in your life and how often you interact with those people, is going to change your life.

It's not gonna be how much money you got.

It's not going to be your Instagram followers, even though I love when people follow the Talk to People Podcast on Instagram.

But it's going to be your social fitness and your levels of social connection.

So every episode, we either have a guest on, we are, this is episode number three of a four part solo episode series, and I'm switching it up.

Typically, I have a guest on who is much smarter than me, much more eloquent than me, and typically wittier or funnier than myself.

And I am kind of like the dumb person in the room, but I get to interpret for the audience.

But this time, we're doing a solo episode series about how to make small talk more enjoyable, okay?

We've all been there.

We've all been in these small talk conversations and interactions thinking, OMG, get me out of here.

So we got Logan in the house.

Hit us with a definition for small talk.

So small talk is kind of, I looked it up on Google, but it says, polite conversation about an unimportant and uncontroversial matters, especially as engaged in social settings.

So I don't know, like just, I guess everyday talk, is that maybe a better way to put it?

Just kind of everyday talk with just everyday people.

Right, everyday people, everyday talk.

It's called small talk for a reason.

Yeah.

It's small, it's short.

There's the communication research, they call it FADEC, P-H-A-T-I-C.

It's non-substantial.

Some people say meaningless.

These quick conversations that will help really circulate interaction in society.

So we need small talk, and this is where I'm gonna start.

It's why, why does small talk exist?

Well, for one, it exists because small talk leads to large talk, right?

You have to start small, right?

Even with talking, most of the time.

I think about all of those moments where we're walking, and imagine some small talk.

I'd say, hey, how are you?

I'd say good.

You'd say good, and you may even say, how about you?

Yeah.

And I'd say good, and then that'd be great.

And you and I, in that moment, we got to coexist.

I acknowledged your existence.

You acknowledged mine.

And we can go our separate ways.

But if one of us has a wild hair in us, then we could say, how are you doing?

I'm doing good.

Oh, yeah, I really like your t-shirt.

It's got five stars on it.

Yeah.

And you're like, yeah.

I got it from, where'd you get it from?

I got it from Target.

I got it from Target.

I love Target.

My wife loves Target.

Okay, so it can go in a couple of places, and that's whenever we really get picked up.

But you think of the elevator, you think of sitting in the waiting room, you think of going to events, and you have to talk to people, and you have to go from small talk to substantial talk.

But we need it because it serves that bridge of no acknowledgement to a whole bunch of acknowledgement.

Small talk lets us acknowledge people.

We're not ignoring you.

We're just saying like, hey, how are you doing?

You know, it's simple.

And like you said, it's acknowledging the other person is there.

It's just, yeah.

And I think that's exactly how that script plays out in most small talks.

How are you doing?

Good.

How are you?

Good, period.

And then that's the end of the small talk.

But like you said, if one of us has a wild hair, or one of us decided to get a little quirky with it, it's just like, I like those shoes, man.

Yeah.

And I recommend and I encourage people to go there a lot of the times.

Sometimes we're going to be socially exhausted, and that's why small talk is so good, because it allows us to go on autopilot.

Our brain can check out.

I don't really have to think about asking, hey, how are you?

Good.

I don't have to think about that.

I can keep thinking about this stressful thing that's happening in my life, or this exciting thing that's happening in my life.

So it gives us a chance to communicate.

That's not energy intensive.

Now, all of this being said, you're probably wondering, well, okay, that's why it exists.

But whenever I'm in it, how can I make it better?

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, so the first way to make it better is to recognize one, why it exists.

And we just talked about that.

But also recognize what you can do.

And you can do a whole bunch with Smalltalk.

I tell people, the first most important thing is to be yourself.

And then I said this on the last episode and the episode before that.

But our unique personality has a unique thumbprint on our communication style.

So what we say the questions we ask are going to help influence our Smalltalk, even if it's the smallest of talks.

For instance, saying, hey, how are you versus what's up?

Or versus what's good versus there's like so many different questions you could ask.

The other thing that I would say with Smalltalk is whenever you go into conversation, figure out who you're talking to and figure out how to position your Smalltalk to get to a space to where they're really knowledgeable in or to where they would want to talk about.

So I know that you're a writer and you love writing, and you probably have some favorite writers.

So if I can think about, okay, writing takes creativity, and creativity is a pretty popular trait that a lot of people want to have.

Some people don't have it at all.

So if we're having Smalltalk, I'm trying to get you somehow towards that, that way we can start talking.

And one of the best ways to start is by asking someone a closed-ended question.

Okay, give me an example.

Yeah, I always hear people say open-ended questions, which is great.

And whenever you're dating, typically you're a bit beyond Smalltalk when you're going on dates, and you ask the open-ended questions.

How was your childhood?

That's a big open-ended question, right?

Why did you pick psychology?

What was it like when you moved out of state?

These are big open-ended questions.

You could take it wherever.

But with Smalltalk, I've had a lot of luck.

This has worked for me by saying, hey, how are you doing?

What was your name?

Blank.

And then saying, do you play video games?

That's my go-to, too.

I'll ask guys that, do you play video games?

And they'll be like, yeah, for sure.

And I may ask that.

And then they're, boom, they jump.

Yeah.

Like, oh, yeah, because this guy, this is the first time he's left his room because he's been playing video games for two hours.

You know?

And he starts talking about video games.

But asking a question like that, it puts a little bit on the table.

And I think a few closing questions, it's funny because you can't really script a lot of this stuff.

But this is just like talking what I've had in my experience.

But by asking, like, do you play video games?

It's like, oh, what games do you play?

So that leads you into an open-ended question.

And it feels a lot less intrusive and a lot more natural than being like, boom, straight to the open-ended question.

Yeah.

I think also, like, again, kind of going off of what they said, right?

So if they say, oh, yeah, I play video games.

And they say, what kind of video games?

Oh, I play a blah, blah, blah game.

OK, so tell me about that blah, blah, blah game, you know?

And keep going on and on and on and having them kind of lead the conversation.

But you're more guiding it into a way.

You're like, OK, so video games.

We're on the track of video games now.

OK, well, video games have stories.

OK, now we're on track of stories now.

And you can kind of branch off from a certain question of, do you play video games?

And it could lead into stuff.

But leading to a bigger conversation.

Right, so branching off.

They call that conversational threading.

Whenever you have a whole bunch of different things in a conversation that you could make a branch off of.

And we can communicate in ways that leads to this.

So ask me some question.

Why do you like the podcast?

I like to podcast because I like listening to them.

So that's one answer.

And then I could say, I like to podcast because I studied communication in undergrad, and podcasting allows me to actually put some theory to practice and better understand how people communicate real time rather than just through a textbook.

It's like, okay, where'd you study at?

When did you graduate?

How's it been?

You can ask more questions, and we both get to do this.

And I think with good interactions, people are naturally putting places for, oh, let's go this way.

Let's go that way.

That's the beauty of a podcast, is that we don't really know where we're going, but then we get somewhere and we turn off the camera, and we're there.

And we think about that with podcasts because they go up on YouTube and Apple Podcasts and Spotify, but it's the same way with conversations.

Like, you don't really know what's going to happen, but you have to play the game, and then at the end you're, wow, I just met a great friend.

Wow, that really made me feel better, or I don't like that person at all.

I wanted to not do nice things to that person.

And the interaction gave us that ability.

So conversational threading and giving more than breadcrumbs.

Now, another thing that we have talked about a little bit, but it's the script.

Yeah.

So the script really goes hand in hand with small talk.

One way to enjoy small talk better is to be aware of the script.

Wherever you're at, there's a different script.

If you go to church, there's a certain script at church.

Like, hey, how are you doing?

I'm doing well.

How long have you been going here?

Yeah.

Right.

Oh, three years.

Very cool.

You serve.

Oh, yeah.

I serve in kids team.

Or, hey, how are you?

What service do you go to?

There's different things to ask at church.

I think that's also good importance for small talk.

It's the setting that you're in.

And you can help use the setting to start a small talk conversation that could lead to more conversation.

For instance, college.

I've never been to college, but it's like, okay, what's your major?

Oh, okay, what made you choose that?

Oh, where are you from?

Oh, why I brought you down.

It's all these questions that can be based around the setting, and then you can get to deeper questions and be like, all right, now tell me your philosophy on life.

You know, it's just something like that.

But you start at a location kind of thing.

It's very contextual.

Yeah.

And if you know the script for the small talk you're about to hop into, then you're better able to reason with yourself, okay, this is what's going to happen.

All right, I get it.

That's what's going to happen.

Cool.

I'm cool with that.

If you go to church and you get in small talk, I know it's going to end up with, okay, it was nice seeing you in church or something like that.

If you go to the grocery store, you know that the small talk is going to end with, all right, well, I got to get here, I got to get there.

We're here to do a task.

Whatever the setting is, if you know the script, then it gives you a baseline to essentially run it.

And you can meet that baseline all day.

You can do with that baseline, but it also gives you a greater ability to deviate from the baseline.

So if you know the script, then you also know a little bit how to get away from the script.

And I love the idea of getting away from the script.

Some people do this really bizarrely, like so much so.

And I think that there's beauty in it, if you can pull it off.

But I would much rather have somebody be a bit different than be word for word, you met the script.

Right, because you can tell, I feel like you could definitely tell that they're hitting a bulletin point when they're talking to you versus someone who's genuinely interested and wanting to get to know you and using that conversational threading.

There's definitely a certain vibe to that person, to that conversation in general.

And I think at a certain point, if you had enough conversations, you can get the vibe of one of those two.

You can categorize them when you look back.

A good recommendation is to have a few questions.

One of my favorite questions is, do you play video games?

And I ask that to both the men and women, because either it gets a strong response one way or the other.

Video games, that's a waste of time.

I'm not a nerd.

I'm not going to fire my brain.

Versus, oh, yeah, I just played League of Legends for 10 hours.

It's like, oh, dang.

But if you have a few of those questions, video games may not be your thing.

Maybe you want a different question.

Have you ever been to Italy?

What weird question?

Why did you ask me that?

Well, just to strike up conversation.

And pick a few questions and then use those questions.

If it doesn't seem like those questions lead to deeper conversation, then get rid of them.

Pick a question that works for you.

But if you go into Small Talk and you understand what to expect, like you get the script, and it may take a while.

If you're new to a place, you're going to have to figure it out.

So we just have to acknowledge, if you show up to a new venue, a new event, it takes a while to figure out what the script is.

But once you do figure it out, if you come planned with a few questions that you can ask, or a few structures, like there's, you can look into conversational structures, for instance, who, what, when, or why.

Like, who are you?

What are you doing here?

How long have you been here?

And why this place?

Like, that's a structure.

There's a forward structure, and that's like family, occupation, recreation.

What's the D?

I don't know.

I'll say dreams.

Like, tell me about your family.

What do you do for work?

What do you do for fun?

What would you love to do with your life?

Yeah, so those are two structures that you can use to navigate conversation.

I love structures because if you don't have nothing, it's good to have something.

But then I also love deviating from structures, because if you're very scripted, then sometimes you even forget that you're talking to a person who's unique.

Right.

Also, like you said, it's good to be unique.

It's good to be different, kind of outside the box, a different...

Everyone's different.

Some people follow script.

I don't like to follow script either.

That's where I love improv, and that's kind of where improv comes in, of being like, okay, so I'm just going to go in, I'm going to do this, and they're like, okay, why did you ask me about Italy?

It's like, well, do you ever want to go to Italy?

You should plan a trip to Italy.

No, okay, what about anywhere over there?

England, France, you know, where over there would you like to go?

And stuff like that.

And not following a certain script, especially if you're asking them at church or at, I don't know, a music festival, you're just like, what are you doing?

What are you talking to me about Italy?

We're here to see a person, we're here to do a task, we're here to worship, and you're like, yeah, but it's like, I'm not following the normal script anymore, you know?

Because we're not, I'm not, I don't know, I'm not a nine to five kind of guy, if that makes sense.

And can you imagine someone leaving and going, I can't believe you asked me if I've ever been to Italy.

It's like, come on, no one's going to be thinking that, and that's the beauty of deviating in that instance.

Have you ever been to Italy?

Yes or no?

And if it's a no, then you could say, OK.

But I also think to what we talked about last podcast, one of the questions was how to make a conversation memorable.

I feel like that will make it memorable in the fact of like, OK, we were at church and he asked me about Italy.

And they're thinking about it like, man, I want to go to Italy now, and they'll start doing research.

And then for some reason, let's say in the next five years, they go to Italy and they're like, you ask him again, you ever been to Italy?

I was like, yeah, I actually did.

Like, you got me wanting to go to Italy more and more, and it makes me memorable.

That's a crazy scenario.

But I think just deviate from the planned script is being more memorable and being more unique.

Yes.

On the money.

And part of my theory with communication is it is how comfortable are you at being willing to deviate from the script, yet still make the other person feel comfortable and valued?

If you can walk that tightrope, then people are going to have fun when they talk to you.

They're going to be less likely to forget who you are.

And you're going to enjoy yourself more because it won't feel like you're in a assembly line that happens over and over again.

Yeah.

Right?

It's unique.

And that's what leads me to why we chose to talk about Small Talk one conversation can change a life.

And a lot of conversations, they start with Small Talk.

So Small Talk can be cringe.

It can be completely awkward, completely uncomfortable.

But if we know how to make Small Talk a bit more enjoyable, what it can do is it can potentially create opportunities to get to deeper talk, to get to more meaningful conversations.

Or it can preserve us and leave us feeling a bit better so that we can move on past that Small Talk interaction, having already acknowledged that person and create those moments for conversations that can change lives.

Paige Freeman was a person that I had on and I think about her whenever I say a conversation can change a life because we had a moment where we were talking and she said that line because all it takes is for a stranger to say something to you and to get into a conversation and you can reflect on that.

I think about in 12th grade, being in Norman, Oklahoma, and talking to somebody who I never really met and a phrase he told me, he said, you will thrive.

Just three words.

I told him some of the things I was going through.

But the way he looked at me and he said those words with such confidence still sticks around with me today.

And that was 10 years ago, whenever I was 18 years old.

You will thrive.

And those moments are so close for all of us.

We could create those conversations for others.

We could be a part of those conversations with others.

But it's not going to happen if we're scared of small talk.

Like you said, it's a value.

It's important in life to just kind of acknowledge the other person.

Also, you don't know what they're going through.

So they may feel like they've not seen by anybody.

And for you to go up to them and be like, hey, man, how you doing?

And they're like, I'm okay.

You know, just acknowledging them is very, I know, impactful for said person, even for you too.

In a way.

But absolutely.

And the research shows if you can go through, if you have a good social, diverse portfolio, so if you can talk to, there's a lot of different categories.

Think of categories as in romantic partners one, neighbors one, coworkers one, acquaintances one, best friend is one, stranger is one, all these categories of people we can interact with on a day to day basis.

The more categories you interact with, the better your day is going to be.

Yep.

That's the research says.

So if you can talk to a neighbor, to a stranger, if you can call a family member, if you can talk to your best friend, talk to an acquaintance, talk to a coworker, do all that in a day for our brains.

That's incredibly fulfilling.

And whenever we're talking to strangers, when we're talking to acquaintances, when we're talking to these people, we're going to engage in conversation that may not be the most meaningful.

It may not feel like you're about to get a Nobel Prize for the conversation you just had, but you're acknowledging that person, they're acknowledging you, and you get to take part in that meaning-making process.

Yeah, I like that meaning-making process.

That's pretty good.

Meaning-making process.

Meaning-making process.

It's so funny what we're doing is like talking about communication theory and about psychology.

And for some people, they would be, okay, I get it, it's talking to people.

But then there are some people out there who nerd out about this stuff.

And I'm really encouraged by that because there are so many people who are struggling right now due to loneliness, depression, social isolation.

And a lot of those factors we cannot control, but something we can control is how we view social interaction, how we view talking to others, how we view relationship building.

And then educating ourselves on those dynamics and talking about it.

So like with the podcast, we get to talk about it.

We may not be able to fix loneliness.

We may not be able to get you a best friend immediately, but we can talk about it.

And I feel like you can take some of the stuff that we say and apply it, you know, and maybe test, test trial.

I think it's a better way to try.

Yeah, just test time to trust, test trial it in your life for a little bit and see if it does change your mindset, changes the community that you're in, change your communication skills in general.

If it does awesome, you know, maybe you can keep going on with it.

If it doesn't, that's also awesome.

It's just like you tried it.

You tried it, you know, and it's all about trying new things, taking risks too.

But take the risk, put it on the line.

I hope you can enjoy Small Talk more after listening or watching this.

This is for you, but it's also for me.

I'm talking to myself directly.

This has been a really interesting week.

I went on a podcast with the health fitness coach from Philadelphia named Sandy Joy Weston.

So she's got the Let's Keep It Real podcast.

And we talked about the importance of social connection.

And she asked me about networking.

A big thing about networking is small talk.

So it is everybody's thinking about small talk without knowing or thinking about small talk.

And another really cool study is we think about social interaction so much.

Our brain, you may recognize this too.

For instance, like an interview.

You get anxious about it beforehand.

Your brain is thinking about it during because you're answering the questions.

And then once you leave, you think about it because you're like, oh, I could have said this.

I wonder what he thinks about me.

So our brain is constantly thinking about social interactions because that's how we survive.

Historically, we have to have people around us and we get them through socializing.

So it's a survival mechanism.

So small talks everywhere, but man, now I'm just rambling.

Yeah, but hey, that's okay.

Sometimes that's one of the best thoughts come out or the best words come out.

You're just kind of like, oh, I'll just keep going on with this, I'll riff off that.

And you know what?

Now it's a conversation.

That's what...

Yeah, that's so true, though.

That's a good point.

Rambling is natural.

We're not always going to have pointed things to say.

Yeah.

And we just got to keep rambling.

Yeah, keep rambling until you find your point.

Or until you find your track that your train went off of, and then you're like, oh, look, now we're back on track.

Come on.

That's a word right there.

And that's going to be a word that's going to wrap it up for us.

For sure.

So thank you all for being here.

If you haven't already, share the podcast with someone.

Everybody's going through Small Talk, and they all want to make it more enjoyable.

If you're watching this on YouTube, subscribe.

Put in there whether or not you really rock with some of this stuff.

Is there something you disagree with?

Because if so, let me know.

I am learning on the fly.

Sure, I have a couple degrees, and I may think about this a bit more than others, but there's a lot that I get wrong.

So I'd be curious.

Also, if there's something that really stuck out to you, put it down.

That way I can talk about it more, reinforce that, and understand it better.

Thank you for watching.

And as always, what's the tagline that we leave on?

Have a good summer.

It is, as always.

We'll see you next time folks.