#61 - How to Start Conversations and Keep Them Going

And we are back again.

And something special about today is it is Easter.

And in addition, it is one of the...

And we are back again.

Welcome to the Talk to People Podcast.

My name is Chris Miller, and my goal is to help you become a clear, confident communicator who can articulate your core ideas so that you can live a fuller life.

About a week ago, I put an Instagram post up asking people what are some of the biggest communication challenges that you face.

And I got a lot of different answers.

So I want to use this episode to talk a little bit about these answers.

If these questions don't apply to you, know that there's probably someone in your life who they do apply to.

So being able to answer the questions is going to help you add value.

Now there are going to be some questions that do apply to you.

Now I'm going to try my best to answer them, but if you think of something, don't hesitate to put it below.

On Spotify, there's what do you think about this podcast episode?

You can put it there.

You can email TalkToPeoplePodcast at gmail.com, or you can go to the Talk To People Podcast Instagram.

I am excited to announce that I am creating a Talk To People Podcast YouTube channel.

It's going to be separate from the Talk To Chris Miller YouTube channel.

So if you want to watch video episodes of the podcast, I'm not putting this one up because I just ran upstairs and I don't have the cameras on, but I do have you here on the microphone.

In the future though, this next episode, next Monday, which is going to be, let's see here, Monday, one, two, three, four, five, Monday, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, April 7th.

So on April 7th, I'm going to put up a video episode on YouTube.

I'm going to also have the video episode on the Patreon community.

I want to say that the Patreon community is free to join.

So you can always join that.

You can upgrade, of course, if you want to support, but you can always join it for free.

The first answer to biggest communication challenges is actually talking to people.

Now, that is a pretty fundamental and core issue, because in order for us to communicate, unless it's interpersonal communication, which is with ourselves, in order for us to interpersonally communicate, then we need to go and talk to people.

And I think a lot of us struggle with actually talking to people.

I think there are several reasons why.

One big reason why is that we live in a fairly digital age that is every single day increasingly becoming more digital.

So the skill and the need to be able to communicate with people in person sometimes gets forgotten, but it is growing in importance.

Employers often say one of the biggest things they're looking for in new employees is communication skills.

Despite new languages popping up every day, aka programming languages, we still have the need to use the same language to talk.

Reason being, since we are talking less, the time we do spend talking matters even more.

So, if you are struggling with actually talking to people, you first need to start with yourself.

I often like to think about this, the core.

There's three different things we're looking for.

We want confidence, we want clarity, and we want to be able to communicate our core ideas.

But you first have to start with yourself.

There's this thing called maladaptive social cognition.

And this is one of the biggest reasons why a lot of people struggle with loneliness and also why a lot of people struggle with isolation.

And what maladaptive social cognition is, whenever we are talking to somebody or whenever we are in a crowd and we're thinking, oh, they're thinking this about me or they're thinking that about me, it's a cognitive framework, it's a way of thinking that ultimately pushes us away from people.

We think, we put our guard up even more.

This is why people who struggle with loneliness typically are more vigilant.

They typically struggle with some may say paranoia, but it's not as trusting.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy because they think they're lonely for a certain reason.

So then because of that, they may not be as open to connect because like a self-protective mechanism is not wanting to connect because connection requires vulnerability, but vulnerability could lead to being hurt, and they are already in a place of hurt due to loneliness.

It's a pretty tough cycle, but you can get out of it, and it's really important to get out of.

So once you start with yourself, ask yourself, how do I think about me whenever I'm by myself, but also whenever I'm in a group of people?

That's super important.

Whenever you're in a group of people, do you think people are thinking about you negatively?

Do you think they're talking about you negatively?

And let's address that.

There's two different sides to this.

One side is if you think people are always talking about you in a group, that's narcissism.

Because you think these people want to spend their precious time that they only have so much of to talk about you.

And the reality is, more than likely, no one's talking about you because they're not thinking about you.

Because why would they?

The other side of it is if you think they're always talking about you, then you're struggling with insecurity, you're struggling with fear.

And that's also not the case, because to have you listen to this podcast, you obviously have a little bit of confidence and a little bit of moxie and gumption to dedicate the time to develop in your communication.

Because here's the fact, I'm not a big podcaster.

You could be listening to Joe Rogan or Alex Cooper or Theo Vaughn or Jason Bateman or Dax Shepard.

The list goes on.

But instead, you are using your time.

You may be working out, you may be doing another thing.

But in the background, you're choosing to have my voice.

And this is all about communication and social connection.

So the fact that you're even investing that much time to grow in this skill says a lot about you.

So know that you have high value.

You have high value.

I'll say that again.

You are valued.

There's a ton of value within you.

So don't feel like you don't have anything to bring to the table.

You do, I promise you.

We are all gifted with innate curiosity and innate wonder, and it's unique to us.

I'm curious about different things than you are.

That's why some of the stuff I talk about on this podcast may not interest you, but some of the stuff you may want me to talk about may not interest me.

Yet we can all contribute that to conversation.

So think about yourself.

How are you thinking other people are thinking about you?

And my tip for you would be try not to think about it that much, because more than likely you're going to subconsciously.

So whenever you get the chance to consciously make the decision to not think about it, don't think about it.

After you think about yourself, think about the other people.

What do you think about other people?

Do you think they're worthy of your time?

Are you scared of them?

Do you think they are intimidating or daunting?

Is there uncertainty that prevents you from approaching them?

If so, why is there uncertainty?

Don't you think that they also wake up, and they also sit on the toilet, and they also love petting dogs, or are scared of dogs because they got bit by a dog, or love Snoop Dog, or don't like Snoop Dog, or love Dog the Bounty Hunter?

Dogs, dogs, dogs.

We have much more in common than we do apart.

So with that being said, you're going to have more to talk about in common than you will do apart, but we just don't think about talking those things.

For instance, one way that you could approach somebody, you could say, hey, I was watching basketball the other day.

It was a really close game.

I hope Duke wins March Madness.

And they may say, okay, or they may say, ooh, I hate Duke, dookie dook.

Or they may say, actually, I don't really watch basketball, I watch football.

And then guess what?

We got something there.

But leading with something you're interested in and just sharing a simple observation, they call it queuing or, hmm, Jared Auten talked about it on the podcast earlier.

It's not minimal encouragers, but it's basically you're prompting someone to say something.

You don't even have to ask them a question.

But if you do, that's a great starting point.

So think about yourself.

How do you feel and think about yourself?

And then assess, how do you feel and think about others?

And I want you to know, regarding yourself, you do have value.

Regarding others, everybody's not talking to you all the time or not talking about you all the time.

They call that the spotlight effect.

And if you're not careful, that's a narcissistic tendency, because nobody wants to talk about you all the time.

You're really not all of that.

All right.

So that's one thing, like how to actually, like talking to people.

I think addressing those key things.

And then with clarity, you want to make sure you're being clear.

Just get to the point.

If there's something you want to say, go for it.

All right.

Let's go on to the next thing.

I could riff for a long time.

Zachary Harris says, Talking on the phone in a non-work environment.

And this is from his wife, Lainey.

Lainey, I feel you, girl.

One of the best ways that I've gotten better at this is I have tried to transform the way I think about talking on the phone.

And I imagine the person I'm calling is sitting down on TikTok, and they want to get out of the TikTok jail, but they can't because their dopamine brain is trapped.

So my notification of the green button or the red button answer or decline is a way for them to get out.

And as I'm talking to them, I get to soothe them out of the TikTok trap.

I've been there, I've been on TikTok, and then I have a friend that calls, and then immediately I feel more productive.

So I think a big reason why you may have trouble is maybe just think about, you may need to increase, improve, and grow your talking on the phone portfolio.

Who do you know that you would enjoy talking on the phone with you?

You may not have a lot of those people.

So grow in that, get some more people, maybe just text some people and say, hey, do you like talking on the phone, people you would enjoy talking with?

The other thing is that your social battery may be full and maybe you don't need to talk to people on the phone a ton.

Maybe you see people in person and at home, you have a spouse, and you have a lot of social fulfillment.

So don't feel pressured that you need to talk on the phone.

But if you do have a hankering to improve on how to talk on the phone, I think the best place to start is who you're talking to on the phone, and then how you're thinking about talking on the phone.

You know, the studies show most people are nervous to reach out, and they feel like they're going to be a bother.

But the people who get reached out to enjoy it much more than the person who reached out thought they would.

So I encourage you to reach out whenever you get a chance and just to text somebody and say, Hey, you know, I was thinking about calling you this week.

How have you been?

And they may be like, Oh, I was good.

It didn't just like give them a call a few days later.

Call, call them.

Or sometimes people get stressed.

Sometimes people get more stressed out scheduling a call than they do talking on the phone.

Like if you were to text someone, Hey, I need to talk to you on the phone.

When are you free?

You know, anxiety may raise.

So John Crossco says, beginning the conversation.

Great question, man.

That is a big challenge.

Conversation initiation is a fascinating act.

The reason being is we are stepping from uncertainty or we are stepping from the void of no contact to the uncertain universe of contact and interaction.

If you and I are walking on a trail, I have my dog, you have your dog.

No, let's take dogs out of the picture.

I'm walking, you're walking.

We could go about our way.

You could pass me, I pass you.

And we are maintaining our skull sized kingdoms.

We are walking, main character.

But if I were to talk to you or interact with you, then all of a sudden, I am leaving my skull sized kingdom.

You are leaving your skull sized kingdom.

We are stepping out the front door into the walkway.

The highway of thought and emotion and missions and values is everywhere, and we're in the middle of it.

And it's the world of uncertainty.

So starting and initiating a conversation, the first thing I would say is remove the pressure from yourself.

The best way I was listening to Vanessa Van Edwards about this to start a conversation oftentimes is, hey, how are you?

Or how are you doing?

My name is John.

Or, hey, what's going on?

Or fancy seeing you here.

It's a question.

It's typically an initiation.

Hey, how are you doing?

And I would say answering this challenge is much less about actually like semantics and much less about the content of what you're saying and much more about how you're thinking about it.

I'm trying to think of your job, John, but I know that salesmen, despite making hundreds of cold calls a day, the first call they make every day is the hardest one.

And the reason being is just hearing that dial tone and having to make the call is so tough.

But once you broach that first call, the second call is easier, and the third call is easier, and the fourth call, by then you're flying.

And I think it's the same way with initiating interaction.

If you can do it the first time, if you can talk to the first person, let me give you a rule.

This is a rule I learned from Professor Scott Galloway at NYU.

He said that his dad encouraged him, whenever you walk into a room, try and talk to someone within the first five seconds.

I know that sounds crazy, but imagine you walking into a party.

You walk into the main room, there's all these people.

The quicker you can talk to someone, the less awkward it's going to be.

Imagine someone walks up to you and stands next to you for 30 seconds, and then says hi, versus if they walk up to you, they stay next to you, then they say hi.

Challenge yourself to break that five second mark.

All right?

Robert says, keeping the conversation going.

So this is funny because Devon had said, even talking to people, John saying, initiating, Robert saying, keeping the conversation going.

So keeping the conversation going, there's a whole bunch of different methods.

I've heard of the Ford method, which I think is family, occupation, recreation.

Let's do like dreams or designations or designs or something like that.

But family, occupation, recreation is in dreams.

I'm going to say dreams.

The Ford method is when you're talking to someone, you can always just go through this rubric and ask a certain question.

So family, like, hey, how are your kids?

How's your wife?

How are your parents?

Occupation, how's work?

What was that job you're wanting to get into?

What was that job you're wanting to quit from?

Recreation, what are you doing for fun?

How has that been?

How has the weather been?

And then dreams, like, man, like, what are you hoping to do?

Are you going on any cool vacations?

What are you doing in the future?

Another thing is conversational threading.

And conversational threading is a generous way for you to keep the conversation going.

And whenever someone asks you a question, don't just answer it straight up.

Like if you were to ask me right now, hey, Chris, how's podcasting going?

I could say good and then look at you.

But instead, I'd say, you know, it's been fun.

I'm experimenting a little bit now.

I was having guests, then I was having virtual guests.

Now I'm having solo sessions with me, myself.

Typically, I'm on a camera, but I know on Easter, it was just me and the microphone.

But I'm enjoying it overall.

So that answer is much more robust.

And when I say conversational threading, is it gives you a whole bunch of points to latch onto.

And that's what we want.

So for instance, you could say, oh, hey, how has doing solo episodes been different than doing guest episodes?

Or has virtual been different than in person?

Or why didn't you have cameras on on Easter?

Or how long have you been doing it again?

Since I made the answer much more robust, it gives people a lot more avenues to walk down.

And we want to be generous conversationalists, and we want to be hospitable.

So a way to do that is to create a whole bunch of avenues, a whole bunch of exits and inlets, and make sure people don't get stuck.

So if you're having a hard time, know that other people are having a hard time.

And then in addition to that, whenever you're in the conversation, just have a couple rubrics in your back pocket.

For instance, the Ford Method Family Occupation Recreation Dream.

You can have more like who, what, when, where, why, how.

Or you could have more like beginning, middle, end, story, narrative arcs.

Hey, how has this been going?

Or how did you get started?

How has it been going?

When do you see yourself finishing?

You can use that for just about anything.

So have these mental structures in your head so that you can pull on them.

And then whenever you're in conversation, psychotherm in your head.

Okay, those are some different questions.

I know I had more questions.

I'm trying to find them.

One question I have, that maybe I could answer, is one communication challenge I struggle with is knowing when to hold court and knowing when not to hold court.

For instance, if you're in a group of people and you feel like one person's dominating the conversation, but there's a whole bunch of people there.

Shouldn't the energy be switching around?

Wouldn't a great conversation include most people?

I know some people don't want to be the person with all the intention on them, but shouldn't we at least hear from them?

Wouldn't it make the place better if we got contributions from everybody involved?

We don't want to imagine a canvas, and everybody has a different color of paint.

Don't we want a really colorful canvas?

If the person who has the blue paint is not talking at all, isn't it kind of on us as conversationalists to at least give them a little attention and try and elicit so that we can get a little blue paint on our canvas?

So if we have someone who's just talking the whole entire time, when do we interrupt that person, or when do we kind of shift the conversation to open it up?

Because by doing that, then you're the one who's taking control of the conversation.

But then if nobody's talking, how much should you do that?

How much should you wait in silence to try and have other people step up?

Sometimes I reflect on that.

And I'll take a stab at the answer.

And my answer is just play it by ear.

Know that oftentimes we learn more listening than we do talking.

And I would say if it's a new group, you may be best listening if there's someone who's just like a constant talker.

But if they are a constant constant talker, then you may be best speaking up, not that you could speak, but so that you could open it up more because that person who's talking a bunch, that may be their protective mechanism.

And the only way they may be able to stop is if they're interrupted.

So that's my thought on that.

A couple of exciting things is I have been working on YouTube, and it's grown into a communication consultation and coaching business.

So I'll be doing a communication consultation call.

And it's so cool because I've always wanted to do communication work.

And I got into podcast production because it was something that I was good at, and I knew that I could make money from it.

But now being able to work in communication is like, okay, I like that.

And I think my goal is ultimately to be full time in communication.

And do podcasting production until it gets taken over with communication.

I want to help people become better at articulating the ideas that are core to them.

So if that's their business idea, and if they're an executive of a business and they're raising funding, I want to help you raise that funding because I want to help you reach your dreams.

Or if you're a pastor and the ideas that are core to you are the key principles of Christianity, I want you to be able to communicate them better because you have a congregation out there, and it's your responsibility to communicate the teachings of the Bible.

Or you may be on the other side.

Truthfully, you may be at a mosque and you may be teaching from the Quran.

I want you to make the most of the moments you have when you're connecting with those that matter.

That's really important to me.

And I feel like as we get into an increasing digital age, the value for communication skills is going to grow and grow and grow because they're going to become more scarce.

And there's going to be a moment where we're going to have to flip the switch and say, hey, we need to value this stuff.

We don't want to forget this language.

And I want to make sure that I create the best content possible that helps us do that, that helps us improve communication, that helps us connect with those in our family, connect with our romantic partner.

Maybe you're about to go dating.

Maybe you are dating.

Maybe you're secretly dating people when you're not supposed to be.

Don't do that.

If you say you're exclusive, maintain exclusivity.

Don't cheat on your wife or your husband.

Rather, whatever romantic partner you have, I want you to be able to communicate to them better.

So that's really exciting to know that the YouTube video or YouTube videos is creating a new business.

And I am going to be working on an email, like seven days, seven days of better communication.

I'm going to create this.

And all you have to do is join.

It's free.

But every single day for seven days, I'm going to create a new resource, and they all stack on each other.

And by the end, you are going to be a better communicator.

And I can say that definitively.

So that's cool.

What else do I have to bring you?

Easter was awesome.

I'm so grateful that we were able to host at our new house.

Praise the Lord.

Wow, how special is that?

It is such an awesome moment to be able to gather with family.

For those of you who don't have family near you, I pray that you find people who you can have as a fictive family, people who you may not be biologically related to, but you can stand next to them like brother and sister, like father, son.

You can do it.

And if you don't have it, I pray that you start to find it.

It's one of the hardest things to find good relationships, romantic, familial, friend, work even.

It's hard.

But I pray it comes to you and that you start looking for it.

Also, I've had some cool moments with friends where they're doing things that I'm really proud of.

And, you know, if you have exciting things going on in your life, I'd love to hear about them.

I want to celebrate you.

A lot of you who listen are my friends or family or close ones or loved ones or people I've never met.

If you have exciting things happening, reach out to me, tell me, let me celebrate you.

I want to celebrate you.

That's one of the biggest reasons why I podcast.

I'm not having the biggest podcast.

I want to have the best podcast for those who are the right audience.

And you, my friend, you may be the right audience.

So I want to make sure that I give you the best and that I add the most value.

Now I think I'm going to go downstairs, step outside, and try and make a fire in our new fire pit.

I hope you had an awesome Easter.

I've been riffing for about 28 minutes.

This has been fun.

Probably like 26.

It depends.

It depends how I edit it.

But definitely over 25.

So this has been fun.

Reach out to me and tell me something good happened in your life.

Talk to People Podcast at gmail.com or hit me at talktocristenmiller at gmail.com or hit me on Instagram.

Whatever you do, just make sure you're being honest with me.

All right, folks, I'll be back with a video episode next week.

And we're going to look at why it's so hard to interact with people that we don't know.

Sounds good.

All right, folks.