Mastering the Art of Conversation: Tips and Tricks for Better Communication | Jamila Musayeva

foreign an international social etiquette consultant and author of etiquette books Erica the least you need to know and afternoon tea etiquette if you would like to order my books please make sure to email me at info germanmissiba.com I'll also link it down below in the description box if you are a new viewer on my channel welcome here I talk about etiquette soft skills self-development I do book reviews so if you're interested in all of that make sure to subscribe and hit the Bell button so you get notified every time I upload a new video and if you're a returning viewer welcome back to my channel I'm delighted to see you here in today's video I'll talk about 10 golden rules of small talk small talk is a huge part of etiquette course it is one of the most important aspects when it comes to socializing making friends you know making business contacts and really being there out and about and meeting people small talk is crucial and we'll talk about what a small talk as well as what are some 10 golden rules you need to keep in mind when handling a small talk if you really want to get the idea of what small talk is about and really understand how to handle it I recommend you buy this book it's called The Serious Business of small talk this is a book that I've posted that I'm reading it and a lot of people ask me what is the book that you're reading so it was this book and I really liked it there are a lot of interesting information about small talk and how to handle it so today's video is going to be a mix of the information I've gathered from this book as well as the knowledge I've received over the years of working as an etiquette coach first things first what is a small talk small talk as the name suggests is the short light talk that you have with someone before delving into a more deeper and more dense conversation so it's in a way it's a warm-up for a much bigger conversation you handle small talk on a daily basis with people you meet for the first time or perhaps you know the colleague that you have been I haven't seen in a while or maybe in the office you went to someone you have a little small talk and then you delve into much deeper conversation small talk is something we have to do on a daily basis and we have to do it regardless our profession also small talk is not really about revealing your knowledge in a given subject it's not about you showing your smartness or showing how bright you are in a given subject it's really about showing who you are as a person it reveals a lot your character and your Humanity so it's sometimes more difficult even than the conversation the bigger conversation because you might be the best expert in the field and able to handle the bigger conversation but you might be very awkward at small talk so this video is geared towards people that need to learn how to become better at small talk first things first you cannot start a small talk without greeting people around you Small Talk starts with hello and hello is the first word towards world you greet the people that you see that initiates you into a small talk who greets whom is another question and that is very much about etiquette if you are in a business setting so this is a business etiquette the people of a lower rank will greet the people of a higher rank so if you see your boss in a corridor you must greet them if you see someone who is higher than you in a certain position then you would say hello first however if you're in a social setting so this is a part of your attending and it has nothing to do with your work then other things will matter men greet women and younger ones great Elder ones so the priority is given first to women and then to the age and whereas in business etiquette it's the ranking that matters the most remember who greets whom and don't forget to say hello also if you are the person that enters the room of people that are already seated then you're the one that has to greet everyone in the room so suppose you enter a lecture hall you have to greet the rest of the people seated there you walk into a business room business meeting room and everyone is seated then you're the one that has to greet everyone if you start reading them with hello and a handshake you have to go and greet every single person in that room with a Hello and a handshake you can't just hang trick one person and leave the rest out either you don't hand check anyone or you handshake everyone want and greet everyone equally the second essential rule of a small talk once you have greeted the people around you is exchanging names exchanging name is a centered piece of early introductions you cannot start a small talk without exchanging names it's important to remember the name of the person that you're greeting and I'll talk a little bit about what are some techniques that you can use to remember the names better the first technique that you can use is called associations what you can do is try to remember the name of the person with something that is familiar to you so perhaps someone is called Robert and you have a friend that's Robert and you can tie something in common between him and this new robber that you met associations are great for people that have been using it in learning languages like I have or you know you've been using Association in other aspects of your life but if it's something that confuses you then perhaps what you could do is try repeating their names within the first hour of meeting them try to incorporate their names while you're having a small talk with them continuously say Robert what you said is really interesting I would like to know more Robert what an interesting idea or Robert was really nice meeting you the more you use that name within the first hour of meeting the likelihood of you remembering the name is much higher another way of remembering the name is introducing the person that you've just met to someone else you know how they say that when you learn something teach it to someone else that way you're going to remember it better yourself and it's true about remembering the names if you've just learned the name try introducing that person to someone else so you can better remember their name in fact studies show that nothing is more attractive to a person than their own name hearing our own name sootheses us and makes us feel closer to the person that uses our name in fact a technique that I have taught a lot of my students is when you see that you're losing someone's interest while you're having a conversation or you really want to attract their attention start by saying their name out loud so say someone is talking you're talking and someone is dozing off and you see they're gazing away use their name immediately that will bring their attention back to you and then you can continue saying what you want to be heard Point number three when it comes to Small Talk is keeping it super light it's the killer of a conversation a killer of a small talk when someone asks you an innocent question something super light and you go into a very depth in-depth explanation of an issue no one wants that in a small dog small dog has to be small has to be lied has to be very easy doesn't have to overwhelm the person that is listening to you people really don't like long narratives if you want to explain or share a story keep it very short and brief make it clear and specific and get the point immediately that will save you both the time as well as attention spam of the person that's listening to you speaking of keeping it light takes me to the next point and the fourth point is choosing your subject of a small talk carefully this is important because you have to keep in mind that you cannot have a small talk with someone of a bad topic that they feel either uncomfortable talking about or they don't have anything any knowledge of and that's not their interest that's not their reality the topics that you should stay away and be more mindful of are things like health wealth money you know personal life sexual orientation religion and politics these are things that can lead to uncomfortable starts so better to be safe and start on topics that are more easy to have a conversation about that Daily News maybe a book that you both have read maybe some common interests hobbies that you have in common try to pull from the shared experience or from a shared common interest and then start off with that that will allow you to let the person feel closer to you because you have some kind of a shared interest choosing a topic of conversation is something that I will talk a little bit more and my final point but what you need to keep in mind is the person or the country that this person is from that you're having your conversation small talk with the reason it's important because In some cultures it's acceptable to start a small talk about talking about family or about health whereas in other cultures is absolutely not welcomed to talk about family and health so you have to keep in mind the culture of the person that you're having a small talk with the fifth Golden Rule of small talk is that it should be a dialogue and not a monologue oftentimes people want to impress others in their small talk and then take over this stage and just keep on talking and talking and talking this also happens when a person feels nervous and they feel like they need to talk a lot to feel the silence there would be no silence if this is a dialogue interestingly in this book The Serious Business of a small talk the author mentions how small talk is pretty much like Walling in a tennis so it precedes a tennis game but it's a sort of a ritualistic practice where you are offering the both the opponent in such a way that there are chances for him to hit back this is not about scoring keeping the score this is just about understanding what is the style of your opponent in terms of the playing this game so it's very common operative very ritualistic and allows you to understand your opponent better and the author says the small dog is very much like Walling it's allowing each other to talk so that you understand what is their communication style to better understand your opponents so to speak the person you're having the small talk with their conversation style you have to be genuinely interested in what they have to say I keep on saying this over and over in my classes and this takes me to the sixth Golden Rule of small talk is be interested not just interesting it's not enough to be the most interesting person it's very important to be an interested person so you're really curious to get to know the person you're having a small talk with better and really easing them into having a conversation with you in the book how to talk to anyone the author says that there are two kind of people in this world in this life those that walk into the room and say well here I am and those that say that walk into the room and say ah there you are and it's true because in a case well here I am sounds a lot like a person who just wants to be interesting and the people that say oh there you are are the people that are truly interested in getting to know you better and what do you think we as people appreciate more which kind of a person who would most likely have a better small talk with please you leave your answers down in the comment section below and I'll be really excited to read them truly admire your conversation partner you really be interested in learning about them or what they have to tell you and in order to be genuinely interested you have to be able to ask questions which is the seventh Golden Rule of small talk and the kind of questions that you will ask are the ones that are going to either help you carry out the small talk or be a obstacle for you to have the small talk rolling and be light and be very easy for both of you so the most important rule when it comes to asking questions is asking open-ended questions which means whenever you ask something the answer cannot be yes or no the question is like do you have let's say a dog or a cat would be yes or no but you could say why do you like dogs more or why did you get this particular breed well let the conversation flow asking questions that cannot be just simply answered by yes or no are called open-ended questions the ones that make the person have a conversation and answer in more details than just yes or no another important question types that you can incorporate into a small talk are called follow-up questions which means these are the questions that stem from something that your partner has already shared let's say they say I really like this breed of dog because it's easy to handle they're hypoallergenic or whatever the reasons are and you say oh like I have a friend that also got this dog but you know they had a lot of difficult time taking care of it do you think and then you for continue with that topic so a follow-up question has to be about something that I've already shared and you are just following up on that information and allowing the partner to elaborate more people oftentimes feel shy about asking questions because oftentimes they might come up as being rude or intrusive and we often don't want to make that impression with a small talk in order to not have these questions your questions sound intrusive what is important to do is share briefly about something that's related to you so a question that you're going to ask you have to give a little bit of information about yourself and then proceed with a question so instead of just you know jumping ahead and saying what do you do for life you could say I am an author for example in my case I'm an author but I'm also a part-time YouTuber I talk about etiquette online my channel and what do you do so I give a little bit of an information about myself so expose myself and then ask a follow-up question that also will allow the person to introduce themselves or talk about themselves so whenever you share a little bit about yourself or how a topic is related to you and then ask a follow-up question it sounds less intrusive and it allows the person to ease up into a small talk the best kind of questions to ask a person is something that you two have common interests in or it's a shared reality for both of you some kind of question that will allow the speaker to talk about something that they would like to talk about so if you someone is into gardening and you ask a question open-ended question about gardening that will get them talking and that's what you want to do with a small talk of course it's very difficult to find what that person wants to talk about especially if you just meet them for the very first time at the networking event you don't know what they're interested in what you could do is start a small talk with something that you see together right now maybe it's the room you want to discuss maybe it's the event or the speakers that you want to discuss and in that conversation in that small talk you will start understanding what are some interests of the person what they are really Keen about and then follow up questions with the things that they would like to talk about that will make the speaker feel much more at ease talking to you the eighth Golden Rule of small talk is about the way that you respond to these questions or rather how you respond to them so if the first rule is when you are answering questions try to be more specific avoid weak answers because they're not going to create that wrapper that you want to establish general information is only interesting when it is specific that's something that is mentioned in this book as well for example let's say you want to talk about the weather and you want to say how it's getting hot instead of just generalizing that weather is getting hot you could say I live in Spain and the weather this summer in Spain was extremely hot this allows the person that you're having the small talk with either ask your follow-up question about Spain or perhaps your life in Spain or you know how are generally the weather conditions in Spain so this allows the person to catch on a topic on the next topic of conversation and carry on also another example I could give you is for example someone asks you about how are you liking this event there's a panel of speakers instead of just saying oh the speakers are very well educated and interesting to listen to name a specific speaker that you liked and a particular reason why you like them because that will allow the other a person to respond either with their favorite kind of speaker or why they also like to speak that you like so the more specific the information is in a small talk with the dates with the names with a specific information the more it allows you to have a much more open small talk and the one that will allow you to establish a trustworthy relationship continuing on with the speaking or answers also keep in mind that you don't want to answer briefly and you don't want to answer in a way that the person can't even follow up with the next point I feel like a lot of us that are using social media have encountered this when say you're sending a meme to a friend of yours about something super funny and they say oh I've seen it or I've heard this oh I saw it a while back it is the momentum killer there is no way you can carry on the conversation from their own words and there are people that that answered in real life to small talk like that someone says have you heard that there's something a new storm coming up and someone says oh yeah I heard it on the news that's it you can't continue the conversation it's very difficult to carry on you want to answer with the ways that helps the other person ask you questions and helps you to explain yourself so that the two of you can really have a dialogue when I say that you don't want to kill the momentum and instead carry on the conversation and don't say I've seen this or I've heard this even if you have oftentimes students ask me why is that I have to fake it if I have seen it I want to say I've seen it and you know end the conversation and I explained that small talk is not about revealing how smart you are it's not revealing how well aware of your things and you know how educated or knowledgeable you are it's really about allowing the person ease into you and your character and who you are as a person so allow them to enjoy this moment of sharing information with you and instead of just killing the momentum and saying oh I've seen this I've heard this a while back you can say you know when I heard this the very first time it really shocked me because I didn't know about X Y and Z and that allows a conversation to flow you can don't have to lie about things you don't have to say oh I have never seen this such an interesting story you're sharing if you have heard about it you can say yes the first time I heard about it was a while back and I thought about something and then share the information the ninth Golden Rule of a small talk is being an active listener so as we know small talk is about one person talking the other person listening and then the other way around so when someone talks you have to become an active listener and who is an active listener is the person that we love the most like the most because they not only were listening to us but they were actually hearing what we have to say in this book this year's business of small talk the author mentions how it's not just about what you say and how you say it but it's truly about how you hear it and to be able to hear it well you have to actively show that you are listening there are some verbal ways of showing it by saying yes write and confirming the information or ask follow-up questions asking leading up questions that show that you're actively have been listening to the information that has been shared with you but also a lot about our body shows how we are actively listening and there is this technique that's in an acronym called soften where s stands for smile so when we're listening we're smiling o stands for open posture so our body is not blocked from the person that we're having a conversation with so no arms crossed no legs crossed just open body open posture the F stands for forward lean which means we come a little bit closer to show that we are bringing our ears closer to the person so we can hear them better the T stands for touch that touch should be very careful you have to keep in mind if it's an opposite gender you don't want to be very intrusive you want to keep in mind that the touch should be gentle and should be whenever it is appropriate attach establishes that feeling of trustworthiness and this feeling of closeness that person the E stands for eye contact so when we're listening we have to have our eyes on the person talking because if we gaze away that shows that our interest is wandered off and we're looking for some other place to look at it's important to continue that eye contact and the end stands for not so even if we don't want to con continuously say yes write an interrupt the person we can with our body language show that we are agreeing and that is by nodding while they're talking so remember soften to reveal that you're an active speaker and be genuinely interested in what your small talk partner wants to say and the final goal removed of small talk is knowing the person or the culture of the person you're having the small talk with because that's going to really influence the topic the dynamic of the small talk and what kind of small talk you can carry out with that person of course a lot is influence but our social upbringing our mentality and things like that but generally speaking culture plays a huge role in establishing the kind of a small talk that is safe for you to carry out for example in Azerbaijan when people have a small talk they prefer to talk about health family you know kids and that's very common and people might ask about you and your family your kids your husband and the answers are usually genuine they're not just to you know brush away with an answer and say everything is great where nothing is truly great people love to share their problems love to share their experiences and what they're going through and you have to really be an active listener and hear them out in the US for example if you're asked how are you or how how is your family you might say it's great everyone's fine you wouldn't necessarily share a lot of details about your family so this is a difference between azerbaijani culture in terms of Small Talk versus American in the book The author mentions how for example the Brazilians and Italians are fond of small talk and they'll have quite a lot amount of time spent on small talk before they can get into a delve into much deeper conversation Scandinavia Swiss and Germans really don't much like the small talk by itself they don't like this empty chat so to speak they prefer to get into more serious conversation and not just chat for sake of covering the silence but rather have a deep conversation also most of Asian countries as well as Arab countries truly enjoy small talk and you would expect the people to really engage into small talk way before having a very serious conversation so if you have business partners from these countries expect to engage into small talk before you get to a very deep conversation or before you get to business so to speak knowing the culture of the person that you're having a small talk with will help you a lot in understanding what are some topics that you can talk about as well as how you will carry out the small talk what to expect of it as well as do they really enjoy small talk or would you rather get into the serious conversation straight away cultural matters are bringing matters mentality matters keep that all in mind when you're having the small talk thank you so much for watching this video until the very end I hope that these 10 golden rules will help you become better at Small Talk which is super important crucial element of social life please let me know which are these which of these rules you found most useful or practical and if you have some more tips to share please do so in the comment section below as well as do let me know what are some video suggestions that you have for me I'll be more than happy to film those videos for you thank you and I'll see in my next video bye foreign

Channel: Jamila Musayeva

Views: 434,561

Keywords: small talk, how to make small talk, how to make good small talk, how to start a conversation, conversation tips, jamila musayeva, etiquette, how to socialise better, remembering names, conversation topics, small talk topics, how to better at small talk, how to be more social, how to remember names, how to introduce yourself, conversation skills, how to converse, how to have a conversation, how to make a small talk, how to get better at small talk

Id: FN91lEQfE3c

Length: 25min 3sec (1503 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 12 2022