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???? Your help please ???? Working on an article on 'small talk' ... your input will enrich it ... so a couple of questions ... 1: Do you regularly say something like:- 'I hate small talk/I'm no good at small talk? 2. What circumstances trigger this statement? 3. Do you a) avoid small talk situations b)suffer in silence or c) try to get over the blockage?? And if you've had an epiphany about small talk - share! ???? Thank you ??? Article will be published this week - with practical tips and transformative reframes ?? Make sure you follow my #ForensicFridayTip hashtag too - because I'll be giving a demo in this Friday's video ? Right - I await your input as I outline my article!? ??????
I do say I hate small talk because small talk to me is when I have to resort to it to try to get a conversation flowing more. It's when all other avenues have failed and the fallback is about the weather or something lame.
Spot on Rebecca - this is all good input ... I am loving researching for this article.
Great topic - I'm not a fan of small talk but have developed strategies to avoid it.... I have a bunch of slightly different questions at the ready to try and steer the conversation in a different way. For example rather than asking "what do you do for a living" ask "what has been the biggest change in your work in the last 12 months" or rather than asking "where you are you from" ask "why do you live where you live" etc. Someone once told me "interested is interesting" i.e. if you ask an interesting questioned and then are genuinely interested in the response you can get past the small talk pretty quickly.
Time is too precious for small talk. Its easy to excuse yourself in the days of face to face networking when you ended up with irritating ‘small talkers’ Latterly… I have left zoom networking events for this very reason! Not so easy when it’s family! ?? Although I do tend to switch off and go into that space in my head which has a lot more going on than the said ‘small talk’ piffle. As you can see… not very tolerant of small talk. I prefer silence to that. Great topic, Trisha. ???? I shall look forward to reading the article.
1. YES!! 2. In a room full of strangers – like early days networking when you don't know anyone yet. 3. I've been able to do a lot of avoiding over the last 18 months. Your tips will, I'm sure, be very helpful for when I do get out there again.
Hot tip from me, Trisha Lewis – never make small talk when you’re nervous: you’ll end up saying something really stupid. A bit like I did recently … ??????
Personally I don't mind small talk. So I'll keep schtum...
I'm not a fan of small talk though I understand that pleasantries are sometimes convenient if not entirely necessary. I usually feel like that after having been exposed to a bout of such small talk. I wish people would show their intelligence by asking more interesting questions? (That's not a commentary on your post but rather a general observation.)
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3 年My twin Julia Passion-Ott is a small-talk talent. She is skilled at connecting the dots (what do we have in common?) and asking insightful, thoughtful questions. And she is so sincere and puts people at ease. Her small talk is a wonder to see ??