Storytelling

by Keith Coleman

  9. Don’t Interrupt

  When having a conversation with someone, don’t talk over or interrupt when they’re speaking. Show some respect by letting the other person talk to an end before you proceed to share your thoughts and opinions. This is what makes you likable during a conversation, and it’s how you win over your small talk sessions. If people like talking to you, they’ll want to talk to you. This is all part of building up the skill set you need to communicate effectively. Conversation skills aren’t just about knowing all the right things to say. Even if you may be excited and eager to express your views, wait until they are done speaking before you start.

  10. Asking Questions That Are Open-Ended

  One crucial thing that you need to be aware of is learning how to ask the right questions. The right questions are questions which are open-ended. Any item that ends in a yes or no answer is one that you should avoid. Questions should lead to answers which encourage the person you’re speaking with to give longer answers, which you can use to formulate more questions and keep the conversation going. Close-ended questions are just conversation killers because they are often followed by awkward silences and neither party being sure what to say next. During your visualization sessions we talked about earlier, practice asking questions and imagine the answers that the other person might give you. This helps determine if the questions you’re asking are good enough to ask when going live with someone.

  11. It’s Important to Keep Practicing

  Great conversations don’t just happen immediately after reading about the strategies you need to pull it off. Knowing the techniques are one thing, but to truly become great is going to require significant hard work and practice. Practice having conversations alone, practice having conversations with friends, even practice with strangers that you encounter daily by starting with a dull "Good morning, how are you" and see where that leads. The more you practice, the better at it you’ll become, and if you’re not confident just yet practicing by yourself at home in a mirror to see how you look and sound. Keep practicing using different techniques from this book and watch yourself become better with each training session.

  Chapter 3 Summary

  The bottom line to kickstart your conversation skills development and building some confidence along the way is to:

  ● Stop thinking negatively and indulging in previous low self-esteem thoughts you had about your conversational capabilities.

  ● Now is the time to start thinking positive and building your confidence one step at a time. Remember nobody else can do this for you, it’s up to you to start.

  ● Visualization exercises, picture yourself as a confident and successful individual who conquers each conversation with success and assurance.

  ● Be prepared and arm yourself with topics of conversation to talk about, just in case you need to fall back on something when you least expect it.

  ● Whenever possible, prepare for small talk sessions before you begin them. This technique works well with meetings that you already expect to happen, like business meetings and networking sessions.

  ● Practice speaking clearly to avoid mumbling.

  ● Keep distractions to a minimum. Don’t push it if a situation is unfavorable to engage in a small talk session due to disturbances.

  ● Don’t interrupt the other person when they’re talking. Wait until they have finished before you say what you want to say. This is the mark of a good conversationalist, allowing room for both parties to converse on equal levels.

  ● Be completely present, both physically and mentally, when having a conversation with someone. Your body language cues are going to let the other person know if you’re distracted and not giving them your full attention.

  ● Practice asking the right questions. Avoid inquiries that are going to end in yes and no answers, because these are conversation killers. Open-ended questions are the way to go, and with practice, you’ll become better at it as you go along.

  ● Practice makes perfect, knowing the skill sets is not enough. To truly master a skill requires you to practice the knowledge you’ve learned.

  Chapter 4:

  How to Become a Conversational Whiz At Work

  Small talk matters more than ever at work. Business meetings, client meetings, networking sessions all rely on your ability to communicate and converse well. Without these essential skills, all your ideas and hard work won’t receive the credit they deserve. You don’t have to go far to see this in action either, look at the successful individuals in your work environment, your managers, and your bosses. Observe how well they can converse among themselves and to various other people they come into contact with.

  Strategies You’re Going to Need to Conquer Conversation at Work

  You spend nine hours a day, five days a week at your workplace. This is possibly where you spend most of your waking hours if you’re in full-time employment. So, it's here that your conversation skills need to shine if you want to set yourself apart from the crowd, get people to take notice of you and what you’re capable of accomplishing.

  1. Actively Seek Feedback

  Remember Chapter Three’s steps to building useful conversation skills which require practice? Your colleagues are the best people to practice on because you see them daily, and you already have to converse with them anyway, so why not use this time to practice your skills? Start actively seeking feedback from your co-workers after a conversation you’ve had with them. Ask them how you did and what they think you can improve upon. Let them know that you’re working on developing your conversation skills at the moment, and they’ll be more than happy to share what their thoughts were. It will also help you improve your relationship with them as you gradually have more things to talk about.

  2. Be Someone Who Is Curious

  Try to be someone who is curious about what’s going on at work. That will help you to come up with the right questions to ask during a conversation. The more curious you are about your surroundings, the more information you will find that you can leverage with just about anyone in the workplace. You’ll also become naturally inclined to find out more about the individuals you talk to, leading to meaningful questions and productive interactions.

  3. Improve the Way You Carry Yourself

  How does your personal image look like when you talk to someone? Do you stand up tall, shoulders back, full of confidence and with a smile on your face? Or are you hunched, shoulders rolled in, nervous and always wondering what people think about you? In a work environment, the way you carry yourself is just as much a part of your conversation skills as the things you say. Your body language is going to be –yet again- more potent than words. To become a great conversationalist at work, you need to mimic the air of successful people that in most cases have an open and inviting body language.

  4. What’s Your Tone of Voice

  The workplace is an environment where the tone needs to be professional, yet friendly and approachable all at once. You may be on good terms with your colleagues, but the conversations you have still need to be kept at the appropriate professional levels. Never discuss anything that could potentially land you in hot water. Be firm without becoming aggressive by using the proper language still within professional confines.

  5. Being Transparent During Your Conversations

  Insufficient transparency, especially in a work environment, will only lead to one thing: people disliking you because you’re perceived as someone dishonest that cannot be trusted. Being an active conversationalist means gaining the trust of the person who you are talking to so that they feel comfortable having a conversation with you. You do this by always being honest in your discussions. Don’t flourish your talking points in an attempt to appear more interesting. Stick to the facts, especially when you have to work in a team. When you have a small talk with your colleagues, be open and honest about the information that you have and don’t have. This helps you to gain their trust, and they’ll be more inclined to engage with you in
the future.

  6. Pause Between Each Sentence

  Work is a type of environment where we can easily get stressed, and things are always moving at a hectic pace to meet deadlines and exceed client expectations. As hectic as work can get, you still need to be in control during your small talk sessions. You do this by not feeling pressured to rush through what you’re trying to say. Don’t fire off one sentence after another, this makes for a pointless conversation if it's ineffective. In the earlier chapters, you remember how rushing through information is going to backfire on you because you could miss delivering essential details. Being a great conversationalist means that you are the one in control of the conversation, you have the power to make it meaningful. Even in a pressured setting, avoid rushing through your sentences. A discussion is always more effective when the message is clearly delivered and received.

  7. Don’t Let Emotions Rule You

  Sometimes emotions can run high, understandable given all the stress and how much goes on at work. But you know what successful conversationalists don’t do? They don’t wear their emotions on their sleeve, especially if they aren’t the most positive and optimistic ones. A good conversationalist is one firmly in control of their mental state during a conversation. This is going to take some practice, but a great tip is to remind yourself to focus on your breathing. Take deep breaths, and tell yourself it’s okay, that you can handle anything that comes your way. Avoid responding with the first thing that comes to your mind, especially in a heated situation where you’re more likely to say the wrong things. Also, remember to watch your tone of voice and the way you respond.

  8. Get Rid of Any Nervous Characteristics You May Have

  If you have any particular traits giving away how nervous you are when engaging in small talk with someone, now is the time to get rid of those. Are you fidgety during a conversation because you’re nervous? Are you tapping your feet or your fingers excessively? Do you twiddle your fingers or make nervous gesturing with your hands whenever you’re conversing with someone? Do you avoid eye contact? If you’ve been guilty of doing all these things in the past, starting from today, kick those nervous mannerisms out the door because there is no room for them in the new and improved you. From now on, be conscious of your body when you’re about to begin a conversation. Before you walk up to them, stand up tall, roll your shoulders back and smile before taking confident strides towards them and introducing yourself (if you’re meeting them for the first time). Relax your body while you’re talking to them, and make a quick, conscious survey of yourself to make sure you’re not falling back on any nervous behaviors. This may take time and practice to nail down before you become comfortable enough.

  Chapter 4 Summary

  Here are the strategies you want to keep up your sleeve to help conquer conversation at work:

  ● Be someone who is naturally curious about your surroundings and the people you are conversing with. This will help you to ask for more in-depth and meaningful questions which tend to improve the effectiveness of a conversational session.

  ● Actively seek feedback from your colleagues about how your conversation skills are, and what they think needs to be improved on. Practice your small talk strategies and conversation skills on your co-workers and ask them how they thought you were doing.

  ● Carry yourself with confidence and try to stand up tall, smile, be approachable, and speak openly. Strive to be someone who is confident about and know what to say.

  ● Using the right tone of voice at work is just as important as the things that you say. Try to find the balance between maintaining an air of professionalism, yet being friendly and approachable at the same time.

  ● Be honest and transparent in any conversation you have at work. Hiding information or not being upfront about something is only going to make your colleagues and clients dislike and distrust you.

  ● Don’t rush through your sentences even if you are pressed for time. A conversation is more meaningful when a message is both delivered and received clearly. You cannot achieve this if all you’re doing is making the other person feel uncomfortable and rushed when you’re talking to them.

  ● Don’t let your emotions rule you during a conversation (both at work and everyday life). Pause for a second and fight your immediate reaction to respond right away to avoid saying the wrong things.

  ● Forget your previous nervous mannerisms, there’s no place for them if you want to become a great conversationalist.

  Chapter 5:

  Charismatically Cool

  Knowing what to say, how to say it and when to say it is all the marks of a great conversationalist. But there's something else added into the mix to become a master of small talk. What else do you notice about successful individuals?

  They’re charismatic.

  They seem to have this ability to draw people in when they are talking, especially motivational speakers like Tony Robbins and Les Brown. They seem to enrapture you from the moment they begin speaking. That’s charisma at work. Some people are born with the natural gift of appeal, while others have to work at developing it. It's often mistaken as part of a person’s character, but it's a skill that you can acquire.

  Just like confidence, it's going to take time and practice to build charisma, but if you persist and keep at it, you’re going to get there eventually. Before you can start working on your charming nature, you first need to:

  Become a Master of Conversational Basics

  Before you can begin working on your charisma, you need to work on building up the foundations of your conversational skills, using the techniques talked about in the earlier chapters. If you carefully observe individuals who are charismatic, they seem to know just how to talk to people, how to start a conversation, how to keep it going, how to steer it in the direction they want and how to command people’s attention with the things they say. They have mastered the basics.

  You must first work and practice on developing your small talk skills. It's only when you have become confident enough in those abilities that you should move onto the next phase of charisma development.

  1. You Must Learn to Smile

  And don’t make it forced. A charismatic person’s smile is relaxed, natural and at ease, warm, genuine and friendly. This is the smile you need to project during your conversations with people. Smiling instantly makes the other person feel more calm and comfortable during the discussion. When you smile, you appear more likable, and a genuine smile that lights up your face makes the other person smile back at you. A sincere smile is an essential quality you need to have as a charismatic person. Practice smiling to yourself in front of a mirror daily, try to feel relaxed and happy when you do it and observe how it turns out. Does it look natural enough? Does it seem stiff or forced in any way? The best way to project a genuine smile during a small talk session is to want to engage with the person. When you want to do something, it no longer feels like it's a forced thing that you have to do.

  2. Manage Just the Right Amount of Eye Contact

  You want to be looking at the person you’re talking to, but not staring them down like you’re trying to challenge or intimidate them. Eye contact is critical to establish during a conversation because it lets the other person know that they are worthy of your attention, that you’re entirely focused and interested in everything that they have to say. Have you ever been in a conversation where the person was distracted or looking around everywhere else but at you during a conversation? It can be infuriating and almost disrespectful! The best eye contact length to maintain is to hold a person’s gaze for one second longer than you would typically do. Practice keeping eye contact during your small talk practice sessions, keep the person’s gaze a bit longer, and then briefly look elsewhere without turning your head away when you blink. Practice doing this in front of the mirror, practice when you greet people in the morning, with your colleagues at work, with the cashier who is checking out your groceries. There are many opportunities for you to prac
tice; you just have to start utilizing them until you get good at it.

  3. Don’t Be Stiff

  Charismatic people are expressive with their bodies, but not to a point where it goes overboard. They don’t stand there during a conversation looking stiff as a board with their arms firmly by their sides. That's what uncomfortable people do, and what you should aim to avoid. You need to be relaxed during a conversation, and gesture with just the right amount to express enthusiasm, but not to a point where you’re going overboard with it. When you’re practicing small talk in front of a mirror, notice the way you gesture. Are you nodding far too much? Are your hands moving around too enthusiastically? Little gestures like these may not seem like much to you, but they could be perceived differently by other people. Some people may not like it, some may be put off by it, and some may find it uncomfortable to be around you. After you’ve practiced by yourself in front of a mirror a couple of times, ask some friends for some feedback about how you come across when you’re talking. Are you doing too much of something? Are you not doing enough? Try to get different perspectives and honest opinions, that way you can make a note of what you need to keep practicing on and what you’re already doing well. It also helps to watch videos of motivational speakers and talks given by successful individuals to see just how they do it and try to mimic that.