The Art of Manliness - Stress-Free Small Talk

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast if making small

00:00:11.500 talk makes someone anxious it may just be because they have a fear of such interactions my guest

00:00:16.000 today rich gallagher can help them overcome it through his practice as a therapist or someone's

00:00:20.060 anxiety around small talk can be based in part on simply not knowing how to do it and in that case

00:00:24.360 rich helps them by teaching them the mechanics of conversation which he shares in his book stress

00:00:28.180 free small talk as well as on today's show rich and i begin our conversation with how small talk is

00:00:32.740 important as an on-ramp to bigger things how it's a skill that can be developed like any other and

00:00:36.840 how learning its mechanics can dampen the anxiety you feel about taking part in it we then turn to

00:00:40.900 these mechanics and making comfortable and effective small talk including doing prep work embracing

00:00:44.940 tried and true openers and avoiding talking too much yourself we also discuss how to join

00:00:49.000 conversations that are already underway manage committing a faux pas acknowledge others to

00:00:52.980 build a connection and end the conversation gracefully we end our conversation with small

00:00:56.900 talk strategies for first dates and job interviews and what to do when you go to a party where you

00:01:00.860 only know the host after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is stress-free small talk

00:01:06.280 rich gallagher welcome to the show hi brett great to be with you thanks for having me

00:01:22.660 so uh you are a family therapist but you've interesting with your work if you you specialized

00:01:29.100 in helping people with small talk how did a family therapist end up specializing in that

00:01:34.100 well that's a great question i was a customer service executive before i became a therapist and

00:01:38.920 then later became an author and speaker on communication skills uh before i became a therapist in my 50s so

00:01:45.060 i joke that after years of teaching people how to deal with angry customers i decided to put

00:01:49.900 myself in the middle of other people's family conflicts as well but how this book came about

00:01:54.980 was one summer i had several clients all of them were men interestingly who were severely disabled

00:02:00.520 by social anxiety and i noticed for a lot of them it wasn't just fear it was a lack of skills and so

00:02:05.960 i sort of developed a betty crocker cookbook for how to have a nourishing five to seven minute

00:02:11.060 conversation and i used to coach those clients and it worked really well and that's what eventually

00:02:15.980 led to rockridge press invite me to develop this book stress-free small talk so something you really

00:02:20.380 emphasize in the book is that small talk is a skill you know why do you think it's a valuable skill to

00:02:25.700 learn for me personally brett almost every good thing has happened in my life my marriage my business

00:02:32.040 relationships my consulting work all rides in the wings of connections with other people where

00:02:37.260 in most cases when i first met them i simply delighted in their company and small talk is a lubricant that

00:02:43.160 builds those relationships that makes those connections possible no yeah so the small talk

00:02:48.860 usually leads to deeper relationships that's kind of it's the on-ramp to those deeper relationships

00:02:54.060 absolutely here's what's interesting about it if you look at this from a historical context is that

00:02:59.200 small talk is about transmitting information to another person and this goes back to when we were

00:03:04.760 cave people when you're a caveman and somebody came along you had no idea if the person you just met

00:03:10.340 who's going to help you or kill you and so today if you're meeting a new business contact or if

00:03:16.100 you're alone in an elevator with somebody or on a first date small talk transmits very valuable data

00:03:21.640 about who you are what you have in common and whether someone else is safe with you okay so small

00:03:27.200 talking provide a lot of benefits but you help people often men who want to engage in small talk but

00:03:33.740 have an aversion to it one of its lack of skill we'll talk about that but there's three potential

00:03:40.780 reasons why someone shies away from small talk one is shyness the other is social anxiety and then

00:03:48.140 there's introversion and i think these three things are often confused for each other so let's talk

00:03:54.540 about the differences how do you as a therapist define shyness these three things are important

00:04:01.060 distinctions so shyness is something that a lot of us share in common i mean almost half of us

00:04:05.640 you know clinically have shyness which is a normal level of discomfort but dealing with other people

00:04:12.080 worrying that you're going to make a bad impression or worrying how you're going to come across the

00:04:15.400 other person social anxiety i'll jump ahead to that for a moment that's shyness and steroids

00:04:20.360 that's where it becomes a phobia and now you're finding that you're so uncomfortable being around

00:04:25.000 people do you avoid things you really want in your life kind of people who see me for therapy

00:04:30.080 often they can't go to school they can't go to work sometimes they can't even walk out to the

00:04:34.120 mailbox for fear that somebody might speak to them an introversion is a whole nother animal entirely in

00:04:40.760 the sense that introverts can't be discerned by observation many introverts are affable and

00:04:47.060 articulate and outgoing but the difference is they have their energy drained by interaction with other

00:04:53.760 people 75 of us are extroverts and we gain energy by talking to people we go to a party

00:04:59.980 for two hours and we feel great someone who's an introvert may go to that same party for two hours

00:05:05.000 and have a good time but at the end they need to recharge their batteries but and oftentimes

00:05:10.040 introverts can be very good and skilled at conversation you're just saying they might not

00:05:14.800 want to do it as much as an extrovert absolutely correct you nailed that perfectly okay let's say

00:05:20.560 someone is shy or socially anxious which is shyness taken on steroids so they have an aversion they

00:05:27.460 have a fear of taking part in small talk how do you help these individuals start practicing this

00:05:34.960 skill of small talk in their everyday life i'm going to break this up into two buckets one of whom

00:05:40.540 i help with the techniques in this book and one of whom i don't the biggest bucket is people who not

00:05:45.960 only are afraid of social interactions but they also literally don't know what to say they don't

00:05:50.400 understand the skills involved and how to talk to somebody and i've had very good outcomes in teaching

00:05:55.940 them the mechanics of how to have conversations with people and to me it is mechanics and not

00:06:00.600 bravery when they learn and practice these skills and have them in their back pocket they actually

00:06:05.820 are often better conversationalists and people who haven't been trained those things who don't

00:06:09.380 suffer from the fear that's about two-thirds of people with social anxiety then there's another

00:06:14.120 third who they know what to say they don't lack social skills they're affable they're articulate

00:06:19.540 but it's really uncomfortable for them and in those cases we treat them the same way we treat

00:06:24.940 any other fear and phobia through things like gradual exposure desensitization and practice

00:06:31.060 well so in this second group people who have the skill but just have a fear i guess one of the the

00:06:38.140 things you can do to blunt that fear so you talk about exposure therapy i guess there might be some

00:06:42.840 cognitive behavioral therapy going on changing the way they think about social interactions correct

00:06:47.460 correct cognitive behavioral therapy is my jam that's the approach that i practice as well and so

00:06:52.800 you're absolutely correct the first place we start is to get them to put down on paper what they think

00:06:57.500 about a social situation and we'll try to reframe those beliefs you know for example i'm going to make

00:07:02.980 a fool of myself one thing i'll tell my clients is have you ever been booed by hundreds of people

00:07:07.440 i have you know pro tip is if you're doing a speaking gig in boston don't have the anecdote about

00:07:13.500 the manager of the yankees like i did for example but i recovered from that it was actually a great

00:07:18.220 speaking gig and so we address these scary beliefs and try to make them we don't try to sugarcoat them

00:07:24.180 but we try to make them more rational and then that's the cognitive part of cognitive behavioral

00:07:28.760 therapy then the behavioral part is where we then have them start to gradually comfortably practice

00:07:35.900 and be fully present in those situations so that they start to seem less scary over time well

00:07:41.880 another part of social anxiety that i've read which is counterintuitive is that part of the problem

00:07:48.800 with social anxiety is that they're people are thinking too much about themselves and like how they

00:07:55.160 appear to other people and that just that's what mucks things up because they're just so

00:08:00.280 like self-referential yes they end up they end up causing problems for themselves so one of the

00:08:06.040 solutions to social anxiety is helping those individuals think less about themselves in a social

00:08:11.800 engagement that's correct and i'm going to break that down further and put a finer point on it

00:08:16.900 which is good conversation is about mechanics i'll make an analogy you know when paul simon gave a

00:08:23.320 concert after south africa got rid of apartheid he was on stage in front of like half a million people

00:08:28.420 they asked him in television how did you feel about being part of such a momentous event and if i

00:08:33.860 remember correctly what he said was something effective well i was trying to make sure that i was keeping

00:08:38.040 time with my bass player and i didn't break a string so he was focused on the mechanics of his

00:08:42.560 performance when i'm talking to somebody and i'm very comfortable in conversation i very much care

00:08:48.700 about the other person i'm very much thinking about myself and them but i'm also sort of taking out

00:08:54.080 tape 52 and playing it for how to walk through the mechanics of the good conversation so moving people

00:09:00.200 from self-absorption to mechanics is part of what makes us a lot more comfortable for them

00:09:05.800 one tip that's helped me and you know just to be more present in a conversation is when i'm engaging

00:09:13.160 with somebody i try to think of myself as a host right like i'm here i'm here to make that person

00:09:18.420 feel comfortable and for some reason that that works because it gives me something to do right i don't

00:09:23.300 know it's kind of a weird thing that works for me though i love that framing i actually did exactly

00:09:27.320 the same thing i have never taken the stage for a speaking engagement without being being anxious

00:09:32.240 about it and one of the things i tell myself is this audience is in my care for the next hour

00:09:36.500 and that that framing helps me a lot too okay so you have individuals who have the mechanics down

00:09:41.900 but are they have a fear so there's different things you can do to chain reframe how they think

00:09:46.420 about social interaction or small talk what about the individuals who they just don't know what to

00:09:51.920 do like how do you go about helping them get the mechanics down a small talk that's the audience

00:09:56.900 that this book is aimed at so what i do is i work through the mechanics of a conversation i'll be glad

00:10:01.760 to you know drill down to the details of those mechanics for starters people don't know how to open

00:10:07.980 a conversation people don't know the mechanics of acknowledging other people and because so many

00:10:14.460 people don't know how to truly acknowledge other people learning how to do that well changes

00:10:19.860 everything about how people perceive you if you learn how to acknowledge people well which again

00:10:24.180 we'll walk you through disgustingly detailed mechanics of that in this interview that makes

00:10:29.320 you seem like the most interesting person in the world and then there's other mechanics like eye

00:10:32.900 contact body language having an open posture and these are all things you learn in practice i'll give

00:10:38.420 you another example is you know i mentioned that i usually get nervous before i speak so i don't walk

00:10:44.500 into the venue where i'm speaking i stride in with a big smile on my face and shake hands with people

00:10:49.200 and i transmit confidence to the other person and at a smaller scale that's kind of what you learn to

00:10:56.460 do to be a good conversationalist as well i'm curious have you seen an uptick in people seeking

00:11:02.220 you out for like the mechanics help since the end of like i mean kind of like the end of the pandemic

00:11:07.180 because i mean i guess there was a period where people just they didn't have to do small talk

00:11:11.040 anymore and they might have gotten rusty with their skills have you noticed that yes i have noticed

00:11:15.680 that and just you know since i'm on i'm not just saying this because i'm the art of manliness

00:11:19.480 podcast the one thing i find interesting about my consulting clients is they're all men yeah what

00:11:24.960 do you think is going i mean just is men just aren't invested in that and what do you think is going

00:11:28.160 on well there's a there's a cultural context to this so think back to when we were cave people

00:11:32.880 when a man could no longer hunt he died and when a woman could no longer attract a mate to bring

00:11:41.440 food back to the nest with the kids she died and so you fast forward thousands of years later and

00:11:47.460 that's partly an explanation why women tend to be really good at relationships women tend to be good

00:11:53.220 at the conversation and men tend to be more focused on their careers so the kind of men that i work with

00:12:00.360 generally they're really talented really smart people and ironically they usually talk really well

00:12:06.400 informally but they realize that if they want to get a third date with somebody or if they want to

00:12:11.680 get the position they want they need to be more comfortable in social settings well let's talk

00:12:16.280 about the skill the mechanics of a small talk interaction so you say that it should begin even

00:12:22.500 before you take part in small talk like you need to do some prep work so what does what does prep

00:12:28.100 work look like for for small talk that's kind of the hidden secret of a good conversation is if you're

00:12:34.420 going into a social event where you want to meet people or talk to people or if you're going on a

00:12:38.180 date with somebody or it's important to prepare three to five good opening questions and it's also

00:12:44.940 important to come up with some credentialing statements that kind of quickly and perhaps

00:12:51.420 humorously or pleasantly define who you are there's no one formula for for conversations

00:12:57.140 i mean here's a good case in point i'm very emotional my wife is very emotional and we kind of bond over

00:13:03.800 that i have a brother he's a scientist with a phd he's incredibly practical and when he would go on

00:13:09.720 dates with people would fawn all over him he'd kind of shy away and i'll never forget when he met a

00:13:14.320 fellow engineering student that was you know they just reveled in each other's practicality and

00:13:18.940 they've been married for like 40 years now so defining who he is and defining who i am is part of the

00:13:24.720 objective too and that's all prep yeah it's something my wife and i do before we go to you know a

00:13:30.420 couple's house for dinner or to a social event we actually come up with a list like here's the

00:13:35.420 things i'm going to bring up i'm going to talk about that's wonderful and and people might think

00:13:39.020 well that's small talk supposed to be spontaneous and i don't i don't think so like i think you should

00:13:43.500 have set topics you want to bring up in the conversation if if they're if they seem natural

00:13:48.240 to the conversation it's uh you know iggy pop the musician once pointed to his drummer and said

00:13:53.760 the drum part is a composed performance i think a good conversation is the same thing as well

00:13:58.600 obviously there's a certain amount of improvisation you never know where a conversation is going to

00:14:02.960 go there's techniques you can use to manage the flow of that conversation but i think preparation

00:14:08.280 is a really important part of having a good conversation and you know let's say you're

00:14:14.000 interviewing for a job for example if you have a statement that credentials how good you are at what

00:14:19.720 they're trying to hire you for and it's a it's a good humble informative snippet about who you are

00:14:26.260 that could land you the job and so i i think you're right on target by you know prepping for

00:14:31.820 these conversations and i'll bet it makes you a much more interesting person i hope so and i think

00:14:36.140 too your prep will vary depending on the social situation you're in so your prep might be different

00:14:41.420 so if you know this person's going to be there they're interested in these topics well i'm going

00:14:45.840 to get some topics you know fodder for that or if you're going to a wedding or a business

00:14:51.940 networking event you can prep towards that so you just so it fits the context in the situation you're

00:14:57.900 in absolutely correct and there's a level of appropriateness for um you know bringing out that

00:15:04.140 research into your talk it informs a good conversation doesn't drive it necessarily i mean for example i

00:15:10.140 know you're from tulsa for example looking at your show you know if we were talking informally

00:15:13.440 meeting his friends i'd be you know maybe slipping in at some point you know when i pulled in at

00:15:17.720 three in the morning at will rogers casino and ended up gambling at 3 a.m you know what a cool

00:15:23.320 experience that was yeah and i think what that prep does too is it can help blunt some of the fear

00:15:29.360 if you might have a small talk because you you feel like you're prepared right instead of just having

00:15:33.420 to come up with it off the cuff correct and it gives you a ledge you can climb on to find points

00:15:38.660 of common interest with the other person you know part of it too is of course your prep is a way

00:15:42.980 of testing what the other person is interested in talking about and then following their lead as well

00:15:47.700 okay so do some prep let's talk about first impression you mentioned that earlier when you

00:15:52.040 go to an event to speak you you don't just shuffle onto the stage you you stride in that's right so

00:15:57.260 what are some things that people can do and just everyday small talk to manage their first impression

00:16:01.880 we frame that very well i think you know the mechanics of how you present yourself physically

00:16:06.560 is important you know eye contact body language having an open posture one of things i talk about in

00:16:12.620 the book is having an appropriate distance from the other person one expert suggests shaking

00:16:17.440 hands with somebody and then taking a step back and see if they follow you or if they keep their

00:16:22.660 distance different cultures have different norms for how close is appropriate and sometimes people

00:16:28.080 actually change you backwards around the room you know not figuring that out so that's that's

00:16:33.900 important because that again helps people feel safe with you and and you know create a spark of

00:16:38.880 interest but then i think the important thing is what's the first thing you say when you open your mouth

00:16:43.080 and having prepared openings is good too some of the old standbys are common shared interests

00:16:48.840 your interests and the questions that learn about the other person so what you're looking for is

00:16:54.680 ledges you can climb up on to get the other person talking and to delight in their company i want to put a

00:17:00.740 finer point on this because this is very important when you have social anxiety when you have social

00:17:05.480 anxiety you're worried about being on stage in front of another person that's very uncomfortable for you

00:17:10.720 and having good openings and good questions and good acknowledgement gives you the power to hand

00:17:16.760 the conversation back to the other person take the spotlight off you and gives you a sense of control

00:17:21.800 that makes it easier for you so what's an example of a good tried and true opener i actually like if it's

00:17:28.500 a professional setting i actually like you know what do you do i've seen articles says oh don't ask what do

00:17:33.620 you do that's a tired question i think it's a wonderful question because men especially you know we tend to be

00:17:38.380 invested in our livelihoods and our careers so that's often a reliable topic if you've got an interest

00:17:44.420 that you want to brand yourself around i think it's perfectly okay to share that and pulse if the other person's

00:17:49.380 interested and finally i think a good opening is especially if you're on a date with somebody is share a

00:17:57.760 tidbit about how you feel and who you are and see how the other person reacts to that make it non-threatening

00:18:02.820 but if you talk about something you really like about other people like you like it when people

00:18:07.520 open up to you or you like it when people are practical not only are you seeking connection with

00:18:12.520 the other person but this is also a good weed out for whether this is a person you want to get closer

00:18:17.080 to what are some openers that you think people should avoid well first of all the weather because

00:18:21.900 you don't want to advertise how boring you are unless it's really real extreme weather obvious

00:18:27.060 things to stay away from his politics and religion i'd also be very careful about criticism especially

00:18:33.180 things for example is you know i have an irish surname gallagher if someone was talking to me about

00:18:39.120 their last trip to europe and they make a snide comment about you know dealing with eastern europeans

00:18:44.740 they may not realize i'm actually a czech citizen and i'm very proud of my heritage as a is a czech

00:18:49.980 so you know obviously you know because of intermarriage i have a different name

00:18:54.380 and i guess the other thing i'll say about openers that you should be careful about avoiding

00:18:58.920 is i would also avoid relationships unless you know somebody really well you don't want to ask

00:19:04.680 somebody you know how their their wife or kids are doing in case they just got divorced or junior

00:19:09.300 just got arrested again it's better to be a little generic and say how are you doing these days

00:19:14.240 and this the openers are going to vary depending on i guess the context right if they're strangers

00:19:20.340 your opening is going to differ from you know that you'd use on an acquaintance

00:19:24.780 correct and you're going to have a context dependent and cultural dependent opening that

00:19:30.020 you're going to prepare ahead of time let's say you're at an event you're at a party for example

00:19:34.920 and there's a group of people chatting you're like okay i want to join this group

00:19:38.580 how do you insert yourself in the conversation because i think a lot of people feel uncomfortable

00:19:43.580 about that that is a great question brett because there's mechanics behind that a lot of people

00:19:48.340 with social anxiety are really uncomfortable trying to introduce themselves to a group of people

00:19:52.240 so here's the way i walk through the mechanics first of all get physically close to that group

00:19:56.640 not not too close but close enough that you're showing interest read their body language and see if

00:20:02.240 they're closing ranks when you come by or if they're not and then if you're interested look for a hook

00:20:07.600 and hooks can take the form of either somebody you know in that group saying hey john good to see you

00:20:12.180 again or when they bring up a common topic you then insert yourself and say oh i see you're

00:20:17.220 talking about quality management that's a big passion of mine you know what do you guys think

00:20:20.640 about single customer view or uh you know i see your bass players you know uh you know what do

00:20:25.440 you think of getty lee is he a good slap bassist okay so yeah there's there's a there's a potential

00:20:30.500 to do it gracefully and i think again i don't think you should worry too much i think a lot of people

00:20:33.760 they worry too much about oh man it's going to be awkward usually it's not i mean the conversations

00:20:39.040 where i've had someone join me it seemed completely natural absolutely and i have a brother who's a

00:20:44.880 world-class salesperson and one of the things that he says is they're not going to take out a gun and

00:20:48.580 shoot me if i go up and talk to somebody right exactly we're gonna take a quick break for your

00:20:54.220 word from our sponsors and now back to the show okay let's say you got the conversation going uh you

00:21:01.960 used an opener you're you're getting that chit chat back and forth you argue in the book or you point

00:21:07.020 out in the book that this is the point where a lot of people get nervous and they actually start

00:21:11.500 talking more than they need to and they start dominating the conversation uh so how do you avoid

00:21:16.740 that conversational narcissism once you get the conversation that term conversational narcissism

00:21:21.560 that's well put and i'm going to put a finer point on that i narcissism is often a matter of you know

00:21:26.980 seeking to control other people whereas this kind of narcissism is kind of a venial sin narcissism of

00:21:32.320 not knowing what else to do in talking and my answer to that is to circle back to mechanics again

00:21:38.000 one of the things i talk about in the book is what i call the three to one rule which is you ask the

00:21:43.040 other person three questions and then after the three questions so it doesn't just turn into

00:21:47.440 interrogation you share one thing about yourself you can modify that rule so it's a three to two rule

00:21:53.040 or a four to one rule or whatever works for you but being aware of those mechanics in the back of your

00:21:59.160 mind just like paul simon at his concert is the way you avoid that yeah for me i know if i got a good

00:22:04.560 conversation going if it feels like a game of catch right that we're just it's just back and forth and

00:22:09.180 it just it grooves it feels good so what do you do okay so you you you're following this three to one

00:22:14.260 ratio what do you do if you're in a conversation where the other person just talks and talks and

00:22:20.140 talks any tips there you know a lot of the techniques i teach in communication skills especially

00:22:26.400 for difficult conversations work about 85 of the time i have one that works almost 100 of the time

00:22:31.020 that i call the acknowledging close and the way that that works is you enthusiastically acknowledge

00:22:37.300 the last thing that this person says and you interrupt them to do that and then what you do

00:22:43.020 is then you jump in with a binary question something that has a yes no or a short statement answer

00:22:47.800 as soon as i answer that you jump in with the next binary question and guess what you're just taking

00:22:52.800 control of the conversation okay i like that i'm going to use that next time that happens well so you

00:22:58.420 got the conversation going it's great you need to leave exiting a conversation can cause a lot of

00:23:04.100 anxiety for people so how do you absolutely so how do you leave a conversation you know smoothly or

00:23:09.800 gracefully there's a very important principle here which is that psychologists will tell you that people

00:23:15.160 remember the last thing that they hear from you so let's say that you're with somebody and have a

00:23:20.240 knockdown drag out fight with them all day but you end by smiling and shaking hands that goes in your

00:23:25.460 memory banks as a good encounter if you have a great day with your best friend and then you end

00:23:29.800 with cross words at the end that goes in your memory banks as a bad encounter what this has to do with

00:23:35.420 social anxiety is you can recover from a blah or unsatisfying conversation by having a really good

00:23:41.780 closing so when you say enthusiastically you know i have to run meet somebody but wow it's been great

00:23:47.340 to meet you george hope we can talk again sometime that goes in that person's memory bank as a good

00:23:52.260 encounter and you go in their memory banks as a cool person so what would be an inappropriate way

00:23:57.880 to do it oh i gotta go yeah and like are we the irish goodbye like yeah you know you just kind of like

00:24:04.320 slowly fade away don't say you left i've done that i've done that before at parties i absolutely and

00:24:10.280 and sometimes that's appropriate i mean these are these are cockpit decisions you can make depending

00:24:14.920 on how close you want to be to that other person in the future as well sometimes you want to ghost

00:24:19.400 people and that's a good skill to have as well okay but so you're basically the go-to should be

00:24:24.360 enthusiastically agree with the person and then say it's so great and then just get out of there and

00:24:29.260 don't worry about it absolutely yeah that's absolutely and that that more often than not

00:24:33.180 will leave a great impression what happens if a conversation goes sideways or like a small talk

00:24:38.820 goes sideways i mean i guess i guess the first question would be like what are some ways that

00:24:42.840 you've seen that small talk can go sideways and then how do you recover from that i think first of all

00:24:48.080 you have to be careful about criticism of anything unless it's something universal like traffic or

00:24:52.760 paying your taxes because you never know what kind of relationships or life experiences that the that

00:25:00.340 the other person has had you know for example you may criticize a celebrity and find out this person's

00:25:04.360 related to them for example implicit bias is something you have to be careful of one example i have in the

00:25:09.980 book is where somebody introduces you to a couple and say hi this is dr smith and you turn to the

00:25:15.020 husband and say hi dr smith and it's actually the wife who's the doctor and sometimes just car crashes

00:25:20.380 happen where you you something comes out and you didn't realize it was going to be a problem and

00:25:24.460 that it is one thing that happened to me for example was when my sister went to college she had

00:25:30.960 the scruffy boyfriend uh who had a nickname let's call him jojo and uh you know so he was he drove a

00:25:37.160 beat-up old car he was always in and out of trouble years later my father became president of that

00:25:42.400 university and often would mention to me that boy you know jojo is doing really well in his career

00:25:47.460 and he's rising through the corporate ranks years later i'm at my father's retirement banquet and now

00:25:53.420 i'm sitting next to jojo who's now the ceo of one of the biggest companies in canada and i regale him

00:25:58.780 with stories about all the misadventures that he and my sister got into and he'd smile and nod stiffly

00:26:04.280 and then later my sister told me that jojo is actually a fairly common nickname in canada and

00:26:08.940 that was the wrong jojo so if he had told me about that uh what i would have done and what

00:26:15.640 i prescribed for everybody is to own it and normalize it to say wow that was a horrible

00:26:20.740 thing i just said i call this leaning into your mistakes we instinctively try to minimize what we

00:26:26.680 said or try to explain why we did it or how we didn't mean it and i want you to revel on how horrible

00:26:33.540 it was and that transfers authenticity to the other person and shows respect and more often than not

00:26:40.280 it will it will you know fix the faux pas and i think most people they're on your side like they

00:26:46.700 want to have a good interaction with you so if you do make a mistake exactly they're not going to hold

00:26:50.780 it over your head right exactly exactly correct and i think this applies to public speaking as well

00:26:56.080 it's another tip to i use when i remember it's like these people are on my side they don't they

00:26:59.900 don't want to absolutely they don't want to see me mess up absolutely and you know for someone like

00:27:05.340 me who used to speak 40 or 50 times a year you can't speak that often without you know truly laying

00:27:11.840 an egg at least two or three times and uh so being able to laugh own that acknowledge it that often

00:27:18.680 will bring the audience on your side even if you said something really stupid like my my gaff in boston

00:27:23.100 there well let's talk about what i like about what you do in the book is you give specific small talk

00:27:28.600 strategies for different situations let's talk about first dates what's like a okay absolutely

00:27:33.960 what's a good small talk strategy for a first date here's the objective with the date and this is part

00:27:39.780 of the gender and cultural differences about dating they've done surveys of what women value on a first

00:27:45.040 date with people and they value good conversation but the single biggest thing is they want to feel safe

00:27:50.780 with you because they don't know you yet and so they're trying to determine whether you're an

00:27:55.520 ex-murder or not and so it's whereas men often go into dates thinking it's their job to convince a

00:28:02.540 date how fantabulous they are whereas your job is to authentically share who you really are with the

00:28:08.780 other person because again you're they're weeding you out and you're weeding them out and to make

00:28:13.740 them feel safe and at ease with you so i think it's good to have a couple of upbeat credentialing

00:28:18.620 examples of how practical you are how emotional you are how much you love music whatever it is that

00:28:24.760 you know really would connect you with another person that you want to be closer to and then

00:28:29.240 also just ask questions but without it being like an interrogation exactly and the other thing that

00:28:35.560 i mentioned in the book is to compliments are a good thing as long as you don't lay them on too thick

00:28:41.900 and as long as they're sort of culturally appropriate for for men and women and i think as you as you talk

00:28:48.220 to somebody you know you ask a question about like oh tell me about what you do for your career

00:28:52.580 there's opportunities for complimenting there it's like wow it's really cool that you you do that or

00:28:57.980 whatever and that gets to something that i want to share is i think really the key conversation skill

00:29:04.200 for any conversation including a first date which is how to acknowledge people because that has

00:29:09.140 mechanics behind it i break it down into what i call the four octane levels of acknowledgement which is

00:29:15.840 the first octane level when somebody says something to you about something their life is paraphrasing

00:29:21.040 what you do is how paraphrasing works is you simply take what they said gift wrap it in your

00:29:26.800 own words and hand it right back to them you're not giving any judgment you're not giving any analysis

00:29:31.240 you're just playing back what they said to you so when somebody says you know my my son just got

00:29:36.400 into college you're saying wow so your son got into a good university congratulations it may seem

00:29:42.140 really lame to just play back what another person says but that's a technique you can have in your

00:29:47.220 back pocket if you don't know what else to say once i was on stage in front of hundreds of people

00:29:51.860 and i asked somebody to role play with me and they had an example where there was a snafu and they

00:29:58.040 weren't going to graduate and they came up yelling and screaming at me and all i did was just paraphrase

00:30:02.360 everything they said wow you know this is really inconveniencing you this is holding up your job we

00:30:07.220 got to figure out a way to help you graduate as soon as possible and she's standing there with this

00:30:11.380 look of stunned silence on her face thing i'm trying to get mad at this guy and i don't know what to say

00:30:15.540 so that's the lowest octane level of acknowledgement the next octane level is observation

00:30:21.600 where instead of just playing back what they're saying you take a guess at what they're feeling

00:30:26.380 you can't crack open their head and see what they're feeling so and it's safe to guess about it

00:30:30.740 before i became a crisis counselor before i became a therapist i was a crisis line counselor in the

00:30:35.560 suicide prevention crisis line and one of the things they train us to do is take a guess at what the

00:30:40.120 other person's feeling so we may say okay you just broke up with your boyfriend and you're feeling

00:30:44.660 very frightened they may even come back and say no i'm not frightened i'm angry but they still

00:30:49.580 appreciate the fact that you're trying to lock in on how they feel so on a date an observation phrase

00:30:54.760 could be something like wow i can tell by your tone of voice how proud you are about that or i'm reading

00:30:59.320 your body language here wow that must have been really frustrating the next octane level up and i like

00:31:05.900 this for men because it's emotionally a little safer than expressing emotions is validation so

00:31:11.760 paraphrasing is here's your thought observation is here's what i think you're feeling validation is i see

00:31:18.200 how you feel and i think your feelings are valid that's where the term comes from i think you have a right

00:31:24.020 to feel that way and you can do this even if you violently disagree with the other person

00:31:28.680 validation is nothing more than letting somebody know that other people feel the same way so all you do

00:31:34.840 is just invite a big crowd in your answer and say boy everybody hates to pay their taxes or nobody likes it

00:31:39.760 when somebody goes off and you like that and then the highest octane level is identification

00:31:45.140 were you sure that you would feel the same way wow you know if that happened that would bother me too

00:31:49.620 so if somebody operates on an emotional plane then the higher the octane level you go the better the

00:31:55.840 other person tends to feel so you need to kind of titrate in real time which octane level that you're

00:32:02.600 using to acknowledge the other person when you get good at this you become the most interesting person in

00:32:07.860 the world and i yeah again this is a skill like you'll learn through trial and error how to titrate

00:32:13.360 that and when i am in therapy with people or coaching people on small talk we do incessant

00:32:18.820 role-playing until people get really really good at it okay so we talked about first dates so the goal

00:32:23.740 there is to let the woman know that you are someone you can trust etc make that emotional connection

00:32:28.940 let's talk about a small talk on a job interview oh that's a great example you wish what should that

00:32:34.460 look like and that's old home days for me one of the things that i did for the last decade was every

00:32:39.800 year i would teach an orientation workshop for that was a week long for the incoming engineering graduate

00:32:45.180 students at cornell and it was almost all focused around how to do your first job interviews and one

00:32:49.880 of the things i would tell people is you have two objectives or i should say the interviewer has two

00:32:54.560 objectives in an interview one is can you do the job the other is are you an axe murderer and

00:32:59.560 so your job just like a date is not to convince the interviewer how fantabulous you are but it's

00:33:06.160 to authentically transfer and transmit information about who you are and what you're going to be like

00:33:11.740 to work with and so here you mentioned preparation earlier this here having good preparation good

00:33:18.540 credential examples is really important i'll give you a really good example of this i've interviewed

00:33:24.220 hundreds of people as you know i ran customer service call centers in the software industry for a long

00:33:29.240 time and when you're hiring somebody to work in a call center they really have to know computers

00:33:34.540 really well because of course they're doing technical support once my human resource department

00:33:39.540 set me up with an interview with somebody who'd been a construction worker all his life then he hurt his

00:33:44.040 back and couldn't do construction anymore went back to community college to learn computer programming

00:33:48.680 and so i wasn't sure you know what to make of that and i wasn't sure you know if that person would

00:33:53.860 really have the depths of skills that we were looking for so i went into the interview the first

00:33:58.600 question i asked was so you know what was it like for you you know going from construction and

00:34:03.300 contracting to learning how to work with computers and what he said was he says when i learned this

00:34:08.740 programming language here's how they taught me now if i were teaching this language here's what i would

00:34:12.480 do and he just proceeded to lay out a curriculum and my jaw was on the floor i would have given my right

00:34:19.000 arm to hire him and he actually had plenty of offers and went elsewhere but that was an example of where a

00:34:24.780 good credential example really you know changed my perception of whether this was somebody i wanted

00:34:29.200 to hire small talk is important in an interview because the interviewer wants to know what you're

00:34:34.740 like to work with and so if uh if they're talking about what's going on in their lives or if they're

00:34:40.840 venting frustrations about what's happening in the workplace they're looking to see how you're going

00:34:45.100 to react to that and they're also looking to see what kind of a person are you going to be like

00:34:49.340 you know as a co-worker with you know people who are currently on the team no in my experience i i've

00:34:54.540 it's been a long time since i've done a job interview but when i was interviewing for law intern jobs

00:34:59.500 i i understood that okay my resume has obviously they they thought my my credentials are good they

00:35:05.220 think i'm the point of this job interview is like they like me and they're going to get along with me so

00:35:09.480 i just basically my interviews never talked about my grades they never talked about my interest in law

00:35:14.560 it was just like it was basically like a 20 minute small talk conversation about random stuff

00:35:20.260 that's wonderful they're trying to get to know who you were and what kind of person you were like

00:35:24.460 and one thing that's really important about this is i think it's important to also authentically get

00:35:31.000 across who you are i have never seen people blow interviews for the most part once in a great great

00:35:36.540 while i'm interviewing somebody for customer service they talk about how they hate customers and

00:35:40.600 you know um but for the most part people don't blow interviews because they're too nervous they

00:35:46.060 don't blow interviews because they accidentally say the wrong thing usually it's very clear to the

00:35:51.000 interviewer who the right person for the job is among the people they talk to so your job is just to

00:35:55.640 authentically relax and be who you are i'll give you one example of this um my last corporate job

00:36:02.340 was i was the manager of a 24-hour call center for a large software company and one of the first

00:36:09.000 questions they asked me is they said rich you know people in this company tend to travel a lot you

00:36:12.700 know we we have customers all over the country and we tend to do a lot of traveling what do you think

00:36:17.680 about traveling and what i said is listen carefully i hate traveling i'm good for maybe three or four

00:36:24.080 trips a year and if you want more than that you should move on to the next person here's the here's

00:36:28.500 the experience and here's the benefits i bring to the table if you were to hire me and so they liked

00:36:33.260 what they heard and they hired me and more importantly they hired me on my terms um you

00:36:38.960 know traveling you know within my tolerance for travel right so don't don't give the answer you

00:36:44.000 think they want to hear like just exactly correct yeah and the reason that's important is not just

00:36:49.100 boundary setting but also you know people have pretty good radar for you know whether you're being

00:36:54.220 sincere and authentic and if you're comfortable with who you are and transmit that to the other person

00:36:58.740 that is so much more important than trying to impress the other person let's talk about a

00:37:04.340 situation that i think makes a lot of people uncomfortable they're invited to a party but the

00:37:09.720 only person they know there's the host and so what what you typically end up doing is just hanging

00:37:14.580 around the host the entire time absolutely what's a good game plan for that that's a great question

00:37:20.360 and that's actually a very good situation a lot of social situations are where you're going to

00:37:24.960 a conference you don't know anyone for example or worse you go to a conference or a party and you

00:37:31.140 only know as you mentioned some people and you only hang out with them my strategy for that is you ask

00:37:36.360 them to introduce you to other people they know and and also mechanics figure into this too you know

00:37:42.440 when somebody's hosting a party with a lot of people you get a certain slice of their time and

00:37:47.300 that's the appropriateness you should keep in the back of your mind but leveraging that relationship to

00:37:51.920 to connect with other relationships is is the strategy you use there okay so yeah go to your

00:37:56.560 host be like can you introduce me to some people that you think yeah exactly okay leverage that

00:38:00.800 relationship what about uh like and this is another common one uh weddings right and where that you're

00:38:05.500 assigned a seat and you're assigned to someone like i have no clue who this person is what do you how

00:38:11.360 do you navigate that one absolutely it's hard to prep for those of course because you know these are

00:38:16.360 like patients in different rooms of a hospital i was at exact in exactly that situation not that long

00:38:20.720 ago with their relative getting married where i was you know i was with the old people's table

00:38:24.480 of course and i thought it was wonderful because just going through the basic mechanics of who are

00:38:30.880 you what do you do you know what do you like uh here's what i'm like i made some really good you

00:38:36.600 know friendships that have persisted since then from just just getting to know people and getting

00:38:41.380 everyone to open up and again you got to be careful like especially at a wedding let's say oh how do you

00:38:46.040 know the groom and they're like and then you start telling this crazy story from your college days

00:38:51.860 that might be embarrassing you don't want to do that right exactly yeah exactly correct this this

00:38:57.200 gets the what we were talking about earlier about be careful on anything that's potentially critical or

00:39:02.060 you know incriminating about the the guest of honor what's that thing from the rotary club i think

00:39:06.460 it's from the rotary club that like don't say right don't say something if it's like wait yeah what was

00:39:10.440 that rotary four-way test i actually gave a talk on the rotary four-way test on a former rotarian

00:39:15.880 and i don't remember it off the top of my head but basically is it kind is it true is it going to

00:39:22.680 help you know build goodwill among people um it's a good it's a good strategy to live by i don't yeah

00:39:28.660 i think it's a good way to navigate what to say well absolutely rich this has been a great

00:39:32.960 conversation is there some place likewise people can go to learn more about your work

00:39:36.220 absolutely so yeah the book is called stress-free small talk it's available where fine books are

00:39:41.040 sold and also available online most it's actually one of the best-selling books on conversation skills

00:39:46.920 for social anxiety which is not the biggest niche in the world and i have a website smalltalkcoach.com

00:39:52.680 that tells more about that and also uh this is uh you know my hub for coaching services and i also

00:39:57.800 have a very informative blog on topics on how to have a good small talk which is all free well rich

00:40:03.280 gallagher thanks for your time it's been a pleasure thank you brett you too my guest today

00:40:07.580 is rich gallagher he's the author of the book stress-free small talk it's available on amazon.com

00:40:11.660 you can find more information about his work at his website smalltalkcoach.com also check out our

00:40:16.320 show notes at aom.is stress-free small talk where you find links to resources where you delve deeper

00:40:20.820 into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our

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The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

Stress-Free Small Talk

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