PART TWO
How to Know What to Say After You Say Hi
Just as the first glimpse should please their eyes, your first words should
delight their ears. Your tongue is a welcome mat embossed with either
Welcome or Go Away! To make your conversation partner feel welcome,
you must master small talk.
Small talk! Can you hear the shudder? Those two little words drive a
stake into the hearts of some otherwise fearless and undaunted souls. Invite
them to a party where they dont know anyone, and it mainlines queasiness
into their veins.
If this sounds familiar, take consolation from the fact that the brighter
the individual, the more he or she detests small talk. When consulting for
Fortune 500 companies, I was astounded. Top executives, completely
comfortable making big talk with their boards of directors or addressing
their stockholders, confessed they felt like little lost children at parties
where the pratter was less than prodigious.
Small-talk haters take further consolation from the fact that you are in
star-studded company. Fear of small talk and stage fright are the same thing.
The butterflies you feel in your stoach when youre in a roomful of strangers
flutter round the tummies of top performers. Pablo Casals complained of
lifelong stage fright. Carly Simon curtailed live performances because of it.
A friend of mine who worked with Neil Diamond said he insisted the words
to Song Sung Blue, a tune hed been crooning for forty years, be displayed
on his teleprompter, lest fear freeze him into forgetfulness.
Is Small-Talk-a-Phobia Curable?
Someday, scientists say, communications fears may be treatable with
drugs. Theyre already experimenting with Prozac to change peoples
personalities. But some fear disastrous side effects. The good news is that
when human beings think, and genuinely feel, certain emotionslike
confidence that they have specific tecniques to fall back onthe brain
manufactures its own antidotes. If fear and distaste of small talk is the
disease, knowing solid tecniques like the ones we explore in this section is
the cure.
Incidentally, science is beginning to recognize its not chance or even
upbringing that one person has a belly of butterflies and another doesnt. In
our brains, neurons communicate through chemicals called