Well, Donnie turned out to be the best date I had that decade. Donnie
had buckteeth, a head full of tousled red hair, and comunications skills that
immediately put me at ease.
On Saturday night, Donnie greeted me at the door, carnation in hand
and grin on face. He joked self-deprecatingly about how he was dying to go
to the prom so, knowing it was a case of mitaken identity, he accepted
anyway. He told me he was thrilled
when the girl with the lovely voice called, and he took full
responsibility for tricking me into an invitation. Donnie made me
comfortable and confident as we chatted. First we made small talk and then
he gradually led me into subjects I was interested in. I flipped over Donnie,
and he became my very first boyfriend.
Donnie instinctively had the small-talk skills that we are now going to
fashion into techniques to help you glide through small talk like a hot knife
through butter. When you master them, you will be ablelike Donnieto melt
the heart of everyone you touch.
The goal of How to Talk to Anyone is not, of course, to make you a
small-talk whiz and stop there. The aim is to make you a dynamic
conversationalist and forceful communicator. However, small talk is the
first crucial step toward that goal.
How to Start Great Small Talk
Youve been there. Youre introduced to someone at a party or busness
meeting. You shake hands, your eyes meet... and suddenly your entire
body of knowledge dries up and thought processes come to a screeching
halt. You fish for a topic to fill the awkward silence. Failing, your new
contact slips away in the direction of the cheese tray.
We want the first words falling from our lips to be sparkling, witty, and
insightful. We want our listeners to immediately reognize how riveting we
are. I was once at a gathering where everbody was sparkling, witty,
insightful, and riveting. It drove me berserk because most of these same
everybodies felt they had to prove it in their first ten words or less!
Several years ago, the Mensa organization, a social group of extremely
bright individuals who score in the countrys top 2 pecent in intelligence,
invited me to be a keynote speaker at their annual convention. Their
cocktail party was in full swing in the lobby of the hotel as I arrived. After
checking in, I hauled my bags through the hoard of happy-hour Mensans to
the elevator. The doors separated and I stepped into an elevator packed with
ooja
(Ooja)
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