Master The Art Of Conversation (Using Psychology)

It's easy to get stuck in small talk that goes nowhere. You both feel bored and the conversation fizzles out. But once you understand how deeper connection really works, then

conversations become enjoyable, meaningful, and they leave both of you feeling closer. A lot of the time, what you say matters less than how well you listen, how you respond, and the

questions that you ask next. So, if you master these skills, you can deepen almost any conversation. So, in this video, I'll show you two things. First,

how to escape that small talk trap. And second, how to move into meaningful conversations that leave you feeling connected. I'm Dr. Thomas Smith. I'm a clinical psychologist and an author. And

I've spent years helping people improve their social skills and build real relationships. And a huge thanks to N for sponsoring this video.

So you need to get out of information exchange and go deeper. So this means not asking for more and more surface knowledge but instead getting into deeper topics like what motivates

people, what do they care about and what is emotionally engaging for them. But if you linger in small talk too long, yeah, it gets boring. Why? Because small talk

isn't good at triggering emotions. It calms us down. That's great. That's why we have it. But then we need to trigger some kind of emotion in order

for the conversation to be interesting and engaging. Yes, you'll usually start with a boring expected starter questions. I know there's some people who will tell you to jump straight into

deep questions immediately like, "What are you passionate about right now?" But in context, like that's often awkward. It's generally smoother to get there

organically. So, start from the boring questions, but then go pretty quickly into open-ended questions. This will get them talking twice as much. I like how did you come

to do X? And that really means like what motivated you to do that. Don't focus on what they did. Focus on why they wanted

to do it. Why did they choose it? And what was it like when they did it? Okay, let's look at some examples of how to go deeper quickly from those boring starter

getting to know you questions. Boring starter question, where are you from? We can go into what was it like growing up there? And now you're into the topic of

growing up, which is inherently more emotionally resonant and therefore not boring. Maybe were you a troublemaker or a good kid. What were you into in high school? Okay, boring starter question.

What do you do? So work for a lot of people is not emotionally resonant. Therefore, it's boring, right? So what do you do? Oh, I manage tertiary accounts for Main Street Capital

Solutions. I'm going nowhere with that. But if you can tell that their job is emotionally resonant for them, then try how did you get into that? Is it what you expected? When did you know this is

what you wanted to do? And maybe even like what do you like about it? If it's boring, then just get off that work topic entirely. Maybe even go back to childhood or growing up because we know

that's emotionally resonant. Like we can ask, oh, did you always want to do that? Probably not. What did you want to do when you were growing up? Everyone has an answer for this. Okay, boring starter

question. Do you live around here? Well, we can make that more interesting by saying, well, how did you decide to move here? Have you ever lived somewhere

else? Is there somewhere you've always wanted to live? So desire and change again are inherently emotional and emotion is not boring. Boring side

of question. What do you do for fun? So here you can try um the favorite least favorite game which is pretty enjoyable. So if someone says, "Oh, I like um hiking." Oh yeah, like what's your

favorite trail? And then you get to figure out why and like what works for them. Like why do they enjoy this or not enjoy that? Why is it their favorite or

their least favorite? Okay, will this work every time? Well, yes. 60% of the time it will. But the benefit of these open-ended questions is that you let

people decide how deep they want to go. Some don't want to connect. That is fine. We're not forcing them, right? I know that some people worry that asking

these deeper questions is intrusive. So, I think of them more like it's an invitation. Some people will accept the invitation, some won't. It's nice either

way. It's easy to assume others won't want to share just because maybe we don't, right? But the research shows us that most people like being asked questions,

kind of a lot of them. and they enjoy deeper, more sensitive ones way more than you'd think. But asking better questions is just the first step. To go further, you want to shift how you

actually converse with people. So, I want you to have this mindset. Stop talking like a stranger and instead talk like a friend. So, like mentally

pretend you're friends. You can look at people and you can tell who are strangers and who are actually close. Strangers are constrained and controlled and stiff and careful and like safely

asking the most surface boring questions of all time. Hope is forever pointing out people who are on first dates because it's just so obvious. When we're closer with people, we're looser. Like

we bounce around between topics, we ask more sensitive questions. We go deep. We joke. We interject. And people like it better when we interact with them in a

manner that's closer to friendship than if we were to treat them like strangers. If you talk like a stranger, you will feel like a stranger.

So fun conversations move around covering lots of different topics. Boring ones get stuck in one place for too long. So allow things to move. So

stop and think about it. Like if you look back on great conversations. Like don't you usually see that we've probably covered a range of different

things and maybe even never fully finished any one topic that there always is open loops cuz one idea sparks another idea and that then is what made

it flow. Right? So we want to ride that wave of topics. We want to ride that flow. So don't just stubbornly stick in the same place and also don't just keep

dragging it back to that place. I was on a very nice first date many years ago and she was kind and she asked me about

what my top five favorite movies were. And so I would name one and then we would branch off into it like why I was into that movie. It would spark another

idea and a question and we'd go somewhere. So, we were having honestly a great conversation, but time and again she would stop me and say, "Oh, oh, oh, sorry, we got off

track there. Um, I think you're up to number three. What's number two?" This was a bit frustrating, right? The point was not the list. The list was just a starter that could get us exploring and

finding more interesting areas where we could have a better conversation. Think of conversation like taking a joy ride. So, you want to take your conversation partner places that they enjoy, but you

can't just ask, "Hey, what would you want to talk about?" Because the social code says it has to feel organic. So, what we do is we just keep things moving, transitioning into new topics

here and there, and then we notice where do they respond? Like, what do they react to? So specifically what you're looking for is for their facial expressions to kind of light up like you

can see the emotion on their face or maybe they get more animated, they talk faster or they start telling you more like more words come out. So these are all cues that something has triggered an

emotion. And again remember that's what makes things not boring. So when you see this dig deeper like what is it about that that's so appealing? What do you

like about doing this? You know what? I've never done it before. I've always wondered. You can see they've reacted to something. So, you dig in on that. Now, this works best if you are genuinely

curious, too. So, maybe think about things that you actually want to know, like their opinions on or like certain qualities they have or maybe experiences that reveal more of who they are under

the surface. Right? So when someone's a stranger, they seem more like just a type, like more generic. But to that person's friends, they are a unique

weirdo. If you can find out what makes them unique, then you have moved closer to them, somewhere closer where their friends are. When you find those moments

where they light up, that's your signal to go deeper. And the best way to do that is to get them recounting stories and memories.

When we find interesting or emotionally resonant topics, we want to encourage people to share their experiences and to tell us stories. Like maybe you've heard

that humans get more happiness from buying experiences than they do from buying stuff. Well, the same is true for talking. We love telling other people

about our enjoyable experiences and it brings us closer. More good news. because we have already lived them. Stories that we tell are concrete

meaning we can give details, we can describe the senses, we can relive the emotions. So research even finds that narrating a memory, it amps up the

emotion involved. So like let's say they enjoy traveling. Ask them what's your favorite place that you visited? What was that like? Tell me the story.

Will they like this? Well, think about how much people want to share when they come back from a great vacation and how quickly bored most of their friends probably get. One of the hardest

situations is when you're in conversations with someone, but you're required to look away to do a task like taking notes. In the research, we know

that this is really hard on the other person. in therapy, right? Being clearly connected while someone is speaking is so vital that I actually spent years

teaching myself to write notes without looking down at the page. But luckily, you don't have to spend years learning how to do this. You can just check out a new device that I found really helpful

lately. Not a Memo is a pocket-size AI voice recorder that captures highquality audio and transcribes it into text. With the press of a single button, you can

record anywhere and know that your words and your conversations are safely captured. It can record inerson meetings without the need for a computer or phone, as well as both sides of a work

call thanks to bone conduction technology. Not memo records with clarity, even in noisy places. and everything syncs right into the not site

where the conversation is transcribed with time-saving summaries and even smart suggestions. Hope and I use not a memo when we work on our YouTube script ideas. We both

love that we can be fully engaged in the brainstorming and the creativity without one of us having to break attention to take notes. So, if you want to stop worrying about missing what matters and

start focusing fully on the people in front of you, try the not a memo with the link below and use my 20% off discount code to get started.

So, we don't care about the information. What we care about is the story. Friends don't give each other one-s sentence AI summaries of what happened, right? They

want to take their friend on the journey. They want to tell them the story and whenever we can converse like friends rather than strangers we end up closer right I will literally say that's

so interesting tell me the story if they relive the experience and we follow it internally right by listening picturing it then we experience it with them and

that is deeply connecting because we have just lived through the same event in our imaginations. So, when you both feel the same emotions, like the excitement as they describe what was

about to happen or like we laugh together when something unexpected happens, research suggests that's our brains bonding as well as using memory

to travel into the past. We can also take them time traveling into the future. So, have them tell you about things they've always wanted to do but

haven't done yet. Like, what's on their bucket list? What are they hoping will happen in the future? These are emotionally resonant stories, too. Only

they exist in imagination rather than memory. Both of which are stored. They're in the brain. Okay? And if you feel like being really brave with this,

nothing is more connecting than trading embarrassing stories. Stories will really connect you if you can listen in the right way. If you don't, it will actually cause

problems and it cuts off connection. So, let's look at how to do it. When you're listening to someone telling you about themselves, especially their experiences, which we want, right? You

want to do it in a particular way. Basically, you communicate that you are engaged like as mentally engaged as when you're talking. Your energy is not directed to

what are you going to say next. It's to fully understanding what you're hearing. People don't want to just be listened to. They want to be understood. That is

key. Your engagement as a listener can really drive connection. Have you ever talked to people and suddenly you're like, "Wow, huh, like I'm really funny

and I'm good at telling stories." And then you go talk to somebody else and you find that you can kind of barely put your words together. Well, that's the power of a good listener. A good listener helps this happen. You might

have heard elsewhere that active listening is basically paring back what people say. But in reality, that tends to feel robotic and forced. Instead,

authentic engaged listening is showing the person that they are getting through to you. So, there are a few ways that really help you do this. Back channeling. This is short verbal cues like, "Yeah, totally. Uh-huh. Wow." Plus

non-verbal cues like nodding or like matching your expressions to what they're saying. So like wincing if someone's describing something painful. This is especially true when they look

at you. Since if someone is talking to you and they look at you, a lot of times they're seeking confirmation that you're still with them, that you get it. Next, asking follow-up questions. Ask things

that you couldn't say if you weren't actually listening. Get more information about what you're curious about. Refer back to earlier points. If you don't

fully understand, ask like, "Oh, like what happened next? What did you do?" Engage with stories like a child. So, think about parents, you know,

telling stories to kids. Kids don't sit politely. They react. They laugh. They gasp. They ask questions. They cocreate the story and that's how you want to listen. Live in the story in your

imagination and ask for the missing pieces that are not there. This way you help the person tell the story and you help the story come alive. So for

example, I might be like, "Oh man, that's crazy. Like were you scared?" You're probably like, "I need to get out of here." So these questions which you interject in, they make the story more

enjoyable for the speaker. They make the story more vivid and they also make the speaker feel like they're a better storyteller and in turn that encourages them to say more, right? And the more

they say that's strongly associated with attraction and closeness. On the other hand, if you don't do this engaged listening, it is crushing for people. It

causes all kinds of problems to the speaker. They really don't like it. I think back to when I used to teach college site classes in a room and most of the students were

sort of flat. Some of them were looking, a lot of them were not looking. They were listening, I'm think, but they were not giving the gift of engagement because it it takes

effort. You take on stress, but you actually lower the speaker stress. And I always really appreciate people that do

this. I call this the gift of engagement. It's rewarding for both people. For the person speaking, it literally lights up the reward centers

in their brain. And it gives us opportunities for the two experiences that we'll discuss in the next sections, which are the things that lead to deep connection.

When you do this and you clearly communicate that you won't judge or criticize, you create psychological safety. So people don't want to open up

and connect more deeply otherwise. Like imagine if someone thinks you'll judge or criticize what they say. Well, they're not going to share anything vulnerable and therefore you won't

develop a connection. So engage and clearly communicate acceptance and encouragement. We know that doing these things can help reduce their social anxiety and their protectiveness.

To really connect deeply, what you're looking for is an overlap between the two of you in who you are, what you've been through, and how you see things.

So, psychologists, we sometimes call this shared reality. And scientifically, it's one of the strongest drivers of deep connection. Of course, you won't

agree with everything, and you don't have to. Uh, but the worst thing you can do is come across like you think their perspective is wrong or invalid. You may

think you're right, but that door is getting closed and it's getting locked. So, instead, I'd encourage you to focus on where you agree if you're trying to connect. So, have you had similar

experiences? Have you felt similar emotions? When you find those overlaps, then share them. Celebrate them. If they tell you about an exciting time, tell them about an experience you've had that

gave you similar feelings. Connection is built by identifying and then leaning into these areas of common ground. Okay. Well, it is hard to practice these

skills unless you're getting into conversations with new people. So, if you want to work on meeting people and mastering small talk, then watch this video next. It is the perfect precursor

for starting conversations without the awkwardness.