Confident Small Talk (How To NOT Be Awkward)

Do you hate small talk? I certainly did for many years and avoided it. And yet maybe you want to get better at it or maybe you feel like you have to get better at it. Either way, in this video I'm going to teach you exactly how to do that. And it's not just about you got to have the right skills and always know what to say and be real smooth. It's actually a mindset shift, it's a confidence shift. And when I got this, it just changed everything for me. And so now I feel really confident in small talk. I wouldn't say I'm the best at small talk, but I can do it and I can connect with anyone. And then here's the best part. If you get good at small talk, you can do what you really want to do, probably if you're watching this video, which is to make a deeper conversation because that's probably what you really enjoy if you want to take the conversation a bit deeper, a bit more meaningful. But instead of having to avoid small talk, you can use it like a tool and get to where you want to go. I'm Dr. Aziz, I'm the founder of the center for Social Confidence and the author of multiple best selling books on confidence and also the teacher of various courses including a three day event I teach called Supremely Confident Conversation Master. And in that event I teach a room full of people who have a lot of social anxiety and afraid to talk to people, how to truly become conversation masters. And one of the key things that we address in that event is small talk. And I'm going to share some of the best tools and strategies from that event with you here now for free. The first thing that you need to do is shift your perception of small talk. Because if you hate it, right, because you've had awkward moments and you're like, I was so awkward, I hate small talk, I'm never gonna do it again, right? And you blame the small talk, you blame the other people, you blame yourself, and then it doesn't shift anything and then you just can't do it. You have to start avoiding it. And you don't go to places cause you're like, oh, it's just gonna be a bunch of small talk. Those people are superficial, I don't wanna go there anyway. And you end up cutting out big areas of opportunity for connection in your life. So the first thing you have to do is realize small talk is your friend. Because here' talk really is. And when I say small talk, just to clarify, that means chit chatting about Something in the environment like, oh, nice weather. Or maybe even chit chatting like, hey, did you see the game? Hey, how's it going today? Or whatever. Something more in the environment that's shared over time, like in a workplace or other situation. Regardless, though, it's not really deep, like what's going on in your life and how are you doing? The way you see small talk is beneficial is you realize it's basically a way of opening up a conversation. And in that little window you're saying, are you open to connection right now? You're not actually saying that during small talk. In rare cases, you might do that. It could also be a little weird, but you could just be there with the person. You're saying, like, hey, we're two humans, we're coming. Think of it like you were observing another species. Are you ever seeing those birds doing a little mating dance? Or another insect doing a communication? That's basically saying, this is my territory. Well, you, my insect bird friend, are also an animal like them, as am I. And we do something. So humans get in proximity and they do this little small talk thing and they're basically saying, are you open to communication? And when you see it like that, it allows you to say, oh, this is the doorway to everything I want. And that's what I realized, because back when I was learning this main thing I wanted to do was date women and I was afraid to talk to them. And I felt like I can't just do this little small talk thing. And I realized, but that's the doorway to everything you want. Deeper conversations, dating a girlfriend, right? So being starting with that changes everything. The next thing is you got to realize one of the reasons you're probably uncomfortable with it is there's no script. There's like, what are we supposed to be talking about? I don't know what I'm supposed to say. And even just that thinking screws you up. What am I supposed to say? Who's the arbiter? Who's determining what you're supposed to do? You get to decide. And that when you just realize there's no script, there's nothing to try to follow. And if the more you try to follow, because some people be like, so where do you live? What do you do for work? Right? And that's the script. And everyone's bored, even you break apart the script and then do two things. One is give people something to work with. What do I mean by that? So just say things that pop into your head so you want to share something about your Life. It doesn't have to be related to what they're saying. They might say, hey, how's it going? In fact, I work with people on this. Someone says, what's up? How's it going? They're like, good, fine. Like, you gotta give something to work with. So what you do is you translate that question of what's up? Or hey, how's it going? Into tell me something that you're interested in right now, or tell me something that you're doing in your life, or tell me something you did today. And most people don't say that, but you can translate their question of how's it going? Into that. So then when someone says, hey, how's it going? You say, oh, I'm doing good. I insert something you did today. Oh, I just got back from the gym. I just spent a weekend with my kids. It was great. And you give them something to work with. And the biggest obstacle to this is not that you don't have anything. Don't tell yourself. It's not that. There's nothing I could say. That is just an old story that's ingrained in your. Your mind for repetition. The truth is, you might be a little uncomfortable opening up even the littlest bit, but they're not going to be interested. And the only way to overcome that is to repeatedly share a bit more about yourself. I'm not saying during small talk you have to reveal your deepest secrets, but just share a little bit. Let people into your life. And I know it might be uncomfortable, but the more you do it, the more familiar it will come. And then it will actually start to feel really good. You're just relaxed. You're just like, I can just say whatever I want. The flip side of it is, ask whatever you want. Ask the questions you really want to ask. Steer the conversation in ways that are interesting to. Sometimes people feel like they gotta follow on. This person talked about their dog. Now I have to ask 35 questions about their dog. Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't want to. And you can say, that's cool. Do you have any other pets? Right. Or you move to a different topic entirely. You just touch on it briefly and move on. Just ask whatever. Maybe you do want to ask about a dog, but you don't want to ask, like, what's the breed? How old is it? That's neat. Instead you could be like, like, the first thing that pops into my mind is, because we have two dogs, where does your dog poop? That's a big deal for a dog. Owner, if you don't own a dog, then you don't care about this. But if you do own a dog, it matters. Do they poop in your yard? Do they poop on the. How do you deal with it? Right? And so for me, we live on a big property. We got a bunch of forests and woods, and sometimes the dogs always want to poop on the small, little bit of lawn that we have. I'm like, dude, you got 19 acres of forest and you have to do it here. My lectures don't. Don't seem to get through to them, right? But do you see all of a sudden this conversation is weird. It's interesting. It's certainly not. Where do you work? Cool, right? You get to just find something way more interesting and fascinating. If you want to go way deeper with this, I have a whole course that I think you're going to love. It's called Social Mastery and it's part of Confidence University. And inside of Social Mastery, I teach step by step, all of this stuff. How to start conversations, how to master small talk, the body language for confident connection, and then how to take it further, right? How to go into the levels of connection where you can deeply connect with people, create deep friendships, fun friendships, adventures, and really master your social life. So if you want to check that out, click down below, link in the description to Confidence University and also share down in the comments below. What are your questions? What are you finding most valuable? I want to have this channel as a resource for you so that you know, most importantly, that you're not alone. Right? There are millions of people who struggle with this. Hundreds of millions, maybe even billions, and that we together can shift this. Social anxiety is not a permanent condition. It's not some defect in your DNA. It's just a pattern that you can shift. So I hope this supports you on your path and until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.