How To Move Beyond Small Talk | Dr. Aziz - Confidence Coach

Do you hate small talk? Is it something that makes you want to avoid going to parties, social gatherings, even business networking events? Because you know you have to engage in dreaded, unpleasant, awkward, boring, terrible small talk? If so, watch this video to learn how to instantly get beyond small talk. Welcome to another episode of the Art of Extraordinary Confidence. I'm your host, best selling author, Dr. Aziz and confidence expert, they say, and this video is all about how to get beyond small talk. Now, most people don't like small talk, and you're probably one of those people. And the people that especially don't like small talk were people like me who had a history of being shy and might tend to be a little more introverted. Because introverted people tend to like one on one conversations or small groups and go deep to talk about what's really going on. And small talk can be kind of superficial layer chatter that tends to be not very engaging and tends to be very hard to stay with. It feels tiring, feels exhausting. So if you have that experience with small talk, I have great news for you. You don't have to engage in that much small talk. This is what makes it so awesome. Because I thought, well, maybe it's a necessary evil, so you just gotta, you just gotta do it. And, and there's a little bit of truth to that. Like you have to have at least some basic proficiency to go back and forth once or twice in the conversation. But then if you're willing to do this, then you can transform everything and have the conversations that you want. You want to know what the this is? The this is. You got to be willing to be a leader. You got to be a leader in the conversation. Most people approach conversations, they're the passenger in the car and they're like, what are we going to talk about? And they kind of wait for the other person to be the driver, to ask them questions, to share whatever they want to share. And then we just nod and listen and smile and ask them questions about what they just said, right? So they're leading the conversation. If you don't want to get stuck in small talk, you have to be the leader. And guess what? That takes some boldness, that takes some courage. That takes some willingness to put something out there, to show up, to not hide behind a smile and a pleasant face, but then not really revealing who you are. So here's how we get beyond small talk. There are many ways to do this, and I share a ton of that inside of my program. The confidence code, which is all about conversation mastery and core Self esteem, to be able to relate to others. But I want to share one technique from that. It's actually not even in that program, bonus technique. But if you want to go really deep, check that one out. But here's what I would suggest you do. Right now. I want to do a little activity with you right now. There's going to be a little interactive thing. So play. Play along with me. Okay, ready? I want you to think of three things that you're interested in right now. Ready? One, two, three, go. Three things that you're interested in right now. Okay, good. Did you come up with three? Are you still thinking of the second one or the third one? Are you questioning, am I really interested in that one? Is that one good enough? But if that's happening, just the first three things that come to your mind, what are you interested in? And it doesn't have to be like, my lifelong passion has been cycling or whatever. I mean, it could be. Maybe you're into that. But think short term. Like, did you just read an article this morning? Did you just watch a movie this last weekend? Did you just go for a run earlier today? And so you enjoy running. So you're kind of. That's kind of in your awareness. You're interested in that. So it doesn't have to be your lifelong interest. Just what are you interested in? This moment. And here's why this is so important. Because if you're interested in something, you have energy around it. There's a quality of your face and your body and whatever else we emit that you can't even observe with the measurements that we have with our eyes. People pick up on it, right? People feel your energy. And when you talk about the stuff that you're interested in, you emit energy. And guess what? Conversations are all about an energy exchange. There's an exchange of energy. And if you guys resonate like to two waves that are in sync, then the conversation feels good. If you kind of clash and there's. And everything's opposite about each other, probably not that pleasurable. And if there's no energy, then you don't even, why do I want to talk to this person? So we want to share what we're interested in and do so with energy. Now you might be saying, well, hold on a second, Aziz. I heard from Dale Carnegie and other courses that the way to make friends and influence people is to not talk about yourself. Because that's bad. And you're not supposed to talk about yourself. No one wants to hear about you. Everyone's interested in themselves. You know, I'm saying a lot of the common lore here around conversations, so you should ask them a million questions about themselves. Now, there is value in that teaching. And if you've ever had a conversation with someone who is very interested in you, it can feel quite nice. So there's value in that. But if that's the only tool in your tool belt, and you're going to have some problems, One, you might feel drained after social interaction conversations because you're giving a lot of energy, but you might not be receiving. It might not be that symbiotic. Right. Reciprocal. So secondly, they might walk away thinking like, well, that was really nice, but do they know anything about you? Maybe they enjoy the attention, but do they really feel connected to you? And then thirdly, do you feel really fulfilled? Because the thing is not just to get people to like us so we can influence them. I mean, that might be one of your goals, but I mean, one of my goals is I want to, you know, get people, show who I am, and then maybe if someone likes me back, that's great. And then we have a deep friendship, but it's based upon me being who I am. So you do want to ask them questions, you do want to find out about what they're interested in. But that's only a piece of the puzzle, a piece of the equation. The other piece is you got to be able to share. So share what you're interested in. And there's a million and one ways to do this. I do go into this in the confidence code, because if you have the story that says I'm boring or I'm not interesting, and I know that's a really common story, I had that one for a really long time. And a lot of my clients have that story too. I'm boring, I'm not interesting, my life's not that exciting. And as a result, guess how they share, if they even share what they're interested in. But if they say, okay, he's told me to share, I'm going to do it. How do they share? Well, you know, I went to this rock climbing gym the other day. Whatever, you know, kind of really muted, really, in an uninteresting way. And part of that's shyness, part of that's we're afraid to let our real selves show, let our energy show, let our passion show. But guess what is magnetic and incredibly attractive is when you show that energy, because it's like a spark of life in most people's lives, a lot of people's lives are otherwise kind of monotonous and sort of dead. So when you're a spark of life, man, that's attractive. So you say, man. And here's the thing. You don't have to wait for someone to ask you, so what did you do yesterday? Did you go to any new activities? You know, because if you're waiting for that, you might never get it. So let's say you're having a conversation. They come up and they say, it's a co worker, for example. And they're like, hey, how's it going? There's your opportunity, there's your path. There's your doorway right there. So someone says, hey, how's it going? Instead of saying, oh, fine. How about you? Great, Cool. So right, you know that moment. Or it's small talk, right? They're like, oh, it's pretty hot out today. And you're like, yeah. Or they're, you know, it's work, small talk. Like, oh, did you see the new memo that came through? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because that's what working in a corporation is all about, right? It's just memos going back and forth. I know, I know what's going on. So a little bit of small talk and then you spontaneously share that thing that you're interested in. So they say, hey, how's it going? You say, oh, I'm doing good, actually. I'm kind of sore in my arms here and my fingers. I just was yesterday. That person, hypothetical person I'm talking to, is right over there. I just went to the rock climbing gym for the first time yesterday and it's crazy, man. My fingers are super sore. Have you ever done any rock climbing? See that? So I'm sharing with my actual experience and some details about what I did. And now this gives people an opportunity to engage with you, to get to know you, to respond. Maybe they say, no, I've never done that. Or like, oh, yeah, I'm into that. You're like, oh my God, you're into that. And you can ask them questions about it and have a much more interesting, engaging conversation for you, for you, but also for them. So there's so much more. I just did an hour, maybe an hour and a half. We had a focused strategy call in my mastermind group that was all about this conversation. Tactics at a high level. So I tried to condense some of the best. One of the key nuggets, put it down, share it with you here. Because that's what I'm all about is spreading the word of confidence. Everyone can be confident and everyone can be more confident. The more confidence you have, the more doorways to success open in your life in all areas romantically, physically, socially, economically. So I want that for you. Thank you for being with me on this video and if you enjoyed it, like it. Subscribe and also share your comments below. What have you found? Helps you avoid small talk? Get into a more engaging, deep conversation with someone until we speak again. May you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.