Taking Control Of Conversations

Coming to you from the center for Social Confidence in Portland, Oregon, welcome to Shrink for the shy guy Helping men everywhere go from social anxiety to social domination with your host, Dr. Aziz.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we, we're going to be diving into conversation mastery and we've been kind of focusing on on this around this time because the supremely confident conversation master. One of my live events is coming up. We do it every spring and it's going to be in beginning of March this year. And in fact, Early Bird tickets are actually on sale now where you can get it for 50% off the normal ticket price for the Early Bird. Those are people who know they want to come and ready to sign up. It's gonna be awesome because this stuff, man, you can learn all the theory and tactics in the world, but nothing, nothing transforms your experience faster than just getting into conversations, practicing this stuff, which we do a ton at the event in the room. Also having sessions where you go out into the world and actually practice with people. And last year was amazing. We had so many people that were sharing about how they had conversations the likes of which they'd never had before. Like one Guy had a 45 minute conversation with someone he just met. I mean, it's amazing how once you learn these basic skills and really get them, everything opens up. So super excited about that. If you want to go, go deeper with that, go to yourconfidencecode.com event. That's yourconfidencecode.com event. And we'll have a link below@drinkforthshyguy.com in the show notes as well. Shrinkforthshyguy.com you can find out more about the event, get your ticket, all that stuff. So it's the Early Bird is happening right now. But in the spirit of that, we're gonna be talking more about conversations, specifically how to take control of conversations, because you might have had this experience before where you are in a conversation but you're not enjoying yourself. And part of you is like, I want to get out of this conversation. I'm bored. I'm not that engaged. I don't know what to say. Oh God, how could, how do I get out of this? I don't know if you've ever been there. I definitely have had a lot of those conversations in my life and that used to be my dominant experience inside of conversations. And I felt stuck and anxious and nervous and trapped and the whole thing was unpleasant. And the problem with that is then you have that kind of Interaction. And then you want to start to avoid conversations because you're like, well, I don't like talking to people. I don't want to go to that party because I'm going to get stuck in conversations. Oh, that networking thing sounds terrible. And we start to close off opportunities for business, you know, because you got to be able to network and connect with people at conferences or wherever you're going to go, or parties, your social life, your dating life. You start to close all these things off. And then maybe you come up with stories like, oh, I'm an introvert, or, oh, I have social anxiety, so I can't. But the reality is, maybe you just get stuck in these unpleasant interactions, and if you learn how to shift them quickly, you might surprisingly enjoy yourself a lot. So let's talk more about this. How to take control of conversations and therefore enjoy them more, be better at them, and have a better experience. Man, I used to be. So here's the first thing you need to do. You need to shift out of too nice and. And too passive. And I used to spend so much time in ultra nice, ultra passive. And I don't know if you've ever been in this scenario, but what I would do is I'd be talking to someone, and the way I would approach a conversation is like, they're kind of running the show, and maybe I'm interested or pretending to be interested and nodding and, you know, asking questions to keep them going. I'm doing what you should be doing according to the textbooks, right? Just keep them talking about themselves and ask them questions and they're gonna love you. That's Dale Carnegie's philosophy. That's what people will espouse all the time. But that can be so boring and confining, right? And it's not fun. But I would be passive and listening and nodding. And sometimes in my head, I'd be thinking, oh, man, I want this to be over. I want this to be done. I want them to stop talking or I want to talk about something else. And I'd have this feeling of like, I got to get out of here. But then when there's a moment to say something, I would just say, yeah, oh, interesting. Which keeps them going. Or worse, I'd be like, well, I don't want them to think that I wasn't interested, so I gotta ask them a question now. Oh, so. And then what happened in your round of golf? Right? And now they're telling me even more, and I especially don't want to hear it. But I. But I Brought it on myself because I was so nice. I didn't want them to feel like, oh, they're gonna be offended or hurt if I'm not super interested and super empathic and super with them. Can you relate to this? So how do we break free of this? How do we shift this? Well, the first thing to do is to get out of nice and passive. We need to start shifting what we're doing in a conversation. And it is good to ask them questions about themselves. Sure, that's great. Talk about things. They're interested. Sure, that's great. But we need to take control of that process, or else we could spend five, you know, five minutes or 15 minutes down a road that's not that interesting to us. And so the first thing you need to be able to do is to become more active. You need to be able to interrupt. You need to be able to interrupt to take control of the conversation. Now, this is a big deal because if you are that nice passive thing, it's bad or it's wrong to interrupt. But it is not bad. It is not wrong. It is essential for your sanity and honestly, for theirs. Because if you're just pretending to be interested, that's no fun for anybody. It's not even that fun for them. And you might dupe them. You might. You know, they might think that you were interested, but you're not gonna want to hang out with them again, right? So it's like this weird fake relationship, and then you're gonna have to passively reject them later, and it's just a mess. Why not just be more you and interrupt and interject in the conversation? So control is actually a good thing here in your conversation abilities. So let's talk about how to do that skillfully. Because a lot of people are like, well, how do I do that skillfully? I can't just tell them to shut up. Maybe you could shut up for a second. Stop talking. Right. Maybe you try that. No, let's talk about how to do it skillfully. How to interrupt skillfully in a way that's going to keep them engaged with you. Keep rapport and. And also not have you feel trapped. So we're going to take a quick break right now, then we're going to talk nuts and bolts, specifically how to interrupt. I'm going to give some examples, and we're going to go from there. So stay tuned. We'll be right back right after this. Have you ever noticed how some people just walk into a room like they own the place? They are cool, calm, collected, and other people slink in as quietly as possible, almost as if they hope no one sees they exist. Which one of those do you want to be? Unleash your confidence today and start creating the life you want. Go to confidenceunleashednow.com to get started now. Hey, welcome back. So how to interrupt skillfully, that is a super important ability. And we all need. Here are a couple specific ways on how to do that. So one is to keep your energy upbeat and high as you do it. So they're talking, you know, and then. And then we went to the other restaurant and man, the food there was just so good. They had this one hamburger there that was. Oh, man, it was so good, I tell you. I mean, you know, I eat a lot, you know, and they're going on and on. You're like, oh, God, please don't tell me more about the hamburger you ate. So you don't want your energy to be like, yeah, okay, well, hey, let's talk about something else now, right? So we want to kind of move with them. And the way you might do that is you. There's a number of different ways. Let's just go with that example there of the hamburger way. So you might say, wow, it sounds like a pretty amazing meal. Hey. Boom. Right there is the magic. So it's like you say something that relates to what they said. You don't wait for a break because sometimes you're talking to someone and there's no break in the conversation. They're gonna go for like 18 minutes. So you interrupt. Hey, that's. Oh, that sounds like a really great meal. Hey. And the hey is the. So the first part is the kind of rolling with them and their energy and like, oh, I'm with you here. The hey is like the shifting. It's a pattern interrupt. They're probably in some sort of ch. Trance. When they're telling you the story, they're not with you. They're not really present and they're probably in their own world and thinking about their hamburger or whatever. So the hey kind of interrupts the trance. And you do it in a light tone. Hey, like, hey, hey, I'm about to say something great. Hey. Right, so. Oh, that sounds like a. That sounds like a really good meal. Hey. And. And then you wanna shift. And there's so many different ways you can shift. You can ask them a totally random question. Hey, I wanted to ask you a question. And I just remembered it. Hey, you know, there's a question I wanted to ask you so you could just Say that. Hey. And then you're on a totally different subject, and that's absolutely fine. That's your right to do in a conversation. Or maybe you are interested in talking with them about food or whatever restaurants in a city that you were talking about, but you just don't want to hear that much about the hamburger. It's not that interesting to you. So you might say, that sounds like a really good meal. Hey, you mentioned earlier that you were, you know, the nightlife in Amsterdam, blah, blah, blah. You say something about that. I remember when I was there, we went to such and such, or I'm curious about blankety blank around that topic. So you can stay on the topic. But you're interrupting the hamburger story. And this is super important because A, we need to interrupt, and B, we need to interrupt sooner rather than later. Because if you wait too long, guess what happens. You're feeling anxious, you're feeling trapped, you're not feeling interested. And then how do you start to feel? If you're honest with yourself, you probably start to feel a little irritable, don't you? A little bit pissed off, like, dude, shut up. I don't want to hear about this hamburger. And if you wait too long, then you're gonna have more of that charge in your voice, and then you're gonna want to hide that charge because you don't want to hurt them and, you know, sound like a jerk, so you can't contain it as well. And so it's just messier. It's just so much better and easier and more fun to just interrupt right away, right at the very beginning, and then guide it to where you want to go. And this is something that I talk about in the confidence code as well, which we're going to get into in just a minute here in this podcast, which is how to guide the conversation to something that you are way more interested in, something that you really enjoy, something that's really fascinating to you, something that you want to keep talking with them about. And I call that following the fascination. So we're going to take a quick break right now, and then we're going to return. I'm going to teach you a little bit about how to follow the. The fascination so you're actually engaged when you're talking to anyone.

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Welcome back. So let's talk about how to follow the fascination, how to be engaged, talking to anyone. And the best way to teach this. I go super deep inside the confidence code. There's a whole section, a whole video on that, two videos I think a whole module about creating highly engaging conversations. And in the conversation mastery. We're gonna practice this a ton, but I can give you kind of the top down 10,000 foot view right here in this episode of following the Fascination. So here's an example of that. I was recently met up with a friend, colleague and I was in LA and she's like, oh, you know, you should come out, have dinner. I am having a friend who is a, who lives in Hollywood. He's going to come out and meet us and he's a producer. And I said okay, sure, sounds fun. And he shows up and she introduces us and is like, hey, you know, this is so and so and this is Aziz. And you know a little bit about Aziz as a coach. He works with people on confidence. And this is blank. He's a producer. And then we were kind of waiting around for a table and she's like, I have to use the restroom and she leaves. And so then it was like instant introduction and then we're just like standing there now. In the past that would have just demolished me. Oh my God, what do I. I'm so awkward. But I am a highly skilled conversation master as you could be too by coming to the event. But so the first thing I did is I got active. I didn't just wait there standing there looking at him. I took control of the conversation and the piece of information I had was producer. And here's the thing, even right off the bat, you want to take control and ask the questions that you're actually interested in, because then you're going to find ways to keep the conversation going with ease. So the first thing I said was, so I got a question for you. And it might be idiot level simplicity, but I just, I gotta ask it. And he's like, okay. And I'm like, what exactly does a producer do? And he's. And he laughed because here's the thing, maybe a lot of people don't know, but if you think, oh, I shouldn't ask that because that's gonna show I don't know anything, show that you don't know anything. Stop trying to pretend like you know everything. Because I love talking to people about their jobs and their careers. Because you can drill so deep into it. It's also a big part of people's identity, how they spend their life in a lot of ways. And so you can drill down into their experience of it and they can have the most fascinating conversation with you about their career that they've ever had. And you could know nothing about their career because it's just about finding those things that you're really interested in. So I asked him that and then he started to tell me some things about what he did and that there's quite of a range of things that a producer could do. And he said, you know, one of the things I really do though, is I actually get shows for TV put on the air. And he was talking about how he approached Home Depot around a show idea. And I said, and I interrupted him and I said, wait, wait, hold on a second. And that's a great way to interrupt, by the way, A light tone, like, hold on a second or what? You know, kind of light, upbeat, but you're still interrupting. I said, wait, wait, hold on a second. You're going to pitch the show at Home Depot? Wouldn't you be pitching it to like NBC or something? And he's like, well, no, actually in a lot of ways, like NBC is not going to want to hear about your show until you have sponsorship lined up. And then he started going into something about the details of how interconnected finding sponsors is. You know, who's gonna want to put ads on your show and how much you got to secure that. And I was just blown away. I was like, that's crazy. I mean, I know that you have ads for your shows, but I didn't know that the, the show starts or doesn't start. Its life or death depends upon if someone wants to promote it and sponsor it. And so I just started asking him tons of questions about that process. And how it works. And it's fascinating to me and I learned so much. And you can do this in any conversation, talking to anyone, anyone. Now some people, it's going to be a little harder. Some people might be like pulling teeth because they don't give you anything. But you got to drill down, you got to follow your fascination. You got to be willing to take control of the conversation in order to do that. That means you got to get active out of passive, get bold, and stop just waiting for them to hopefully share something that's interesting to you. And what you're gonna find as you do this is your conversations get way more enjoyable, way more interesting, and then you actually like having them. You like hanging out with people because you know you can have a good time and that's where it gets fun. And I want that for you. And if you want that for yourself, then definitely come to the Supremely confident Conversation Master Weekend. It's going to be an amazing time. I really love the last one and I can't wait for this one. To find out more about that again, go to your confidencecode.com event and we'll have a link to that as well at the show notes below this episode@drinkforthshyguy.com so before we wrap for today, though, there's one thing we gotta do.

Time for action.

Your action step for today is to interrupt someone in a conversation. Or this week, sometime take action by interrupting someone. Practice one of the techniques I shared in this episode to do it in a fun way, a light way, a playful way, but practice interrupting and then directing in the way that you want, asking the questions that you want, sharing what you want to share, even asking a totally random question, but doing it in the way that it describes so it's smooth and easy and fun and they still feel heard. Practice this, though. Face the fear of doing it. Because if you listen to this and you're like, well, that sounds good, but then you never do it, not much is gonna change. So you gotta take those little mini risks, take those actions. You got this. You rock. 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. I'll talk to you soon.

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