Never Struggle with Small Talk Again | Easy Tips for Better Conversations
In this solo episode of the Jefferson Fisher Podcast, host Jefferson Fisher tackles the universal dread of small talk and offers a practical toolkit for turning awkward exchanges into engaging conversations. He begins by critiquing generic, closed‑ended questions (e.g., “How’s work?”) and advocates for action‑oriented, open‑ended prompts that start with what, how, or when, encouraging the other person to talk about their plans, excitement, or recent activities. Fisher then introduces a simple “poll” formula: pick any topic, present two‑plus options, share your personal preference, and ask the counterpart “What about you?” – a structure that creates mutual disclosure and keeps dialogue flowing. He also covers non‑verbal cues, recommending relaxed shoulders, a slight head tilt, and holding an object to keep hands busy, all of which signal curiosity and openness. The episode stresses that small talk need not be lengthy; a brief, natural exchange is sufficient, and ending on a positive note—by thanking the person and exiting gracefully—leaves a good impression. Finally, Fisher answers a listener’s question about networking anxiety, reinforcing the same principles: focus on one person at a time, use open‑ended questions, maintain open body language, and exit politely when the conversation winds down. Throughout, he promotes his book “The Next Conversation” and encourages listeners to follow, review, and subscribe.
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If there is one thing to unite this world, it is the hatred of small talk. It doesn't matter if it's a corporate company event or maybe it's just a weekend networking, it can be terrible. It can be downright scary at times. So how do you do it and how do you get better at it? Well, I gotcha. Today we're talking all about how to never struggle with small talk. Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher Podcast where I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything. If you enjoy learning tools to improve your communication, I'm going to ask you to follow this podcast. And if you would, please leave a review. If you have any suggestions for a topic, just throw them in the comments. Also, my new book, The Next Conversation, is officially out on pre-order, and you can find links for it down in the show notes. Small talk. It's gross. So how are we going to fix that? Let me give you some hints. Number 1, instead of just asking, how's work? How's home? Those kind of questions just fall flat. They do nothing for you. They don't move the conversation at all. Instead, we're going to switch it to ask questions that are action-oriented. That means questions about the doing. So instead of, how's work? How's home? How are you? You're going to be asking questions like, what did y'all do this weekend? What do you have coming up? Getting things that they're excited about. What are you excited about today or tomorrow or this week? When you say, what are you doing or going? Those are action-oriented things and they're going to help push the conversation forward. Number 2, now what matters is how you do it. If you notice, I didn't say, do you have anything going on this weekend? Because how are you going to respond to that? You're going to respond to that as either a yes or a no. That's it. When you ask questions typically that are did or did you have fun today? Did you have a good day? You ask your kid when you pick them up from school, did you have a good day? You're really only giving them a few options to say yes or no. When you ask questions that are closed, that's what they're called, closed-ended questions, they only leave you hardly anywhere to go. It's just a yes or no question. Did you go to the store? Yes or no. Instead, you're going to be opening it up with asking and beginning the phrase or question with what. What you say, always say, what did y'all do this weekend? Or did, instead of did you have fun this weekend? You hear the difference between what did you do for fun this weekend versus did you have fun this weekend? One invites you to open up, the other closes it down and ends the discussion. So anytime that you can, I want you to ask an open-ended question. You do that by beginning with what or how or when, because it gets them to continue to talk. That's what you're after. And also, number 3, if you find that you just don't have that much to talk about, or it starts to go downhill and you're finding that each of your responses are getting shorter and shorter, that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. People feel like there has to be a certain amount of time for it to count as small talk. No, if you just say hello to the person and you engage maybe in one little back and forth, that's small talk. You've done it. Congratulations. There's no medal. There's no reward. There's nobody counting and timing you to see how long you've been talking. Just if the conversation comes to a natural end, then just say, "Hey, great to talk to you," and politely end the conversation. Don't feel like you have to keep pushing and pushing to have some green check flag to say, "I have accomplished small talk." It's a lot less than you think to make that happen. All right. Now, on top of making sure your questions are action-oriented, asking about the going, the doing, what they're excited about, what's up ahead, what's going on in the future. On top of making sure that you're asking open-ended questions that are leaving lots of space and begin with, with what, how, and when, and not did. That's going to close things off. On top of that, there is a formula that I'm going to teach you real quick., and it has always worked for me, and I know it can work for you too. This is how it goes. Number 1, you just pick a topic, any topic, to talk to this person about. So let's say it's as boring as the weather. You could say, "And this weather was crazy. This weather can't make up its mind today." They're gonna come up with something. They're gonna say, "Yeah. Oh, I know. Yeah, right? It's crazy." They're gonna acknowledge you in some way. Perfect. You have now set the stage for you to give options. I like to think of it as a poll and a P-O-L-L, meaning you're going to say, for example, in this example, you can say, so are you a fall person or are you a winter person? You like it hot or you like it cold? Or maybe it can be summer or winter. Are you a fan of summer or do you like it cold? Would you rather be too hot or too cold? You're giving them options. That's the key— options. Because options give us something to talk about rather than just forcing it down one chute and hoping that it works. So if I were to say, you know, are you new— like, the beach in summer, or are you more like— you like the mountains and the snow? They're going to give you one. They're going to give you one option. They're not going to just leave you hanging. Or they might just say, you know what, I really like spring. Spring's kind of my It reminds me of blah, blah, blah. Well, then you get to interact and say, well, I totally hear you. Well, I happen to be a fall person because it makes me think of football and Thanksgiving. And here in America, we have Thanksgiving in November. And so that's what I really like. And then you get to kind of interact with them and say, well, what about you? And now you're getting to get to know them on just a little bit deeper level because here's the trick. On, on this formula is why it works for me at least, is that when you share something that is more personal about you, 99% of the time it then opens it up for the other person to share something a little bit more personal about them because they feel like, oh well, you've shared something and now I'm going to share something. It's, it's very, um, it creates kind of this mutual contract that's hidden in a way that if I share a little bit about me, what's personal to me, what I like, you're then going to feel a little bit more comfortable sharing more personal things about you. And that's what you're curating in that experience. You can take it wherever you want to go, but that's, that's the formula. It's that simple. Pick a topic, create options for them. Maybe you create 2 options, at least 2, maybe 3 or 4, and then You share something as to which one is your favorite and then ask someone about you. Even the question, "What about you?" continues to open things up in the dialogue and it never can really go wrong that way. I mean, they call this small talk, not big talk. It's just something short, compact that you left that, "Oh, okay, I learned a little bit more about this person." And it's something that you can knock out really in just an elevator ride. It's very quick, very easy. Let's say you're coming off into the elevator straight from, some rain or whatever, you can easily just open it up talking about really the weather, the news, whatever you want. Try that. And because this episode is about small talk, I'm going to keep this episode small. So let's go ahead and get into my favorite part of the podcast, and that's where I get to read a question from a follower. Those that are part of my newsletter are able to ask me questions by email, and I'm able to answer them. So if you're not part of the newsletter, you can sign up. The show notes are or the link for it is down there in the show notes. All right, this one I have picked one out. This is— let me pull it up. This is Linda, and she lives in Lubbock, Texas. Linda from Lubbock. I think there's a country song in there somewhere. I went to law school in Lubbock, so I'm very familiar with it. Linda says, Jefferson, I need some advice. Thank you so much for your clips. You're very welcome, Linda. I am I work at a— I'm not going to say where she works, but I have networking events and I tend to absolutely clam up where I stand in the corner and I'm not sure how to approach anyone or to get to a point where I feel comfortable talking to anyone. Do you have any advice? Linda, I'm sorry you're having trouble with that, and that's absolutely okay. Absolutely okay, because what makes you special is what makes you you. So just because you're not going around talking to every single person that is in the room, Linda, does not make you any less special or important or of less value. You find that people can talk a lot and say nothing at all. All right, so a lot of the times these networking events are really just more of a social dance in a way of just finding who's comfortable with who and who's friends and who's not. So I don't, I don't want you to overthink it, but I know that's not all that helpful to Linda. I'm going to say some things that— I'm going to try to say some things that are. So when somebody is talking with you, one thing that you can do that I like to do is I will, um, it's— it becomes subconscious, but if you want to find that you're more engaged with people and get kind of curious with people, uh, physically, one thing that you can work on is I like to slowly cut— you just kind of cock your head a little bit to the side. That makes it look like you're much more interested in what they have to say rather than just like, I just want to talk to you. So it's— you don't want to have crazy eyes. You don't want to have it to where you feel like you're in front of their face. You're just kind of at a distance where your shoulders are relaxed. You feel relaxed. It helps me if you're holding something, especially these networking events. Everybody kind of expects you to have something in your hand. It does not have to be a drink. It can be a snack. It could be any kind of refreshment that they have, but it keeps your hands busy. And that's, that's why I'm saying it, because it keeps your hands from having to like fiddle with themselves, or maybe you don't know what to do with them, so you kind of cross them. When you hold something, it keeps your stance open. And what I'm going to encourage you to do on top of that is to just barely slide your head to the side, either side. It doesn't matter, the left or the right, but it it gives us posture of wanting to kind of be curious. And when you smile and you're asking questions and they start to respond, if you can just move your head just a little bit to the side, it's going to open them up as if, hey, you're being a little bit more curious about them to have more conversation. Another thing that's going to help Linda is understanding that don't go into these events thinking you have to talk to every single person. Like there's a win and a loss kind of thing. There's something to win and lose. That's not it. If you can just go in with the idea of just talking to one person. Yeah, it's that basic. Just one person and having a good conversation with them. I would rather trade 20 little small talks that mean nothing at all versus one awesome conversation with somebody that I want to talk to every time. I'll trade that every single time. So when you're going into these types of scenarios, Linda, just, it's going to help you if you already know who's going to be there and you make sure that you go talk to that person. If it's a friend, awesome, that's great. The biggest thing is that people just see you around, they see that you're having a good time. But if you're closed off in a corner, even if you're talking to somebody and you just have, um, you have a closed-off posture, your arms are closed, your shoulders are hunched, and you're kind of turned off to the group, they're going to find that a little bit more it's going to signal at least that you're not wanting to talk to anybody. Maybe you don't, but you ask the question, how can we, how can you get better at that? Keep a much more open stance and go in trying to think of just one or two people that you want to make eye contact with in conversation with. It doesn't mean you have to plan out these conversations ahead of time. You certainly can. And what I would encourage you to do is take some of the things that I said at the beginning of this episode of asking, go up to somebody, say hi. I assume it doesn't matter if you know them or not. And you can ask them the question of what was something exciting happen in your week? What's exciting in your life right now? See, it's just one question right there. What's exciting in your life right now? Easy. And you let them talk. And then once they share it, you share something that's going on and exciting in your life. You can't just ask a question and then expect not to have any kind of answer of your own. So it's that kind of that back and forth, that mutual contract that I talked about, Linda, that's going to make sure that you are keeping the ball rolling in the air. And it is much easier for you to end the conversation. This would be point 3 for you. If you feel that the conversation is starting to run low, get out fast. Say, hey, it's been great to talk to you. I'm going to go grab something to eat or drink. Whatever it is, I'm going to run to go see whatever. It doesn't matter. The biggest thing is if you can end the conversation on a high note rather than forcing each other to talk when you really are kind of done talking to each other and then leave the conversation, well, now you kind of drained each other. So if you can, try to leave the conversation on a high note. So if they responded to your, what's most exciting in your world today, and they give you an awesome Answer, you say, "Oh, that's fabulous." Ask maybe another question about it. Go, "Oh, that's fantastic." And if they don't ask anything of you, typically they should. I mean, that's, they should. But if they don't, that's cool. We just say, "Well, that's awesome. Well, I'm super proud of you. That sounds really exciting. It was great to talk with you." And then you leave. And now you've left on a high note. Now, Linda, you've made a good impression because all you did was talk about them and they're gonna, they're really gonna like that. So Linda, those are just some quick takeaways, but at the end of the day, you just do what makes you special. All right, you do what makes you you, and if it makes you uncomfortable, don't do it. You stick with what feels good in your lane and what resonates and feels right to you. Thanks for the question. Thank you for listening to the Jefferson Fisher Podcast. If you enjoyed today's small episode on small talk, then I'm going to ask you to please follow this podcast. And if you would, leave a review or a star or a comment. Anything really does help. Today we learned all about small talk, that you can improve it By asking questions that are about the doing, asking what they're excited about, you're asking questions that are focused on the future. Number 2, we talked about open-ended questions versus closed-ended questions, where closed-ended forces the person to answer with just a yes or a no, but an open-ended question invites them to talk. And you can do that by beginning your question with what, how, or when, questions like that. And then number 3, we learned that If you feel like the conversation's going to a natural end, no problem at all. Or if you want, you can use my super secret formula that I talked about in the episode that can get people to talk about just about anything at all. So that's the podcast for today. You can always try that. And as always, follow me.
