TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

Speaking with TJ Walker, dissecting the communication skills and practices of world class leaders.

Our guest today is a master of communication. He's mastered the hardest form of communication for most people. I don't mean to keynote speech in front of 10,000 people or stand up comedy. I mean small talk. Don Gabor is a small talk expert. He's the author of how to Start a Conversation and Make Friends. And he's the author of a dozen books. And I'm not talking about Kindle, things you put together in 24 hours. I'm talking about major books published by Simon and Schuster, Random house, Prentice Hall, McGraw Hill. Everybody likes to call themselves an author these days. This guy really is an author. Don, thanks for joining us.

Well, thank you, T.J. those are very kind words and I'm happy to be on your show.

Why is it that so many people who are seemingly confident when they have to stand up, give a speech, a presentation, even do a job interview, just turn into a nervous bowl of jelly if they have to make small talk or start conversations with people?

I think that when people set out to communicate in different situations, they feel comfortable in some situations and a little bit less comfortable in others. And this is a natural thing of the way people just sort of grow and develop. And so if the situation has some rules and some boundaries like business situations tend to have, there are many people that feel comfortable with that. But you take some of those rules, the more concrete rules away and you put them in a less structured environment, there are still rules, but they are maybe less clear or they differ between individuals. And then folks begin to, they're not really sure what to do. And so when people aren't sure what to do, they do one of two things. They either back off and become kind of quiet and withdrawn or they become over talkative and kind of lose control. So that's what has been my experience with coaching people in conversation skills and networking skills over the years. They swing from one extreme to the other. And the reasons I think people just don't feel that they know what to do in some of those situations.

So what do you do? Let's go to a very specific example. I'm away at a conference, I walk into a cocktail party. Everyone there is in my industry, but no one else came from my company. I don't see any clients or customers. And a lot of people seem like they talk, they know each other, they're talking to each other. It's just a different environment. What's your advice to me?

First thing, T.J. i tell people is when they go into a room full of strangers is of course you want to be prepared as much as you can. Just like any kind of presentation, whether it's a formal presentation or a job interview, really want to prepare. So when you go to those cocktail parties or the job related social events, if you can do a little bit of preparation ahead of time, who's going to be there, who's hosting the event, that can really help. But I think when you go in with an attitude that you want to connect with people and people want to connect with you, and that the purpose of you being there is to be a resource for those folks that you are going to meet. So instead of going in and thinking, well, am I going to make a good impression on everybody? And will I make the sale and will I be this, that and the other, instead of thinking it's all about me, it's better to just position yourself as someone going into that room who's looking for other people that you might be able to help. So that's one thing. The other thing is that you mentioned in your question. You're describing a situation where you see people talking and many people, and you don't know anybody there who is talking. And a lot of people, when they go into those situations, they make an assumption. And that assumption is that the people who are talking with one another know each other really well or they know each other from a prior conversation or from work or from some other situation or experience. But the reality is that many of those people might be just having a conversation for the first time. So if you go into those, those social business situations thinking everybody knows everybody and that then that makes you feel like an outsider and people, many people you know, feel uncomfortable. And that's understandable. But if you, if you really understand that in many cases those people have just met and are engaging in conversation, they look like they maybe know each other because they have built rapport very quickly. So don't assume that just because people are talking that they know each other. And don't assume that you're an outsider looking in when you walk into that room full of strangers. So those are two pieces of advice I offer to folks right away when they go into a room full of strangers.

So Don, you and I have known each other for a dozen years or so. You've also been a president of the National Speakers Association, New York. I've always seen you as a very friendly, sociable, gregarious guy. But what were you like when you were in high school? I mean, Were you the most popular kid in high school? Were you the guy every kindergartner wanted to talk to, invited to the most birthday parties? Where did this all start for you?

Yeah, I was like that big football player who, you know, I had all the beautiful cheerleaders, you know, they were all hanging it on my arms. No, I. Well, let's. Let me answer your question directly. I was always interested in talking to people because I thought it was fun. So I wasn't the shy, quiet type. To answer your question directly, I think that in grade school and elementary school and junior high, I was a kind of kid who made friends easily. But I also made friends with people who. With whom it wasn't easy for them to make friends. So I kind of saw some of the people and I'm thinking of a friend of mine who I'm still friends with today who was kind of shy, and I kind of made effort to make friends with him. So from the very beginning, I guess my attitude was I wanted to connect with people because I thought it was fun. I thought it was interesting to me because I could always learn something from somebody and, and it was a way of being playful, I guess, is the easiest way to express it. I learned some of these communication skills from my mother, who was pretty outgoing, and she's 96 and a half and she's still pretty outgoing. But I also learned, you know, from other members of my family, my sister and my father, who were different kinds of communicators. But it seemed to be something that I could do in a natural way. But to fast forward through high school and college into a professional level, I learned that what I was doing in a. Well, you call a natural way really, I had developed some communication skills that were based around teaching and learning. So teaching others, teaching myself, and always something to learn. And I found in New York City, when I first moved here in 1979, I was asked to teach a class called how to Start a Conversation. And I thought, well, that's kind of a funny class. I mean, doesn't everybody know how to do that? I mean, I knew they didn't, but there were 30 people in this class in a three hour class who didn't have a clue on how to break the ice and how to keep the conversation going and, and what to say next if somebody said something that was a little bit awkward. And so I did several months worth of research before I taught the class. And what I found over the years is what I learned as a child and what I had a somewhat natural ability. I suppose as a kid, there was a tremendous amount that I could learn from masters like Dale Carnegie and other communication experts and teachers and speakers that I could build on. And I have built a career of 35 years with that, those natural skills and the desire to learn more along the way. And it's paid off for me in many, many ways.

The book is how to Start a Conversation and Make Friends, available at Amazon, also available at real bookstores. For more information, go to don gabor.com that's three W's, don G A B O R dot com and you'll see that in the show notes as well. Don Gab, thanks for being our guest. Okay, stop. Timeout. That was under 10 minutes. That's about the length, maybe a little longer than you would get on a typical, let's say, NPR talk radio show, longer than you would get on the Today Show. But it's still not enough time to go through everything you could discuss in your book or your career. God. How specifically do you prepare for media interviews? Because one of the reasons that you have all these book contracts with the top publishing agencies in the world, presumably, is you do a good job. When you've been on 60 minutes, good day New York, been featured in the New York Times, I mean, you've been everywhere. You've been on a ,thousand radio and TV shows throughout your career. How do you prepare for them?

Preparing for media interviews, it's another form of presentation. It requires taking a look at who is the audience. It requires thinking about what message do I want to communicate to that audience. If I have a fairly clear idea of the audience, what can I deliver to them that's going to help them do what they do better. So a little bit of the background, knowing who the audience of the media outlet is. Now, of course, in the larger audiences, we have a very broad audience, and so the demographics is going to be quite broad. So I also try to use examples that people will be able to relate to, try and keep my answers as brief as I can within reason. If they're too brief, it sounds stilted. But if they're too long, then the answers become kind of too diluted. So I try. And if I'm preparing for a media interview, I want to watch the interview or read the article of the host or the interviewer and get a sense of his or her style. And then I make sure that I, you know, get the materials to the person if, if they need them, a book, if they have, if they want it, that they know how to pronounce my name. This is very important for the people who are doing media. I can't begin to tell you, I'm sure, T.J. you've experienced this as well.

Believe it or not, everyone has always pronounced my name correctly, T.J. that's pretty clear.

But I've been, my name has been pronounced in various ways, so I always say gone Gabor, like Zsa Gabor. And because some people, many people know of the actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, my nickname was Gabby Gabor. So, you know, it kind of came up that way. But those are some little things to do. Also, if, if you haven't had a lot of experience on television or radio or doing print interviews, all those formats are different. And of course, podcasts and online interviews, all these formats require just a little bit of difference. But I think all of them need the speaker, the communicator, the author, whomever you are, is to be able to communicate a passion about what you do and credibility and expertise. So because the audience is looking for something from you that was going to help them, if it's all about you and oh, I did this and me, me, me, me, me, me, me, it, it, I believe it lacks impact. So when you're preparing for your media interviews, you know, think of your audience first and how you can help them and then practice. If you haven't done much television or haven't done much radio, you know, you can practice record yourself, but I think it's important to be natural. These are conversations, they're not speeches.

If they sound, how do you maintain that passion for the subject? If back in the days when book tours were common, you're doing the 29th interview in one day, or you perhaps come back from Japan, you're jet lagged, how do you keep that passion level up if your own personal energy level just isn't there?

But when it comes to energy, these are performances. I mean, think about actors who do full scale performances. One a matinee and then an evening performance and they're out on the stage for hours, or musicians who are on the road and they do a performance, the next day, they're out there. So I look at every one of these kind of media events as a performance. Just like I look at a speech or a presentation or, or a workshop, I see it as a performance. And so whatever, it doesn't matter how tired I am, the audience doesn't care. If I didn't get a good night's sleep last night, they couldn't care less. The last thing I want to do is to bring any of that into the media interview or workshop or whatever it is that I'm doing. So I just happen to have a passion about this topic. I've been writing and speaking about it for 35 years because there's, there's always something else to learn and it's kind of a fun thing to learn how to do if, if I can help somebody overcome a hurdle that they've had for years and years. So for me, what really gets me going is if I know there's somebody out there listening to this presentation right now and they say, gosh, you know, I wish I could just send Don an email or a tweet or something and ask him a question. I want to say, please do, because if I can help you, that makes me feel better about what I'm doing. And it also kind of teaches me another aspect of communication that maybe something I don't experience personally, but I know somebody in my audience does. So those are the things that I think are what create passion in a presentation.

If you do want to ask Don a question, just go to his website, don gabor.com and you can reach out to him. He has various methods of getting a hold of him. You can find it right there. Don, in a moment, I'm going to ask you to tell us about your best performance ever in promoting one of your books in the media, but also your worst performance if something went wrong. But first, you're listening to Speaking with TJ Walker, brought to you by Media Training Worldwide. If you need help preparing for your next media interview or speech, just send away and we'll send you a free online media training and a free online video based public speaking course. Just go to mediatrainingworldwide.com and you get this no obligation course. You can also click in the show notes for more information about that. Again, our guest today is Don Gabor, author of how to Start a Conversation and Make Friends. He has been in the space of small talk for 35 years. To me, the perfect example of if you really have a passion for a subject, it can be a subject that other people are even dismissive of and you can make a whole career out of it. So, Don, tell us about your best media performance as far as things really went. Well, perhaps you could track it to sales. Perhaps it led to a lot of other media appearances, but also one that didn't go well.

Well, you know, over a period of three decades of speaking and writing on the subject, you know, there's been some good ones and there's been some ones that weren't so good. And when you asked me that question, the one presentation that came to mind was one that I did. This was quite a number of years ago, but it was at a Toastmasters event and I think it was in New Jersey. And I was talking about body language and networking and this kind of thing. And I had taken this box of books in my suitcase and at the end, people just came up afterwards and they bought every book I had. I went home with an empty box. And that was really quite a thrill. And from that I got a media placement in the Toastmasters magazine. And in fact, I've had several in Toastmasters magazines over the years. So you just never know. And by the way, when I'm talking about this box of books, I'm talking about schlepping this box of 40 books and train and it wasn't in the trunk of a car, as speakers know. It's not a luxurious form of travel in most cases when you do these kind of jobs. But they do lead to media, and then one media can lead to the other. I mean, the greatest media hit I had was one I didn't really have too much to do with is with andy Rooney in 60 Minutes. All of a sudden I heard him talking about my book on, you know, 60 Minutes with Andy Rooney. So you never know when you know somebody's going to talk about what you've done. And this is something that I just want to highlight. When it comes to writing books and giving speeches and dealing with the media in general is you must, I believe, be very conscious of the words you choose, because once they're out there, you can never get them back. Sometimes people will say things in a flippant way or in a. In a very nebulous way that can be interpreted in, you know, various ways. Not all good. And the problem with that is that if you say something or write something that can be misinterpreted or in some cases actually be harmful, it's obviously something that you want to avoid. And so that's why you asked me about preparation earlier, TJ Whether it's in a presentation for the media or a presentation for a workshop or a speech or in a book, just choose your words carefully and try and be as clear as you possibly as clear as you possibly can, so that they cannot be misinterpreted, at least not easily. So you also just asked me about a presentation that didn't go so well.

Yeah, either your worst presentation or your worst situation where you were in a small Talk situation, networking, a cocktail party. And you just got a really bad response because it's happened to me.

I don't know about you, but I've had three, I don't know, over the years. It's not so bad, you know, when you think about the hundreds of presentations, and I can think of three that I still think of and they kind of haunt me. But the worst one was this was a live presentation and it was a big speech for me, it was a keynote speech. It was 8:30 in the morning, and there were about 1500 to 2000 people in the audience. And I had prepared and prepared and prepared. But the problem was that I prepared a workshop for 1500 people, not really a keynote. And it just.

And that's a different thing. It's a different piece.

And I chalk it up to experience. But, you know, this is. This is a learning curve here. And it was a painful curve. And, you know, the audience just didn't respond like they would normally in a workshop where I have the interaction and I can play with the audience. And, you know, there's a lot of that back and forth. Well, in a keynote, there is no back and forth. It's really one way. And I learned a very important lesson there, that one size does not fit all when it comes to presentations. And it was painful and I still think about it, but it was a good learning lesson. And I think the bigger message to an audience is that to your audience and every speaking audience that is speaking is that, you know, sometimes things go well and sometimes they don't. And, and sometimes it's. It's because of something that you did or didn't do. And sometimes it's just circumstances. Sometimes fire alarms go off or sometimes things start late or, you know, I mean, things. We don't have control over everything. And that's a little bit frustrating for people who, you know, do all they can to make sure that things go right. And that's the advice that I give to everybody, is just make sure that you do everything that you can so that things go right and then go out there and do your best. But if they don't go right, it's not the end of the world. It happens to every performer, every athlete, every author. This is life. And so, you know, they are opportunities to learn. But. Oh, and then you asked about a media interview, this quick story. I was on a book tour and I was on a TV show and I was just getting ready to go on, and the producer comes up to me and says, if you mention your Book more than three times. I'm gonna rip your lips off. So I'm thinking, well, okay, that's friendly.

That calms you down.

Just a regular guy here. You know, I'm just here to do a job. I mean, I was a spokesperson for. I think that was Frito Lay I had done. I was talking about healthy snacks. I don't know how healthy it was, but fun snacks and conversation, that was the theme. And being a conversation expert and being a food guy like I am, it was a natural fit. But this producer was very, very, well, let's say direct. So I get onto the show and the host would not let me talk. The host was just talking non stop for the three and a half minutes that I had on TV. I was down to my last 30 seconds. And I see the producer, you know, twilling her finger around, you know, signaling that to wrap up. And I just had to, you know, interject my. You know. But be sure to. When you're at that party, be sure. When you're having that bite of Tostitos, be sure to, you know, dip into the salsa. Because I had to get the word Tostitos in there at least once or twice in the. Into the interview. So it was a challenge, but I did it. And.

And apparently the producer did not rip your lips off, because I'm hearing you.

Speak as though you have lips. I did have a little frill problem afterwards.

That's definitely not. Not what you want to hear right before you're about to go on tv.

You have to be prepared, though, because these people, you know, they. They really, you know, we think, you know, we're writers, we're speakers, we. We want to get out there and get our message across and we have something to say, and that's, that's where you want to be. But the rest of the world, particularly sometimes in the media, they couldn't really care that much about what you're saying. You're a piece of their program and they want you to do well in everything, but they're really thinking about a much bigger picture. So you have to be prepared to have less time to have people interrupting you, to have people doing things that you might not, you know, feel are appropriate, but be ready to give your message. And that's why it's really important to know what it is that you want to say to get that message out there in a very clear way. And never, never show any kind of disrespect or anger or any attitude towards a host of the media, because it will it just comes across really poorly for.

Unless you're Donald Trump, we'll leave that for another day.

Don't get me started now, so that.

Nobody rips your lips off today, I'll mention the name of the book so you don't have to. It's called how to Start a Conversation and Make Friends by Don Gabor, our guest today, and he is a true master of small talk. I remember one of my worst small talk situations. I mean, it's almost a quarter of a century ago. I still remember it. I was living on south beach in Miami at the time. My mother, who was alive at the time, happened to come, happened to be visiting me from North Carolina. We're on the beach, and all of a sudden a neighbor, I've spoken to her maybe half a dozen times, walks by, sets up her towel maybe 15ft in front of us. Now, this neighbor happened to have been the single most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my entire life. Better than anything you've ever seen in a magazine that was touched up. And this was south beach, and this was 23 years ago. So the norm was topless. So she proceeds to undress to everything other than a very tiny bikini topless. I am not a young man, but I'm a lot younger than I am now, single. And this was, needless to say, very exciting visual experience. But I'm trying to be Mr. Cool. My mom's there, so I act like this is no big thing. This is just norm. I sort of roll over, read a magazine for 10 minutes. I think I'll go, you know, stretch my legs. I walk the opposite direction of my neighbor to be Mr. Cool. I'm looking out at the ocean as if I couldn't notice her any more than, you know, gravel on this roadside. Completely uninteresting. I'm walking along, and then I say, oh, Marianne, hi. How are you today? She looks up at me and says, excuse me, you're bothering me. Would you mind not talking to me? I'd like to be left alone.

I.

This is all within earshot of my mother. I sort of slink back to the towel. My mother says, good to see you're really popular around here. Was not an enjoyable experience. No, not at all. But has that happened to you? I mean, certainly you can be the best small talk expert in the world. And sometimes two people are talking and they just have something really serious they want to talk about, or someone just announced that their parent has died and they just don't want to talk to anybody else. Has that Happened to you?

Well, it has happened. And when you were telling me the story, it reminded me of a story that a time where I was on a flight somewhere and I like to talk to people on airplanes up to a point, you know, I mean, I think it's important to show that I'm willing to communicate, but oftentimes, you know, I'm looking to see how the other person will respond. Well, anyway, so I sit down and there's a woman who gets into the seat beside me and I say, you know, good morning, how are you? And she turned to me and she said, I don't talk to strangers on airplanes. Okay, you know, fine, you know, that's not. I'm, you know, I'm on an airplane and I'm a stranger. I guess that means me, you know, so I respect that. So anyhow, I had happened to call ahead. This was a while back when they were serving meals on planes. So you know how long ago that was. And I think I ordered a fruit plate or something because the idea of having the airplane food at that time just wasn't particularly appealing. And so when the flight attendant brought our meal, I got this beautiful plate full of fruit, fresh fruit and grapes and so on. And you know, they delivered her this, you know, unimaginable looking gruel. And she looked at me, she goes, how did you get that? And I turned to her and I said, I'm sorry, but I don't speak. But don't, don't tell me the rest.

Knowing you, I'm gathering you then use that as an opener to have a conversation with her. Am I right or wrong?

You know, look, the, the way I look at it is there's all kinds of people in this world and sometimes, like you said, you just don't know what has happened to that person 10 minutes before that's going to influence how they react to you. And it may be the way you approach or it may be what's happened in his or her world. And, and so I take the attitude to see what happens, but I don't come on real strong. I don't. I'm just not, you know, I'm friendly, but I'm not. At least I don't feel like I am. Kind of, oh, you got to talk to me. I'm the center of attention. I don't approach it that way. And when I walk into a room full of people, I don't. I look around, I observe first I see who's talking. If I'm on a plane, I just, I say Good morning. How are you this morning? Just very ritual kind of interaction to see the person's reaction. If they're friendly, maybe the conversation will go a little bit further. If they seem unfriendly or uncomfortable, I just back off. I give people the space to not feel that I'm pressuring them. And in that way, what I find is that it makes it easier to, for them to feel comfortable communicating. So in, in the books and in the workshops, I really take the same approach. And I think, and I'm not a therapist or psychologist, so I don't, you know, dig down into people's, you know, deep, dark secrets in terms of why they feel or don't feel comfortable. My approach is I teach people skills so that they make other people feel comfortable talking to them. It makes people feel comfortable. So these are body language skills, maybe tone of voice, how to ask questions that are not so meaning of life, like, what is the meaning of life? Are we going to, you know, it's like, forget about that. I don't want to talk about that. I'd rather find out, you know, when was the last good restaurant you ate at? What did you have? See, so the idea in my mind in all communication is people will feel more comfortable talking to you if they feel comfortable. Just like that's why comedians, they want to make people laugh. Because when they make people laugh, they know that their audience is feeling more comfortable and open. And so depending on the environment. I'm not a comedian, I don't try and I don't tell jokes, but my goal is to make people feel comfortable. And so I have to sense what they are feeling to make that person feel comfortable. So if I feel that somebody is kind of uptight or nervous, I'm going to do something that hopefully will decrease that. I'm not going to pressure them, I'm not going to push. I'm going to kind of pull back a little bit. If I see somebody who's very gregarious and outgoing, you know, I can approach them in a similar or a little less toned down way and there won't be a problem. So it's really reading the audience. Just like in every single presentation, you've got to know who your audience is to communicate effectively.

When you're giving a presentation, though, you've sort of been introduced as the celebrity, the expert. In some ways, that's easier, at least for some people. Are there any small talk situations that take you out of your comfort zone? For example, I wouldn't say I'm awful, but I'M less comfortable if I'm in a receiving line and there's Bill Clinton there, the queen of it. Not that I've met the queen of England, but if it's a really high voltage celebrity superstar and, you know you're only going to have 20 seconds, does that make you any less comfortable? And what do you say in those situations?

You know, I think. Well, first of all, I haven't really been in that many situations with. I wished I had met Bill Clinton because I know from what people have told me that when he talks to them, they feel like they're the only person in the room. And I think to watch him speak, that's why I think he is considered such a master, is he really knows how to personalize conversations. My own experience. I remember one time I was in an elevator with a famous actor and, and his entourage. And, you know, I mean, I think I said, you know, you know, how are you? Hello. I don't really go too extreme one way or the other. I think the situation going to your question is the kind of situations that make me most uncomfortable are situations where people are talking about topics that are kind of inappropriate for the situation. For example, I was at a very fancy dinner at the Four Seasons with a bunch of other authors and other people in business. And one of the guests was. Happened to be a doctor, and he started talking about, in very graphic detail, doctor stuff. Now I have a good friend who's a doctor and he's talked about all kinds of doctor stuff. But when we're sitting around, you know, having a beer, it's one thing. But when you're sitting around having an appetizer and you're hearing all these graphic details about, you know, bodily fluids, you know, it just. To me, that makes me feel uncomfortable. I'm at a dinner or I'm at a party and somebody starts talking about a political, his or her political view, and they're really, they really aren't having a discussion. They really are trying, he or she, in this case, he is trying to really force an agreement out of somebody else. Don't you agree that? And I'm thinking, you know, to me, these are the kind of conversations that make me feel uncomfortable. I don't want to get into them because I know they lead to nowhere. And this is a cautionary tale for networking. There are some people that they see conversation as a competition with a winner and a loser. And they will hear somebody say something that they disagree with and they immediately will jump in and, you know, voice his or her opinion about it. And I'm saying, well, you really need to be careful there because a lot of times people will throw down the gauntlet. They will throw out a statement, a kind of a controversial statement, to see if they can trap somebody into a quote, unquote discussion. But it's really not a discussion. It's a way of showing who's smarter or who they think is smarter. So those are the kind of conversations that I find the most uncomfortable and the ones that I take great efforts to avoid and is the best reaction to just retreat.

Go find another conversation. I know you and I have both been to National speaker association conventions where leaders who have been presidents of that organization get up and give a prayer number one at a business conference and they end their prayer in Jesus name. Now, if you're at your local Baptist church, perfectly appropriate when you're at a major trade conference where you really have no idea what people's views are on religions or which religions. To me, that seems wildly inappropriate.

What do you think of that? I agree with you. And I think what it shows is a lack of. Of understanding of the audience. Go back to my original point. Some situations, that's perfectly legitimate, but if you don't respect your audience, then it comes across in a negative way, just like it came across to you as inappropriate. And therefore you probably had a negative impression of the speaker. So knowing, knowing what's, you know, people call it political correctness, but I don't call that political correctness. I call that just being a good speaker and understanding that you need to adapt your. Your style of speaking and your manner and your content to what's appropriate for the audience. So whether it's a you're networking at a business conference or you're networking at a holiday party or you're at a family barbecue, every one of those situations is going to really require adapting. And this is where I think the best communicators are really. They really shine because they understand that it is about adaptation. Everything that we do is really about, I think, about adapting to our environment and who's in the environment and what objectives that you have and you don't have to have. It doesn't always have to be a business objective of making the sale or that kind of thing. But I think it's important to recognize that people around you want. They want. Here's what I believe that people want from you. Two things. They want your attention and they want your appreciation. And whether it's in a speech or through media or just in a conversation by listening to what other people say and reacting or responding appropriately at that point and then acknowledging his or her point of view. That would be appreciation. This is what people want from you, I believe, as a speaker and as a business person and just as a person in general. So when people say things that are just outlandish or just outside the scope of what we might say, I don't know if it's really good taste because that's kind of a, you know, subjective. But what seems to make, I guess, good manners, if you want to put it that way. That's where I think we need to pay a little bit closer attention. As speakers, as writers, and as communicators.

In general, we appreciate Don Gabor's time sharing with us today. He's the author of how to Start a Conversation and Make Friends, available on Amazon. You're listening to Speaker Speaking with TJ Walker. If you like the program, please share it on Facebook. Please leave a rating on itunes, and if you haven't already subscribed, please subscribe. Don, you're in a profession that is a little different from most. You don't hear a lot of successful people in the world say, well, I don't really like arithmetic, or I don't really think reading is very important. And yet it's not at all uncommon common to hear successful people belittle small talk. The art of small talk. Well, he's not into small talk. He's such a serious, thoughtful person.

How do you.

What's your response to that? Because I face a little bit of that in my field when I remember once at a party about 10 years ago, I was really hitting it off with a very attractive, charming lady. She just seemed like she was finding me fascinating. I went to ask for her phone number. She's like, what, are you crazy? You're a spin doctor. You teach people to lie. I would never trust you. I would never go out with you in a million years. But it's been great talking to you.

Well, I guess they kind of call that a backhanded compliment, I guess.

But how do you deal with this attitude that somehow not only is small talk not important, but in some circles it's seen as a badge of honor to say, oh, I don't do small talk.

Here's. You know, I've been fighting this, this attitude for a long, long time. And I kind of was up on the soapbox there for a long time, and I still am because I believe that small talk is really plays a very critical role in all forms of communication. But you're right. There's a lot of people, business people, very serious people who think, I don't want to make small talk, I want to talk about the serious subjects and I don't want to talk about these other things because I want to talk about what's really important. And I say, well, okay, that's fine, but here's the deal. The role small talk plays in communication. When you understand what's really going on, then you can, you can take advantage of the benefits of small talk. If you overlook what's going on, then you lose what is there right in front of you. So first of all, small talk, the ability to make small talk. What is small talk? Small talk is just informal conversation and it could be about cultural things, it could be about things in your immediate surroundings, it could be about people in your immediate surroundings. But the topics are general and generally not controversial. Any more controversial than whether you like pizza or Chinese food. So that we can talk about in terms of preference. So small talk allows you to open a line of communication very, very quickly with a very low level of risk. Now if somebody gets really uptight about talking about low risk topics, that being general cultural topics or immediate surroundings, it's really hard for me to accept that they're going to be open to topics that require more risk. Now more risk would mean how you feel about something, or your attitudes about politics or religion or social topics, or social issues. These, these are topics that are important, no question about it. But once you reveal your position on these, people will make judgments about you. So therefore there is a risk. So number one, small talk allows you to open a topic, open a conversation, a line of communication. A very low risk on low risk topics, number one. Number two, it allows you to get a sense of how the person communicates. Do they speak in one word sentences or do they speak in 25 word sentences that you can't figure out what they're talking about? Or do they use words that create pictures or do they talk with words like, well, you know. Well, well, you know, sure, for sure. Like, so words that you don't have any idea what they're talking about. So small talk gives you the opportunity to get a sense of the style of communication. And finally, small talk, this ability to create a two way conversation allows the individuals to reveal what we call free information. That is information that we want the other person to know about us, but he or she has not asked us. So for example, if somebody says, well, so I'm on an airplane, so he says, well, are you Traveling for business or for pleasure? Now that is the most standard question in the history of, of the airline industry. So, you know, you can say, well, business or pleasure, I'm traveling on pleasure, I'm traveling on business. But that doesn't really say much. But if you say, well, I'm traveling to see my 96 year old mother who's celebrating her birthday next month, well, now I've revealed a little bit of information about something about, wow, that's great.

You must have good genes.

That's exactly what people say. Sure. So my point here is that small talk allows you to reveal this free information to paint the picture that you want of yourself to others. Too much is no good, too little is no good. So those are the three critical roles that small talk will play in a style of communication. One, opening up the channel. Two, getting a sense of the person's style, how he or she communicates. And three, allowing to reveal more information than the other person has asked for. If you don't take advantage of that, you're losing a great opportunity to build rapport. So going back to a point that you brought up earlier, GJ when you walked into that room full of strangers at the, at the conference and everybody looked like they were talking, who, they looked like they knew each other. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. But the point is that they had built some kind of rapport. And that rapport can be built very, very quickly through small talk.

In a moment, I'm going to ask you to share your most advanced tip that most people wouldn't have thought of, maybe not even heard of. But I want to share something I heard secondhand from somebody we both mentioned, Bill Clinton. I have a friend. He is, was a city commissioner for a small town in Miami, Coral Gables, and this particular we'll call him Sam. I don't know if he wants me using his, his name, but Sam was of the opposite political party of Bill Clinton. But there was a big summit at the Vanderbilt Hotel there and Bill Clinton was coming. So as a representative of the city, he had to be there in a receiving line. He's never given money to Bill Clinton or any Democrat. There's absolutely no reason for. At the time, this was around 93, when Bill Clinton had just become president. There was no strategic reason for Bill Clinton to even, especially be nice to him. But when my friend's daughter, who was about 8 years old, found out that her daddy was going to meet the President, she said, oh, daddy, you have to give him a card for me. And all My classmates. And so he said, okay, give it to me. So he had a card, and it was signed Amy. And my friend is in the receiving lines. Oh, hi, Mr. President. Nice to meet you. My daughter wanted me to give you this. And Clinton opened it up for like an eighth of a second, closed it, put it in his pocket. Thanks. And the whole conversation was about 10 seconds long.

Well, fast forward two years.

There's another international conference. It's at the Biltmore again. Again, my friend didn't really want to be there, but as his official position as a representative for the city government, he was there once again as a receiving line. He goes down and Bill Clinton says, oh, hi, Chip. How are you?

And how's your daughter Amy?

There was no one whispering in his ear. This wasn't somebody he was going to give $10 million to the Clinton foundation or Initiative later. It was. He listened that carefully, and first of all remembered the guy's name who he met once. But then he was able to open the letter, see the guy's daughter's name just in text, and instantly form a picture of it. And to be able to recall it two years later, now, that's something few human beings in the world can do. Do you have an example of a tip that is perhaps not quite as difficult? And the degree of difficulty, that's off the charts.

Obviously, it is impressive. But what it made me think of is a tip that I don't know where I got it from, but I started doing it. And it's this. When I go to a networking event, of course, like everybody else, I want to meet as many people as I can, mostly. And what I do. And I want to remember their names. Now, I'm not a memory expert. My wife will attest to that. But I am fairly good at remembering names. But my tip is this. When I'm about. After I've met three or four or five people, six people, I'll stop for a moment and I'll just look around the room and I'll do a quick recheck. You know, okay, that was John, that was Diane, that was Carol. What was her name again? And if I can't remember, I'll either figure it out or ask somebody, but I'll do a quick review of those names, and I'll do that periodically through the event. Then. And here's my tip. After the event is over or even sometimes, I will stop in the middle and do this. I will write down the names of every single person that I met there that I can remember on an envelope or a sheet of paper somewhere. But I will write them down and just their first names because that's usually what I'm focusing on. I rarely go for the full name. I'm usually the first. I'm a first name basis type of name rememberer. But I find that by simply writing down the name even after everybody's gone or I'm on the train, the way home, or I'm in the hotel or wherever it is, I just take an extra three or four minutes and I write those names down and I, you know, sometimes you don't realize how many people you really do meet. And you will remember if you try this technique. And it can be from 10 to 15 to 20 to 30 names. Now one of the techniques that I use, the most useful technique that I use for remembering names is very simple. I just think of somebody I know with the same name and I always use. And this is a standard technique. I didn't make this up. But it's one that I find that works in 7 out of 10 cases. So if I meet a Bill, one of my good buddies names is Bill. If I meet somebody named Fred, that was my father's name. If I meet somebody named Sophie, it was a cat. I don't tell people how I remember their names and but that's how I do it most of the time. But because if you say, oh, you.

Remind me of a cat, that's I.

Did that one time.

That's a small talk killer.

Yeah, I did that one time. I learned my lesson. She goes, everybody says that that's because everybody's got a cat named Sophie, I guess. But it's how I remember people's names. People won't ask you usually how you remember their names, they'll just be flattered that you do. But writing them down after the event and then putting them in a file with, you know, some, maybe the handouts that you got at the event or some of the promo or whatever it is or even in a, some kind of a diary or calendar. Then if you go back to that organization and you just take a look at that list of names, you're not going to remember every single person probably. But you'll be surprised how often you will be able to recall a face or just help you get in the frame of mind to remember names. The biggest reason people don't reason that people don't remember the names of the people they meet is they don't think they can. And one of the chapters in how to start a conversation and make Friends is how to remember names. It's a great communication and networking tool. And Bill Clinton, I think is.

Now, if you mention the name of that book two more times, I'm going to have to rip your lips off. Let the record Show we are 54 minutes in and that's really the first time he mentioned it. But he was smart enough to send me the link, send me the name and let me, as the host, know of all of his dozen plus books, that's the one he wants to put a focus on. So he had me do it, which is really the best way. But there's nothing wrong with the way you mention it, of course. Don, I want to know, wrapping up here, do you have any Small Talk communication heroes either from your own life? And just in history? It's been said, the anecdote goes, when it comes to the two prime ministers, two great prime ministers of Great Britain, Disraeli and Gladstone, that when you're talking to Gladstone, you're convinced he's the smartest man in the country or the continent, but when you're speaking to Disraeli, he makes you feel like you're the smartest person on the continent. And I may have jumbled that anecdote, but is there anyone who really stands out for you when it comes to a true small talk communication hero?

Well, you know, I thought about that question and I, I, I, I'm really not sure if there's that, that one person, but I had a teacher who kind of inspired me in a direction. And I, I wouldn't say that he was really a small talk hero, but he could talk really, really well. He was my 9th grade English teacher and his name was Mr. Eisenberger. And he was very knowledgeable and very dramatic and very serious. One day I was talking with one of my classmates, you know, probably a couple of the girls over, you know, next to me, and, and he says to me, says Mr. Gabor, what is the answer to that question? And of course I don't remember what the question was. And I mean, I did answer it. And all, you know, the classes, the kids in the class were looking at me like, oh, what's he going to say now? And Mr. Eisenberger says to me, you know, Mr. Everybody was Mr. Or Ms. At that point. Mr. Gabor, you're the only person I've ever met who can talk and listen at the same time.

That's a high praise.

It was high praise for Mr. Eisenberger. He still kicked me out of the class, but, you know, he now, wait.

I have to ask. Were you one of these kids who was. Because you love talking to people, constantly getting bad marks for talks in class?

Yes.

Okay.

In a short answer, yeah, I got, you know, I got in trouble all the time for talking. I got thrown out of the class a lot for talking. But at the same time, teachers liked me because I, I was listening to what they were saying and I was responding to their questions and answering their questions or at least interacting with them, whereas 99% of the other kids in the class would just sit there and not, not respond. I was the kid who would say stuff and respond or oftentimes would misinterpret on purpose what the teacher was actually saying. And so while I was somewhat disruptive in a, in a certain sense, the teachers also liked me because they could count on me to keep things, you know, interactive and focused on, on the lesson that they were trying to, to communicate to the class. So I, and it all worked out. I taught school for years and, you know, it's the same thing when I'm doing workshops. I, I like the people who interact, you know, and I guess I, I want to learn. And, you know, the, the small talk was, was something that got me into some trouble. Not big trouble, but, you know, little trouble. But it's paid off. And I, you know, I mean, I've had a, I had a lot of teachers who, who capitalized on it, who were good communicators, and I think I learned a lot from them in, in how to communicate that way. And my, my message to your audience, TJ is that everything will come to you. I believe if you can communicate what you have to offer to others. You know, the old saying, what goes around comes around. What you give out comes back. And if you can communicate clearly, orally, and on paper, it will always come back to you in a positive way.

And a lot of people tell themselves, either I'm a speaker or I'm an author. I don't speak, or I'm a speaker, I don't write. Don Gabor, you are somebody who really does it both and you do it well. Don Gabor, author of how to Start a Conversation and Make Friends. You can find more about him@don gabor.com. thanks for being our guest.

Thank you very much. It was a pleasure. Thanks for listening to Speaking with TJ Walker, where the communication skills and practices of world class leaders are dissected.