Vanessa Van Edwards shares Dr. Dan McAdams' three-level conversation blueprint and nine "power questions" tested through speed-networking experiments. Most people get stuck in small talk because they don't know how to move deeper. These questions unlock genuine connection while staying socially acceptable.
I realized that there is a blueprint for conversation. People didn't know it. It's actually research by Dr. Dan McAdams who looked at how we connect with people, and there are 3 levels we have to move through in a conversation to be able to feel connected. And it is why we have bad small talk. The reason why awkward people like me were having awkward conversations is because I did not know how to get out of level 1. I was trapped in that small talk— so how are you, how's the fam? I could not get out of that trap. And so there is a way to get out of it. And so this book is on those 3 levels, and then I give 9 power questions that I hope that people will use and ask everyone in their life to be able to level up if they so choose. I knew about this science, about these 3 levels. I was testing it. I was teaching with my students. We have thousands of students in my course People School, and I would have them test different questions for me. And we had a list of 60 hypotheses, 60 questions that I thought maybe these could be unlocks. And so we would run speed networking tests. I'd have my students test these questions, narrowed down to 9, because it's a very hard of a question to balance cracking someone open but also social acceptance. So these are like socially acceptable questions that's coming
