The Conversation Code: How to Upgrade Your Social Skills and Your Life Page 3

  There are a few sports commentators who follow very predictable – but effective speech patterns. These guys will state their point, and then rephrase what they just said, but more succinctly and with jolt of power and enthusiasm. For example, “The way he runs with the ball, he’s one of the best in the league right now – ONE OF THE BEST!” It’s a very simple but effective technique.

  Speak in Chunky Phrases

  Insecurities often manifest in the voice. Shy people, when they actually open up, tend to communicate quickly and softly; often stringing every phrase together without any breaks. Too much attention and too many staring eyes are intimidating. Unfortunately, it’s hard for anyone listening to completely process everything.

  From this point on, mentally focus on chunking each main point or phrase. Deliberately pause between each point. Chunking helps you add variance to your voice, keeping it interesting. If we continue the awesome roller coaster analogy– it’s akin to pausing at the top of the hill before the next drop. Every time you pause before your next set of statements, you’re allowing them to mentally break and process what you said before the ride picks up steam again. The act of deliberately pausing is an incredibly simple but powerful act; it says you are in control and you are comfortable with silence for a few seconds.

  Chunking will instantly do five things for you:

  1.You will have extra time to think about what to say next and how to present yourself verbally.

  2.You will have a mental break, so you can inject more energy into the next phrase.

  3.You will be able to take a breath and relax more.

  4.You will gain a sense of control instead of feeling like your words are running away from you.

  5.You will sound more interesting, confident, and likeable.

  Initially, it may feel unnatural and difficult to always remind yourself to speak in chunks – especially if you’re feeling too much pressure. Luckily, forcing your brain to think and talk in chunks becomes habitual over time; your brain will start formulating phrases in chunks automatically.

  So far we’ve covered improving your non-verbal skills so everything you say sounds and looks better. After practicing, you should have a good sense of how you come across to others, and how you want to come across to others. At the end of each chapter is a challenge activity affectionately titled “Use It or Lose It.” Put these techniques into practice if you desire to see any significant improvement!

  CHAPTER1: USE IT OR LOSE IT

  Pull out your phone and play all three of the recordings you created from the practice exercises in this chapter. Compare your “normal” recording with the subsequent recordings. What did you notice? Did the wild version sound as wild as you felt it was when you recorded it? Was the monotone version painful to listen to? Did you hear any poor habits like mumbling? Is your pitch too high? Do you lose energy at the end of your comments?

  Let’s do one more recording. This time tell the same childhood story or choose another story. Remember, it’s important to tell a story for this exercise because during the process of recalling events, you may notice some poor conversation habits creep in. During this recording, see if you can improve upon your “normal” vocal habits and create something even more interesting. Then listen to your new recording, how did you do?

  Extra credit exercise: Find a YouTube clip of a popular talk show host or news reporter. Watch them four or five times. After repeatedly watching the same clip, it will become easier to listen to their vocal mannerisms because you won’t be distracted by the content of their message anymore. What did you notice?

  CHAPTER I: REVIEW

  Before this chapter:

  The Seven Habits: Sense, Grow, Assert, Share, Assemble, Connect, and Play

  Start working towards improving any weak links

  From this chapter:

  Don’t be an energy vampire

  Vary your voice

  Speak in more chunks

  Key takeaway from this chapter:

  Poor non-verbal habits sabotage your communication. Practice listening to your voice until you become keenly aware of how you come across. Find and fix any bad vocal habits.

  Coming up next:

  We’ll continue examining how to improve your non-verbal skills with a focus on visual communication.

  Preview: Improving how you communicate visually is a critical part of the nonverbal foundation. It’s important to develop awareness of how you appear, add effective behaviors, and fix any behaviors holding back your conversations.

  [CHAPTER 2]

  WATCH YOURSELF

  Your Movie is Always Playing

  Aside from when you’re alone, you’re always communicating something non-verbally! If someone can hear or see you, then you’re serving as a visual or auditory stimulus to that person. In other words, you are a form of entertainment, and the movie called (insert your name here) has a running length of – forever.

  Many people shutter at the thought of being watched or listened to by so many people. But luckily for the self-conscious, there’s so much stimuli in the world, 99.9% of what you do and say won’t be remembered for very long. It’s time to embrace the fact you’re a form of entertainment. You can’t escape it, so you might as well put on a good show! Make your movie interesting. Give people something to enjoy.

  Ask yourself a few questions: What kind of movie are you showing? Do you barely move when you talk? Does your head shift a little? Do you add gestures? Do your eyes dart around? (I used to always have trouble with that one!) Do you forget to smile? (I still have trouble with this one!)

  Many people talk like robots or statues – barely moving their faces. You can try to be funny or light-hearted, but you won’t get the reaction you seek if you deliver the lines wearing a solemn face. You can tell an amazing story, but if you have a monotone voice and no facial or body expressions, your audience will still lose interest. It’s not enough to tell them that you were “shocked,” sometimes it helps to show them. Just a subtle glimpse of what you looked like when you were surprised, increases your box office appeal. Let them hear the shock in your voice. Let them see the dismay on your face.

  Without non-verbal additives, conversations would proceed more like email exchanges – where most of the human-ness is replaced with objective text messages. If given the option, people prefer consuming the entire movie and feeling the stimulation of the auditory and the visual senses.

  Many experts agree that the majority of what you’re communicating to the other person is non-verbal. Don’t forget, this includes your overall appearance and clothing. A little effort towards your looks and sense of style goes a long way. Dress like a successful, confident person, and you’ll start feeling more confident. Don’t let an old pair of shoes and a hash brown-stained T-shirt be your downfall!

  If you struggle with your non-verbal expressions, then definitely take the practice section seriously for this chapter. You’ll notice huge gains with just a little effort. Don’t forget to have fun with gestures. I have always been amazed at how well even a quick dramatic head-turn can hold someone’s attention for a few moments.

  Quick Practice: Go on YouTube and search for a comedian or talk show host. Watch a few of the videos with the volume muted. Study their visual communication skills only. What do you notice? Successful communicators regularly move their bodies and animate their faces.

  Don’t Forget about Gestures

  Gestures inject life into your expressions. Too many speakers feel that their words alone will carry the weight of a conversation, then struggle to keep their audience engaged, because they are too rigid. The opposite also exists – someone expressing the most boring content may appear very interesting and engaging simply by employing fantastic gestures and energy. With practice, gestures are easy to incorporate into your daily conversational habits.

  Your descriptions and stories become twice as vivid when you act them out in subtle ways. Describing an incident with a statement like, “I looked over a
nd he had his hands up,” is much more effective if you actually show how is hands went up.

  Animating your hands or body is another method of obtaining some control over your conversation. Control is a key to confidence, especially in social situations. The more in control you feel, the more confident you appear, and the less you appear nervous and tense.

  You know that dreaded feeling that overtakes you when everyone’s eyes are focused like lasers on your face? Gestures provide the audience with something else to focus on rather than your eyes and face, which for many people, can be a very insecure and vulnerable experience. Gestures act as your psychological shield, redirecting those intimidating gazes.

  As a bonus, gestures have been found to aid in memory recall, and if you’re like me and need all the help you can get, you might as well try it!

  This chapter is brief because the concepts are simple, however; the work required is demanding. Dedicate significant time to practicing better non-verbal skills and you’ll be one step closer to maximizing your social potential. Become completely aware of how others see you, and stop relying on how you think you appear.

  CHAPTER 2: USE IT OR LOSE IT

  Record a video of yourself telling a story. Any story will do. Then record the same story again but deliberately add more movement, energy, facial expressions, and gestures. Go out of your comfort zone!

  Watch both versions and compare the new behaviors with your existing behaviors. What did you notice? Is one more entertaining than the other? Does the more demonstrative version look as silly as it felt while you were recording it?

  CHAPTER 2: REVIEW

  Before this chapter:

  The Seven Habits: Sense, Grow, Assert, Share, Assemble, Connect, and Play

  Start working towards improving any weak links

  Add energy and variety to your voice

  From this chapter:

  Show a better movie

  Take advantage of the power of gestures

  Key takeaway from this chapter:

  Poor non-verbal habits sabotage your communication. Expressive visual communication is a key part of your package of non-verbal skills.

  Coming up next:

  Next, we’ll examine the underlying building blocks of conversation, and improve your conversational awareness. It’s important to deconstruct conversations down to the basic parts before diving into the details of how to put them together in more effective ways.

  Preview: Developing your conversational intelligence is the next step towards improving social skills. We’ll examine the underlying structures of conversation so you improve your conversational awareness (or “sixth sense”).

  [CHAPTER 3]

  INCREASE YOUR CONVERSATIONAL AWARENESS

  A generation ago a psychotherapist named Eliza achieved momentary fame. Eliza was not the greatest conversationalist – but she had a good excuse: She was a computer program (an early “chat bot”). The funny thing is, many people who “conversed” with her actually believed she was real for a while. She was simply following coded scripts. Her conversations with humans would proceed like this:

  ELIZA: How are you today?

  HUMAN: Good, how are you?

  ELIZA: Good, thanks. Where are you from?

  HUMAN: Detroit.

  ELIZA: That’s nice, what do you do for a living?

  HUMAN: I’m a writer.

  ELIZA: That sounds interesting.

  HUMAN: What do you do?

  ELIZA: I’m a therapist. Do you like your job?

  Many human interactions really sound like this. Do your conversations? Eliza was programmed to follow a basic script. Like many chat bots, they fare well in the beginning of a new social interaction because meeting someone for the first time often follows predictable social scripts. She was coded to ask a few good initial “getting to know you” questions, and she knew how to answer some commonly asked questions as well. Historically, chat bots start failing miserably when the conversation ventures into more substantive and ambiguous areas.

  If you want more interesting conversations, you’ll have to do much better than a computer program.

  Are You Following a Script?

  In some ways, we humans are similar to computers. Computers can only do what they are programmed to do. Likewise, humans tend to act in very predictable ways. Throughout our lives, we have all become aware of hundreds of scripts to help us navigate the complex world of conversation and social interaction. Being aware of social scripts help determine and guide where we can insert the words and phrases we have stored away. Scripts help guide your thoughts and reduce the cognitive load on your brain. The more you’re in-tune to social scripts, the more you’ve practiced them, the smoother and more confident your conversations will proceed.

  Cognitive psychologists discovered long ago that we all need to form mental models (often referred to as “schemas”) to help us understand and process all the information we’re exposed to on a daily basis. Our brains are constantly trying to make sense of every experience. Anxiety can often be attributed to simply not possessing the proper script of how to act and what to say. In other words, we may lack enough data to finish the mental model, so to speak.

  Children are often anxious in new situations because they have no idea how to proceed correctly. As a teenager, my anxiety over ordering pizza was not because I was afraid of “people” or “talking,” I simply didn’t feel comfortable with the pizza ordering script. I had a general sense of how to call and place an order, but part of me worried the conversation may get off track and then I’d be stuck. We sometimes assume a conversation can be as simple as, “Give me a pepperoni pizza.” But in reality it’s not always that simple. A script as simple as ordering dinner may include a variety of small talk comments. Most conversations are infinitely more complex.

  Let’s look at an example of a very common script. At a birthday, baby shower, or holiday, when someone gives someone else a present, there is a very predictable, culturally ingrained exchange. Think about the last time you were handed a gift – what did you say? Did you stick to something similar to the following script?

  GIFT RECEIVER’S SCRIPT

  1.STATE APPRECIATION: Thank you.

  2.DESCRIBE GIFT: A reading light, this is great!

  3.STATE BENEFIT: I can read my books at night now.

  4.SHOW APPRECIATION: Thank you, Pat.

  GIFT GIVER’S SCRIPT

  1.ACKNOWLEDGE APPRECIATION: You’re welcome.

  2.PROVIDE AN EXPLANATION: I was thinking you could use one of those since you’re always reading so much.

  Does this scenario sound familiar? You’ve probably heard or followed a similar script hundreds of times in your life. The aforementioned script may seem obvious and second nature to you, but there was a point in your life where you didn’t quite follow it yet, where you were still learning the correct order of things, the correct placement of certain phrases. Now consider an interaction you still feel anxious about – it’s likely that you aren’t comfortable enough with the script of how it is supposed to play out.

  What scenario is really challenging for most people? Confrontation. The following scripts excel at handling confrontations, but don’t worry about memorizing every step. Simply rehearsing scripts a few times can do wonders.

  One of my favorite simple scripts is the I feel, When You, Because script. It’s incredibly helping for minor confrontations and communicating something that’s bothering you. For example, “I feel really frustrated when you don’t finish the work on time because it prevents me from finishing my own work.” For more complex confrontations, a script below might be in order:

  CONFRONTATION SCRIPT

  1.SETUP THE CONVERSATION: Hey Steve, I need to talk to you about something.

  2.DESCRIBE THE PROBLEM BEHAVIOR/ACTION: Remember when you said you were going to have that project finished on time, and it was a week late?

  3.DESCRIBE THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE ACTION/BEHAVIOR: Well, because it was late, I got in b
ig trouble with Carl.

  4.STATE YOUR FEELINGS: I didn’t appreciate how you didn’t give us any warning.

  5.ACKNOWLEDGE THEIR PERSPECTIVE: I realize that you had a rough week that week, but...

  6.STATE DESIRED ACTION OR OUTCOME: Next time, I need you to at least let me know ahead of time if you think you’re going to get behind.

  7.STATE APPRECIATION: I know you didn’t want to hurt our project, so thanks for hearing me out on this.

  The master of rhetoric, Aristotle, introduced a classic guideline for speeches, but it applies to many other situations as well. Essentially, tell them what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you just told them. Sound silly? It’s not. Look at the following series of statements common in business interactions:

  TELL THEM OVERVIEW: Hey, I just wanted to touch base about my feelings on the X project.

  TELL THEM DETAILS: I was thinking it needs more________, and maybe less _______. Also...

  TELL THEM SUMMARY: So basically I think we should do _______ with the X project. I just wanted to touch base and make sure we’re on the same page.

  Of course, the other person would be involved with the interaction, but you could stick to the Aristotle script in a general sense in order to keep your thoughts focused and clear.

  Quick Practice: Do you know that ending a conversation often follows very predictable scripts? Imagine you need to wrap up a conversation with Chatty Cathy, how would you proceed? Write on the following line what you would say to end the conversation (or just think about it for a minute).

  Were you able to think of how you end conversations? A good script for ending a substantive conversation goes something like this: