book-notes

Chatter: Small Talk, Charisma, and How to Talk to Anyone

by Patrick King

I, Michael Parker, own this book and took these notes to further my own learning. If you enjoy these notes, please purchase the book!

Introduction

• People will run through walls for people they like. Use your likeability to get ahead.
• Chatter requires a sense of empathy, conversational techniques, and cultivating a presence. It also requires reading between the lines, examining body language, and noting response to stimuli.

Principle 1: Bulletproof Your Nonverbal First Impression

• First impressions are made within 30 seconds. After that, your conversation partner will only look for cues and signs that confirm that impression.
• Being described as “nice” means you are an afterthought, and did not leave an impression.
• Always offer a handshake. Offer your hand first, to own and control the interaction. Take a step towards the other person, and lean in. Maintain eye contact, and maintain a smile throughout.
• Have an open, approachable stance. Don’t cross your arms, or move back or turn away from the other person. Eliminate your nervous ticks, and slow your movements down.

Principle 2: Bulletproof Your Verbal First Impression

• The verbal first impression governs the first 20 words out of your mouth. It’s your elevator pitch.
• Prepare elevator pitches for questions like:
  • “Tell me about yourself.”
  • “What did you do last weekend?”
  • “Where do you work?”
  • “What do you have planned for this weekend?”
  • “Do you live around here?”
  • “How do you know the person who introduced us?”
  • “Where are you from?”
  • “Where did you go to school?”
• Focus on using specific details that people can relate to, as well as the commonality you share with your conversation partner.

Principle 3: What Would Jay Do?

• People like those who like them. When you react the way someone wants, it encourages that person to be more outgoing and open with you.
• Being genuinely curious and interested in your conversation partner is one of the keys to allowing them to feel comfortable enough to connect with you beyond a superficial level.
• Everyone has something to teach you, fascinate you with, and amaze you with. Commit to truly learning about the people you speak with, and wonder what they’re truly like.

Principle 4: Your Life is a Series of (Mini) Stories

• Nothing stops a conversation cold like a one word answer, so strive to make your life a series of mini stories. This also allows you control the image that you project.
• Stories are an inside view into your personality, emotions, and passions, so learning them is a first step in allowing anyone to relate and feel connected to you.
• Prepare stories for:
  • your occupation
  • your week
  • your upcoming weekend
  • your hometown
  • your hobbies
  • your favorite music
  • your passions
  • your education
  • your apartment
  • your mutual friends
  • your dating history
  • your experience with wherever you are
  • the weather
  • your family
  • your pet
• Don’t get too personal, too negative, or too controversial, and don’t dominate the conversation.

Principle 5: Thorough, Exhaustive, and Specific Details

• When answering questions, lead with a specific detail that begs to be asked about. Be graphic, and use extremely descriptive and colorful language.
• Adding personal details that are interesting and funny will lead your conversation partner to remember you through them.
• Moreover, it creates a direction for the conversation to follow, and so the conversation is easier to continue for your partner.
• Most importantly, it creates a personal connection and encourages your conversation partner to reciprocate. People like those who are similar to them, and details are an avenue to that discovery.

Principle 6: Icebreak with Superficial Commonalities…

• None of us can expect to be charming, witty, and engaged 100% of the time, so more often than not we rely on questions that discover superficial commonalities.
• For a man talking to another man, such topics include: women, sports, work/business, working out, food, and vehicles.
• For a woman talking to another woman, such topics include: physical appearance, recent events you’ve attended, food, and other women.
• When talking to the opposite sex, such topics include: working out, events you’ve attended, and mutual friends.
• Avoid questions relating to hobbies, interests, and occupation. First, you’ll learn about those things organically. Second, they’re so common that your conversation partner will have a canned answer ready, and will be bored and unstimulated.
• A great icebreaker on superficial commonalities is:
  1. Discover something that you two share at the moment, such as a location, mutual friend, interest, etc.
  2. Reveal something about yourself related to it. Focus on yourself.
  3. Use your personal information to make a statement or prompt your partner to reply, gauge their reaction, share their own relation, and get them involved.

Principle 7: But Core Commonalities Foster True Relationships

• A core commonality is a trait, emotion, feeling, formative experience, fear, insecurity, vulnerability, or aspiration you have in common with someone else.
• By finding such a commonality, you are both privy to exclusive knowledge and experiences. This forms a strong bond, and a psychological effect that makes opening up and connecting easier.
• You also perceive each other as equal in status, and as being similar to each other. And people like people who are like themselves.

Principle 8: Know and Play in Your Wheelhouse

• The more you know about a topic, the easier it is to talk to someone about it, whether by explaining, teaching, discussing, or debating.
• Identify your wheelhouse topics, and then derive related and more general categories from them. Feel comfortable talking about or breaking the ice with these topics.
• Don’t change the topic to one in your wheelhouse often. It will turn you into the most self-absorbed person at the party, as opposed to someone who simply plays to their strengths.
• Try directing the conversation to topics in your conversation partner’s wheelhouse instead. This gives you value as his or her partner.

Principle 9: Reactions are Worth 1000 Words

• Great, big, juicy reactions are how you let a speaker know that you have heard them, can relate to their words, and want to hear more.
• The most important reaction is laughter, especially when the speaker is expecting it or laughing themselves.
• Reactions amplify the emotions that the speaker is trying to convey, which in turn excites the speaker and raises the overall energy and emotional level of the conversation, which is vital for a connection to form.
• Some examples of non-verbal interactions:
  • When your partner talks about something disapprovingly, shake your head and grimace.
  • When your partner asks a rhetorical question, smile and shake your head to show that you understand.
  • When your partner is explaining something, tilt your head and squint your eyes to show that you are thinking.
  • When your partner talks about something that made them made, facepalm and shake your head.
  • When your partner says something that they aren’t sure about, tilt your head and squint your eyes questioningly.
  • When your partner poses a question that you identify with, nod your head emphatically and throw your head back with a grin.
  • When your partner talks about something that surprised them, widen your eyes as much as possible.
  • When your partner is explaining something obtuse to you, tilt your head and furrow your brow to show concentration.

Principle 10: Cold Reads Accelerate Any Conversation

• A cold read is a statement or question that makes a bold assumption about your conversation partner based on something they said previously in the conversation.
• It can follow logically from their previous statement, or it can be a non-sequitur that you impose on them. Either way, the conversation takes a turn for the unique and for the better.
• If you’re right, then you’re suddenly extremely insightful. If you’re wrong, then you’ve opened up a new and entertaining line of conversation.
• But without a big grin and congruent body language, a cold read can come across as rude and invasive.

Principle 11: Listening Effectively is Like Giving Out Truth Serum

• Active listening is characterized by focusing on the other person, staying on topic, paraphrasing or simply repeating what was said, digging deeper with questions, finding the important issues, the other person analyzing their intents, and frequent epiphanies.
• Encourage your partner to get technical about their work or otherwise, because they will cherish the opportunity to teach someone about their field or expertise.
• Key phrases to use during active listening are:
  • You seem to feel…
  • It sounds to me like…
  • What I’m hearing is…
  • So, you’re…
  • So… (repeat the last few words they just said)
  • And is that because…
• Finally, after someone speaks, nod your head thoughtfully and pause for 2 full seconds before you speak or react. This makes you look thoughtful, and it makes clear that you’re not simply waiting for your turn to speak.

Principle 12: Skew Slightly Inappropriate

• The root of hesitancy and awkwardness of small talk is that we are afraid of saying the wrong thing and alienating our conversation partner.
• Skewing inappropriate in your conversation immediately eliminates those worries, and both parties can relax going forward.
• We skew in appropriate with our friends. So by skewing inappropriate with your conversation partner, you open up a channel of comfort that they often only reserve for friends.
• Skewing inappropriate is also great for conversation because it pushes the envelope in terms of topics that are on the table, and can lead to intense or personal discussions.

Principle 13: Callback During Conversation Lulls

• Conversation works best with two skilled speakers, and so you’ll inevitably have to deal with conversation lulls and the occasional awkward silence.
• One option is to circle back to something they said before, and have them repeat it or revisit it in greater detail.
• Alternatively, state a non-sequitur that is funny and is definitely relatable. To prepare this, just identify a common struggle that you have every day.

Principle 14: You Are a Current Events Sponge

• Keep up to date on any notable current events that are sure to make their way into the conversation. Formulate an opinion on them and be able to defend it at least superficially.
• This is one area where you can truly prepare beforehand!
• To become such a sponge:
  1. Skim the headlines of politics, national events, social media, news, and sports, and find the 5 biggest stories.
  2. Get at least one outside opinion on those issues from someone who is well informed.
  3. Research an obscure fact about it. This will make you seem ridiculously informed and on top of the issue.

Principle 15: Charisma is a Choice

• Social proof is where people observe how others react to you, and adjust their expectations and perceptions accordingly. It is why name-dropping is a thing.
• There are no secrets to amazing charisma – only precise execution and awareness.
• We get entertainment, information, and pleasure out of conversation. Charisma imparts all of these characteristics, and is a big step towards owning any room.

Principle 16: Save Buzzkill Topics for the Internet

• Deflect buzzkill topics. Such topics are typically uninteresting to most people, polarizing, and a festering ground for uninformed opinions.
• Some people introduce a buzzkill topic because it makes them appear informed and knowledgeable. They are simply seeking validation.
• Others introduce such a topic because they want to push their own agenda. They just want their opinion to be heard, to convince people, and for people to agree with them.
• To diffuse such a topic, acknowledge it, appeal to the vanities of the person who introduces it, and then introduce a new topic almost as a random afterthought.
• If the person reintroduces the buzzkill topic and refuses to take the hint, simply say that you don’t know much about the topic, and revert back to your topic.

Principle 17: Outrageous Introductions Eliminate Awkwardness

• Having something outrageous in your sphere makes people want to confirm with others that it’s really happening, and validate that their feelings are appropriate. It’s a bonding moment.
• When you introduce others, create an outrageous factor that thrusts people together.
• Shift the focus away from their meeting. Make them laugh to disarm them.

Principle 18: Don’t be a Conversation Hunter or Deer

• To display grace and tact while escaping a conversation, say you must leave to say hello to someone, to find the bathroom, to find food or drink, or to make a phone call.
• You may be a conversation hunter if the other party is scanning the room behind you, responding curtly or unenthusiastically, fidgeting, turned away or poised for movement, checking their phone, or is talking less than 20% of the time.
• If you identify yourself as a conversation hunter, leave. Use one of the exit lines you would use as a deer.

Principle 19: Practice Emotional Intelligence

• Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage your emotional state and intent, as well as that of the people around you, in order to achieve better relationships and greater success.
• If you are familiar with an emotion, you can better identify it and deal with the consequences.
• Emotional intelligence is about empathy, reading between the lines, communication, and introspection.
• High emotional intelligence is characterized by:
  • Understanding your own strengths and weaknesses from an objective perspective.
  • Understanding the exact reason you are upset when you get upset.
  • Listening well and tending to know people’s motivations for their actions or words.
  • Reading people’s facial expressions to intuit non-verbal messages.
  • Understanding and getting along with almost anyone because of your empathy.
  • Tending to help others because of your empathy and, to an extent, your sympathy.
  • Keeping an even keel and resisting strong negative emotions because you understand all the causes and perspectives involved.
  • Judging character well and having a reliable “gut feeling” about people.

Principle 20: Conversational Chemistry is Queen, Topic is King

• Topic is a figurehead that appears to matter and direct the conversation. But if you create a conversational chemistry with your partner, then the topic almost doesn’t matter at all.
• No one can talk about interesting topics 100% of the time, so conversational chemistry is what sustains a connection.