Eyes Open, Mouth Shut: How to Become a Smooth Talker
Conversation is key to everything from personal relationships to job opportunities, and you can learn to use it to your advantage.
The saying “talk is cheap” is misleading; talk is golden and highly prized. Learning the central features of effective communication and the necessary adjunct of “small talk” is essential in every aspect of our lives.
Any conversation with anyone, whether a stranger on the street, a clerk in a store, a boss, your college professor, or a potential investor, requires preparation and attention to the keys that open mental doors.
Therapists are trained in these techniques in classes and real-world practicums to provide skill development in information gathering. They also begin the development of trusting, giving relationships. If you don’t help someone learn to trust you via your conversations with them, you’re dead in the water.
Of course, therapists are told to listen with the third ear, a technique conceived by analyst Theodor Reik. But no one needs to be a therapist; there’s no secret sauce here. If there is a secret, and you might want one, it’s practice and not 10K hours, either. Sorry, Malcolm, but that doesn’t apply here.
