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Lesson Info

Get in Your Conversation Zone

How to get in the zone for social conversation, for social interaction. You can't just roll out of bed, go to a networking event, you're gonna do terribly. It's the same for speaking, I had to get warm for this. It's the same for athletes. Getting into the conversation zone. What steps does Usain Bolt take or do before a competition? Stretches, warms up, he mentally engages. Yeah, oh yeah, thank you. I used to run track, as well, and before that, before we raced, the rule was generally that we had to be sweating when we started the race. We had to be so warm, everything had to be engaged, because being just a tiny bit, tiny bit tired or fatigued is so much better than coming in cold. So, what does Usain Bolt do? He warms up, he gets in the zone. Exact process you should have for conversation and socializing. Social muscles, you know, the figurative ones, the metaphorical ones, and also the physical ones with the vocal cords, with the throat, with your voice, you need to hit the ground ...

running. How do you do this? There are two ways that I wanna talk about. First one is emulating a role model. Who's your social role model? What would you do, what would they do or say in X situation? You know, a popular saying is WWJD, you know, so it's gonna be something like WW W, WWW D, which is gonna be mine and I'll get into that later. What's the value of a social role model? I feel like some of you don't quite see the value, or think that this is maybe an abstraction, but what it does is, it disassociates you from the situation at hand. It's so much easier to think of what someone else would do, because they're a well-defined concept in your mind, versus what you would do which, the whole point is that you don't know what to do. Allows you to play a roll, can be like wearing a mask. In this case, that's a good thing, because when you wear a mask, what happens? What happens on Halloween? You feel empowered, you feel like you can do what you want. You feel like everything's okay, because you're playing a role in this mask. It's a lot easier to imagine in tough situations. When we're in a tough, stressful, social situation, we get stressed and we can't think clearly. What if we could just divert our thinking into, "What would this person do?" It's a lot easier to conceive of. The final thing is that you will know what you yourself, are aiming for. Who do you want to be socially? What do you wanna be? Articulating a social role model and articulating what adjectives they are, that allows you to aim for something that you may not have even thought of before. If you wanna be that person, what are the steps that you need to take to get there? Here's some examples that are popular that I've gotten from clients that are just from other people. Robert Downey Jr, basically Tony Stark. Flippant, funny, witty. James Bond, suave, smooth. David Letterman, talkative. Kobe Bryant, I don't know. So then you go to the females. Ellen, Lucille Ball, Amy Schumer, Michelle Obama, Chelsea Handler. They run the gamut, but you know, everyone has their own social role model. As they should, everyone's different. Now that you have that mental image, now that you have this one social role model, what adjectives define these role models? I wanna emphasize this, you didn't know it before, but that's how you wanna be socially and conversationally. Now you have a guideline, you almost have a framework. And when you have a framework, you essentially have something to follow. That's much easier for social situations when you feel stressed, or just when you feel good. You can dip into that character, emulate that role model. So much easier to say and I think I've said everything on this slide, so to the next one. Here's what I was getting at. W - who's my social role model? Will Smith. Yeah? Specifically, as The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Now I'm a '90s, um, slash '80s kid when I was raised. I watched that stuff on repeat, but the reason I watched was because of him. He was such a funny character. Adjectives include irreverent, brash, in your face, creative, witty, charismatic, bold. This has actually been a big help for me in my life, to just imagine WWWD, what would Will do? How might The Fresh Prince of Bel Air react to the following situations? This is a lot easier to think about, because there's that articulated guideline, that framework, as opposed to how I would react, where I have to actually think about it, because, how we feel about ourselves, we can describe ourselves in some adjectives, but it's tough to do that, right? How would he react to being made fun of? He'd say, "Ssshhh, whenever I see you lookin', it doesn't matter, it's like that, it's like teflon." Tripping and falling, pick himself right back up again, say, "I didn't see nothin'." "I'm all good. "What're you fallin' for?" Somethin' like that, right? But the point is that I know exactly how that plays out in my head, so I can better calibrate my behavior to be like that. And it's a very helpful thing to have. Reading out loud. That is the second way that we're gonna talk about. How and why, "Patrick, it seems like something that I've done millions of times, quit wastin' my time." Okay, fine, so let's go on. This is gonna be a slightly more involved exercise, so I'll ask for volunteers first, and, if not, we'll do the birthday thing. Yeah? Okay, thank you. So, we're talking about warming up, right? Getting in your social zone. Reading out loud, what does that do for you? So here's what I'd love for you to do. Read that out loud. The whole thing? You know what, let's start from just there. Oh, right. Read it out loud. With feeling, gusto? However you want. Okay. "This forest is perfectly delightful," declared the Lion, looking around him with joy. "Never have I seen a more beautiful place." "It seems gloomy," said the Scarecrow. "Not a bit of it," answered the Lion. "I should like to live here all my life. "See how soft the dried leaves are under your feet, "and how rich and green the mosses that clings "to these old trees? "Surely, no wild beast could wish a pleasanter home." "Perhaps there are wild beasts in the forest now," said Dorothy. "I suppose there are," returned the Lion, "but I do not see any of them about." They walked through the forest until it became too dark to go any farther. Dorothy and Toto and the Lion laid down to sleep, while the Woodman and the Scarecrow kept watch over them as usual. Good? Yeah. Okay. Now we can do this. You're gonna pretend like you're an elementary school teacher and like you're reading to a class of second graders. Okay (laughs). Exaggerate every voice and emotion as much as possible. Use as wide of a range, loud, quiet. Okay. As much as possible, be over the top. I want you to just be over the top as much as possible. (laughs) Okay. Okay. All right. "The forest is perfectly delightful," declared the Lion, looking around him with joy. "Never have I seen a more beautiful place." "It seems gloomy," said the Scarecrow. "Not a bit of it," answered the Lion. "I should like to live here all my life. "See how soft the dried leaves are under your feet, "how rich and green the mosses that clings "to these old trees? "Surely no wild beast could wish a more pleasanter home." "Perhaps there are wild beasts in the forest now," said Dorothy. "I suppose there are," returned the Lion, "but I do not see any of them about." They walked through the forest until it became too dark to go any farther. Dorothy and Toto and the Lion laid down to sleep, while the Woodman and the Scarecrow kept watch over them as usual. (everyone claps and cheers) Really good, really good. Thanks. You can stay up here. Oh, I can, okay, sure. (audience laughs) We'll have you do it one more time after I do this. Okay. Okay, so remember what I said about the voices. Yeah. Over the top, loud, small, voices. (clears throat) "This forest is perfectly delightful," declared the Lion, "looking around him with joy. "Never have I seen a more beautiful place." "It seems gloomy," said the Scarecrow. "Not a bit of it," answered the Lion. "I should like to live here all my life. "See how soft the dried leaves are under your feet, "and how rich and green the mosses that clings "to these old trees? "Surely, no wild beast could wish a pleasanter home." "Perhaps there are wild beasts in the forest now," said Dorothy. "I suppose there are," returned the Lion, "but I do not see any of them." Okay, now you try it. Again? My goodness, okay. Over the top. Even more over the top, oh gosh! Okay, I thought I was pretty over the top before, but I guess I'll go all the way. It's all you. Okay. "This forest is perfect delightful," declared the Lion, looking around him with joy. "Never have I seen a more beautiful place." "It seems gloomy," said the Scarecrow. "Not a bit of it," answered the Lion. "I should like to live here all my life. "See how soft the dried leaves are under your feet, "and how rich and green the mosses that clings "to these old trees? "Surely no wild beast could wish a pleasanter home." "Perhaps there are wild beasts in the forest now," said Dorothy. "I suppose there are," returned the Lion, "but I do not see any of them." They walked through the forest until it became too dark to go any farther. Dorothy and Toto and the Lion laid down to sleep while the Woodman and the Scarecrow kept watch over them, as usual. Cool! Okay, that was it! (everyone claps and cheers) Okay, so the difference between the first time she did that and the third time she did that, that's the difference between warming up. The first time, it wasn't stilted, it was okay, but you clearly had a lot more to do there in the third time. You clearly expressed a lot more emotion, you clearly were more confident and calibrated to people. Do you feel more uninhibited and confident now? Yeah, kinda cathartic, yeah. Cathartic, that's a good way to put it. So that's the value of reading out loud and that's why we do it in this way, you pretend you're reading to a group of second graders, that you exaggerate every single emotion. Because you're gonna use these emotions a little bit in conversation. A little bit, so when you stretch out your range to here, you have a more dynamic range of emotion, of expression, of volume, everything. Be over the top. And the point of being over the top, is so you can continue to grow that range, so that when it's required, you can have it.