Better Small Talk

It’s the difference between having a good answer or story when someone asks, “What did you do last weekend?” versus simply saying, “Oh, not too much. Some TV. What about you?” And how few of us can answer the following without stuttering and stalling: “So what’s your story?” The conversation résumé allows you to remind yourself that you’re not such a boring person after all, and that people should have reason to be interested in you and what you have to say.

econd, when we’re in the heat of a conversation and an awkward silence is looming, sometimes we stress and our minds blank completely. We try to think on our feet, but our feet are frozen to the floor. A conversation résumé comes to the rescue because it is an annotated overview of who you are. It’s a brief list of your best and funniest stories, your notable accomplishments, your unique experiences, and viewpoints on salient and topical issues. It allows you to keep your best bits ready for usage.

First, we don’t really think about ourselves and what is interesting about us to others. Have you ever played the game “two truths and a lie”? It’s a social ice-breaking game where you are supposed to name interesting facts and stories about yourself—but this is pretty difficult for most of us because we simply don’t often ask ourselves, What do people want to hear about us? Constructing this resume helps confirm your identity, quirks, accomplishments, and unique perspectives; in fact, it helps us gain self-awareness and self-confidence.

That’s the reason singers put their hands on their stomachs—it’s to check that their diaphragms are engaged. Try it and make sure that your stomach is taut and tight.

The point here is to literally breathe life into the words that you are speaking. Those who speak without their diaphragm inevitably come off as quiet, meek, and mouse-like. The better you can project your voice, the wider the emotional range you can create.

Pay attention to your breathing. Do you feel like you’re running out of breath? It’s because your diaphragm is weak and not used to projecting or sounding confident.

pay attention to your diction and how you enunciate.

Pay attention to your voice tonality. Are you accustomed to using a monotone? Would someone be able to tell what the character or narrator is thinking or trying to convey by listening to you? Use the excerpt to practice your range of vocal expressiveness—try to embody the term emotional diversity. Go ahead and try it for the second time with all this newfound instruction.

Exaggerate every emotion you can find to the tenth degree. Scream parts of the story while whispering in other parts. Use different and zany voices for different characters. Make any laughter maniacal, make any rage boiling, make any happiness manic—you get the idea. For that matter, what emotions are you picking up in the text? Even in such a short excerpt, there are emotional high and low points. Express them, and make them sound like climaxes to stretch your range of emotion.

Pretend like you are reading the excerpt out loud to a class of second graders. Read the excerpt like you’re giving a performance in a contest, and the winner is judged on how emotional and ridiculous they can be! Pretend you’re a voice actor for a movie trailer and you have only your voice to convey a wide range of emotion. Go as far over the top as possible—which, granted, won’t be much at first.

To warm up your conversation and small talk skills, you just need to do something we’ve done almost every day in our lives: read out loud.