709: Vanessa Van Edwards - How to Connect with Anyone, Master Small Talk, and Ask the 9 Power Questions That Deepen Every Relationship

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My Guest: Vanessa Van Edwards is a behavioral researcher, Harvard instructor, and founder of Science of People. Her books Captivate and Cues have been translated into 18 languages, and her work reached more than 300 million people last year. Her new book is Conversation: How to Connect with Anyone and Make Every Interaction Count.

Key Learnings

Small talk is required for big talk. You can't skip it. You can do it better. Conversation is a skill with micro skills underneath it, and small talk is one chapter.

Two traps make small talk painful. Autopilot (asking questions without actually connecting) and going for facts instead of stories. 

Awe is the best small talk ingredient. "Wow, that's amazing," or "What is that?" Positive awe is wow. Negative awe is compassion: "Everything okay? Can I help?" Both solicit stories. Both work only if you mean it.

Awe beats a compliment. A compliment lands. Being visibly wowed by something invites the story behind it.

Be story ready. When someone asks how you are, don't hand back good, fine, busy. Have something loaded: "Today the craziest thing happened." You break the script with your answer before anyone has to break it with a question.

Flip your questions into story hunters. Not "how are you" but "What's been good?" or "Tell me something good." Slight change, big shift toward optimism.

Or check in on something specific from before. "I noticed you dedicated the book to your daughters. How old are they now?" The update question does the work that the generic one can't.

Katie Couric never asks "what do you do?" She asks "What do you like to do?" Vanessa found it in Couric's memoir. One-word swaps have major potential.

Turn small talk into a treasure hunt. Everyone has gold. You don't know what it is yet. Your job is to ask the questions that find it.

Treasure hunting also kills the awkwardness. Vanessa calls herself a