I don't care who you are, where you live, or what you do. You need to learn this skill.
· Minh Trương
Small talk.
I know. Some of you hate it.
I hated it too.
As a chronically introverted person, the idea of walking up to someone and talking about absolutely nothing felt fucking pointless.
But here's what changed my mind:
Small talk is the doorway to almost every meaningful human connection.
Before someone becomes your friend, colleague, mentor, client, partner,...
you almost always have to survive the first 30 seconds when you first meet them.
And those 30 seconds are almost never profound.
They're:
"Hey - how are you?"
"How's your day going?"
"Busy today?"
"Hey, haven't seen you in a while."
It sounds trivial.
But being good at it gives you something incredibly valuable:
access.
You can walk into a room where you know nobody and leave having made five new friends.
You can turn a stranger into an acquaintance.
You can make people feel comfortable around you before you get into the real talk.
And once I understood that, I stopped forcing myself to become "good at talking."
I started learning how to open conversations.
And how do you do that?
The answer is dead simple - and it's the one phrase I used to absolutely fucking hate:
"How are you?"
Seriously.
Is there really nothing else you can ask?
I know you don't actually care about how I feel.
You know the answer is gonna be "good" anyway.
So why do we still ask this question 700 million times a day?
Because it's powerful.
It's versatile.
After years of trying to find a better universal conversation opener, I couldn't.
"How are you?" works with almost everyone, almost anywhere, in almost any situation.
A 20-year-old.
A 60-year-old.
Your coworker.
Your professor.
Someone you've known for years.
Someone you met 30 seconds ago.
At a party.
At work.
At a bus stop.
In an elevator.
And there's one important rule:
If your goal is to start a conversation, you need something to say AFTER "I'm good."
Because if they ask:
"How are you?"
and you say:
"Good."
...
Congratulations.
You have successfully killed the conversation.
Instead:
"Good. I actually just watched Spider-Man last night and it was amazing."
Now they have something to work with.
And that's the hidden power of "How are you?"
Because it's such a low-pressure question, they aren't expecting a specific answer.
You can take the conversation almost anywhere.
And when YOU ask it, don't make the mistake of expecting them to do the same.
Ask:
"How are you?"
They say:
"Good."
Then you have to be prepared to continue.
"What have you been up to lately?"
"Oh, you've been working on that project? How's that going?"
"Good to hear. I've actually been..."
The question opens the door.
You still have to walk through it.
And here's another little rule that completely changed how I handle conversations:
The Rule of 3
If you've asked two questions in a row, don't automatically ask a third.
Use it as a signal to give something back.
Example:
- "Where are you from?"
- "Vancouver."
- "Oh nice. How long have you lived here?"
- "About three years."
At this point, you could ask:
"Do you like it here?"
But you're starting to sound like an interviewer.
Instead, give them something:
"Three years? Damn, I just moved here recently. I'm still trying to figure out what there is to do around here."
That's a statement.
An opinion.
A bit about you.
Now they have something they can respond to.
And that's the real point of the Rule of 3:
Don't let the conversation become a one-sided interrogation.
It's not a strict formula.
If someone is giving you long, enthusiastic answers and asking you things back, keep asking questions.
But if you're doing all the asking?
Stop.
And here's the interesting part:
If they're interested in talking to you - or they're simply socially aware - they'll usually pick up the signal.
They'll ask you something back.
If they don't?
That's okay too.
Maybe they're busy.
Maybe they're tired.
Maybe they're extremely introverted.
You don't have to force every conversation into something meaningful.
Sometimes the highest-EQ move is knowing when to let someone go.
And this works in Vietnamese too.
Someone walks past you at the supermarket:
"Ê, đi đâu đó?"
Obviously they can see exactly where the fuck you are going.
But that's not the point.
It's a conversation starter.
So stop judging small talk by whether the starter itself sounds interesting.
Its job isn't to be interesting. Its job is to help you open the door.
And once you've mastered how to open that door, you can access the much more interesting part:
how to make people want to keep talking to you.
More on this later. Follow to not miss it.