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Shadowing practice: How to Make Small Talk People Actually Enjoy

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  1. We've all had conversations that feel forced or boring or are filled with awkward silences.0:00
  2. It can be almost painful, like this next clip.0:04
  3. So in this video, we're going to go over five steps to make small talk with anyone.0:10
  4. We'll do so by breaking down some tricks that Joe Rogan uses on his podcast to connect with everyone from academics to athletes to celebrities.0:19
  5. Some will be mindsets, and some will be word for word questions you can steal.0:26
  6. These habits are a big reason why so many of Joe's conversations end like this.0:31
  7. Most people have their guard up when they first meet you.0:46
  8. They aren't sure if you're going to be competitive or try to put them down in some way.0:51
  9. So the first trick you can steal from Joe is to grease the wheels early with a compliment.0:54
  10. This isn't something you have to do to make a small talk go well, but it helps you start the conversation with a positive vibe.0:59
  11. There's a lot of potential compliments you could give someone.1:06
  12. That said, there's three easy types you can focus on for small talk, their work, their energy, or a platonic physical compliment.1:09
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  1. With those three options, you should be able to compliment almost anyone you meet.1:16
  2. Here's a quick example of each.1:21
  3. Thank you very much for being here.1:23
  4. I'm a really big fan, so this is an honor.1:24
  5. I love being around people like you.1:26
  6. My guy.1:28
  7. People around you, people like you, you're going for shit all the time, and it's infectious.1:29
  8. It's like you give off energy.1:35
  9. Nice to meet you.1:37
  10. Good to meet you too.1:39
  11. By the way, congrats on the mustache.1:39
  12. The mustache, lower piece combo.1:41
  13. That's the anarchist guy with that guy that who's the mask?1:43
  14. Guy Fox, that's right.1:47
  15. Yeah, yeah.1:48
  16. Perfect, right?1:48
  17. People make three common mistakes when giving compliments that you'll want to avoid.1:49
  18. The first is making the compliment too sexual.1:53
  19. Second is making a compliment you don't mean, which makes you seem manipulative.1:56
  20. The third is dwelling on the compliment.2:00
  21. A compliment is great, but especially with people of high status who hear compliments all the time, you'll want to transition off of it fairly quickly.2:02
  22. In general, transitioning off of an introduction and into an interesting conversation is one of the hardest parts of small talk.2:10
  23. The best way to do this is by transitioning between topics using reminds me of thinking.2:17
  24. For example, with Josh Barnett, Joe starts the conversation in his standard way by complimenting his beard.2:22
  25. How long you been drawing that?2:27
  26. That's a real one.2:29
  27. That's a man's beard.2:30
  28. After Josh responds, Joe does what most people would do and starts talking about his own hair.2:31
  29. But very quickly, he uses that to toss out a new potential topic.2:36
  30. Probably 35.2:39
  31. I started growing like series back hair.2:41
  32. I'm not like who's that Russian wrestler dude?2:43
  33. This is one.2:45
  34. Oh, well, there was this guy, Victor Zangiev, who who actually did professional wrestling and that guy was just coated in it.2:46
  35. Oh, yeah, right.2:54
  36. There's another guy, Salma Hashimikov.2:54
  37. Most people make the mistake of thinking very linearly during small talk.2:56
  38. So they'd simply comment on their own hair and then stare over at you hoping that you would take the conversation somewhere interesting.2:59
  39. Just by tossing out that his back hair reminds him of a Russian wrestler, Joe and Josh are able to spend the next four minutes talking about various wrestlers and3:06
  40. MMA fighters.3:14
  41. It's a simple habit to build and makes a huge difference in the quality of your small talk.3:15
  42. Here's another quick example with Rob Lowe.3:19
  43. Rob asked Joe a question about baseball, which Joe doesn't seem interested in talking about.3:21
  44. Most people here would just say something like, no, not really, and let the conversation stall.3:26
  45. Instead, Joe uses lateral thinking to transition to something else.3:30
  46. Are you a fan of the of the baseball with the crowd noise?3:34
  47. Um, crowd noise?3:37
  48. No, I'm not a fan of fake noise.3:38
  49. I hate that some cars do that.3:40
  50. They put fake engine noise through the speakers.3:43
  51. Oh, Jesus.3:46
  52. Exactly.3:47
  53. Because he didn't just answer the question, but instead asked himself what fake sound in a baseball stadium reminds him of, they were able to transition to cars.3:47
  54. A topic, it turns out, they both love.3:56
  55. So next time you're in conversation and can't think of anything to say, it's as simple as asking yourself, what does this remind me of?3:58
  56. And then branch off in whatever direction first comes to your mind.4:03
  57. In both those cases, you see another common habit of Joe's.4:07
  58. He pings for topics of mutual interest.4:09
  59. Joe is infamous for doing this by bringing up DMT in every conversation.4:13
  60. Good DMT, DMT, DMT, DMT, DMT, DMT, DMT, DMT.4:17
  61. When a guest doesn't know what it is, it just goes by the wayside.4:22
  62. But when they do, it's an immediate connection.4:25
  63. This will keep you genuinely interested in the conversation.4:27
  64. Joe is a master at doing this in the other direction as well.4:31
  65. He has two tricks to get other people excited about the conversation.4:33
  66. They're both super easy to do, but most people don't do them, which is why small talk feels so painful at times.4:37
  67. For example, here's a common small talk conversation.4:42
  68. Where are you from originally?4:45
  69. I'm from Wilmington, Delaware.4:47
  70. Wilmington, Delaware.4:48
  71. I don't know many people from Delaware.4:49
  72. Thank you.4:51
  73. Yeah.4:52
  74. It is Wilmington, like nice town.4:53
  75. Yeah, it's great.4:55
  76. Where are you from?4:56
  77. Is it nice there?4:57
  78. These are boring questions that no one is going to be excited to answer unless they already like you.4:58
  79. It's very similar, but watch what Joe asks instead.5:03
  80. Why Utah, man?5:06
  81. Why are you living in Utah?5:07
  82. What's that about?5:08
  83. Joe peels the onion.5:09
  84. He goes one level deeper by asking why questions that get someone talking about what they value.5:10
  85. This may seem hard to work into a conversation, but it's actually quite simple.5:15
  86. You just do it in two phases.5:18
  87. Where do you live?5:20
  88. That's cool.5:21
  89. Why do you live there?5:22
  90. What do you do for work?5:23
  91. Interesting.5:25
  92. Why did you decide to do that?5:25
  93. Even if the person doesn't love where they live, you'll get to hear what's important to them.5:28
  94. Maybe it's their job, their family, a passion, whatever it is.5:32
  95. Now you know what's important to them and can ask a question about that, which they're much more likely to want to talk about.5:35
  96. This ties directly into the second trick Joe uses.5:40
  97. He asks questions that are fun to answer.5:43
  98. For example, an issue you might run into with small talk is that some people don't have anything interesting going on in their lives to share about.5:46
  99. One way to get them past that block is to ask a fun question that removes the constraint of having to be realistic.5:52
  100. Here's a few examples.5:58
  101. If you had a magic wand and someone said you could do whatever you want to fix this, what would you do?5:59
  102. You were the king of the world.6:06
  103. I said, Ed, what are we going to do?6:07
  104. Let's say you become president.6:09
  105. Pulling both tricks together, a great decision tree of questions to get an interesting conversation going can be, what do you do?6:10
  106. Then as a follow up, do you like it?6:17
  107. If they say yes, you can ask why and elicit their values.6:19
  108. If they say no, you can ask, well, if you had $100 million, what would you do instead?6:22
  109. Joe also has two habits for creating a connection with people while listening.6:27
  110. The first is he laughs easily.6:31
  111. This makes it more fun to talk to him because it makes you feel good for being funny even when you aren't trying to be.6:33
  112. For instance, watch him react when Elon Musk's talks about selling flamethrowers through the boring company.6:39
  113. How many did you make?6:44
  114. 20 ,000.6:45
  115. And they're all gone.6:47
  116. Here's another example where Joe laughs at what Dan Bolzarian is saying even though Dan isn't trying to make a joke.6:50
  117. He's able to find humor in the absurd, and in both cases, you see the other person light up a bit as they get a laugh from Joe.7:05
  118. For another example, watch David Blaine's big smile after he accidentally makes Joe laugh.7:11
  119. The goal here is not to fake laugh.7:25
  120. What you want to do is allow yourself to laugh every time you find something funny.7:27
  121. Laughing is a habit that gets easier the more you do it.7:31
  122. So if you struggle to laugh when you're out with friends or in conversation with strangers, a good habit is to watch something you know will make you laugh right7:33
  123. before going out.7:41
  124. This will help you be in a better state to laugh in conversation.7:42
  125. The second habit Joe has when listening is mirroring.7:46
  126. There's several ways to mirror, but Joe's is most similar to ex -FBI negotiator Chris Voss's method.7:49
  127. Here's a quick example where he mirrors to make you feel heard.8:10
  128. Here's a different example.8:22
  129. This time, he mirrors to build rapport with Jordan Peterson before taking control of the conversation.8:24
  130. Don't do this after every sentence, but if you find you want to make someone feel heard or you want to interrupt without making the person feel ignored, mirror their8:37
  131. last three words.8:44
  132. Also, it's worth noting while Joe does mirror people's words, he is not a chameleon.8:45
  133. He stays true to himself and his style.8:50
  134. For instance, Jordan Peterson is a polite guy who wears a suit and carefully chooses his words, but you just saw Joe chatting with him in a hoodie dropping F8:52
  135. -bombs in the first minute.9:00
  136. So you want to mirror someone's last few words as a quick hack to build a bit of rapport, but you don't want to copy everything about someone.9:01
  137. Stay true to yourself and have confidence in who you are.9:08
  138. If that's something you'd like more help with, I think the fastest way to build true social confidence in yourself in a meaningful way is with our program Charisma University.9:10
  139. It's a step -by -step guided program guaranteed to give you more charisma and confidence in 30 days.9:19
  140. Now you can read all about the details in the link below, but I figure the strongest way to let you know what it's all about is just to let9:24
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  144. He says, I interviewed at dozens of places for jobs after medical school.9:37
  145. At the end of one of my interview days, the doctor pulled me aside and said that hands down I had the best interview out of everybody and that they9:41
  146. would love to have me at their program.9:48
  147. They ranked me number one and it's my current job.9:50
  148. Another person wrote in about their social life saying, it has truly been incredible.9:52
  149. I've instantly had results that seem insane.9:56
  150. So many more meaningful connections, my friendships have improved and my interactions with total strangers are a new exciting fulfilling thing.9:59
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  152. This should be in our basic education system.10:07
  153. And this last one is from someone who says it's been life changing.10:09
  154. Your course has been life changing to the point where I wake up in the mornings feeling like I've transferred to a new person's body.10:12
  155. The person I kept dreaming about becoming before I found charisma on command.10:18
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  157. I found myself and I found what makes me happy.10:22
  158. You'll see more success stories like these in the comments if you decide to join the course.10:25
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  162. So if you want to check the course out, go ahead and click the link on screen now or below in the description.10:43
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  164. Either way, I hope you enjoyed this video and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.10:53

American accent training with a fast, B2 level small talk lecture

This clip is a B2 level lecture from Charisma on Command, delivered at 239 words per minute, faster than 90% of the catalogue. That speed makes it solid english speaking practice for learners who already manage slower material and want to test themselves against a real, unscripted American pace with no reductions to lean on.

The speaker explains the compliment tactics Joe Rogan uses to open conversations, for example the plan to "grease the wheels early with a compliment," then reenacts short exchanges such as "Nice to meet you" and "Good to meet you too." That mix of explanatory prose and quoted dialogue gives you two different rhythms to work on in one recording, which is exactly why this clip suits american accent training over a slower, single register piece.

The language in the compliment segment worth breaking down

Three lines carry most of the useful patterns here. Read them closely before you shadow this line by line, since the sentence shapes repeat through the whole lecture.

  • "We've all had conversations that feel forced or boring or are filled with awkward silences." A triple list joined only by commas and "or," said in one breath at speed. Practising the stress pattern across all three adjectives is good pronunciation work at this pace.
  • "So the first trick you can steal from Joe is to grease the wheels early with a compliment." An idiom, "grease the wheels," sitting inside a long single sentence with no pause before it. Say the idiom on its own first, then rebuild the full line.
  • "People around you, people like you, you're going for shit all the time, and it's infectious." Casual, almost run on structure with the contraction "you're" carrying no special stress. It reads like real daily english conversation practice because it is delivered as spoken, not scripted, English.
  • "Nice to meet you." answered by "Good to meet you too." is the whole clip's only true two person exchange, short enough to shadow as a pair of turns rather than a monologue line.

How to work through this Joe Rogan compliment breakdown, line by line

Work the clip in this order rather than jumping around, since the argument builds from mindset to concrete phrasing.

  • Listen once through the opening stretch without pausing, just to get your ear used to 239 words per minute before you try to speak any of it.
  • Shadow "the first trick you can steal from Joe is to grease the wheels early with a compliment" three times in a row, then say the idiom alone to check you can produce it without the surrounding sentence.
  • Practise the greeting pair, "Nice to meet you." then "Good to meet you too." then "By the way, congrats on the mustache." This is the closest thing on the page to everyday english conversation practice, so aim for natural turn taking speed, not careful enunciation.
  • Read the three compliment mistakes aloud and pause on each one, "too sexual," "manipulative," "dwelling on the compliment," to lock in the vocabulary before moving on.
  • Finish with the transition sentence about high status people, and slow it down once to hear where the stress falls on "transition off of it fairly quickly," then bring it back up to full speed. Repeating that one sentence at both speeds is a fast way to improve english speaking on longer, unbroken clauses like this one.
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