Small Talk Survival Guide: Part 2

Classic Questions

Welcome back to EV’s Small Talk Survival Guide!

If you’re reading this, you’ve landed in a corner of the internet that’s specifically for those of us who are in the conversation of change: because we’re transitioning our work, making new things, shifting the status quo, and turning in the playbook that was handed to us in favor of writing our own. 

This guide is brought to you by my sincere desire to see your voice leading that conversation for yourself in a way that will naturally connect you with the people who get it, and gladly set down their champagne flute to schedule time with you to hear more.

In Part Two, I’ve chosen 5 common types of small talk questions that can be especially challenging for us change-making types to get tripped up by. I didn’t choose the heavy hitters “Tell me about yourself” or “What do you do?” because I could teach a whole class on answering those—and I do! Sign up to get a note about when I’m teaching them next.

When I polled Instagram, this was the most loathed question—and for good reason! Many, actually: Maybe you’re concerned that what you’ve been doing isn’t going to translate easily to this person, or you’ve been doing so much that you’re overwhelmed by where to even begin, or maybe you feel like you haven’t been doing anything worth talking about (which I’d lovingly and emphatically challenge you on). Or maybe you just don’t want to talk about it.

Remember The First Rule of Small Talk: You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about! In that spirit, you can always redirect: “Lots of stuff! How about you?” 10 times out of 10, I’ve found that people are thrilled to answer their own question.

If you do want to share a little bit and see where it leads, I’d suggest avoiding the trap of this question, which is to just start listing things (“I quit my job, I watched a lot of QVC, I walked my dog…?”). Try one of these instead:

• Name your season.
  How would you describe the last few months of your life if it were a chapter in a book? “The Season of Exploration”? “The Year of Change”? “Adventures in Chaos”? Share that (“I’ve been in a season of exploration”) and let it be an invitation to the person to ask you more while thinking about what theirs might be. If they don’t play along, you can move on with the satisfied knowing that you’ve just saved yourself a lot of energy.

• Use a metaphor.
  If you’ve been here for a minute, you already know I’m a dedicated metaphor practitioner, due to its enjoyable efficiency and invitation to the imagination. What would be a fun metaphor that would describe your last few months? One I used last year after being totally incognito creating all kinds of things for EV is “Building the trampoline.” If the reply was, “Tell me more,” I knew I’d found my people. If they stared at me blankly, I’d politely and promptly head to the bar for a refill.

• Set a time for deeper conversation.
  If you genuinely want to go deep with this person but just not right now, you can always set a time for a future conversation, like I talked about in Part One. Even a simple “I’d love to tell you more over coffee. How’s next week?” will buy you some time to mull over how you’d like to respond and get you to a better environment for big talk.

This is the classic “explain it to me” question—which absolutely makes sense in an interview or pitch meeting but can feel out of place in small talk situations while unnecessarily putting you on the spot. The thing that I personally dislike about being asked this question or any of its variations (“Explain your [insert project here]!” “Pitch me!”) in social situations is that often the person asking doesn’t have the attention span to listen to your response. 

Case in point: A few weeks ago I was at a wine bar and someone asked me to explain this very newsletter. As soon as I inhaled to reply, they started pouring wine for people, chiming into other conversations, basically doing anything but listening. I reminded myself of The Second Rule of Small Talk (you don’t owe anyone a detailed explanation, especially at a noisy wine bar) and said I’d send them a link. 

Links! Always there when we need ‘em.

Sometimes I will answer this question in a distracting setting solely as an opportunity to workshop how I’m talking about something. I like to say that small talk is my favorite sandbox, and I mean it! If it’s enough to pause the wine glass roulette, it’s probably going to work in the pitch room.

This question, whose close comrades are anything else that ends in “thing” (“You still doing the acting thing? …the design thing? …the startup thing?”), leads me to The Third Rule of Small Talk (and big talk, too): Bad questions don’t deserve good answers. If someone chooses to reduce my multifaceted capabilities down to a thing, then I choose to simply answer yes or no, or not at all.

It goes something like this:

“You still doing all the things?” 

“Yes.”

Silence.

“OK!”

If you don’t want to sit in silence, you can always redirect: “Yes. How’s law?” Again, 10/10 times I’ve found they’ll be more than happy to tell you.

Though I will say this: Letting silence happen without trying to fill it—no matter how awkward it feels—is a powerful tool for both navigating small talk and negotiating big things like your salary or rate. More on that at some point.

We’ve arrived at the unsolicited business advice type of question: fun! Other variations: “I have a cousin you should talk to.” “Matt is also in marketing!” (Sure, and Matt has a very different definition of marketing than you do.) “As someone with an MBA, I have a few thoughts—” You get it.

Often the intention behind these is pure: People are wanting to help in a way that they know how. But purity of intention does not mean that you have to stand there and listen to someone telling you Harvard Business Review’s take on something that you could have written the book on years ago.

My suggestion? If you want to hear the advice, by all means listen. If you don’t, keep it short and kindly shut it down. A few ideas:

“Thanks so much. I have a strategy in place that’s working well.”

“Thanks! I’ll let you know if I need help in that area.”

“We feel really good about where we are right now, but I appreciate that.”

A royal “we” can be your friend here—this person doesn’t need to know that your advisory board consists of you, yourself, and you. (Though I personally find that even more impressive. Go you, you, and you!)

This was the other most loathed question when I polled Instagram—and also for good reason! Those of us living in change (aren’t we all at this point?) know that anything we plan is a hypothesis at best.

It’s also extremely easy for this question to feel vulnerable for those of us whose work or lives or brains don’t fit traditional goal-setting or milestone-achieving practices. I remember meeting with a financial planner while I was deep in my freelance career (like 13-1099s-in-a-year deep), and they asked me what my Q3 income was going to be. I was like, “How about I start by explaining freelancing to you?” and knew I needed a financial planner who could think a lot more flexibly.

“Who the hell knows?” is certainly one way you could answer this question. But another (as I spoke about in Part One) is to call on your natural leadership abilities as someone who isn’t living life by the book, and guide your small talk buddy back to the present.

“I’m focused on where I am right now” is one of my favorite replies. Followed by: “How about you? What’s your current view?”

This was so much fun, and I hope you’ve found it helpful! I’d love to hear your favorite replies to these kinds of questions in social situations, so leave a comment and let me know.

You’re brilliant,

P.S. If you know someone who would enjoy The Ecstatic Review, please pass it along! All are warmly welcome, and every voice makes this newsletter that much fuller.