Fifty Ways to Fuel a Conversation
Debra Fine · 2005
"Small talk is a learnable set of specific behaviors — being first to say hello, using names, asking open-ended questions, showing genuine curiosity — rather than a fixed personality trait some people simply have and others lack."
Debra Fine built an entire career on the claim that conversational ease is a skill, not a personality type — and that most 'naturally' good conversationalists are actually running a specific, learnable set of behaviors.
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Active Listening: What Not to Say
"Most well-intentioned listening responses ('I know exactly how you feel,' 'you shouldn't feel that way') actually shut a conversation down because they assert the listener's authority over the speaker's experience — the fix is consistently responding with a question that hands control back."