The Conversation Skills That Change Your Career

Vanessa Van Edwards has spent nearly twenty years studying what makes some people easy to talk to. Her argument is that conversation is a skill rather than a personality, and that most of us are simply out of practice.

She joins Emma to talk about how to prepare for the conversations that matter, what to say when you meet someone who could change your career, and how to handle feedback and disagreement without damaging the relationship. She also explains what happened early in her own career, when she lost a television deal during the small talk before the pitch and nobody ever told her that was why.

In this episode:

• How to prepare for conversations that could change what happens next
• The three questions you should always be ready to answer
• Why talking about how busy you are makes people think you're less competent
• How to raise a problem with someone more senior than you
• What the way someone tells their own story reveals about them

Vanessa Van Edwards's new book, Conversation: How to Connect with Anyone & Make Every Interaction Count, is out now.