Our Blog Posts will help you reach your full potential in becoming a confident conversationalist. New topics each week.
Busy, hectic, full... if all of these words could be used to describe your schedule these days, I get it.
I also understand that its easy to skip the small talk and just get down to work. Some days it's the best way to stay on track, but it's also worth remembering that you can have a complete conversation in less than a minute.
These sports conversation starters can help with short exchanges this week.Â
The NFL regular season is underway and if you need a default conversation topic from now until the Super Bowl on February 12, football is a safe bet. Just consider the TV ratings from last season. NFL games accounted for 75 of the top 100 most watched TV programs in 2021 and the Top 5 most-watched programs were NFL games.
Millions of fans tune in for weekly games. They might not like every outcome, but they generally enjoy talking (or venting) about what happened.
The popularity of the NFL and football in general is why itâs most-often at the top of our weekly Conversation Starters list. You donât have to go far to find a good talking point but thereâs plenty of other options this week too.
A few weeks ago I suggested using NFL training camps to start conversations so you could circle back around with those football fans at the beginning of the regular season. This week marks the beginning of the NFL regular season. Now is great opportunity to circle back around and ask questions like these.
Thereâs more than just football to talk about, take a look at these topics making news this week.
I talk to losers.
It is literally part of my job.
When people find out I work in sports broadcasting they automatically jump to the cool parts of the job like being on the field and talking to players after a win. But thatâs only part of my job. I talk to players and coaches win or lose. I talk to players after making spectacular plays and after they dropped a pass that could have been the game-winning touchdown.
Not all interviews are fun. Not all interviews are easy. Sometimes those conversations are tough and ones that I would rather not have, but as I mentioned itâs part of my job.
Itâs also part of your job to have tough conversations and address mistakes, errors and shortcomings. I know you want to avoid them. I also know itâs better if you donât. As someone whoâs forced to have these conversations on a weekly (if not daily) basis hereâs what I know to be true: Being direct and straightforward is the kindest and often easiest way to have the tough conversation.
The athletes ...
Are you bored by your colleaguesâ small talk every Monday?
Tired of hearing what they did over the weekend?
Not interested in seeing another video of a kidâs baseball tournament?
If you donât like the topics they bring to the table, beat âem to the punch with a conversation starter of your own. If you donât want to think too hard about it, use one of these sports topics to get the ball rolling and steer the conversation to where you want it to go.
College football starts this week, but what I hope you're starting this week is a new relationship as a result of small talk.Â
Purposeful small talk can help you do that. These sports conversation starters can get the ball rolling.Â
A quick search about small talk and effective small talk reveals lists of questions, articles on the ânecessary evilâ of it and hacks to make it easier.
What if you tried to personalize it instead of trying to avoid it? Instead of arming yourself with a list random questions or looking for an easy way out, what if you prepared for the conversation and walked away from the interaction having accomplished something?Â
If you consider small talk a necessary evil of course youâre going to try and avoid it. If itâs always awkward youâre not going to initiate it and if you think itâs a waste of time you wonât bother putting yourself in position to have the conversation in the first place.
Small talk can be all of those things. Often because itâs not the conversation we prepare for.
We prepare for the big moments and the ârealâ conversation. We think small talk is something we endure or blow off altogether. Â
Except it can also be the most pivotal moment in any conversation. Small talk...
Last week I told you about my goal to not respond with âBusyâ when someone asked, âHow are you?â Update: I mostly succeeded. But I also caught myself giving 1-word answers that werenât very helpful in sparking conversation. I was also guilty of delivering a half-hearted response and not being present enough in some of my interactions to ask the obvious follow up question or make a real connection.
So the goal will stay the same this week.
I talk for a living, but even I need to prepare for conversations and remember to stay in the moment. Every interaction, including small talk, is more gratifying when you do that. Here are a few sports conversation starters to help you prepare for those moments this week.
This week Iâm making it my goal to not say âBusyâ in response to a question like âHow are you?â or âHow are things?â
Itâs accurate to say that Iâm busy, but thatâs not an interesting answer. My life is always busy (especially when sports season overlap this month) and everyone is busy too.
Telling people weâre busy isnât a great conversation starter. I understand that sometimes we really are too busy to talk, but often I give that answer because I havenât taken the time to come up with a better one. (Because Iâm busy, of course.)
So hereâs what Iâm going to do: This week, Iâm going to try to answer the question âHow are you?â accurately and in a way that could prompt a conversation, or at the very least make for a more interesting exchange.
Hereâs what Iâve workshopped so far:
After that Iâll be using one of these sports conversation...
This post was originally written as a guest blog for Alumna House, a company redefining women's game day apparel. The baseball box score and game were taken from early in the 2022 MLB season, but the overall strategy is the same all season long.
Youâre a fan, but you only caught part of the game or maybe you didnât watch it at all. I get it. Life is busy and even if you love watching baseball sometimes you just canât fit it into your hectic schedule.
Just because you didnât watch a game doesnât mean you canât talk about the game like a pro. Trust me, I am one. Iâve worked in sports broadcasting for 22 years and spent the last 15 years on the Seattle Mariners television broadcast team. I watch sports for a living, but even I donât have time to watch every game in its entirety or see every highlight. Sometimes a quick glance at a box score is all I need to figure out what happened.
A baseball box score is packed with information you can use to tell the story of the game. For today weâ...
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