Conversation Skills: 5 questions to make you the most interesting person in the room

"Wo ist das Übermensch?", "Hi, James from EngVid. I was just about..." Five questions

to make you the most interesting person in the room.

"Thanks, E, that's about today's lesson." You notice I was speaking German. Those of

you who speak German probably thought, "Ugh, his German is nicht gut." But it makes me

interesting because I'm reading philosophy. But you don't need to read philosophy to be

interesting. In today's lesson, I'm going to give you just five general questions you

can throw into a conversation with someone that will make you a very interesting person.

So instead of the usual, "Hi, my name's Dietrich. I'm from Berlin. What do you do?" Let's soup

it up a little bit.

Oop, that's my first question. So the first question we ask is, "What I want you to do

when we do this exercise is I want you to have fun and make an adventure out of it."

Think of it as you're a super spy like James Bond, and you're going out there to get to

know people. But you can't ask questions directly like, "Are you the bad guy?" You have to ask

questions to get them to speak to you, to give you information. Okay? And in doing that,

our first question is this, "What's your superpower?" Well, everybody has something that they do

really well or they're proud of. I can't do it, but some people can take their tongue

and stick it to their nose. You know, it's a secret little superpower of theirs, or they're

great at cooking or something. And once you ask them what their superpower is, they will

usually get a smile and a little bit of excitement because you're showing genuine interest in

them. Remember that you're on it? You're on an adventure now because now you're going

to take a journey with them because you can ask follow-up questions like, "How did you

discover it? When did you use it? Do you use it as a party trick or is it something you use at work?"

And they get to show you a side of themselves that people don't usually ask. So one of the

best questions you can start off with with someone, and of course, this is after you

have gotten to know them, and I have done a video on getting respect where we talk about

asking questions, and you should watch that video, and it'll give you some ideas on how

to get to this part of the conversation. But ask somebody, friend or family, "What's your superpower?"

What's the second question? So remember I told you we want to create secrets, create

bonds. That's because secrets are filled with adventure. There's something that makes people

excited about them. So when they share them, they want to continue the conversation with

someone they have a secret with. My first one to you is your superpower, but the second

one is what's your secret passion or obsession? A superpower is something that you're proud

of. I can do this, I can do that. But your passion or obsession might not be something

you're quite proud of. Some people like watching, and there's nothing wrong with Mexican novellas

or the drama shows, but some people, that's their secret passion. They don't want to tell

people that's what they do at night, but that's what they like watching. They're like, "Oh,

what's the doctor is now going to be marrying, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah." And it's a passion

of theirs and a secret. They keep it to themselves. So as much as this one is a positive one,

this could be something that you're a little embarrassed. Some people collect pet rocks.

Yes, they have rocks. They name them Jeffrey, Thomas, Bobby, and Billy. Maybe they draw

little beards and mustaches and put hats on them, and they have fun with them, and they're

50 years old. It's a secret passion, but you will watch their face light up when they tell

you and you're interested. You're like, "So what's your secret passion? Pet rock? Seriously?

Love them." I love collecting comic books. And soon as some people find out, they ask

me what my favorite one is, and I'll usually tell them some obscure, and that means strange

or hard to find comic that people don't know. They're like, "What?" And then I go, "Oh,

you don't know? This guy is like Batman and Superman." And they watch me get like I'm

five years old. And that's the key. The kid comes out in me, and I want to communicate.

Notice how I didn't say anything about language and you're learning English here? This can

work in any language in any situation, but it's especially good if you're learning languages

because you want people to interact with you enthusiastically and be patient with you.

They're happy to do that when they're excited about the topic. When you walk in like, "What's

your name? What do you do for a job? Okay. Same old, same old, and your English isn't

very good," I'm already out of the conversation. But when you ask me what my secret superpower

is, I go, "I can put my tongue in my nose. Watch." All of a sudden, I'm five, and you're

like my best friend, and we're having fun. When you ask me about my secret passion or

obsession, I'm already filled with energy. So you've just filled the conversation with

energy. Once again, you're on an adventure. We get there by being interested in other

people, and they'll share that energy with you, and give you the time to learn the language

and get a new friend. I gave you the first two questions. When I gave you these, these

are one questions, you'll see. Basically, it's one question each. The next ones I'm

going to give you are basically two-parters. So I'm going to teach you how to take a question

of interest and add on a second part to the question to continue the conversation. Cool?

So try these two out. Next time you're out at a party or visiting some friends, you'll

be surprised what the answers are. All right? Even ask your mom or someone. And now we'll

go to the second part. So it's part two. I'm going to call it "Imagine If." Okay? So it's

going to be two, because these are things people don't probably have in their mind right

away, but you're going to take the time to get them to open up their imagination and

think about what if, or imagine if. Okay? So let's come back for number C, which will

be the third part of the questions to make you the most interesting person in the room.

So we've used secrets to create bonds, and now what I want to do is go and use people's

imaginations, or that's what you want to do. And in this way, we're going to do a two-part

questions, and the next couple of questions will be that two-parts. So you can start with

a question and continue the conversation with another question. Here's the first imagine

if. What did you want to be as an adult when you were a child? You see I've got kid or

a child. It depends on your audience. If you're at a business meeting, you probably want to

say child. If you're at a party or a bar, you probably want to say kid. So we can make

it formal or informal just by changing one word. Okay? So wait for that answer. They

might have said I want to be a cowboy or an astronaut, or I wanted to be president or

a YouTuber or something, I don't know. But once you've got that answer, you can lead

into the second thing, so continue that conversation. What aspects, and that means part, aspect

means part, what aspects of that dream are in your life now? Are you doing that job?

Are you, if you wanted to be an astronaut, do you get to go on adventures in your job?

If you're a scientist now, maybe you get the time to investigate, or you're a detective,

right? So investigation was important. Or if you wanted to be a doctor, or you wanted

to go into mental health, you wanted to help people. Are those parts of your job? And if

not, you can maybe talk to them about how they can incorporate or put parts of those

aspects in their job. Like, okay, you're an accountant, but you always wanted to be like

a doctor. Well, you're helping people. You're helping people solve financial problems. You're

breathing life into their business. Well, I never thought about it like that. Oh, there

you go. Well, I could see that. That's why you chose that career. You're getting to know

someone and they're going to get to know you, right? It's an adventure. Have fun with this.

I said this before, and you've got these two parts questions. So the first one is one part,

but these two part questions get to help you get a little bit deeper into the conversation

with the person, right? So this was number C. Let's look at number D. So while we're

imagining, why don't we do the ultimate imagining and think about movies, okay? In this case,

here's a great question you can ask that's going to, I mean, I was just working with

someone. I was saying it and they went, "So who would you be?" And I don't know. I don't

know. Which actor would you want to play you in the movie of your life? All the actors

in the world, you're going to sit back and kind of go, "Who gets my handsomeness and

my intelligence? Who understands me?" I'm just joking. But who would you think would

be the best actor to portray or play you in a movie? And then once you've got that, what

kind of movie would it be? And that seems obvious. It's about my life. Well, is your

life an adventure? Is it a thriller? Is it a horror story? Is it a romance novel? What

is your life? Then you could think about the actor in the movie and the plot. It's pure

imagination, but it's pure conversation. And you're getting to know someone intimately.

That means very closely and deeply. So as much as this question is fun, be careful how

you ask it because you might get into conversations you weren't prepared to get into. Because

once people get to be that five-year-old really energetic, happy person and open, they will

open doors for you to communicate to. So be aware of who you're speaking to and where

you want to go. Because maybe who, which actor, it's not so bad. What kind of movie? What

you're secretly asking is what is your life like? Not your work life, like what's your

life in general? How do you view your life? Or how do you view your world? All right,

so enough seriousness. Let's bring some levity. And I'm going to bring the final question,

which is in some ways, this set of questions is some of the most important because it's

going to show how that person was shaped. So we're going to do question number E. Like

Mr. E, get it? E, question E. And we're going to have a full set of questions for our conversations.

So if you've got your actor down, that's really cool. But maybe this actor, and this is going

to be with my third set of questions for you to become the most interesting person in the

room. This person, this actor, maybe they're not an actor, maybe they've influenced you

by some advice. So this last set of questions is going to give you a real, a very deep look

into the person, how they became what they are. I mean, the first one, we're talking

about what they dream to be. Okay. This other one, we're talking about what they would like

to be. But here's who they are. And if you can play with all these questions in a conversation,

that's fantastic. But this one's going to give you a bit of bang for your buck. You

notice there are three, what we call embedded questions. So that question leads to the next

set of questions. What was the best piece of advice you have ever been given? People

love to talk about what they've done and how they've helped other people. But to ask them,

what was the best piece of advice you've ever been given? This is something they've taken

to heart for a reason. And when we get to question number three, you'll understand.

That might be, make sure you give back to your community, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And from there, you can ask the next one, who gave it to you? My grandfather gave me

this piece of advice, which was treat the president and the cleaner the same. Give them

the same amount of respect. And I've actually tried to do that most of my life. I hope I

haven't let him down. He's passed on. But I've tried to keep that in mind. Like every

person is a person. It doesn't matter if they're wearing a badge that says president or a street

cleaner. And I think that's had a great impact on my life.

So when you ask somebody who gave it to you, you're going to find out important influences

in their lives. And that's cool. Was it school? Was that work? Was it off of Tony Robbins

or something like that off of television? You know, but you'll get to get to know a

bit about the person. But this last question is the best question in my view. How has it

impacted or affected your life? So you got this advice and you're saying it's the best

piece of advice you've been given, right? It was given to you by someone important because

that's why you call it the best piece of advice, right? Could have been someone just off the

street who said something to you. I don't know. But that person now is a special place

in your heart because they gave you advice that changed your life. How did it change

your life? And that's where you get to know who they are, where they are and where they're

moving from. Because they're telling you it's impacted my life. It helped me meet my present

wife or husband. It helped me get through school or a messy divorce or stuff like that.

But it changed their life. And this is the person who stands before you right now. So

by asking this question, you get to know who you're actually talking to and how they got

there and some of the most important people in their lives. So remember, I told you, you

become the most interesting person in the room. And there's actually a commercial. You

should look it up. The most interesting man in the world. I'm sure he uses these questions.

So I hope you had fun. And remember, secrets create bonds. And remember to ask, imagine

if, get the person's imagination. Because life is an adventure. Conversation should

also be that way. Not a journey that you have to go through, but something that's fun, that

has some ups and downs, that keeps you around. Anyway, this is my time for this particular

video. I hope you enjoyed it. Please go to the website. But don't forget, if you're still

here looking at me right now, to like and subscribe, especially if you've watched more

than two or three videos. All right. Anyway, have a brilliant day. I look forward to seeing

you soon.