ARE YOU TALKING TOO MUCH?
Ask about The Diary Of A CEO
Episode Description
Only 3 in 10 Americans socialise on a daily basis.
So how good are we ACTUALLY at talking to each other anymore?
Vanessa Van Edwards believes we’re living through a “connection crisis”, where conversations are becoming harder, more awkward and less satisfying, while more of our interactions are moving away from real face-to-face conversation.
Vanessa is a behavioural researcher, international bestselling author and instructor at Harvard University whose work studies how people communicate, connect and understand each other.
And she said something to me early in this conversation that really stayed with me: people who invest in conversation skills now are creating “career insurance”.
She has spent years studying why some conversations seem effortless, why others die within minutes and what the best conversationalists are doing differently.
We discussed things like:
- Why “how are you?” and “what do you do?” can lead to dead-end conversations. - The 3 levels of conversation and how to move from small talk into real connection. - How awkward silence is one of our biggest conversational fears. - The questions that reveal someone’s values, motivations and personality. - 5 self-narratives that can influence how someone behaves at work and in relationships. - Why becoming better at conversation could become increasingly valuable as AI changes how we communicate.
I’ve now had hundreds of conversations for this show and something Vanessa made me think about is that the best conversationalists are constantly paying attention to the person in front of them.
They aren’t blindly working through the things they want to say. They’re watching, listening and adjusting.
That sounds obvious until you start noticing how rarely people actually do it…
Vanessa has a way of breaking human connection down into things you can actually practise, which is probably why every time we speak I leave noticing things about my own behaviour that I hadn’t noticed before.
If you want to become better at talking to people, building relationships and having conversations people actually remember, I really recommend watching this one.
Out now on all platforms ❤️👊🏾
Brief Summary
This episode discusses overtalking, conversation skills, and effective communication techniques.
Key points
- The Open Fish Cue. Non-verbal cues can indicate if someone talks too much, like the 'open fish' mouth.
- Loneliness and Conversation. With technology changing how we communicate, loneliness affects one in six people.
- The Best Conversation Starter. The best question to ask in networking is about the highlight of someone's day.
Episode highlights
- Loneliness and ConversationWith technology changing how we communicate, loneliness affects one in six people.“One in six people worldwide are affected by loneliness.”0:44Sep 10, 2026
- The Best Conversation StarterThe best question to ask in networking is about the highlight of someone's day.“What was the highlight of your day?”1:10Sep 10, 2026
Transcript
How do you know you talk too much? So, first thing is non-verbal cues. Someone is checking out if they are opening their mouth as if to say something. I call it like the open fish. And that is a subtle cue that you talk too much. >> Do you think they're listening right now and think, "Fuck, that's me." Yes. >> And there was a recent study where they found that 95% of people have worked with someone who talks too much. >> Well, I have a do you talk too much test? >> So, there's five questions here and if you answer more than three times, you're probably an overtalker. >> Yeah. >> Cuz my next question is like which one's worse, over talking or underalking?
Well, I have spent the last 20 years studying master conversationalists and I found that it's the vehicle to get what you want and I'm a recovering awkward person and I really struggled with bad conversation for a long time. But I think the next generations will be talking to technology more than they talk to humans. And because we're having less conversations, one in six people worldwide are affected by loneliness. And I now more than ever am sending 9-minute voice notes to my friends. But a voice note, it's the most selfish form of conversation. that in this age of technological change, the people who are masterful at conversation are going to
have an advantage. But there's a blueprint to good conversation. And once you know the blueprint, it becomes easier. For example, we devised three different speed networking experiments with 500 speed networkers. And the best conversation starter was actually what was the highlight of your day? Because the moment we asked how are you, what do you do? They ran out of things to talk about. But the worst question in the history of conversations is but I also have a formula to immediately bypass that small talk. Also a secret door to charisma. But also there are five archetypes and this is going to impact getting a promotion and finding your soulmate.
>> We're going to go through all of them. But what are the ways to get out of a bad conversation without offending people? >> Well, we tend to focus a lot on the first impression but we don't really think about the end. But it's all really important and I discovered this framework. So,
