The social function speech

• Have a genuine interest in getting to know a person you’re talking to and learn from them.
• Ask open-ended questions. It encourages the other person you're speaking with to open up.“What do you do?” followed by “Why did you choose that type of work? How did you enter that profession?”
• Never talk about something too personal.
• Practice active listening. By paying attention to the speaker’s words, you’ll create much stronger connections.

The myth purports that we use 55% body language, 38% tone of voice and 7% actual words.

The research of Professor Mehrabian had nothing to do with speech, but to guess emotion based on the recordings of a single word. 

Actual words "must dominate by a wide margin", argues famous author Philip Yaffe.

Smiling is one of the most powerful elements when thinking about speech.

The smiley face is rated with the highest positive emotional content. The painting of the Mona Lisa with her contented smiled is one such example.  

• If you weren’t working here, what would you probably be doing right now?
• How did you become a [job title]?
• What’s the craziest thing a boss has ever asked you to do?
• If you were guaranteed to be successful, what job would you want?
• What was your first job? Did you like it?
• What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received? How about the worst?

• Are you reading any good books right now? How about shows?
• Are there any apps on your phone that you can’t live without?
• If you could only watch one genre of movies for the rest of your life, what would it be?
• Do you have any podcast suggestions for my commute?
• What’s the last movie that made you cry? Or laugh aloud?
• Who is your favorite person to follow on Instagram?

Attention is selecting which elements you look at, interact with, and remember. Attention can get tired, like a muscle.

The internet is a very powerful stimulus for attention. It offers information constantly, demanding and overloading a system that was designed to function in the low to medium social networks of the natural world.

Trying to protect oneself from boredom and the fear of missing out (FOMO), has caused people to switch from tab to tab, or screen to screen on the desktop. 

People switch between content on computers every 19 seconds, viewing the content for less than a minute. Multitasking this way breaks concentration. You lose time with this and context-switching and deplete your available mental energy.

A moderate noise level is ideal to improve our creativity. It increases the processing difficulty which stimulates abstract processing, leading to higher creativity. 
High noise levels impair our creative thinking because we feel overwhelmed and struggle to process information properly.

Different genres correspond to our personality. For instance:

• Blues and Jazz fans have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle and at ease
• Classical music fans have high self-esteem, are creative, introvert and at ease
• Opera fans have high self-esteem, are creative and gentle
• Rock/heavy metal fans have low self-esteem, are creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, and at ease

• Just as speech puts our thoughts into words. pir gestures put our thoughts into our hands.
• Gestures aid our thinking and many problem solving tasks are done in a better way through the help of gestures.

Our emotions are always mediated by some form of thinking. 

If our thoughts determine how we feel, that means how we habitually think will determine how we habitually feel.

It happens when we assume we understand what other people are thinking without any real evidence.

It is a failure of imagination because we often only imagine and focus on the negative aspects.

The best body language for influence depends on your goal. Make sure your body language matches your words to make you more effective.

• If you want to increase the attractiveness of an offer, think sales-y. Use animated movements. Lean forward. Move and speak quickly.
• If you want to reduce resistance to what you're saying, think calm and authoritative. Specific gestures. Lean back. Move and speak slowly. 

It is important to balance the appearance of authority and warmth.

• You show authority and power by your upright posture, your command of physical space, purposeful stride, a firm handshake, and palm-down gestures.
• You communicate warmth nonverbally with open body postures, palm-up hand gestures, full-frontal body orientation, positive eye contact, synchronized movements, nods, head tilts, and smiles.

After the initial breaking, you have to really listen to how the other person responds. What are they excited about? Ask them more questions about that.

Pay attention to body language. You will be able to tell if someone is losing interest, for instance, eyes wandering, crossing arms or turning away from you.

Not every conversation will be a big hit. You will run out of things to say. Be honest. Say you've got to go to the bathroom or say hi to your other friend. Then go.

Even though it might feel rude, remember that it will free up time to start another potentially interesting conversation with someone else.