Igor: So there are 5 phases to a conversation that
I'd like to kind of pull out for you.
We're basically going to go through this list over the next 5 days, okay?
Interesting so far?
Group: Yes.
Student: I love the numbers.
Igor: They're beautiful, aren't they?
I worked on them all week.
We're going to focus on the first 2 stages before we go into the others stuff.
We will be uncovering this formulas we go along.
Notice, most people start- Most people, you ask them, "How does conversation start?"
They'll talk about small talk.
They completely ignore step 1, the greeting ritual.
How do you meet someone in the Western world, right?
You stick your hand out and you say some formulaic or response like "How do you do?"
When you say "How do you do?"
when you meet someone, are you actually inquiring to the state of health or emotional well-being?
Is that typically what happens?
No, right?
What you're doing is, you're signaling intent to relate, right?
Has anyone here ever asked for, say, directions on the streets to like the train station,
something like that, right?
When you ask for directions, do you stick your hand out and say "How do you do?
My name is so-and-so.
What's your name?
Oh, it's very nice to meet you.
By the way, do you happen to know where the railway station is?"
Do you do that?
Why?
What's different about that context?
You have no desire to relate and you are signaling the fact that you are not going to suck up
their time and try to form a relationship by avoiding the very greeting ritual that
signals intent to relate.
You see how that works guys?
Here's the interesting thing as societies developed, we now have a greeting ritual that
signals lack of intent to show, to prove, what your intentions are.
What is it you do when you ask for directions?
Student: Excuse me.
Igor: "Excuse me.
I'm sorry to bother you but-" whatever you request is.
You cut straight to the chase.
That "Excuse me" or "I'm sorry to bother you" is signaling "Don't worry.
I'm not going to have a conversation with you.
I'm not going to make you feel awkward and try to do small talk and chit-chat and find
out about your kids, right?
I just need help from a stranger right now."
So, we've developed rituals that open different kinds of information exchanges and contexts
and they're very important.
Here's the example I like to use.
For you guys you already heard this one so you'll hear it again.
Think back to caveman days.
You have your tribe of people.
You're the village elder, say, and over the hill another tribe comes your way.
You don't know who they are, you know nothing about them.
They are complete strangers, right?
What goes through your mind?
"Oh, what a wonderful world!
It's a wonderful place!
Strangers!
Let's meet them and let's hug and let's share information and tools and things and we'll
all grow together!"
Is that your first instincts?
Student: No.
Student: Not since the 60's.
Igor: Not since the 60's, yes.
Yes, the 60's were the caveman days for me too.
So, what is it goes through your mind?
It's a sense of, what is this?
Is this friend or this a foe?
Is this something where we're going to gain by trade or is this a kind of tribe that likes
to take through war?
Right?
You got to be prepared for anything.
So, what do you do?
Well, you have to approach because they're in your territory.
You will need to know what their intentions are otherwise you are leaving a great big
risk open, so you approach.
When you approach, are you going to go on your own and go "Hey, how's it going guys?
Great, nice."
No.
Right?
You're going to bring your biggest, baddest warriors hanging behind you going like "Okay,
if you mean business we mean business, but if you're nice we'll be nice."
Right?
It's a very tricky situation to negotiate because you don't know what someone's intent
is.
Is it to harm or is it share?
Right?
Over time as societies develop, they develop rituals to do the same thing.
A conversation has risk, has massive risk, emotional risk; have you ever messed up a
conversation?
Hands up.
I'm not going to ask you for details, don't worry.
Feels good, doesn't it?
Messing up the conversation?
You want to repeat that as often as possible because it feels so good?
Or, is it the kind of experience that makes you wish you were born deaf and dumb so having
a proper excuse to never have to do anything like that again?
Right?
So there's a lot of emotional risk in a conversation.
There's also sometimes physical risk in a conversation, right?
Those of you who were brought up with old school etiquette, you know that your hands
belong on the table at meal time.
Why?
What the hell?
Why do you put your hands on the table?
The table doesn't care.
It doesn't need your support.
Right?
Your hands may be beautifully manicured but we don't necessarily want to be looking at
them all night.
The reason for hands on the table, it's an old part of the social ritual, it's because
if your hands are visible, you're not reaching for a weapon to do some damage, you're not
Han Solo in the cantina.
Yes, he did shoot first because his hands weren't on the table!
Right?
Do you see that there are risks?
Society has evolved.
Our risks tend to be more emotional, social risks, status and emotions, versus physical
risks because you tend to find environments that aren't physically risky.
If you go to the baddest dive bar and start conversations there, physical risk will be
inherent there too, but I'm guess you don't hang out in those kinds of places, in which
case, you tend to already negotiate out of physical risk but you still have emotional
risk whenever you start a conversation.
Make sense?
Just like the tribesmen need to signal intent when the new tribe comes across the horizon,
they know they're entering someone else's territory and they know they may end up in
a fight.
They don't want to fight; they want to trade and move on, right?
So this is a good interaction and they know they have a positive interaction to make,
so what do they do?
They’ve got to signal peace.
Right?
This is where a lot of the greeting rituals come from.
The hand signal, what is that about?
"Look, my hands are empty."
Right?
The shaking ritual: why do we shake with our right hand, not the left?
It's the dominant hand, it's the weapons hand, it's the hand that draws a sword that kills
you and if you're shaking, well you're too busy shaking hands to do me damage.
It's still in our ritual.
Why do people bow in other society, in Asian societies?
Why?
The lower status person bows lower, in part, because it takes your eyes off the higher
status person.
You're basically saying, "I'm at your mercy.
Don't hurt me!
You win!"
It's the exact same thing that a dog does when he rolls over and exposes his throat.
He says "You win.
You're alpha."
Do you see how these rituals start developing?
They serve a purpose, a very important purpose.
Each of these 5 stages serve a purpose.
If you do not know what that purpose is and you do not fulfill that purpose, your conversations
are hit or miss, right?
As research goes, more miss than hit.