Minimal encouragers - Reflective questions - Emotional labeling - Paraphrasing - Pauses - Summarize

In the student's encounter with the woman from Philadelphia, all he would have needed to do to become part of her tribe was to change one sentence into a validating question, something like this: “Philly? I hear that's a great city to go be a tourist in. I've never been. What are your favorite things about Philly?” That would have told her he was l

People love attention, almost more than anything. Part of what makes people open up, conversationally, is the sense that someone is paying them more attention than normal. This is usually conveyed by shared body language, shared speech patterns, and granular responses— like, for an incredibly banal example, if someone tells you they used to live in