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TEDx Talks
Title: How To Skip the Small Talk and Connect With Anyone | Kalina Silverman | TEDxWestminsterCollege
Published: 2016-02-15
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDbxqM4Oy1Y
the small talk and a start off by asking you guys the first question is are any of you going through any sort of personal struggle right now yeah okay think I stand it is do you feel that you have someone in your life with whom to share in that struggle yeah right and the third question is do any of you guys watch mad men so I
know I'm way behind on my seasons I just started getting into Netflix and the other night while watching season number two episode twelve of madmen I heard it energy per se this to a very lost Donald draper he said the only thing keeping you from being happy the belief that you are alone and this quote really resonated with me because that's exactly how I felt when
I left sunny southern California three years ago to start my freshman year college Northwestern University so this is a picture of me my freshman year at college first week of school that's me in the top left corner and it another question if you guys have ever been out at like a partir banner out with your friends and seems like let's take a picture and even though
you were told me in the mood to take a picture you are really feeling that great you still like smile in the picture and ended up making it to Facebook and everyone saw at you like that with me at that event and so that's kinda what happened at this picture and also this picture when I was out at a party that same week and so these
pictures they need is a Facebook and a smiling in them only friend saw them like looks like you're having a great time in college and that's not really how I feel on the inside and this is a picture of my diary that he started writing in that same first week of college and I actually have it right here with me I'm gonna reach you at my
very first diary entry September twenty seventh two thousand and twelve I wish I could start out my first entry what then ecstatic could about life or how I love college so much but since this is a personal journal I can be honest and say I never remembered feeling more lost my entire life I only three quarters know that everything will work out and I'll be okay
I miss home and being surrounded by people who know me so well and let me for all that I am and so that whole first year in college I was plagued by this one question who am I I really have felt that I had lost my identity and leaving my home in California leaving my friends behind start college for the first time and it was until
at the end of my freshman year but things are a lot better %HESITATION that I had to learn what Donald JP did in season two episode twelve of madmen that the only thing that had been keeping me from being happy was the belief that I was alone in feeling that way my first week of college and I actually put out this query over Facebook %HESITATION when
the last few weeks a freshman year I said hi everyone I'm doing my final journalism project on %HESITATION people struggling to just a college the first year if anyone is willing to talk to me about it like please let me know and message me and I was shocked when it within %HESITATION just a couple hours ago messages from people all over campus %HESITATION exit lot of
them expressing their pain %HESITATION their fair share college and I thought well if only I was able to talk to these people that first week of school when I was also feeling lost and alone and actually one of those people she'd %HESITATION she was someone I had met at one of those parties in the beginning and we kinda just met and service level friends and that
last week of school I interviewed her and we did up sitting in the student lounge together and sharing each other's experiences and talking about how lonely it felt that entire year and we were both like wow if only we had said this to each other when we first met we wouldn't have felt so lonely and so she ended up becoming one of my best friends in
college and it so that was the end of freshman year and then at sophomore year things got so much better %HESITATION I ended up joining a sorority got super involved at that has really bothered me projects %HESITATION I started a club or cofounded club call next which is the mixed race student coalition the whole idea was it didn't matter where you came from we're back on
was we all can share in I mix experiences and %HESITATION so I wouldn't be going out to all these parties they have a lot of friends at that point %HESITATION but there would still be nights where I come home from an evening out but my friends and I'd still feel terribly empty inside like could understand it I had just been with all these people I still
felt pretty lonely and you know one of those nights I was %HESITATION scraping with one of my friends from far away and %HESITATION that we're having this very deep philosophical conversation about life and %HESITATION I said well I wish all conversations could be like this is an awesome and he was like yes through small talk and I was like week yeah screw Smalltalk what even make
small talk and I thought you know what if when talking to her friends co workers even complete strangers we can always test skip the small talk and instead talk about the things that really mattered in language things that we both actually really cared about and want to talk about and so as a week skew Smalltalk skipping the small talk we should make big talk and I
thought my name was kinda cute and I don't really know what to do with it at the time but I kind of just like sucking my back pocket and just thought about it for a bit and so I was under way %HESITATION sophomore year college and then the following summer as getting very of involved in my %HESITATION journalism program and %HESITATION I had the opportunity to
do some that documentary projects abroad and %HESITATION I spent three weeks in Ecuador coming a documentary about education reform and those three weeks were the best three weeks of my life we were traveling throughout the entire country %HESITATION interviewing strangers everyone we encountered about education in the country and it didn't matter we really gliding down the Amazon River are climbing the Andes mountains weird salsa dancing
to the colonial streets of crank us everywhere we went we were being open to new people notice me and every day was a new adventure and %HESITATION the picture on the top let right %HESITATION was actually taken that %HESITATION when one day we had run into these professors at the university and invited us into their villa overlooking the Andes mountains we ended up drinking wine with
them all evening and salsa dancing I was like well what is this ever happen with my college professors back home there's something different in the way of approaching life when I'm traveling the way I'm more open to people and it invites he's kind of magical experiences and that towards under my trip I actually start getting really scared to go back home to my everyday life I
don't want to lose that this magic magic of being abroad and I thought you know how can I make everyday life feel this meaningful look this beautiful you know I won number one more opportunity to travel that summer %HESITATION I went to Germany to do a documentary about the Holocaust and %HESITATION I want my last season Germany I %HESITATION visited the Berlin Wall and I came
upon this question on the Berlin Wall it said what do you want to do before you die and this question really hit me because you know I just finished some years going through my mid college like crisis questioning what's my purpose why am I studying journalism what I really want to do with my life you every house is asking that question to possibly when you come
home to celebrate and %HESITATION so I thought about it as a what do I really want to do I knew in part it was about building empathy between changers says I've had it done through mixing through my traveling documentary projects and I also knew that I was once on each channel so that summer I came home at five weeks before starting my junior year college and
I kind of took this question what do you want to do before you die and I took that name that inspired me months earlier big talk and I took the magic had felt from traveling in approaching strangers and hearing their life stories and I made this video and I'm gonna play I the first half of it for you hi I'm clean then and this is the
beginning of an experiment called big time I wanted to be able to go out media people and instead of just make small talk actually have deep very meaningful conversations Kalina is you know yeah I want to how or what do I do when I grow up about life that's a tough it is one thing well I don't know if it's good travel Appalachian Trail but if
they make a confession I'd like that means that he housing and see my kids graduate Collins well even without any alimony and drags Crosby prose that data just be happy they may be able to turn reconcile my father and say I love I really I was in fifth grade and I remember all my friends make fun of because everyone was like I want to be I
want to be sports star star we have been I really need you for a very bad I was homeless for thirteen years held on its I would take I would take a road trip to go see someone today I can't say I tell them I love yeah I think so what I want do today yeah die tomorrow be with my family I'd get you know it's
literally possibly the most significant the eighteen and how they live or die my dad ray was dying don right next to I would not the denial thinking I can my mom said that the day before she died NPI never initiate an inspector so this is a very I personal question so really it's always been boards to yeah %HESITATION and in the rest of it you know
through this you questions I was able to learn so much more about those strangers like stories and in making that video I had kind of re found the magic that I was scared of losing them traveling in from experiences %HESITATION interviewing people and it's going out of my way to talk to people and so I because of that but it's my Facebook and I was shocked
when a girl who is an alum of my university work for the Huffington post's said I saw your video I wanna read article about it and I got so excited and that's what she did and after that it sort of went viral and it got featured a %HESITATION on other sites like USA today in a week daily in a few other different plots and it because
%HESITATION the video went viral I started getting people from all across the world reaching out to me about this video I made it didn't matter who they were or where they came from %HESITATION I had a rabbi into Kristin Sunday school teacher both saying you know I wanna use this kind of big talk strategy with my students I had a soldier in Israel and the soldier
in South Korea both reach us never faced that message and say we don't have enough big talk I could make the top of my %HESITATION fellow soldiers %HESITATION I had one woman %HESITATION reach out to me over basic message and actually started crying in the student lounge where is reading this she said clean I think he saved my life watching this video many realize that I
need to quit smoking before it's too late %HESITATION and I had a lot of college students to who said that the story of you know my loneliness freshman year really resonated with them also in it students on the east coast the Midwest the west coast lot of international students to Singapore South Africa and I was shocked that people all over the world that we're saying the
same things and one message could hit them all the same and they've had entrepreneurs in San Francisco where really freaked by the idea %HESITATION the name they talk like her to wear it like started the name maybe %HESITATION and then I had %HESITATION international models from Germany and Thailand saying you know the modeling industry there's a lot of shallowness and we need more big talk there
and this all this came from a YouTube video and %HESITATION a lot of people expressed a similar sentiment and some people even said I want to join your movement and make big talk I was like wow I never thought of this as a movement and after that I got so inspired to turn it into a movement and I can if you look at these new research
question there were no how do I. skill they talk beyond just mail you two videos how can we enable strangers to engage in deeper conversations right away academy cannot be here today get the small talk a jump in the big time and then how do we take his universal life questions like what do you want to do before you die which you could ask any human
being that question right and how do we use them as a tool for building empathy across boundaries of space and our external proceed so I became really enthralled by these questions and I started giving talks and workshops make pickup workshops and they created %HESITATION this %HESITATION deco tiny cards ninety minifig top question part and every question had to be it universe all you can ask anybody
many people thought provoking skip the small talk and open ended they would elicit a story that you could sit down with another human and listen and hear their life story and there are questions like you know what you spend too much time doing was a new habit you want to form what is your biggest fear and I became more and more Diaz excessive idea growing big
talk and I was like I want it you know like I started reading entrepreneurship lots like how do you feel like a big %HESITATION movement are kind enterprise around it and that I was going to take this idea to Silicon Valley and that's what I did %HESITATION I went to San Francisco and they let a big talk seminar at the tail summit and I started posting
like he's dinners with strangers like big talks otherness of strangers and I would have people write their own big talk style questions to task each other and %HESITATION then I started spending a lot of time behind my computer figure out how can I grow big talk about this website %HESITATION wears putting up all the events in the cars and everything and then something up we are
excited to happen %HESITATION in China to grow this movement that was all about that originally was created out of my own loneliness freshman year and desire to meaningfully connector people I suddenly found myself %HESITATION feeling very alone and disconnected to the world's %HESITATION life about to mention that I also decided to take leave of absence from university %HESITATION last year %HESITATION halfway through my junior college
to work on big talk and %HESITATION so a white professor once told me know before you go out and try to keep the world you need to learn how to feed yourself so that's what I did as our last myself you know have made skill these meaningful connections using new technologies without losing my own humanity in the process and I was asking myself these big tough