judge a man by his questions rather than his answers one of the main reasons why we mess up in social situations and leave an interaction thinking that was a bit pointless or we didn't go as deep as I wanted to is because we either ask the wrong questions at the wrong time or the right questions in the wrong way the quality of the questions you ask in conversations with other people dictates what you get from the interaction so we're going to cover two ways you can ask the right type of questions to build more intimacy
and connection with the person you're having a conversation with and then we're going to cover the two ways you can utilize the questions you ask to dodge difficulty when other people throw it your way because people are pesky buggers and they love to test us don't they number one follow up researchers at UC Burkle analyzed thousands of first dates in order to determine what were the contributing factors to these two people wanting to see each other again and yes of course things like height and appearance played a huge Factor but you know what played the
most important factor contributing to whether one person wanted to see the other one again for a second date was the degree to which the individual asked follow-up questions a follow-up question is simply where we respond to what someone has said with a question giving them the opportunity to elaborate more on what they just said for example let me introduce you to two of my friends Patricia and Alejandro they're on a first date and suddenly in the conversation Patricia says I'm so looking forward to next weekend and Alejandro because he's read a few books books about
communication says you're looking forward to next weekend first he's used something called the echo technique where he literally rebounds the exact words that Patricia said back to her you're looking forward to next weekend what are you looking forward to you know what this does because you've experienced this countless times before how many times have you been talking to someone and you throw them some bait and you just hope you just hope with your fingers and toes and forearms crossed that they take the bit and follow up on what you just said because it's something important
to you imagine if what it Ali let's call him Ali cuz aleandra is a bit of a long name sorry son just who let's imagine he just said something completely unrelated so Patricia says I'm so looking forward to next weekend and Alejandro says what did you have for breakfast I'm I'm done I'm done literally I'm done people throw you bait and they pray that you latch on to it by asking them follow-up questions but the right type of follow-up questions are key in order to be held in high regard to the people we're talking to
and want to woo we need to ask follow-up questions that signal care and interest to illustrate this here's the person you're talking to and she's saying all of her statements throwing out bait this is a swimming pool a pond conversational Pond let's call it the conversational bait she's throwing out all of the bait saying things along the lines of I usually go traveling once a year what did you have for breakfast oh my God please just ask me about where I've been and why I love traveling and where I'm going next and why it's such
a big value for me because at one point when I was 18 my parents didn't let me do anything so traveling is a way for me to just break free and be who I really am take the bait that people give you by switching off that internal monologue in your brain and just paying attention to the underlying conversations I wasn't going to go into this much depth in this video because Jesus Christ I've got a big video coming up about how to have deeper conversations but just to give you a little buzz of the video
there are always two types of conversations happening you've got the surface level conversations so explicitly what this person is saying to you and then you've got the underlying material in the conversation that if you don't pay attention to this stuff by asking follow-up questions people will leave the interaction thinking I wish he would have just followed up on that little bit of bait I gave him about this thing that's really important to me your goal is to probe the surface level conversations into the underlying material that this person is hinting at with the things that
they're saying remember in this area in the underlying material lie the person's values their deepest desires the things they actually want to talk about but they're too scared to talk about because they think no one will actually listen to them so what do they do they stay in this surface level conversation because you don't probe with your follow-up question so the material you get out of this person is defensive and they withhold information that they would actually want to relay to someone else if that person only listened to them with the depth and Intrigue of
wanting to find out more about this person if we only say at the surface level in our conversations with the questions we ask we only get answers such as this how are you good you low effort answers to questions no one really cares about leou enough of the philosophizing your bumbling mustach idiot just tell us what to say Well when you're having a conversation with someone there are five things you can ask them about which will make them propose to you on the spot regardless of whether they're a man or a woman so Lads be
careful about doing this with your guy friends you need to spark emotion with your follow-ups because one of the reasons why our conversations are usually so boring is because we just focus on facts and logic and we don't actually talk about how we feel and the emotions that such things spark number one talk about their experiences some questions you can ask to Kickstart the conversation and get your foot in the door is what made you come to this city what was your last big adventure where is your favorite place you've traveled to then when they
start giving their answers of course give some of your answers back but always turn the conversation back on them with your follow-ups how did you feel when you did x what was it like to do X would you change anything about your experience with x x obviously meaning the thing they're talking about all of these are focusing on the emotion that this thing sparked in the person second topic to lube them up is talk about their dreams dreams conversation starter what's something you've always wanted to do follow-ups how would it feel to do that how
would your life change if you did it what stopped you from going for it third topic what they love to do what do you absolutely love to do what activities make you feel most excited I feel most excited when you know I've got my drawings in front of me and I'm just in the flow of artist mode what do you love about drawing how do you feel when you're drawing two more number four that rhymes talk about their passions ask what are you most passionate about follow-ups what makes you passionate about that how do you
feel when you're following that passion and lastly topic number five talk about their motivations what made you get into that what made you do that follow-ups now you're doing that how do you feel about it why did you want to accomplish that as mentioned Focus the spotlight of your questions on the emotional underpinnings of what this person is saying to you oh you're an architect that's great I love walking through the Streets of London looking at all the big medieval buildings tell me just so I can understand you better what was it that got you
into architecture put the spotlight on them and they'll love you this does lead us into Point number two quite nicely start safe then build it doesn't matter what context you're in if you want to build more intimacy and connection with the person you're talking to whether you're on a first date or speaking to people you already know you cannot suddenly enter the conversation out of nowhere asking the deepest questions that probe this person's inner psychology asking them to reveal everything that lies deep within their soul you have have to gradually build up to it to
explain this point further in whatever social skills or Communications book you read there's likely going to be one name mentioned the aons couple now the aons couple were doing pivotal research around the 1990s and they came up with something that you might have heard of called the 36 questions that lead to love what they studied essentially was the psychology of love and they did one famous experiment where they got two groups of people complete strangers and they got them to have a 4 5-minute interaction in one group The Strangers were just to have small talk
and take the conversation wherever they wanted it to go the second group however had to ask each other set questions from the psychologists that are termed the 36 questions that lead to love and the results showed that the group who went through the set of questions not only held each other in higher regard but wanted to schedule a follow-up meeting with this stranger because they enjoyed the interaction two of The Strangers actually ended up getting married but the key takeaway here is people will only self-disclose if they have done so previously self-disclose essentially means to
reveal information about yourself if you want to connect deeper with people you have to allow the interaction time for you to ask more probing questions after you build a safe environment because the 36 questions that lead to love which I'll link in the comments they involve three sets and the first set is very chill it's questions such as given the choice of anyone who would you want to have dinner with would you like to be famous in what way and there's 10 more of those questions in set two the questions are what is the greatest
accomplishment of your life what is your most treasured memory what is your most terrible memory and then finally set three which focuses on intimacy a question such as make three we statements about each other for example we are both in this room feeling or tell something about your partner you like about them already the key is to build reciprocal self-disclosure where you gradually reveal things about yourself and you allow the other person to do the same and you do so by building up to it not jumping straight in at the deep end and scaring this
person by demanding that they reveal qualities that they don't usually reveal about themselves now getting into the questions we can ask in order to get us out of some tricky social situations number three deflect difficulty let's imagine you're having a job interview it's going well it's your dream job they're asking you great questions and you're answering with the PO of a sage but then they suddenly ask you so what did you get paid in your last job now you have a sour taste in your mouth and you want to stand up and punch the interviewer
but here's the tricky thing if you avoid outright to answer such a question it indicates that you have something negative in your past that you're trying to hide and research shows that if you answer such a question honestly you're more likely to be exploited but the people will feel higher Rapport for you if you sidestep the question however by refusing to answer it you won't be exploited but the people will feel less Rapport for you so the best way to deal with being asked a question you don't want to ask is to respond with a
relevant question because remember the way human psychology works is if we decline to answer a question we don't want to answer it just means that answer becomes even more important in the eyes of whoever is asking let's look at a few examples in the context of the interview so the sneaky interviewer has asked you do you plan on having kids rebound it with a question do you have kids if they ask what did your last job pay say can you tell me more about the salary for this position with the wife she might ask do
I look good in this to which you can say what do you think careful with that one extra caution finally in a negotiation or sales example someone could ask you how much are you willing to pay rebound it what price did you have in mind the key with all of these responses is you respond with the question and you continue the conversation [ __ ] off wasp yeah it's gone you continue the conversation until you're able to take the conversation to a point where you change the topic because in some of these examples yes you
might respond with do you have kids and then three questions later they anchor you back to the question of do you plan on having kids but I guarantee you if you respond with questions they'll get so distracted that they'll forget the question that they've actually asked again extra caution with the wife but the key with responding with the right question to a question you want to sidestep is do not ask an irrelevant question for example when they say what did your last job pay don't then question what did you have for breakfast keep it relevant
in the same line of inquiry until you get to a point where you change the conversation throw it back on them bastards key thing to note about questions is they are a spotlight that is a pair of eyes not two boobs they dictate our inferences and perceptions so when we ask a question in a ation it shifts people's spotlights in different directions finally number four avoid assumptions let's imagine you want to buy a new phone and you're scrolling on eBay and you find someone selling an iPhone you want but you're a bit ambivalent as to
whether buying a secondhand phone is a good idea especially when it could be broken so you reach out to the seller and you ask him it doesn't have any problems does it bad move because this is extremely easy for him to say no When in fact this iPhone is a walk-in red flag because what this does is it implies the wrong assumption it implies there's nothing wrong with the phone because everyone defines having problems as different remember what we said about questions being spotlights in point three also remember they dictate our inferences and perceptions so
if you want to find out whether this phone is worth buying assume it has problems instead of asking it doesn't have any problems does it you assume it has problems and you say what problems does the phone have and the interesting thing about questions that assume the presence of problems is they do not diminish Rapport and especially when we ask questions like this in a negotiation or a situation that elicits such questions is they dictate how assertive and inquisitive we're going to be from the get-go and how steadfast we're going to be in wanting to
get to the truth avoid assum in the absence of issues if you're ending a speech or a presentation don't say you don't have any questions do you instead ask what questions do you have and one more example that will be a godsend for you the next time you go to view a property or rent your first apartment is don't ask the landlord who's touring you round how are the neighbors because they will easily respond with yeah they're okay no problems at all again assume there's an issue ask have previous tenants complained about noise levels in
the past before we summarize I wanted to give you one last bonus tip that's just come into my mind there's one more question that you can ask to people with especially of higher authority to you that will enable you to soften them up to your influence could you give me some advice on whatever it is you want to ask them advice about advice is a great way to soften people up to your influence there was a study conducted at Harvard University where they got a group of people to sit down and answer quiz type questions
such as can you define this word or who was the first president of the United States but they got another group of people to send text messages to the people taking the quiz but the type of messages that were sent were very different some messages included texts such as hey keep going or you're doing a great job but the last type of message was hey you got any advice on this question and what the results showed was the people who asked for advice were seen as more competent a bit counterintuitive this isn't it but it's
because of how advice makes people feel when we ask someone for advice it signals one thing it shows that we already hold this person in high regard because after all why would you want their advice if you didn't already hold them in high regard being asked for advice Strokes our ego so if you're entering a job position for the first time or you're in a social situation where someone has higher authority than you and you want to get them on your side simply ask them for advice but beware don't ask people for advice on things
they don't know because this will just make them look even stupider and number two don't ask for advice on something you could easily search up this will just be a waste of the person's time and the interesting psychological insight we get from advice is that flattery is too direct where we over compliment someone they can tell we're just trying to get a leg up on them advice however is subtle because of what it implies what this technique encapsulates is the first law of the 48 Laws of Power never outshine the master don't enter a new
job trying to outperform and outshine all of those who are in higher authority than you because you will trigger their ego and you'll slowly descend into the lower Peck in order in summary number one ask follow-up questions that signal care and interest towards the other person take the conversational bait of the underlying material they are hinting at in the things that they say by following up what they're saying by asking them more about it also use the echo technique where you repeat their words back to them I'm really looking forward to the weekend oh you're
looking forward to the weekend what are you most excited about number two start safe then build remember people will only self-disclose if they have done so previously so if you want to build deeper connection or Intimacy in the conversation you're having with someone create a safe space in the conversation and then gradually increase the intensity of the questions you ask to probe in more depth number three deflect difficulty when you're having a conversation and someone asks you a question you don't want to answer remember if you outright refuse to answer that question it will only
make the material of the missing answer more important and valuable so respond to the question with a question relevant to the topic that their question was hinting at keep the conversation flowing in that direction until they forget about the question and then you change topic number four avoid assumptions about the wrong thing if you want to find out if something has problems such as buying something on the Internet don't ask there aren't any problems with it are there because you're assuming that there aren't any problems allowing the person to sidestep the question just by saying
no absolutely not instead assume the presence of problems by asking what problems does it have bonus ask people of higher authority than you for advice not on things they don't know about and not on things you could easily search up likely things that are going to stroke their ego in order to have more influence over them and create better social harmony I'm currently reading everything I can about social skills in order to give you the most valuable information about how to make sure that you socialize with poise so I've got a book that I'm going
to be writing and I'm going to be making some courses and soon there is going to be the knock Academy an online community of like-minded people coming together to mentally flourish and socialize with poise stay tuned for that stay disciplined playful I need a pocket there and dangerous adios Muchachos Muchachos
