“It’s just small talk, right? You’re just getting talking, getting to know someone, have fun.”

What I wanted to share was there’s this acronym: Ford F.O.R.D. you may have heard of it. It stands for family occupation recreation dreams. And that’s supposed to be like an easy way to get to know someone and navigate small talk and at a level that’s slightly more personal than just talking about the weather or whatever. Or like we end up talking about coffee a lot at work, we end up talking about beer a lot at work. It’s just stuff you have in common, right? And I think I may have shared in the past like having these sort of not rules, but like blueprints for conversation are really helpful to me. Like the example I always go to is if someone’s sharing something difficult about their life with you, often they’re not, they don’t need problem solving. They just want empathy. They just want you to say, “I hear you. Wow, that sounds difficult, man that’s a bummer.” And like my role in that conversation doesn’t need to be anymore, it’s just done. My role doesn’t need to be any deeper than that. They just want to be heard, you know express themselves. That’s fine. But yeah, it’s kind of trap, is like this person is telling me something wrong should I fix that like no, it’s not the point of this conversation. So I don’t know just the place I am, developmentally and I need those blueprints. Um, and so this this F.O.R.D is helpful, I think. Like another one that comes up at work all the time. How’s your weekend? Or what did you do this weekend? Which is basically what that R, recreation right? What do you do for fun? And you know, maybe they care about it personally or yeah, it doesn’t really matter what the point is. It’s just small talk, right? You’re just getting talking, getting to know someone, have of fun. Maybe make a friend. It doesn’t need to be defined purpose.