Hey, I'm Bradd listeners. We're taking a short break over the next couple weeks, but we'll be back in September with some brand new episodes. In the meantime, we're not leaving you high and dry. This week, we're going to recast one of our most popular episodes, How to Be A Better Conversationalist, with journalist Celeste Headley. This episode is fascinating and took place in the before times, that is before the pandemic, and before I joined as co-host of the show.

It's really amazing and full of research and tips.

One of my favorite episodes is I went back to listen.

So enjoy, and we'll see you in two weeks.

I'm going to see you in two weeks. Hello and welcome to The Upgrade, the podcast from the team at LifeHacker will we help you improve your life for one week at a time.

I'm Alice Bradley, LifeHacker's deputy editor. Sadly, Melissa is out sick today, so it's just me. I'm drunk with power.

Let's see what happens. Today we're talking about talking. Look, we could all get better at conversing with our fellow humans. It's just too easy these days to hide behind our screens.

And when we're finally face-to-face with actual people, we're often talking too much

and not listening enough. How could we make the most of those one-on-one face-to-face

in-life moments? We'll hear from journalist Celeste Headley, whose career revolves around talking to

people. You're in that conversation to learn. If you haven't learned something from the other person,

you haven't had a real conversation. And LifeHackers' own Michelle Wu tells us how to talk to kids,

because do any of us really know how to do it? Don't change your voice. A lot of people when they

meet a young kid will go into this high-pitched, hello, oh my goodness, what a cutie you are.

But before we get into how to improve our conversational skills, let's address bad conversation

habits first. What irks you the most? People who only talk about themselves? Chronic

interruptors? Total boars? We sent our producer Casey out into the streets of New York to find out what drives people crazy.

Just standing outside the Church Avenue station.

Do you want to answer a question for a podcast?

Okay, awesome.

What is something in conversation that people do that drives you crazy?

Hmm.

...