This is Help Wanted, the show that makes your work work for you. I'm Jason Pfizer,

editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine.

And I'm money expert Nicole Lappin. On Tuesdays, Jason and I answer the helpline and help

callers solve their work problems. And on Thursdays, I give you one way to improve your work and build a career or company you love.

And it starts now.

You know what's the absolute worst?

It's when you're stuck at Small Talk, you know, maybe you're having a conversation with someone or you're interviewing someone for a job or whatever or you're running a meeting and you wish that this person you were talking to would just open up to get personal, go deep, but everything they say feels surface level and bland and safe and therefore that's where the conversation is stalled at safe.

Today I'm going to show you what's going wrong and how you can do better.

This is where real relationships begin and where the most

powerful insights are shared and I have seen this myself because I've interviewed

thousands of people in my career,

including some of the most famous people in the world,

and I use the same technique every time.

It is also how I navigated dating and what I do as a manager and how I drive conversation today with anyone I want to know better

All the same exact technique and here here's a hint. It is not just about the questions that you

ask. It is about what you do after asking the question. And to show you what I mean, let's start with the story about the rock,

Dwayne the Rock Johnson. But really, it's the story behind a story that, you know, if you have been listening to Help Wanted for a little bit,

you've already heard that one.

But you didn't hear how it started.

So okay, back in February, we posted an episode of this podcast called Why You Should Reply to

Almost Every Message You Get.

And inside that episode, I told a story about Duane The Rock Johnson which was well you can go back and

...