#professional-communication
41 episodes
#4990: How to Flip an Interview in the First 5 Minutes
What happens when you stop waiting for permission and start running the interview from the opening handshake?
#4986: How to Weaponize Small Talk (Anti-Guide)
Turn "How are you?" into a weapon. An escalatory ladder from honest answers to full conversational catastrophe.
#4961: Can You Learn to Be Good at Small Talk?
Why "just be curious" fails anxious people — and what actually works for better conversations.
#4911: How Airline SOPs Vary Between Operators
Why the same plane type can fly differently depending on which airline's procedures the crew follows.
#4894: How Diplomats Stay in Touch (and You Can Too)
Friendship maintenance is a learnable skill. Here's what diplomats know about keeping weak ties alive.
#4893: Redirecting Tough Conversations Gracefully
Practical techniques for steering away from topics you don't want to discuss — without making the other person feel judged.
#4888: Action Minutes: The Meeting Tool That Forces Clarity
How a diplomatic note-taking technique eliminates vague language and forces real commitments in meetings.
#4882: How to Run a Diplomatic Summit at a Bar
Importing the full diplomatic apparatus into a casual drink with a friend — agenda, run of show, briefing books, and all.
#4764: The Art of the Distant Relative Lunch
How to turn a family lunch into a master class in social craft without crossing into cruelty.
#4708: Creative Comebacks for "What Do You Do?
Tired of the dreaded job question? Learn witty, passable, and confusing ways to answer "What do you do?" when you're between gigs.
#4617: The Where-Are-You-From Answer System
A three-tier system for answering "where are you from?" without improvising, without evading, and without looking shifty.
#4323: Customer Service Speak as Social Trolling
A practical field manual for weaponizing call center scripts at the dinner table — and why it works.
#4304: Rhetoric for Interviews and Pitches
Three persuasion techniques from political speech, applied ethically to job interviews and client pitches.
#4251: How to Run a Job Interview Like a Spy
Three elicitation techniques that reveal what a company is really like — without sounding like an audit.
#4125: How to Kill a Conversation on Purpose
The art of weaponizing social awkwardness at high-achiever gatherings.
#4009: When Manifestos Actually Work for Voters
Three parties that reimagined the voter manifesto — and what they teach us about political communication.
#3851: When "Let's Discuss" Means Very Different Things
How the same email gets decoded three different ways in Berlin, Tokyo, and São Paulo.
#3598: Why Your Consulting Rate Is Too Low
The contract is the same whether it's $5K or $5M. What changes is your willingness to ask.
#3356: The Low-Touch Discount: B2B Pricing Secrets
How small buyers can get enterprise-level pricing by structuring quote requests that sales reps love.
#3316: How to Support a Friend Without Playing Therapist
Practical scripts and research-backed strategies for being helpful without overstepping.
#3291: The 80% Job Spec Gap: Why You Should Apply Anyway
68% of recruiters accept 70% matches. Only 22% of candidates believe it. The data changes everything.
#3290: The Four-Sentence Cold Pitch That Actually Works
How to structure cold outreach that survives a recruiter's seven-second scan and actually gets replies.
#2832: The Two-Tiered World of Support
How technical account managers and premium SLAs create a support tier that’s almost a different product from consumer chatbots.
#2675: When AI Makes Documentation Effortless
The key documents every consultant needs—and how AI makes them effortless to create and maintain.