 What's up YouTube, AJ here from The Art of Charm, and today I'm going to give you five social skills mistakes that logical people make. When it comes to conversation, we sometimes have to throw logic out the window. I know a lot of us may have analytical jobs. We work at computers, we code, we're engineers, doctors, lawyers, and of course we are rewarded for our logical analysis. But when it comes to meeting people and socializing, being logical is doing you no favors. So the first mistake that people make in conversation when they're too logical is they focus on small details. They get bogged down in items of conversation that don't matter, like what was that specific location or what was that dish that you were having? Instead, when we're in conversation, we want to focus on the emotions. What is the person sharing with us emotionally? That matters way more than the small details. So if you find yourself getting stuck in your head and focusing too intently on all those minute details that the person is sharing, you're missing the forest for the trees. You're getting bogged down in small details when emotions matter more. Now the second mistake that logical people make socially is too much eye contact. You've been told that making solid eye contact means you're listening, means you're giving someone your full attention. But guess what? Science actually shows that the more eye contact you make, the more tension you're creating for the other person, the more difficult it is for you to follow along in conversation. So too much eye contact is a no-no. At the art of charm we prefer, you actually break that eye contact a little while you're listening. It moves your ear closer to the person you're talking to and as long as you come back and make great eye contact, they still know you're listening. So don't stare too much. Too much eye contact is mistake number two. Now mistake number three, when we are listening in conversation, we're not listening empathetically. As I said earlier, we get bogged down in small details and when we don't think about how that other person is feeling, we start to miss emotional bids. Now Dr. John Gottman and his team of researchers have been studying relationships that have lasted for 40, 50 plus years and he coined this term emotional bid. An emotional bid is when someone is attempting to connect with you emotionally. They might be sharing a joke, a story, something they're excited about or some enthusiasm or maybe they're even sharing a negative emotion they're feeling, a frustration, a concern, something they're worried about. These emotional bids are what we need to be focused on in conversation. We need to be listening empathetically and thinking about how that person's feeling to have a much better conversation with them. Now number four, the biggest mistake that I think all of us logical people make is when we hear someone discussing a problem, a concern, something they're worried about, we offer a solution. We want to help our friends. We want to help people we know. We even want to help strangers. But the problem is when we offer solutions, we're actually not listening to what the person really wants. Instead, we're forcing our own opinions into the equation. We're putting it on the other person. It's almost as if we're telling someone what they have to do. Solutions are not what people are going for in conversations and certainly not strangers that we're meeting. So I know you might be logical. I know you might have the perfect solution to that problem, but just blurting out you should do this or you could do this is not the way to do it. Instead, ask them, would you like my perspective on that? Or, hey, do you want to know what I think about that before you offer solutions? So don't just blurt out a solution for someone. You're going to find that people don't receive it very well and it's going to make you less attractive. Now the fifth and final mistake that I know we all make is we talk in absolutes just like I did there. When you say someone always does this or never does that or everyone is like this or everyone hates that, those absolutes actually turn people off. They stop paying attention to what you're saying and especially if you point that absolute at them. If you say you're always this or you're never this, you're putting that other person on that spot and immediately we all get defensive. We start searching for the moment that we weren't that specific thing because we want to prove that other person wrong. So if you're talking in absolutes, you need to soften it. You have to say sometimes I feel this or sometimes I've seen you do this, but remove always and never from your vocabulary and you're going to have much more charismatic conversations. Now, if you want to learn more social skills tips, check out our conversations playlist full of ideas on how to open conversation and how to start connecting better. Until then, see you next week.