Finally, I’ve Found A Good Reason Not To Avoid Small Talk

Conditioning Myself To Become More Like A Marathon Runner

As I walked towards the entrance, I thought “Just go for it.” I pushed open the big glass doors and stepped onto the laminated flooring of the reception area. 

In the middle of the room sits a large reception desk with the wall to its left covered with women’s beauty and health products, sold by the owner. The desk has a corridor to each side of it, home to several treatment rooms. Most of the rooms rented inside the clinic are based on women’s beauty stuff/therapy (I don’t know what they offer there and have no interest in finding out). I’m not often at the clinic but I was there to provide sports therapy to a client.

As always, as I entered through the doors, I was greeted by Lorainne, the receptionist, with a smile and hello as usual. Normally, I try to get the greetings out the way as quickly as possible so unsurprisingly, the conversation usually has no energy. 

But today, I decided to do something different.

I’ve been working on my communication skills. And one thing I have noticed is that I speak slightly quietly. I sent a message to a few friends and asked them to rank me on a scale of 1-10 for how loud I speak, 10 being the loudest. Across the board, I got 3s and 4s. Confirmation of what I already knew.

So before entering the clinic, I decided to ramp it up to a 6. I considered louder but I didn’t want to be screaming at Lorainne.

I opened the conversation with “It’s been a while, Lorainne. How have you been?”, it felt a bit strange but not uncomfortable. I wondered if Lorainne would think I was weird. 

She responded in her happy energetic normal self. But unlike normal, where her energy falls, this time they stayed high. 

Unexpectedly, my conversational energy level went up with the volume. 

But a minute into the conversation, I could feel my volume and energy falling. I tried to readjust but I couldn’t. By the end of the second minute, I was back to my normal default volume and conversational energy level. 

I was surprised I couldn’t keep the new levels for even a couple of minutes. 

In hindsight, I shouldn’t have been. I didn’t have the conditioning. I was like a man who had never run in his life trying to do the marathon on his first day. Like the wannabe marathon man, I quickly burnt out. But also like the wannabe marathon man, I know I can improve on my conditioning if I practice more. 

I wanted to exit the conversation so I slowly edged closer to the corridor, indicating I wanted to go to the treatment room I’d booked. Thankfully, Lorraine knew I had a client in a few minutes and I needed a few minutes to set up in the room so she let me go. 

The small adjustment had a surprisingly big effect. 

So I’m planning to continue speaking at a a slightly higher volume than normal from now on.