Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Add Good to your Google News feed.
Google News Button

The 4 words that turn an awkward chat into a charming conversation

"Mastering the art of a smooth transition."

small talk, intimacy, casual conversation, chit chat, friendships, work relationships, community

A couple talks over coffee.

Image from Canva - Photo by Wavebreakmedia.
Mark Wales
By Mark WalesJun 02, 2025
Mark Wales
See Full Bio

Few have mastered the art of a light conversation. In fact, most would choose to avoid one if possible. Maybe it's because they can be boring. They can be stressful especially if you want to seem interesting and less awkward. Some may find the whole thing a big waste of time.

However, there are people out there thriving and gaining a significant edge in work, friendships, and even their committed relationships. This all stems from the ability to transform a simple interaction into a deeper and more captivating experience.

Most of us struggle to survive the first part of a surface-level conversation, and then few have the means to guide it to a meaningful and more thoughtful exchange.

work meetings, work get togethers, meet ups, tools, self improvement, positive action, good newsA good conversation.Image from Canva.

How to improve your small talk

The good news for those of us horrible at the gab or maybe not that enthused for the opportunity, like all things we can improve. Repetition and repeated failures work on most things, but let's just jump forward a bit and take up a tool that can have a positive affect for us, basically immediately. Prepare to excel in the art of a transitional phrase.

A redditor named IsaihLikesToConnect offered some fantastic ways to use a simple phrase, "It reminds me of..." to turn the boring banter into something stimulating and interesting.

How to use "It reminds me of..." in a conversation.

Them: "It's been really rainy, huh?"

You:

Option 1 (Personal Story): "Yeah, it reminds me of a time I went on a run in the rain and nearly got hit by a car."

Option 2 (Music / Pop Culture): "It reminds me of every Adele song. When I'm driving, I feel like I'm in a music video."

Option 3 (Family): "It reminds me of my dad, he used to love playing with us in the rain as kids."

Option 4 (Thing you watched / World News): "It reminds me of this documentary I saw where they're trying to make it rain in the Sahara Desert.”

Option 5 (Place you lived): “It reminds me of when I lived in Australia, it barely ever rained there. I actually love this weather.”

It's so simple and yet so genius. "It reminds me of..." gives power over where the conversation goes and accelerates past the mundane dialogue of the weather, boring, into whatever strikes your fancy. Suddenly, conversations designed to trudge the road explode into things in which we're actually interested.

conversation, water cooler talk, transitional phrases, social anxiety, depression, boredomCouple smiling over coffee.Image from Canva - Photo by bernardbodo

Hopefully most of us don't have the nearly hit by a car story to reference, but learning to connect to something we do care about is the means to becoming a small talk champion. Sure, responding to the rain prompt with, "It is raining." will end the conversation. (In some potential interactions that might be the wise choice.) But, no longer will the fear of taking on a simple conversation be troubling if you utilize a transition like, "It reminds me of..."

self improvement, connection, intimate conversation, winning strategy, work relationships, work partiesCouple having a conversation.Image from Canva - Photo by JohnnyGreig

Other transitional phrase suggestions

Maybe, "It reminds me of..." isn't the winning phrase for every conversation. Let's list out a few more to craft the Transitional Phrase Starter Pack:

"That makes me think of..."

"That brings to mind..."

"That's just like when..."

"Funny you mention that..."

The skill to really work on when implementing the transitional phrase is connection. Finding the best way to take the given topic, weather, morning drive, weekend plans, etc., and linking into something that tells them more about you or allows you to learn more about them. This winning strategy will help take the small talk to the good talk.

conversation skillsconversation startersdeeper interactionsmeaningful exchangespersonal storiessmall talk improvementsocial connectionstransitional phrasespop culture referencessmall talkintimacypersonal relationshipssocial anxiety

The Latest

carbon monoxide poisoning, undiagnosed illness, hidden gas leak, home safety, kathi wilson, contractor finds illness cause, chronic fatigue, carbon monoxide symptoms, inside edition, home repair
Past Events

Doctors were stumped by her illness for 10 years. A bathroom contractor solved it in one visit.

president, food, diet, calories, william howard taft
Culture

Food expert reveals the diets of famous politicians and Taft's 8,200 daily calories are next level.

paul reubens, pee-wee herman, david letterman, the late show, celebrities
Culture

When Paul 'Pee Wee Herman' Reubens accepted a random invitation to a 'hillbilly' dinner

fake baby assignment, parenting class, high school project, viral student texts, chippewa secondary school, andrea lefebvre, real care baby, funny student stories, parenting simulation, teen parenting lesson
Past Events

Teacher’s fake baby assignment leads to hilarious student meltdowns

More For You

smart characters, detectives, tv, movies, pop culture

Watching a tactician do their work is just satisfying to see.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

11 intelligent characters in movies and TV shows that make you say 'well played'

There’s nothing like seeing someone do something well. It’s even more impressive if a problem or task seems too large to handle or too complicated to outwit. It’s why we love watching various procedural television shows, detective movies, and other media featuring problem solvers regardless of whether they are heroes or villains. Film and TV buffs on Reddit even trade favorites with one another to see what "competency pleasure” is available on streaming services.

There are some great characters that are often cited as the best thinkers, strategists, tacticians, detectives, and overall smarties in popular culture. Here are eleven of the best ones that you can observe and be impressed with their quick thinking and intricate planning.

Keep ReadingShow less
moving with kids, parenting win, dad powerpoint, family move, viral video, instagram parenting, teacher dad, greg karlton sherman, lorelle sherman, snellville georgia

The well-planned PowerPoint in action

Reddit

Dad makes PowerPoint to tell his kids they’re moving and totally wins them over

Breaking the news to your kids that you’re moving can be tough. But one Georgia dad found a way to turn potential tears into cheers—with a PowerPoint presentation that was equal parts thoughtful, practical, and fun.

Digital creator Lorelle Oliveira Sherman shared the moment on Instagram, showing how her husband, Greg-Karlton Sherman, delivered the news to their three kids that the family was moving from Smyrna to Snellville, Georgia.

Keep ReadingShow less
pride, queer, west virginia, south, parade, shepherdstown

On June 1, 2025, Shepherdstown, West Virginia will have its first ever Pride parade.

Joan Marie Moossy

How Shepherdstown, West Virginia got its first Pride parade this year

On June 1, Shepherdstown, West Virginia will get its first-ever Pride parade. It is organized by performer and activist Joan Marie Moossy, who moved to the town permanently from New York City in 2022 after years of being a part-time resident. Moossy, now 70, experienced queer activism and community throughout her time in New York, where she counted as mentors and friends the great avant-garde performer Ethyl Eichelberger and Gilbert Baker, creator of the Pride flag. It was from people like them, she says, that she learned about the power of activism—that it really could create positive change and progress.

So, create she did. Shepherdstown, also home to Shepherd University, has a longstanding reputation for being queer friendly, one Moossy herself experienced for the first time over 30 years ago. This past October, Moossy’s idea for a Pride parade received a bounty of support from the Shepherdstown Town Council and local businesses, and it becomes a reality June 1 at 6 p.m. The town is a small one–about 1,537 people as of 2023– and the parade will travel the length of about two blocks, as the town’s other parades do. Moossy anticipates 25 groups–including everyone from the ACLU of West Virginia to Kevin Bacon’s SixDegrees charity to the Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church, among many others. In all, as many as 175 people will be marching in it. Local businesses have stepped up and created their own Pride programming for the weekend as well, all with the parade at its core.

Keep ReadingShow less
question box, 4th grade teacher, student questions, kids, student learning, active learning, teaching strategy

Teacher with a box for some curious and insightful questions.

Images from Canva - Photos by Kzenon and Nicolas Menijes.

4th graders put their big life questions into a box. They’re profound, funny and very weird.

I’m guessing you’ve heard of a “question box.” If you haven’t, it’s simply a tool sometimes used by teachers to illicit discussion around different subjects. This teaching strategy falls under the category of active learning or student engagement. The idea behind the premise is to find instructional activities that energize students to think, investigate, discuss, and create, solving problems as they struggle through complex questions and make decisions that enhance their overall student learning.

One teacher posting under the name @goatsnsheeps on Reddit, put this strategy into action with their fourth grade class. They created a box for the students to place any type of question they wanted answered into, and some of the students' responses are amazing.

Keep ReadingShow less
rush, ll cool j, geddy lee, public enemy, neil peart

Rush's weirdest moment is probably a rap verse from 1991.

ceedub13, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-2.0) (left) / Hudgons, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) (right)

Rush's weirdest moment isn't prog-rock. It's rapping inspired by LL Cool J and Public Enemy

Rush made a lot of music that the average listener would consider "weird" in some form or fashion: lengthy prog epics rooted in fantasy ("The Necromancer"), mutant funk-metal with haunted-house spoken-word sections ("Double Agent"), intense blues-rock about hair-loss anxiety ("I Think I’m Going Bald"). But the strangest moment in their catalog is a left-field rap verse from 1991.

By that point in their storied career, the Canadian trio were always searching for new forms of inspiration. They’d expanded into synthesizers and experimented with styles like reggae and New Wave, but flirting with hip-hop probably took most fans by surprise. The song in question is "Roll the Bones," the title track and second single from their 14th LP—and the famous verse arrives out of nowhere, amid the band’s heavy riffs and synth stabs, with singer-bassist Geddy Lee pitch-shifted way, way down. Decades later, it’s still a trip to hear him grumble out lyrics like, "Just the facts / Gonna kick some gluteus max" and "You better run, homeboy."

Keep ReadingShow less
transgender health care, health, trans, transgender, utah, protections
File:Transgender Day of Visibility 2023 - Naarm (Melbourne ...
commons.wikimedia.org

Conservatives pushed for a study to ban trans health care. It backfired spectacularly.

In January 2023, Utah banned young people from receiving gender-affirming health care. Approved by Governor Spencer Cox, the ban was billed to be a suspension that could potentially be reversed once further research revealed more information about gender-affirming care’s long term effects, one that claimed to care deeply for children. What ended up happening, though, was that countless transgender youth were affected by the ban’s restrictions, which included gender-affirming surgery and “hormone treatments for minors who have not yet been diagnosed with gender dysphoria,” according to NPR. The ACLU of Utah found it “catastrophic,” saying in a statement that:

“cutting off medical treatment supported by every major medical association in the United States, the bill compromises the health and well-being of adolescents with gender dysphoria. It ties the hands of doctors and parents by restricting access to the only evidence-based treatment available for this serious medical condition and impedes their ability to fulfill their professional obligations."

Despite the obvious detriments to children they claimed to care for, the ban remained. And the next step was actually doing this research.The results of it–some 1,000 pages worth issued by the Utah Department of Health and Human Services–were published this week, more than two years later. The biggest finding was something proponents of gender-affirming health care for transgender youth knew all along: that it saves lives.

Keep ReadingShow less
art, artist, women artists, female artists, painting

Marlene Dumas has been painting for over 50 years.

Photo by tabitha turner on Unsplash

Marlene Dumas just had the highest sale ever recorded for a living female artist

When you think of influential contemporary artists working today, who do you think of? And of that list, how many are women?

As author and columnist Katy Hessel wrote in her 2022 book The Story of Art Without Men, a 2019 study showed that “in the collections of eighteen major US art museums, 87 per cent of artworks were by men, and 85 per cent by white artists.” So would you know that Marlene Dumas, a South African painter who lives in The Netherlands and has been painting for over 50 years, is one of the most influential artists working today? Would you know that she is so influential her 1997 painting Miss January just became the most expensive work ever sold by a living female artist?

Keep ReadingShow less
black sabbath, tony iommi, bill ward, rock history, pranks

Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi once set drummer Bill Ward on fire as a joke, but they wound up needing an ambulance.

Photo credit: Warner Bros. Records via Wikimedia Commons (crop)/ Photo credit: Canva (flame graphic)

Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi, in a 'party piece' joke gone wrong, once set a bandmate on fire

"He was our outlet," Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi told Guitar World in 1992, describing how the metal gods "picked on" their beloved drummer, Bill Ward. "I used to do terrible things to him." In one notoriously dangerous incident—which dates back to the 1972 recording sessions for Vol. 4, per Classic Rock—Ward's bandmates painted him gold from head to toe, leaving him in convulsions. "The ambulance people gave us a right bollocking: 'You idiots! You could have killed him,'" Iommi told The Guardian in 2016. "They gave him adrenalin, and we had to use paint stripper to get it off."

This wasn't the only time that messing with their bandmate led to a medical emergency. Back in the day, Black Sabbath made a "party piece" out of setting Ward on fire, apparently without causing harm—that is, until their final attempt, during the recording sessions for 1980's Heaven and Hell. "I asked, ‘Can I set you on fire, Bill?’ And he said, ‘Well, not now, not now.’ So I said, ‘Okay,’ and then forgot all about it," Iommi told Guitar World. "An hour later Bill said, ‘Well, I'm going home now. Do you still want to burn me, or what?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ So I got this bottle of petrol, tipped it on Bill, set fire to him and—voomph. I couldn't believe it! He went up like a Christmas tree. Well, he knew I was going to burn him, but he didn't know to what extent."

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2025