We don’t have to be great at everything ourselves. Everyone is great at something, and for every “something,” there’s someone who’s great at it. And those people share! They demonstrate and model.
Take that within. If you find yourself being bad at small talk, think to yourself, “Who’s the person I know that’s best at small talk?” Then ask yourself why you think of that person as good at it. You can probably list two or three things you’ve observed about their behavior – and if you can’t, go chat with them.
There you go; now you have a model of how to be at least a little better at small talk. You don’t have to figure it all out yourself, you just have to ask yourself that specific series of questions.
The Opportunity Machine 