Sometimes I have the great fortune of working from a café. It’s “great” because I get to drink coffee, utilize free wi-fi and, with subtlety, act like I’m working on something life-altering on my laptop. The only downside to working at a café is that there are a lot of people. I don’t mind people overall, but it’s a specific type of people—the ones that talk a huge game.

Whether they’re talking about the last stock they bought that just returned a hundredfold profit or how their recent house they flipped was a steal or how they saw such-and-such at this place-and-place, it gets rather deafening. Think Ron Burgundy sans ridiculous clothing.

This kind of chatter is difficult to escape from. It lives on Twitter, Facebook posts, blogs, glossy magazines, etc. But nothing compares to seeing it in person. Even if you’re not contributing to this conversation, hearing it can sometimes lead to secondhand exhaustion. So, for your personal enjoyment and sanity, here are 5 tips to know when you are about to walk into secondhand hyperbole and embellishment: