Interesting Conversations

Some people are innately gifted with an ease of conversation. You know the ones I am talking about; they smile and are relaxed and somehow generate enough conversation to keep the both of you talking for the perfect amount of time. We watch in awe and just sit back and react, engrossed in a conversation where we walk away usually with some new sense of knowledge or personality or sometimes just walking away not thinking one way or the other. The conversations that plague us are the ones that leave us wondering where we or they went wrong. How do we avoid these conversations? How do we create perfect conversations and engage a stranger with interesting, yet safe topics?

The one secret to learning how to be a good conversationalist is understanding listening versus hearing and empowering the other person. I know you have heard it before, "Listening is understanding. Hearing is just noise we don't digest." How does this translate into conversations? The key is to listening to the other person and translating their conversation into additional questions that are interesting to you, too. People love to talk,  no matter who they are. If you are thinking about a woman right now, you are correct, but men like to talk, too. The key is to empowering the person you are talking to in order to encourage additional, exciting conversations. Conversations between and within genders are going to be different, but if you continue engaging the other person to talk, you will be successful.

Here is an example:

A man sits down at a banquet next to a woman and she introduces herself. She is another professional in a room full of entrepreneurs and begins talking about how the last banquet she attended droned on for hours. You ask her which banquet she attended, listening attentively while looking for a cue that could spur the next question. Once you have it, you continue listening for additional cues. Then you ask her which was the best banquet she attended so far this year, continuing with key speakers that could have attended and finally gearing the conversation towards key speakers, since that is your chosen profession. When she excuses herself for a drink, she walks away with a neutral feeling of the conversation, but not hesitating her return.

Conversations can be drudgery when a person tries to talk the entire time, interrupts, and fails to engage the other person. As long as you remember to listen and engage the other person with topics they are interested in, you will be on your way to becoming an accomplished conversationalist.