Introduction
Most people are boring in their conversations.
You ... may be boring.
I don’t know yet.
You may bore many of the people in your life ... and not even realize it yet.
It’s possible.
I certainly used to.
But I do know they’d never tell you if they thought you were a bore to them. They’ll just keep it to themselves and humor you.
This can make it an obstacle to see and change.
I help people find this blindspot and then show them how to turn it around and make themselves more interesting and attractive to other people instead.
I start by teaching them a practical approach to conducting their conversations with other people that makes those exchanges mutually engaging and satisfying experiences people love to take part in.
I want to share that approach with you right now, to see if it’s something you need to learn yet because it would benefit you greatly in life, or whether you already have this stuff all figured out.
If you don’t know or apply any of the strategies and techniques in this guide, chances are you’re probably already boring people right now, and don’t even know it. That used to be the case with me too. But that needs to change. And it will with the help of this guide. But if you’re already aware of these secrets, you probably already have a knack for creating interesting conversations with people that lead to connections.
The First Thing to Learn
Get this firmly in your mind: at the beginning of every conversation, always put the focus on the other person as quickly as possible, especially if it’s a first meeting. Give them the spotlight. Don’t ramble on about yourself and what’s on your mind (unless you’re bringing them news they showed interest in).
Instead, be interested in them ... and what’s most important to them!
Unless you already have a relationship with them, do not start by blabbering about yourself and what’s going through your mind at that moment when you open an interaction. Save that for later. And whatever you do, do not start complaining and griping at them! If the other person asks how it’s going, tell them about it in a short manner, and then turn the spotlight back onto them. Unless they’re a good conversationalist too; then let them indulge you a little by talking about yourself. But then turn it back onto them. To ramble on endlessly about what you want to talk about it is a quick road to boring people in a short period of time. This is one of the most common ways people outwear their welcomes, sometimes in a matter of moments. Though, it’s usually unspoken.
If you start yapping about yourself and your thoughts from the beginning of the conversation without their invitation, you will sacrifice their interest level (with the exception of good story telling and sharing interesting news). After about 10-30 seconds, their interest level in what you’re saying is going to start to drop drastically, which will result in them zoning out and humoring you. They’ll have a slowly increasing desire to flee the situation, and will take advantage of it should the opportunity present itself.
You don’t want that.
That makes you a boring person in their eyes. Their thoughts have stopped paying attention to what you’re saying and have started to float elsewhere. They just don’t want to be impolite by ending the conversation abruptly and risk hurting your feelings and perhaps bearing the emotional brunt of your possible scorn.
What To Do Instead
When starting a conversation, what you do instead is you take a sincere interest in the other person and in their life. You do this by asking the right questions and then listening to what they say, and then following-up by delving deeper into the topics that have surfaced or relating to them and sharing your own thoughts and experiences on them, briefly at first.
To do this well, you must understand what a “cue” and a “thread” is. And how to use them to lead your conversations in the direction you want them to go in.
A “cue” is simply a small mention another person makes or you introduce that gives a glimpse into either their life or your life, depending on who’s talking. It’s a gateway into a new topic of conversation.
For example, if you ask me about how I like the weather, and I reply by saying, “It’s too rainy for me. Had to cancel the kid’s baseball game too,” the “cues” in my response are the “kid” and the “baseball game.” It’s information I’ve revealed to you about my life and experience. It’s a couple of opportunities I’ve tossed your way to transition the conversation onto something more meaningful – if you know how to capitalize on them!
Those “cues” can now be turned into “threads.” “Threads” are the topics of discussion that come to the forefront of a conversation and amount to its content. We’ll get to that yet, but how do we start a conversation in the first place?
How to Start a Conversation
In your efforts to transform a “cue” into a “thread” from the beginning of a conversation, there are three great ways to open things:
- Ask them how they’re doing or how their day/shift is going
- Make a comment about the present experience you’re sharing and witnessing together, or ask them a question about it
- Share some interesting news
Remember, the entire aim here in taking any of these approaches is to encourage the other person to start talking! And more importantly, to influence them to introduce some “cues” into the interaction that you can turn into “threads” of the conversation.
Once you’ve successfully turned a “cue” into a “thread,” a new aim takes the place of simply getting them talking. That new aim is to look for opportunities to naturally transition the conversation onto what’s most important to them. Instead of getting them to reveal any more general information, now we encourage them to share specific information.
Remember, just like you and me, everyone is the most important person in the world ... in their own head. To make engaging conversation that people find interesting and stimulating, you have to talk about what’s most important to the most important person in the world!
Them!
Your mission is to tactfully find out what interests them, and then transition the conversation onto those things and discuss them, assuming you can also make them interesting to yourself.
That’s how hearts are won.
What to Talk About
To do all this well, you must first come to a certain understanding of life. We have
desires and, however vague, we have
plans for their realization. Then we put those
plans into operation. In pursuit, we gather
experiences, and we encounter
problems that lead us to formulating
opinions based on those experiences. This process is decorated with various
people and relationships that play different roles in that journey.
Memorize these topics!
Burn them into your brain!
This will make you focus on guiding your conversations onto them whenever you talk to people as quickly as possible.
Read this list over and over again for better, faster results:
DESIRES
PLANS
EXPERIENCES
PROBLEMS
OPINIONS
RELATIONSHIPS
The secret to creating interesting conversation and establishing connections with other people is to guide every exchange onto these topics and discuss them in detail, listening and questioning to get more in depth, and balancing that halfway with relating and sharing your own experiences and opinions and what have you.
You do that by opening the conversation to get them to reveal their first “cue.” You capitalize on that “cue” by asking them a question that transitions the cue into a conversational “thread.” Once they’re on that topic, they are likely to talk for a period. And in that period, they are going to introduce a variety of more “cues.” Your job is to listen, and then choose. You listen for any mention of something that relates to the big six topics we discussed a moment ago. Sometimes you have to pass through a succession of “threads” before you reach them. Once you’ve successfully steered the conversation onto one of these things and have made it the central thread in the interaction, take a genuine and sincere interest in it by asking them questions about it. In response to their answers, either inquire further or else share your own thoughts and experiences with it. It’s good to keep things balanced once in a committed conversation, once you’re well past the small talk.
But now we’re approaching the more advanced material – which will be useless to you if you haven’t first mastered the basics.
