How to Make Interesting Conversation Effortlessly

Hi! This is Peter Murphy here from howtotalkwithconfidence.com. Today, we are going to talk about how you could make interesting conversation with anyone you meet. Even if you have worried before about being boring or let us say getting stuck for words when you meet people, as long as you use the tactics we are going to talk about today, you will find it a lot easier to get a conversation going and to have an interesting conversation when you meet people. Let us start first of all by looking at some of the common mistakes we all make from time to time when it comes to talking to people and the reason we are going to look at these negatives is so that we can identify what we are already doing. You may find that you are doing a lot of these habitually already so just simply by noticing this, you can start to drop these habits and start to be a bit more positive instead. The first common mistake is speaking without enthusiasm. If when you are talking to people, you are not putting enthusiasm and energy into the way you speak, you are going to come across is not being as interesting as you could be. Second common mistake is not listening carefully when the other person is speaking. When someone is speaking, they are going to show you what they are interested in, they are going to give you clues as to what they find interesting and they do that with their voice tone and with their body language. Body language such as changes in posture and changes in their facial expression so that is something that you really need to be looking out for. Another issue is failing to share your opinions and failing to talk about what you find interesting. If you do not do that, you are making it more difficult for people to get to know you and you make it harder for them to get engaged and involved in the conversation. Another common mistake is getting stuck into a day to day routine that starts to grind you down, that starts to make you feel that life is boring. If you start to feel like that, it will come across in your conversation. And finally in terms of common mistakes we need to avoid, here is a few more. The first one is hoping the other person will rescue you if the conversation grinds to a halt. If that happens, it is a lot better for you to be proactive, to take charge, and to see if you could stir the conversation in a new direction. And here is a big one. If we have a fear that we are going to bore people, that negative thought is going to affect how we communicate. It is going to make us nervous, it is going to make us tense and it could even make your mind go blank because you are trying to second guess yourself. And the last common mistake is having a very narrow focus when it comes to what you are interested in. If that is how you tend to be, you will find that you do not have much to talk about when you meet people so I would encourage you to actively stay informed and get interested in more, more issues that you can talk about. Let us move along now to some positive actions we can take. Generally, what I would like you to do is to develop an active curiosity in life. First of all, decide that life is interesting and secondly, allow people to be interesting. If you take on that new attitude, you will find that you are a lot more excited when you meet people and you are a lot more enthusiastic about learning about them and learning about what they are interested in. It is just a small shift in how you think but it can make a big, big difference to the quality of the conversations. Related to that is deciding that you are going to find out what excites people. What is it like gets this person going? What is it that they are passionate about? Be a detective and go and find out and you will have a really great conversation. Another key point is to explore what is new in the world. Look around you, what is new in your home life? What is new at work? What is new in your community? Always be looking for what is going on, always looking for what is new and what is interesting and you will have a lot more to talk about and you will be a lot more excited when you do talk about it. Finally, when you are speaking to people, make a point of looking for what you have in common. Look for what you have in common in terms of values and beliefs, that is, you are looking for what is important to other people and what they are really interested in and what they focus on. That again is just an attitude, you look for that and you will start to find it. Let us talk now abut tactics you can start using right away. The first one is to add more variety to the way that you talk, vary your voice tone and the volume and you will be more interesting for other people. All this variety and especially when you put energy into it, makes you more interesting to listen to. Secondly, be dynamic in terms of how you use your body language and make a point of breathing more deeply. Do that and you will naturally be more enthusiastic and a lot more energetic and those qualities really attract people. Another simple tactic is to ask people directly about what they are interested in. That might sound obvious but sometimes we are fumbling in the dark, we are guessing, and we are wondering. Why not just ask directly and of course all of the time, watch very carefully when the other person is speaking. When you suggest a new topic, pay close attention to the nonverbal response. When they say they are interested, are they being polite or can you see form their nonverbal response by their body language that they are genuinely interested. A few more simple tactics you can start using. The first one is to talk about what the other person is interested in first. If you do that you will find that they warm to you and the conversation gets started on a nice positive footing. Also, I like to have an attitude of fishing for clues, when you are talking to someone, you do not need to hit a homerun right away. You could suggest one topic, you might get anywhere. You suggest a second topic, you might do a little bit better and then you might suggest a new topic and suddenly, the conversation takes on a life of its own. So, what I am saying is be like a fisherman, keep fishing until you catch something. Do not expect to necessarily get a great topic right away, just keep going. Also when you are looking for something of interest to talk about, ask open questions, you see, if you ask a closed question you are going to get either a yes or no response and that does not really drive the conversation anywhere. So, instead ask open questions such as who, what, when, where, or how. These questions open up the conversation and encourage people to get talking. And the last simple tactic and this is even though it is simple, this is a very powerful way of getting people engaged in the conversation. I would like to encourage you to be provocative when it comes to personal disclosure. What do I mean? What I mean is if you are introducing some information or changing the topic of discussion, make it interesting when you lead in to that new topic. For example, if I was talking to you and I said, I am excited about the weekend, I have got something interesting planned, I am being provocative, I am being mysterious. I am not telling you what I am doing but I am drawing you in and I am getting you interested so that is how you do it. You just lead in, be a little secretive, and then you tell people what you are doing. So, to wrap up here are some simple actions steps that you can start using right away to make all your conversations more interesting. The first one is to start using these tips today. Do not put it off, do not think okay that was interesting I will come back to this next week. Pick at least one or two tips and make a point of using them right away. Secondly, I want you to aim to improve just a little each day. The problem with a lot of self help is that we get excited and we think okay, I want to go from where I am today to this ultimate state of perfection but the gap is too great and what happens is we get frustrated. So, instead I want you to aim to improve just a little each day.