Hi this is Peter Murphy here from howtotalkwithconfidence.com today we are going to look at conversation magnets which are easy ways to start a conversation and then to keep the conversation going. Once you start using what we will be covered today, you will always know what to say to people. Let us start then by looking at the three types of conversation magnet.
The first is the surface level and that is all about small talk, then you move on to the bridging level where you focus and then explore a particular topic. And finally, you take the conversation to a deeper level where you talk about your values, your beliefs and even your identity.
Let us start then by taking a closer look at surface magnets. The purpose of this stage of the conversation is just to get the conversation started and for that reason, we actually want the date today even mundane topic and that might be the weather, current events, what is happening in your day or maybe the setting you are in. You might talk about your family, your friends or even your pets but the whole point of the surface magnet is to keep it simple. It is just to start a conversation and to get the other person involved. Once you have achieved that you move on to the next stage and that is where you want your bridging magnet.
What is your bridging magnet? What you do not actually know when you get into the conversation and the way you find out is by paying close attention to the other person and listening very carefully to what they say and to how they say it. so you want to be listening, watching and taking in what is happening and looking at the body language, and what you are doing at this stage is looking for a common topic that you can talk about with the other person. something that you will both find interesting and unfortunately I cannot tell you, look talk about x or y. It does not work like that, every conversation is different and you need to bear in mind that when you are at a bridging stage. It is about testing, it is about trial and it is about making mistakes and correcting your mistakes. There is no blue print I can give you that you can use in every conversation, you need to have this attitude that you are testing and you are looking for a common topic.
One way to do that is through personal disclosure, you tell the other person a little about yourself and then again you pay close attention to their reaction to see if they are interested. Let us say I said to you, I am planning a vacation to Florida next month, I am watching you very carefully, and I notice that when I said the word vacation your eyes lit up. Well there right away I had an indication, you might like to talk about vacations. Let us say when I said the word Florida, you were not that interested, well then I will avoid talking about Florida but I might talk a bit more about vacations. So you see, this is all about testing and it is about trial and error and it is about being flexible and letting the conversation develop.
That takes you to the next stage, which is the deeper level of the conversation. So at this point, through the expiration and trial and error, you found a topic of conversation that you both want to talk about. How do you take that deeper? You take it deeper by talking about what you love and by talking about what you are interested in and not just you, but what the other person loves, what they enjoy or what they are interested in and that is all to do with values, beliefs and identity. Values again are what is important to you, people like to talk about what is important to them and they like to talk about their beliefs and their identity are there a sense of who they are. So in a nutshell, that is how you go deeper, you start like I said early with the surface level where you just explore the mundane, day to day topics. Then you bridge through trial and error, looking for something more interesting and then once you have an interesting topic that you both want to talk about, you are not done yet. you want to go deeper, so let us say we have gone through the scenario and let us say
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