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The Art of Conversation

all right. Welcome to day six. Today we're talking about the art of conversation, and I have three main goals for today. I want you to be a master conversationalist, and we've already laid the groundwork for this, right? We've been talking about how tohave engaging interactions and conversations. We're gonna take that to the next level one a level up today. I also want to show you how to engage people with the art of listening, which is a big part of the art of conversation. All right, so we're solidly on the path to connection. We're learning how to make emotional deposits, and other people's bank accounts were learning how to receive those emotion deposits. So we feel like we're starting to engage in an interaction. We've learned the power of intention, how to trigger dopamine and conversations. We've learned how to use stories to captivate our audience. We've also learned the power of confidence and curiosity that it's curiosity that makes us irresistible and interesting. And today ...

we're talking about the art of conversation. It's time for a confession. So I have a confession, and it is that silence scares me. Silence makes me super uncomfortable. Awkward pauses might be the only thing that's worse. And so I started to think, How can I stop myself from interrupting? Where does this come from? And I realize it was from my fear of silence that as soon as I sense that maybe an awkward silence would come up, I start to feel really nervous. I get into low grade fear and I'm like, just say anything to fill it. And so I started to think about what happens in my mind when I do that. I realized that when I'm talking, I'm not learning and my goal is toe. Learn about people when they talk to me. I want to know everything about them. I want to endeavor to discover. And so when I am talking, I'm not able to learn about them. I also learned that when I'm thinking about talking, I am also not learning that when other people are talking and I'm thinking about what I need to say or afraid of the sounds is about to happen. I'm only half listening to their conversation, which makes for very awkward, stunted conversations where I interrupt people. So I was like, How do I stop this I realized the only way I could do it was to go cold turkey, and so I decided to take a vow of silence. So those who followed my blawg know that I took this vow of silence and nothing scares me more than silence. And I like toe live where I'm the most uncomfortable. So I decided I had to cut cold turkey and he were my goals, my vow of silence. I had to face full on my fear of silence. Second, I wanted to embrace awkward positive. I wanted to like, live in that awkward pause to see, really, how how bad could it be? What's the worst that could happen if I actually couldn't speak? I wanted to learn to be a better listener, to hear what I was missing when I was interrupting people when I was thinking about what I wanted to say, and I wanted to use body language only and end up being one of the most amazing experience of my life, and it lasted for six long days before I ended up not feeling afraid of the silence. That was the longest six days of my life, but I learned so much about myself from other people that I never would have learned if I was speaking. The biggest thing that I learned is the art of conversation is not about conversation. The art of conversation is about the art of listening and listening well, master the art of conversations about mass in the art of listening, and this is all about validation. I learned that when you are fully present with people, when you are listening with your entire being in your entire self, people finally feel validated. And I read this quote by Oprah Winfrey, which she said, I've talked to nearly 30,000 people on this show. All 30,000 had one thing in common. They all wanted validation, and I so resonate with that. But I couldn't have understood it until that moment where I was silent and I didn't interrupt people for the first time ever, and I just let them talk and I was fully there with him. I didn't have my phone. I wasn't looking over their head to try to find someone else to talk to. All I wanted to do was make them feel validated and make them feel that I was really there for them and trying to listen to them. So this speaks to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Being a true listener helps you meet the top three needs on our hierarchy. When you really listen to people, you give people a sense of belonging. You give them a sense of intimacy. When you really listen to people, you meet their esteem. You show them that they are accomplished, that you want to listen to their success. And, most importantly, you let them live their potential by sharing their story by sharing their answers. So it's one of the most powerful gifts that you can give people by listening to them. The I think. And this is one thing that has made me embrace pause a little bit more is that true? Listening happens when you quiet your own experience to make room for someone else's. When you can quiet what's happening in your own head, thinking about what you're gonna say and what you should say, what they think about you just to hear what they're about Now, not everyone can do a vow of silence on a day of a basis, so the question is, how do we put those techniques into practice in normal conversation, and we do this using the rock technique. This is one of my most powerful techniques, and we're using it throughout the course. So the rock technique is how you can validate someone. This is on a date in a client meeting. This is working with friends to show them that you are truly listening. First you rephrase their ideas, then you use their own words as a show of respect so that your listen to them and then you circle back and check in with them. So the reason why this technique is so important is because it gives us that warm and fuzzy feeling. Using this technique, we often don't realize when someone shares something stressful or happy. We don't always know how to respond. So we're like, yeah, cool, awesome, Right. And we're there for them. But we don't know exactly what to say. Using this. Wow, that must have been so stressful when you move to a new place and had to find new friends. When did it start feeling like home to you? That's a very different answer than while. That must have been hard, right, right so it gives us I'm gonna do. Yeah, the secret One second. The secret part of the rock technique is not only does it make them feel good, but it also makes it so that you have a reason to listen, right? Listening for their words, listening for what they're feeling gives you a reason. Toe. Listen on a level up, not just kind of casually listen, but you're actually listening to try to use their words back to them, so it gives you a reason to deep Listen, we're of the client and you're nervous focusing on how can I make sure they feel heard really listening to their words and their feelings. That's a great motivation to listen. So the second way that you validate someone to embrace the vow of silence techniques the having, actually having to be silence, Although I would love it if you want to take a vow of silence I love to hear about it on the second way is to avoid wishful hearing. So wishful hearing happens when we hear what we want to hear, but not what is actually being said. And this happens for three reasons. Assumption, arrogance and fear assumption. I already know what you're going to say. I already know this arrogance. I know better than you or fear. I'm afraid that what you say might require something of me. Number 10 be nonverbally attuned. So it's one thing to show that you're listening with words. I want you to show you're listening with your entire body. So this is show people you're hearing them, listening to them and validating them. And you do this three different ways. Here's how we listen. Nonverbally first is with fronting. This is aiming our toes, our torso and our top towards the person we're speaking with. I was watching you guys as you were speaking, and I noticed a lot of pivots out. So if someone was standing here, I noticed a lot of people who would pivot their body partially back. I was watching it happen. That happens when we're uncomfortable or nervous. It's called distancing behavior. So what I want you to do is show that you are listening by pivoting fully towards them and engaging in fronting behavior. Soto's torso and top. That's the best way to show nonverbal respect. That is the way that you can literally show you're listening while they're speaking, The second way that you can do this is with with nodding and the head tilt. So nodding. A slow triple nod, research has shown, makes the other person speak for 3 to 4 times longer. So someone else is speaking and you do a 123 It's like a nonverbal dot, dot dot You're literally telling them. Keep going. Please tell me more. Please take deeper. It's a way of showing that instead of saying that. So if someone's on a really deep topic, if you're on a date and they're like, really passionate about something and you want them to keep longer with a client and they're talking about a need that you really want to meet, the best thing you can dio is front towards them and do a slow triple nod. And if you want, you can add a head tilt. Ah, head tilt is a way of softening. You're listening when it's what we do. We're trying to hear something literally. If you ask someone, do you hear that they almost always turn their head and be like what? Because it's the way that we listen. So wait you can show your listening as you can slightly until your head to the side to say I am here for you. I am fully and present and listening to you. So our challenge today is I want you to practice. All the skills we've learned so far were on skill number 10. So we got to start putting them together, using them like our ninja skills, right? You can pull those out whenever you need them. So in your workbook, what I've done is I have a little cut out for you where you can actually check off each skill that we've learned so far. I want you to practice each of these skills at least once. This is your checklist for tonight, and they can be in multiple conversations are all at once. But I want you to put them all into action at least once and report back to how they go