How To Have Better Conversations (1/3)
Conversation Threading
Takeaway: Charming and charismatic are two of the most sought-after traits. Learning how to carry a good conversation can do wonders for your personal and professional life. In part one of this series, I’ll share my first conversation strategy: conversation threading.
New Readers: Don’t miss out on new articles. Subscribe now.
Many people wish they could get better at interacting with strangers. There’s a reason the most memorable heroes in movies and books are charming and charismatic. There’s something inspiring about a person who speaks with confidence and can carry a conversation with anyone.
As an introverted fitness coach, I had to learn the hard way how to be a good conversationalist.
I needed to carry an hour-long conversations with people every week. You’d think our time would be spent talking about fitness, but it turns out this isn’t always true.
Especially for individuals who’ve worked with me for years. They have great exercise form and have already learned everything they need to know about their workouts, sub the occasional correction or reminder. The majority of these interactions are mostly non-fitness related.
Being able to carry a good conversation is a must to ensure people look forward to coming back to see me every week.
What follows in the remainder of this article (and the two parts still to come) are some of the tactics I use to ensure my conversations never run dry.
Conversation Threading
Conversation Threading involves steering the conversation using topics imbedded in the statements made by your conversation partner.
This strategy will allow you to seamlessly transition from one topic to the next, preventing any awkward lulls in the conversation.
To get started, let's look at the following statement that you might hear in response to the question, "How was your weekend?"
"I tried a new restaurant last weekend with my brother and sister-in-law."
Conversation threading is identifying the separate elements of a statement and responding with a question or statement emphasizing one of these new topics.
To avoid boring you with grammatical jargon, suffice it to say in this example there are four elements you could expand on: restaurants, last weekend, siblings, and in-laws.
At this point, you could very easily steer the conversation toward any of these topics with your next statement.
Restaurant topics:
"What was the new restaurant you tried?"
"What's your favorite type of food?"
Last weekend:
"That sounds way better than my weekend, I was stuck cleaning my apartment."
"Do you frequently go out on the weekends?"
Siblings:
"How many siblings do you have?"
"Are you close with your brother?"
In-Laws:
"Are you close to your sister-in-law?"
"How did your brother meet his wife?"
With this strategy in hand, it will be nearly impossible for you to run out of things to talk about. Every statement your conversation partner makes will provide multiple different avenues for exploration.
This technique is completely impromptu, not relying on any prepared material, which means it can be used in any situation. This also ensures you will never run out of things to talk about because it can be used repeatedly within a conversation.
To be clear, you can always continue the conversation about the specific topic your conversation partner has brought up. If they shared they tried a new restaurant with family, you can continue to talk about this topic for as long as you both find it interesting and engaging.
Conversation threading, as a tactic, is best used when you are looking for ways to shift direction in a conversation.
By practicing and using this strategy effectively, you will be able to exude greater levels of confidence in all of your interactions. Most importantly, your ability to carry an easy conversation puts others at ease—leaving a positive impression.
Try it for yourself below.
Putting Into Practice
Can you identify the elements in the following statements that can be used to thread the conversation? (When you're finished, visit the bottom of the page for the answers.)
1) "I was on the phone with my college roommate and forgot to take my food out of the oven! It was ruined."
2) "I am volunteering at the animal shelter for the first time since my knee injury."
3) "I went skiing this past weekend with my wife and some close family friends."
4) "Saturday-morning physics was packed! The audience filled almost two lecture halls. The topic was on the geology of planets."
Once you've practiced and mastered this technique, you will be able to seamlessly carry on conversations without any awkward silences or lulls. This will make you appear more confident, intelligent, and personable in your everyday interactions.
Not to mention, if you've ever had the fear of talking to a stranger because you didn't know what to say, this technique can completely eliminate that problem!
Happy conversing,
~ Coach Alex
Answers:
College, roommates, cooking, cooking mishaps, silly mistakes.
Volunteering, animals, pets, injuries, surgery, hobbies.
Skiing, weekend, spouse, family friends, traveling.
Weekend adventures, science, school, geology, planets, space, crowds.