How To Start a Conversation
Circle of Impact Lessons in Leadership Series
Traveling reveals insights
I’ve just returned from an almost month-long road trip across the United States. Seventeen states in 24 days, 6,000 miles of travel, dozens of conversations. Travel like this makes it impossible not to meet a very wide variety of people.
I’m very intentional in seeking out people to start conversations. The Eddy Network Podcast conversations are examples of the kind that I have with people every day.
My Circle of Impact model provides a guide for these conversations.
Stop Being an Opinion Leader; Become a Conversationalist
Very few people who share their opinions in social media ever become influencers. The influencers actually have something more they offer than an opinion. It is easy to have an opinion or be a critic.
We must decide to be a contributor, a person of impact. We can do this by learning to be a conversationalist.
This has nothing to do with whether you are introverted or extroverted. It is a learned skill that anyone can master. To master it is to change your life.
Everyone has opinions and the world of mainstream media and social media are designed as vehicles for opinions to be presented. It is the most sophisticated form of social programing and propaganda in human history.
A social influencer makes a comment about some public figure. We don’t say anything. We remain quiet and that passivity has a negative effect on how we feel about ourselves.
My point is that you don’t have to be an influencers. I suggest that you do not seek to do that. Rather, I believe we are born to be contributors to people’s lives. We want to make a difference that matters. From my perspective, most people really do want to be persons of impact.
If you look at much of your interaction with people, the superficiality of our conversations pointed are very much like our comments on social media. A few words, but nothing that contributes. Stop agreeing or disagreeing in silence. Start using the comment box for contributing so that a conversation begins to take place..
Here are three steps that you can take to change this diminishment of your natural desire to be a person of impact.
1. Realize that you have something to contribute.
Identify it, and create a story to bring to conversations.
2. Decide that the person you are talking to is the center of the conversation.
3. Leave the conversation some question that invites further conversation.
If you need a way to start, really the first thing you say, try this.
“I am <name>.”
You ask, “What do you do?
How long have you been doing this?
What got you started?
What’s the most interesting thing about what you do?”
The person will say something that triggers a follow-up question. Ask it.
This is what I do on the podcast. It is an unscripted conversation. This means I don’t know what we will talk about when the conversation begins.
The follow-up questions often takes us 15-30 minutes to reach a point where the next question gets asked. All through the conversation, I am listening and processing what I am hearing to determine what am I interested in hearing my guest say now.
You start a conversation by being interested in the other person.
There are many paths that we can take. This is the focus of the Circle of Impact Lessons in Leadership series. Providing insight and instruction for interacting with people so that a relationship of mutual interest can result.
This post is the first in a series that will apply the Circle of Impact model to aspects of life and work. Establish a paid subscription to participate in the content that I will be shared below.