Heya playa, have you ever found yourself in a conversation with someone only to start
noticing that they were just losing interest?
How exactly do you get that person to be more engaged?
Well, today I want to share 3 tips on what you can do to make that conversation way more
personal.
This is The Josh Speaks.
You're watching The Josh Speaks.
For those of you that are new here, my name is Josh and every single Monday through Friday
I make videos sharing tips, ideas and stories teaching you how to be your best self.
Now when someone's sharing a story with you, the most important thing for you to be doing
is listening.
Sometimes when people are talking to us, we're not really even listening to what they have
to say.
We're thinking about what we want to respond with or what we're doing after this conversation
and we're missing out on the key details of what they're sharing with us.
And when you're doing that it's something most likely the person you're talking to is
going to notice.
They're gonna see that you're not really engaged and that you don't really care about what
they have to say and they're gonna probably try to end their response quicker and get
out of that situation.
It doesn't mean you are intentionally trying to be rude.
Maybe you're nervous, maybe you don't know what to say and because of all these different
feelings, it might be leading you to this conclusion where you're not really listening.
And I would say the first thing you want to do to make that conversation more personal
is to share an emotional response to the story that they're telling you.
Now an emotional response doesn't have to be you saying "I feel happy, I feel sad when
you tell me that".
It's more relating to what they are probably feeling or what they have experienced in that
moment of the story.
This is a practice called empathy where you really step into that person's shoes and try
to think about what the experience was like for them in that moment.
For example if you ask a person how their weekend went and they say they did something
really fun you can always say "Wow, it sounds like you were really excited to do that".
Or if they tell you a story about something sad that happened to them, you can always
respond with "I can imagine how sad you must have felt in that moment.
It must have been really hard for you".
The key there to really connect is to understand the emotions they were going through.
If you can tap into that, if you can kind of just relate to them for a minute you'll
be way more wired into the conversation and they'll feel like you're actually paying attention
to them.
Now the second thing you want to do is to share your own experience in relation to theirs.
Talk about something that you feel is comparable to what they've gone through.
Now this technique can be a bit of a double edge sword.
If they share something personal, you don't want to say "Yeah, I've been through that"
and then share something that's completely unrelated.
If you do that, it'll make them feel way more alienated like you're not really paying attention.
An example of doing it in the right way might be that the person you're talking to is sharing
a story with you about how they're stressed out about school.
Well, that's something you can probably relate to and you've experienced as well.
Let them know that you've been there before and you know how tough it could be.
Most people think that when they go through an experience, they're the only ones who have
kind of ever been in that exact position but there are other people in this world who have
had similar feelings to us so it's important to share how we feel and to hear the stories
of others.
That's why it's so important for you to share yours with them.
Letting them know that you've been through similar experiences makes you a more relatable
person.
They can start to feel like hey, this is someone that understands what I'm going through and
they've also been through their own experiences so they're someone I want to share things
with.
Now generally, when you ask someone a question and they give you an answer, most people tend
to move away and try to think of something else to talk about.
But, you're sitting right there on a goldmine of information.
Information that you can dig deeper into to really learn more about them.
That's why the third way to get more personal and to have them be more engaged is to ask
a follow-up question and to go more in-depth on things.
For example, let's say you're talking to your crush and they tell you that they played violin
at a concert this weekend.
Well to go more in-depth you might want to ask them things like "How long have you been
playing violin?", "Was it scary to play in front of a big crowd?", "Is playing violin
something you want to do in the future?".
Just by jumping into the details like that, that person will feel like you're really engaged
with what they shared.
They're not gonna feel like you just asked them to ask them like most people tend to
do but you really care about what they have to say.
Now this technique is also something you have to use with your best judgment.
Sometimes asking too many questions can be a bit overbearing.
Especially if the person is sharing something that is personal or a bit of a secret or something
they don't really feel comfortable talking about.
All in all though, if you can empathize with them, if you can share your own personal stories
and you can ask follow up questions, I think they're going to feel like you actually care
about the conversation.
You're not just talking to them to make conversation to pass time, you really want to learn about
who they are.
What do you think though, do you ever feel like the conversations you have with people
just aren't deep enough and are never really personal?
Leave your comments down below and we'll talk about it.
Otherwise thank you so much for watching this video.
If you enjoyed it hit the thumbs up button and remember guys, my new book "Embracing
The Awkward" is available now so the link is gonna be down there in the description
below if you want to check it out.
On that note, I'll catch you guys tomorrow.
As always, love and peace.