How to converse well while maintaining the interest of others: 6 Keys

To make our interventions in dialogues have value, we have to catch the attention.

Having the ability to create good conversations is possibly one of those easy-to-train skills that serve us best throughout our lives.

Being human beings a social animal, the difference between being a conversationalist capable of generating interest or not is capable of opening many doors. At the end of the day, the way in which other people value us depends more on the idea we want to transmit than on how we transmit it. Charisma and the ability to connect emotionally with others are extremely valuable resources. with other people are extremely valuable resources.

So... ¿how to converse well, making our interventions be listened to attentively because of their emotional impact? because of the emotional impact they produce? Below you will find some basic tips on how to achieve this.

Conversing well and catching the attention of listeners.

To add value to the way you engage in conversations, pretty much all you have to do is make your content clear and coherent, and express it in a way that grabs the listener's attention. content clear and coherent, and express it in a way that grabs the listener's attention.. Let's see how to do this.

1. Tell a story

The beginning of a conversation is the moment in which it is decided, to a large extent, the probabilities that the other person will be interested in what we say. For this reason, we must make sure that what we say attracts attention from the very beginning. is good to start with a short narration, even if it is so simple and short.even if it is so simple and short that it does not seem so.

For example, if you want to talk about what you do professionally, instead of reproducing a list of tasks you are in charge of, explain in 10 or 20 seconds how the idea of working there came up and in what way that profession is useful or fits the objectives you had in the beginning.

Take into account the cultural level of the other person.

When you talk to someone, you should always keep in mind what their cultural background is, as well as their type of education.

The simple fact of making a reference to something unknown to the listener during the course of an explanation may be enough to make this person disconnect and want to end the dialogue, since this way you are implying that the time they are going to spend listening to you may be useless if in the end the message is not understood.. After all, whoever assumes that the other person knows such and such an artist or philosopher will probably make this mistake more than once in the next few minutes; why continue listening to him or her and risk losing the thread completely?

Of course, it is not always possible to know the cultural background of the other person from the very beginning, so in these cases it is best to play it safe and use references to people or elements of everyday life.

3. Use known references

This resource is one of the most useful when it comes to making our interlocutor maintain interest in what we are saying throughout relatively long explanations or explanations with a certain level of complexity. The trick is, fundamentally, express what we want to convey by resorting to metaphors and analogies, generally based on something generally based on something that everyone knows: pieces of general culture.

These types of comparisons are used to move from more or less abstract explanations to more or less abstract explanations to images with a powerful expressive capacity. Thus, the simple fact of mentioning them already conveys a lot of emotionally charged information.

For example, if you want to express that someone you know lives to satisfy others and does not dedicate time to himself, you can say that he behaves like a hero with a cape and sword. This is an image that in itself conveys an attitude and philosophy of life that would otherwise take longer to explain, so taking advantage of this comparison will help you to lighten the content in parts that might be too long.

4. Create expectation with pauses

In order to converse well, it is necessary to give our words the value they deserve, and to do this we must take advantage of the expressive depth that pauses give us.

Once you have managed to attract the attention of the person about a particular topic, silences are another resource to make this interest is maintained, because the simple fact of waiting to see what we will say next intensifies the feeling that you are listening to something important.. This is due to a phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance: if we don't want to acknowledge an uncomfortable idea, we make our interpretation of reality fit another idea that overrides the previous one: "I'm not waiting for anything, the topic causes me real interest".

Moreover, there is another reason why it is good to play the trump card of pauses: they make the interlocutors, almost involuntarily, try to "fill in" with their imagination that blank space, choosing what they would say next, or what words they would use. In a way, silences are questions, and of course, a question cries out to be answered.

We must avoid falling into the trap the trap of thinking that speaking in the right way means speaking as fast as possible.. In any case, small moments of silence make the other person enter into the game of "thinking together" with us to create meaning through dialogue, since pauses give the opportunity to try to anticipate what is going to be said.

5. Adopt the listener's perspective

To converse well, you don't have to recite a monologue. An engaging speech is one that offers the possibility of satisfying at least part of our curiosity, and a good way to do this is to adopt the listener's perspective, asking aloud reactions or doubts that the other person might have when listening to what you are saying, and responding to them.

In this way, you will not just be conveying your point of view as it is, but you will be showing how different ideas collide. show how different ideas collide with each other and produce conclusions.. Of course, listeners do not necessarily have to agree with the way you "self-respond" but at least this way they can see that you have a broad knowledge of the subject and that you have taken into account different interpretations. On the other hand, putting yourself in the place of a fictitious person also helps to give a more emotional and human touch to the conversation, something that always helps when it comes to showing that what is happening in the dialogue is not something removed from real life.

6. Pay attention to the non-verbal language of others

When you are speaking, most of your attention should be directed towards what you are communicating. However, it is good to pay attention to the way other people react through their gestures. In this way you will be able to adapt what you do to the way others react.. In a conversation, there is nothing worse than a person who completely ignores the way listeners feel.