How to converse well while maintaining interest: 6 keys

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

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

So that... ¿how to converse well, making sure that our interventions are listened to with attention because of the emotional impact they produce? Here are some basic tips to achieve this.

• Related article: "15 interesting and fun conversation topics"

Converse well and grab listeners' attention

To add value to the way you participate in conversations, practically all you have to do is do make content clear and consistent, and express it in a way that grabs the listener's attention. Let's see how to do it.

1. Explain a story

The beginning of a conversation is the moment in which it is decided, in large part, the probabilities that the other person will have an interest in what we say. Therefore, we must make what we say attract attention from the beginning, and for this it is good to start with a small narration, although this 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 that you take care of, explain in 10 or 20 seconds how the idea of ​​working there came about and how that profession is useful or fits the objectives you had in a beginning.

• Related article: "Fear of talking to people: 4 techniques to overcome it"

2. Take into account the cultural level of the other person

When you talk to someone, you should always take into account their cultural background, as well as their type of training.

The simple act of making a reference to something unknown to the listener during the course of an explanation may be enough to make This person disconnects and wants to end the dialogue, since in this way it is implied that the time that is going to pass listening to you it may be of no use if in the end the message is not going to be understood. After all, whoever assumes that the other knows such an artist or such a philosopher will possibly make that mistake more than once in the next few minutes; Why keep listening to him and risk completely losing the thread?

Of course, it is not always possible to know from the first moment what is the cultural background of the other person, and that is why in these cases it is best to play it safe and use references to people or elements of the day a day.

3. Use known references

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

These types of comparisons serve to move from more or less abstract explanations to images with powerful expressive capacity. Thus, with the simple fact of mentioning them, they already transmit 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 cloak and a sword. It is an image that in itself already conveys an attitude and a philosophy of life that otherwise would take longer to develop. explain, so taking advantage of this comparison will help you to lighten content in parts that could be lengthened too much.

4. Create expectation with breaks

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

Once the person's attention has been drawn to a specific topic, silences are a one more resource to keep this interest going, because simply waiting to see what we will say later intensifies the feeling of hearing 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 with another idea that cancels the previous one: "I'm not waiting for anything, the subject really interests me."

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

You have to avoid falling into the trap of thinking that speaking in a correct way is doing it as quickly as possible. In any case, small moments of silence make the other person enter 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. Take the listener's perspective

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

In this way, you will not limit yourself to transmitting your point of view as is, but rather show how different ideas collide with each other and produce conclusions. Of course, listeners don't have to agree with the way you "self-respond" but at least in this way they will be able to 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 shoes 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 apart from the real life.

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

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