Just One Thing
Just One Thing
Conversational Threading
Good communication is at the heart of good relationships and, ultimately, happiness. This week, Lisa and Brad explore how to employ conversational threading to dramatically improve your communication and attain greater closeness with family and friends.
Ever wondered how you can transform a mundane conversation into a deep, enriching interaction? Discover the power of conversational threading in our latest episode of Just One Thing, where we unpack the art of elaborating on responses to foster engaging and meaningful dialogues. Brad and Lisa explore how this technique can be especially transformative for introverts and discuss the adverse effects of our technology-driven world on conversational skills. By incorporating conversational threading into your daily interactions, you can develop relationships that are not only deeper but also more fulfilling and rewarding.
We also dive into the importance of effort and practice in personal growth and happiness. Brad shares his inspiring journey from being an introvert to becoming an engaging conversationalist through intentional practice. We emphasize that strong relationships, built on effective communication, are key to lifelong satisfaction—a claim backed by a long-term Harvard study. Whether it's for better jobs, love lives, or family connections, good communication is indispensable. Tune in for valuable insights and a heartfelt commitment to bringing you more consistent episodes aimed at enriching your relationships, health, and overall happiness.
Hello and welcome to Just One Thing. I'm Brad Stearns here with Lisa Stearns, and we're your hosts on this weekly exploration of simple ways to enhance your relationships, improve your health, manage your stress and just be happier Now, settle in while we discuss Just One Thing relationships, improve your health, manage your stress and just be happier Now. Settle in while we discuss Just One Thing. Good day, good afternoon. Welcome to the next episode of Just One Thing. Just One Thing is the podcast of Mindful Living Today Dot today, I should have said dot it's a dot, dot today. You can also find us on Facebook, the Mindful Couple, and dot today I should have said dot it's a dot, dot today. You can also find us on Facebook, the Mindful Couple, and we have a great Facebook group, mindful Living Today with Lisa and Brad. We're also on Instagram and maybe there will be a post on there.
Speaker 1:Once in a while. Someday Today, we're going to talk a little bit about something called conversational threading, and this is something that I really had never heard about before, Although the concept is a little bit familiar. I'll talk a little bit about what it is in a minute, but I just wanted to say this falls in sort of the category of just increasing your conversational expertise, which allows you to have you know better relationships with people.
Speaker 1:It allows you to be more comfortable with people that are strangers or acquaintances and you want to be a little bit closer to them, and all of those things add up to increased happiness, less loneliness, all of those good things. So this is something that Lisa actually ran across in. I think he came across in Facebook.
Speaker 2:I can't remember.
Speaker 1:Maybe, or Instagram, one of those things. It was just a little video of a guy. He of guys, says conversational threading. You want to describe it or do you want me to describe it? But I'll give you an example of what is not conversational threading and then we'll get into it a little bit. When we first met, I think the first thing first yes, excellent example First encounter that we ever had, first conversation was, I think what did you say? You said like, so you go to Bowling Green, yeah. And I said yup, yup, which is an example of not organizational threading.
Speaker 2:Conversational threading.
Speaker 1:Conversational threading. What conversational threading is is when you answer, and respond is you sort of elaborate on what the question was. So that offers a whole number of different threads that somebody could seize upon to increase their likelihood that the conversation would go on. So instead of just saying, yup, like I said, yes, I go to Bowling Green.
Speaker 2:It's my hometown, are you?
Speaker 1:familiar with it, or what?
Speaker 2:made you ask it's my hometown.
Speaker 1:I'm in my fourth year there and I'm studying this or that Right and I, you know, participate on the intramural lacrosse team, whatever, and so there are like four or five things that I've added to that YUP.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That offers avenues that you could seize upon in one of those that has a common interest or a common experience that you could then build on and would allow that conversation to go on. I know most of the conversational techniques that we have talked about in the past are things like ask open-ended questions those kinds of things, but this is one that the recipient of a question can actually find useful to sort of elaborate and build upon and build a larger foundation for the conversation to occur.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, as you first mentioned doing the podcast on this, I said I truly believe that as individuals, we have a responsibility to hold up our end of the conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a two-way street. It is a two-way street and I understand that people are introverts because I'm an introvert.
Speaker 2:But that doesn't, you know. I mean, it's still, it's still. The onus is on you to give the person that's trying to have the conversation with you. Give them some help, Give them a little nudge, a little nurturing, a little something.
Speaker 1:We use the word conversation, but another word for conversation is dialogue. Dialogue means two. That means there's two people that are a part of this. It could be a broader conversation, but dialogue between one person and another is a give and take. It's a series of questions, observations, anecdotes and a response with an anecdote or a question of your own.
Speaker 2:It's an elaboration upon something you see, but you're hoping that somebody else is commenting that you feel engaged.
Speaker 1:One of the reasons that we just continually give examples of better ways to have conversations is I have just noticed that people's conversational skills are just getting worse, and worse. I think it's you know, I think it's all of the screens that we're attached to all the time it's the phones, it's the iPads, it's the Well the perfect example is somebody sends you a text, you can send them a thumbs up.
Speaker 2:You know you don't have to do any kind of tell me more, or can you elaborate? On that or give me more information. It's just a thumbs up. Yeah, I got it, and that doesn't allow for the growth of a conversation.
Speaker 1:I think we get less and less comfortable having real conversations with people when we lose the skill set that goes into having a good conversation. And it is a skill Like any skill that goes into having a good conversation. And it is a skill Like any skill, you know. You have to constantly practice it and try to get better at it to have the rich conversations that lead to the rich relationships that I think we all really want, that are the core of our happiness.
Speaker 2:And I think it does start with just this awareness of you know, listen to yourself when someone asks you a question, in terms of your response, is your response a dead end? How are you doing today? Good?
Speaker 1:Well, a lot of times these things are perfunctory, Right, but I think in many cases if somebody asks you how you're doing, it does facilitate more conversation. You say good, you know, I just got back from vacation in North Carolina, where we spent some time on the beach with my godmother, who was the Queen of England.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and again I think yes. The question how are you is perfunctory, but really that is someone looking to engage in a conversation with you.
Speaker 1:And they may not choose to pick up on any of those threads that you offered, but they are out there. Then that says, oh really, I didn't know your godmother was the queen of England, Exactly, or whatever the case may be. And I think you know, like anything like learning to ask open-ended questions, learning to offer conversational threads is something that you have to practice that it's not natural for most of us, and I think the next time somebody asks you a fairly simple question, see if you can offer at least one thread that they could respond, to, seize upon, build upon, to make that conversation a little broader, a little deeper, a little more long going.
Speaker 2:Right, well, and when I used to teach public speaking, you know I talked a lot about that practice. You know, sit down and spend some time thinking about, like, what are the basic things about you? You know this is who I am, but then what are the like? Give the bullet points underneath it, you know. Just think of things so that when someone does ask you, you've got those bullet points prepared in your head.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, it's almost like a personal elevator speech, exactly. You know it's just like it's not necessarily a pitch to get something, but here are the things that you know you might find interesting about me.
Speaker 2:Or about my trip, or about my education, or about my family.
Speaker 1:My weird family, my traumatic upbringing, whatever the case may be, and people can sort of build upon that. They can offer sympathy, they can offer like stories or they can just like when you say, fine, they may choose not to further engage. But I think offering the threads is sort of like uplifting and lift, or I should say lifting up your side of a potential conversation and offering more than that. They want to have more to talk about. There's the opportunity to have a true conversation and develop a little bit closer relationship.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think if you're just doing a yup whether it's actually yup or something similar, I do think for a lot of people, the immediate thought they're going to have is this person does not want to have a conversation with me, right, this person is not interested in me.
Speaker 1:Going back to that first conversation we had, I thought you know, I think we both were attracted to each other. You made the first move, you offered something out there, yup, and then I had to think about that and come back later that day to sort of keep that conversation going.
Speaker 2:But I think mistakenly. People will think well, that person doesn't want to talk with me, or that person doesn't interest in me or doesn't like me or whatever.
Speaker 1:It has nothing to do with that, and I think most people are of the. They misread other people. I think most people think that other people don't want to talk to them, don't want to engage in them. I think, for the most part, people, if given the opportunity?
Speaker 2:Well, research shows that that's not so.
Speaker 1:Research shows that people do like to engage, they do like to share anecdotes, experiences, what's going on today, and it gives an immediate reward to your brain system, reward systems in your brain to have any kind of conversation with somebody, whether it be a stranger or somebody that's an acquaintance or a good friend or even a family member.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and I think, like you say, when you give somebody that one more thing and it can be just one more thing that at least signals to them oh, this person is. You know, there's something there that says hey, you know, say something more.
Speaker 2:I'm sharing Ask another question or whatever that I think, like you say, it creates that endorphin release when somebody engages with you or when you successfully engage, and I think a lot of introverts mistakenly think or I would say borderline introverts mistaken that they are true, like I want to call closet introvert, like truly they struggle to be around people because they have that uncomfortable feeling when they are asked to engage with somebody they don't know or they're faced with some kind of communication and in fact it's just a lack of communication skills.
Speaker 1:Skill, yeah, yeah, and you know, as I said, I think the best way to go about this is imagine people asking you like you know, or even making an observation where the weather sure stinks today, doesn't it? Or something like that yeah, it sure does. But you say, oh yeah, I noticed the humidity was the same as in South Carolina.
Speaker 1:You know where my grandma lives. You know I think it's it's a little tricky, but, like you, like I said, it does require some practice and perhaps some forethought as you begin this kind of thing, and I think this is something that you know. I don't know that I am particularly good at this conversational threading. I think I'm pretty good at I'll use the term interrogating others, yes, yes and eliciting information from them, but I find people often don't ask questions back, information from them, but I find people often don't ask questions back, and so I have to offer you know my own anecdote that relates to something that they said based on my questioning or something. But I think, when they come back with a question or a response, to offer more threads to them is something that I'm going to try to do a little bit better in the future, and I know I need practice at that too, because it's the guy who posted a little video that we're basing this podcast on.
Speaker 1:He offered, you know, like how are you today or where are you from, I think was the question he used. Instead of just saying New York, I say like New York. I moved there four years ago from Minnesota and I'm like, actively involved, trying to get a job in the theater, not as an actor but as a stagehand, because I did that all through high school and I really enjoy working with the backstage. You know lighting and sound systems and those kinds of things. I've offered you about four things whether it's a place like Minnesota, it's New York, it's a new to the town, it's you know, it's an industry, it's a hobby, it's a hobby and those kinds of things that somebody else could ask questions about at an observation or anecdote of their own, to sort of build upon the threads that I offered.
Speaker 2:Well, and I was just thinking so, if you were or I'm going to say if I were helping, so if I was coaching someone through this and they were, you know, struggling with this, I would say you know, sit down and write like three or four basic questions that most people ask when they meet you. So you know where are you from, what job do you do? You know the standard questions. And then just practice with yourself riding in the car or when you're taking a shower. Imagine that question and imagine yourself giving someone two threads.
Speaker 1:Two threads is fun really, really you don't need to be. You know a basket full of a dozen options, but one or two, because I don't want to overwhelm somebody like I don't know what to say.
Speaker 2:That's TMI exactly, but there's lots of places that you can have just a few questions in mind that you can practice. Okay, if somebody asked me this, what would I answer? That I could make it more interesting for them and more engaging for them. To have something to come back with. Yeah, and I don't them to have something to come back with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I don't know how much more to say about that.
Speaker 2:Really, I don't think there is.
Speaker 1:And I think, in terms of the just one thing I think you know you hit, sort of what I would urge people to do is just think about what are the three or four most common questions that people will ask you as you walk into a room or walk into work or whatever on a given day how are you, how was your weekend, what do you do and then think of at least one or two threads related to responding to that question. That offers the other person something that they could have a follow-up question, an observation, an anecdote of their own to sort of get that conversation going and rolling and have multiple directions that it could take.
Speaker 2:And it does require work.
Speaker 1:It is. It's not, you know nothing in life. Oh, I won't say nothing.
Speaker 2:Most things are not easy.
Speaker 1:Most things in your life that are going to make your life better are not comfortable. They're not easy, they require a little work, they require a little practice and I think most people think, well, so-and-so is just natural at this, but many times they've practiced, they've learned lessons, they've gotten better at it over time. People are often astounded at the gym when I tell them for most of my life I was a very introverted, quiet, contained person. They're like you're like the most outgoing person that I know in terms of like engaging people and bringing them in and introducing people.
Speaker 2:But that's not your history.
Speaker 1:It's not been my history and it's a bunch of skills that I've thought were important to me, so I found ways to sort of practice those over time so that they become almost a second nature now.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep. So All good stuff and important. Yeah, there may not be a whole lot of research that we can and I'm sure there could have been if we had done the research to offer research, but it's still really, really important.
Speaker 1:Here's the research and why we keep harping on this. There's a longitudinal study that's been done with Harvard graduates since, I think, the late 40s, early 50s, so it's going on 70 years now in terms of what brings people lifetime happiness and satisfaction. Brings people lifetime happiness and satisfaction and the overwhelming the most important thing that people cite is the quality of their relationships and the key to having good relationships is communication Absolutely, and this is just one more skill that can lead to, ultimately, to more happiness satisfaction and it's really a gateway to a lot of things.
Speaker 1:Oh, better jobs better romances everything Better, ability to deal with your children, et cetera. So that's all I have to say, and then we've covered the one thing.
Speaker 2:I think you know, we both have commented on one thing, so I think that we'll try to be a little more regular now with our podcast.
Speaker 1:It's been a while I've been a little negligent, but that's okay. It's fun to talk to you and hopefully offer something that will be useful to you, and so next time this has been Just One Thing.