How To Start Meaningful Conversations

By Ralph Jean-Paul

Have you ever been in a room where you didn’t know anybody and it seemed like everyone knew everyone else? If you look close enough you’d probably notice that there are a few people who may not know anybody else but are somehow making their way around the room and socializing with a number of different people. The ability to start a meaningful conversation is a unique and valuable skill to have. The good news is that anybody can learn and master this skill. The bad news is that most people believe that they can’t learn how to start conversations effectively. Fortunately for you, you’re not one of those people. Even if you are, I’m going to give you some foolproof ways to successfully start a conversation. Whether you are in a networking meeting, café, or just walking down the street, people are everywhere and now it’s time to master how to meet them.

Before you Begin

Before we get started, I’d like you to understand a few things. First, I have a lot of information on gaining social success so I’ll be breaking them down in a number of different articles. I suggest you Bookmark this site if you haven’t already because I have a lot more information on this topic. Second, I also suggest that after you read this you read my post called “Be a Presence in Any Room”. It will help become more confident and help you establish your presence whenever you are meeting new people. Third, remember that starting a conversation is just the beginning to becoming more socially active, a better networker, and a people driven leader. Conversation is the best way to connect and communicate with other people. So once you’ve mastered how to begin a conversation properly, you are well on your way to success.

The Right Note

Nothing is worse than a negative comment in a positive atmosphere. I like going to social gatherings, parties, and network events. These types of events are designed to bring people together usually to have a good time and interact. Even though that purpose should be clear to just about everyone in the room, there are usually a few people who don’t quite seem to understand that concept. They are the ones that will try to break the ice with a negative remark or a bad attempt to be funny. Whenever I meet someone and some of the first words out of their mouth are comments about the food, organizer/host(s), or anything else they don’t like, I think “man, where is this conversation going?” Then I quickly try to change the subject or plan my escape. Don’t be that person that people are running from! Try to start every conversation off in a positive note.

Most likely the atmosphere you are in is a social and positive one, so try to match the mood of the room. Another advantage to starting a conversation off on a positive note is that it helps lift the mood of the other person you are talking to. If you are in a long line at the DMV, bank, or grocery store, all it takes is someone to say something that makes people smile and the entire mood of the people around them shifts.

The Journalist Approach

Many books have been written about the right way to network and meet people. I’m willing to bet just about all of them suggest that asking questions is the best way to start and keep a conversation going. I do agree with that but I’m going to take it a little farther than that. Asking questions in a conversation can be a good lead into a great discussion or it can end up being a boring interview. Journalists operate under one mandate, ‘ask the right questions’. Flinging questions at someone with the intention of starting a meaningful conversation is a disaster waiting to happen.

When you take the journalist approach, you increase your chances of engaging in a meaningful and memorable conversation. When you ask questions, make sure you allow the person you are talking to a chance to reveal more about themselves. Questions that have a yes, no, or I don’t know answers are a dead end road. In the beginning stages of a conversation, these types of questions will let you understand the person you are talking to better.

-Thoughts on the event or occasion.

-Opinions.

-Reasons for attending .

-Who they are associated with and how they are acquainted.

-Past experiences at similar places or events.

-What other interest do they have?

-Why are they interest in those types of activities?

The way a question is asked is just as important as what the question is. Lighthearted open ended questions that have the person mentally searching for an answer that is just as clever as the question was, can be the one thing that set you apart from the other people that person will meet. Try to find interesting and unique ways to ask the same type of question.

Meet Me In The Middle

Conversations are pointless unless two people connect. Let’s say you call your credit card company to try to resolve an issue. You may be on the phone for 20 minutes with the operator but you wouldn’t consider that a conversation would you? Of course not and you shouldn’t. Meaningful conversations always involve a connection and connections usually involve common ground. The best way to connect with a new person is to find a common ground that you both share and meet there. The sooner you both find something that you have in common, the sooner you can start building a connection.

This practice is lost at networking meetings. Most people at networking meeting are more concerned about getting business cards out and not focused on the individuals that are being handed those same cards. The most effective networkers that I know are the ones who can connect quickly with a new person. Taking an interest in the other person and then finding a common ground is skill that can instantly initiate rapport.

Be Interesting

Ok so you’ve got your questions, you’ve got common ground, now what? The beginning of a conversation is the easiest time to end the conversation. This is because no real relationship potential has yet been established. People talk to other people in passing all the time and nothing comes of it. When you are starting a conversation in any situation, questions are not enough. In order for you to continue the conversation you must say something worth listening to. Most people will be eager to continue a conversation with you if you are funny, intelligent, or engaging enough to keep their interest. Would you stay in a conversation with someone if their reply to every statement you made was, “yup”? I hope not.

Being knowledgeable, witty, and charismatic is a big advantage when starting a conversation. But you don’t have to make them die laughing or be totally captivating in order to slam dunk a new conversation. But you have to have something interesting to say. I once started a conversation with a mortgage broker at a networking meeting. The conversation was going fine until I asked her opinion about the condition of the market.

“It’s bad man, it’s bad”, she said.

Is that all you have to say? I knew that since the real estate market was her specially, and she had almost nothing to say about it, the conversation was going nowhere. That is the effect of not having anything interesting to plug into your conversations. One day an elderly man struck up a conversation with me at a park and he was a wealth of information, stories, and experiences.

Our conversation was a great exchange of thoughts and ideas. I enjoyed hearing what he had to say because he had interesting conversation topics. His ability to switch from one interesting topic to the next kept our conversation moving. Here are some things you can do to help you find more interesting topics to talk about.

-Read, read, read. The more knowledge you have the more you can share.

-Daily news, weather, and sports. Most people talk about at least one of these topics every day. If you know about them, talk about them. But be sure to have something interesting to say about them. Don’t just report them. That’s what news anchors are for.

-Take information with you. Take something you learned from one conversation to the next.

-A joke a day. Find something that makes you laugh online, in a magazine, or on TV and share it with at least one time in your conversations (if you have the opportunity to work them in).

Starting a successful conversation is an art that is not hard to learn. Like most things in life conversations usually follow a pattern or formula. Start applying these techniques today and begin to see a difference in your social and professional life.

Creative marketing impacts the world

How can you grab the worlds attention ????

Liking It is Not a Requirement
By Jerry Clark

I once spoke with a gentleman who was a 54-year old Sales Manager for a major U.S. Computer Company. He had never been in Network Marketing but
was highly considering it for the first time.

He said, “Jerry, I was in London last month on a business trip. A business associate over there gave me a magazine that was published in
the U.K. and I saw an article you wrote in it. I didn’t know who you were but I read your article and really got a lot from it. Then I heard
you on a radio show when I got back to the U.S., and I thought that was a sign that I should contact you. Over the past 25 years, at least a
dozen people have approached me about Network Marketing, but I have never been able to see myself as a distributor.”

I asked him what interested him about it now, and he said, “Retirement. Based on my investment portfolio and my income I know I won’t be able to
retire and continue to live the lifestyle that my wife and I are accustomed to. And based on my research, it appears this thing I’ve been
avoiding all these years - Network Marketing - is our best chance to be able to set ourselves up financially within the next 6-8 years. But I
just don’t like doing the things that I’ve been hearing that I would have to do in order to make it work.”

I laughed and said, “Great! Welcome to the crowd.”
He was puzzled.

I told him that one of the best parts about building a Network Marketing business is the fact that you don’t have to like it to do it. There was

silence on the phone and I knew he was confused so I continued.

I asked him how long he had been in the workforce. He said over 30 years.

I then made the following statement to him: “Are you telling me that over the last 30 years you actually liked waking up in the morning to an
electronic rooster ringing in your ear? Did you like rushing in the morning to get into traffic and breathe in the exhaust pipe fumes that
came from other cars? Did you like working with a bunch of negative people who were constantly engaged in office politics? Did you like
being told when you could take a lunch break, take a vacation, how often you could get sick, and how much money you were worth? Did you actually
like telling your four children that they couldn’t get the toys they wanted and deserved? Did you like telling your wife that you couldn’t
take the vacation that you all deserved and desired? Did you like being bossed around by someone who was less competent than you were?”

I went on a tangent for at least another minute or two with this type of questioning. I finished by saying, “I didn’t like a lot of what I had to
do, but I knew I wasn’t going to like doing all that corporate stuff for 30 or 40 years either. So I figured if I was going to do something I
didn’t like, I may as well do it for a shorter period of time. That’s why I chose Network Marketing.

“Today I’m a 32 year old guy who lives in a 7,000 sq. ft. home, travels the equivalent of five trips around the world each year, associates with
positive, uplifting and pumped up people, and wakes up when I’m done sleeping to a beautiful view of trees and the sounds of the waterfall
crashing down on my swimming pool. I figured if I was going to do something I didn’t like, I may as well do it for a shorter period of time.

“So my friend, you can go ahead and spend the next 6-8 years of your life doing something you don’t like and end up flat broke, or you can

spend the next 6-8 years of your life doing something you don’t like and set yourself up for life. Nevertheless, don’t be surprised if you start
to not only like Network Marketing, but also love it. It’s your life and it’s your choice.”

By the time the call ended, the guy was in tears. I think he got the point.
——————————

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Jerry Clark became a self-made millionaire while still in his 20’s. Today, through his company Club Rhino, Inc., he conducts personal and
professional development seminars around the World. http://www.clubrhino.com/
 


–
The single greatest attribute of a soldier is not strength, it’s not courage.  Rather it is ENDURANCE”
                - Napoleon

If you don’t know what you want,you won’t know when you’ve gotten it

Posted Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 09:29 by Sarah Winfrey in Life Hacks

When it comes to your life, what do you want? How does your money fit into that?

If you can’t answer these two questions, you won’t ever know when you’ve been successful. In fact, it might be worse than that: you might achive what you thought you wanted, or what all of your friends want, and suddenly realize that it doesn’t satisfy. In order to make sure you’re going the right direction for you, it’s important to figure out what you want from your life (to find your definition of “success”).

Why it Works

We’re all going after something. That’s part of being alive. As long as we’re living and acting, we are headed towards something. Even if we don’t want to live, we’re going towards our goal (yes, death is a goal!). Our lives are going somewhere. We’re caught up in the stream of living and we’ll end up somewhere.

Luckily for us, we have some say about where we can end up. Sure, we all die in the end, but we have the abilitiy to decide what is important and make choices towards that end. If you’re saying, “Sure, Sarah, we all know that. Make this entry worth reading, already!” then tell me what you’re living for. Go ahead, tell me what your life’s goal is. Tell me why you’re on this earth and how all the different parts of your life fit into that.

If you can do that, you’re ahead of most of us. Deciding what we want, what we’re about, takes a lifetime of deliberate, focused introspection. But we can figure out different parts of this whole at different times in our lives, and we can live deliberately towards them.

How it Works

If you’re not sure how to get started in this process, here is a process that helps.

1. Take out a blank sheet of paper. In 10 minutes, list as many things as possible that you have not done, that you would regret not doing if you died tonight. To the best of your ability, don’t stop writing and don’t censor or even think too hard about anything. Just write. You might find some crazy things coming out the end of your pen, and that’s ok. Let them be.

2. Read your list. Notice any internal reactions you have to different items on the list. Note these in the margins next to your list so you can remember them later.

3. Step away from the project for 3-7 days, except to read your list once a day. This lets the list percolate in your mind. Often, writing down our desires brings to the forefront things that we haven’t thought about in a while, or voices things we avoid voicing any other time. It can take us a few days to become accustomed to these thngs being a reality in our lives. We learn to accept, “Yes, I am the person whose life won’t feel complete if I never help the refugees in Darfur,” or, “Yup, I’m the busy entrepreneur who really wants a desk job so I can spend more time with my kids before they leave home.”

4. Come back to the project and read the list again. Note any internal reactions that have changed as you let the ideas percolate.

5. Start pulling the different items on your list together and write a statement that encompasses what you’re about. In the beginning, this can be a list of more general cateogories that cover all of the items on your list. For instance, my list would containg such items as “helping people grow” and “working with groups to help them better understand and support each other.” My larger category might be, “working with people, as individuals and in groups, to help them better understand and support the growing process in themselves and others. Eventually, this statement will be less like a list and more like a sentence or two, but the list is fine to start.

6. Write down and commit to one step you can take this week! today! right now! to help move your life more in line with your statement. Make sure that this is small enough to be achievable and is something you can maintain.

7. Repeat stps 3-6 until you have a statement that feels right. Most people know when they’ve hit on the one that’s right for them. It moves many to tears, but some also feel joy or peace when they find it. Continue with the small goals until your life looks like what you want it to be.

8. Live the life you’ve designed. Achieve your definition of success.

Leadership

     Working with thousands of leaders during the past 21 years in the global economy, I have found that most of them don’t have a clue. They may know to some extent how to do business on a global level. But to exert the right kind of leadership on that level eludes them; so when I first meet them, they’re usually getting the wrong results or the right results in the wrong ways.Of course, there are many successful global companies and leaders, but my experiences teach that they are successful not because of but in spite of their leadership activities. MORE>>

I know there are many out there that are no longer connected to the vision of what Citizenre is working towards and what it will mean to our country in the future. Delay can take the wind out of the sails and life can pull us onto the next thing, whatever that may be. As the regional director of Texas, I have seen many ups and downs that come from enthusiasm turned into something less fun and motivating. The hurry up and wait not only lives in the army, it also lives in the world of business. Any place that you find many people working towards a common complicated goal you will find a starting process not unlike a train as it jerks and jolts leaving the station. It is both “not fun” and also kind of “they way it goes in the beginning.” No matter how hard everybody tries to make it glide down the tracks. This is certainly amplified when everything has to be kept “TOP SECRET”.

Some of you have quit, some are waiting, and some have used this time to build teams that reach across the country. All of these choices are individual and what you wanted to do and that’s great.

I am writing to you now asking for you to think about what turned you on to what we are doing here. What part of it interested you? Was it saving the planet? Was it adding to your retirement or retiring early? Who was it who told you about the business? Were they excited? Were you?

Well, we had a meeting the other day with corporate and the RSD’s . Top secret stuff. Signed paperwork and all that just to be at the meeting.
and they told us ((( THE PLAN ))).

If you have been building your business all along ,you can skip this part. If you have been waiting to see what is going to happen or were turned off by the rampant conspiracy theories abounding the the forums it is now time to open an eye and take a peek to what is going on. Not both eyes, just one. That’s all you will need to get your bearings and figure out your next move.

I can’t tell you any details (I am certain that is a surprise) but I will tell you that when most of you signed up thinking this was a fantastic blend of making a living while participating in an environmental revolution, you were right and ….well….probably a few months early.

All of the RSD’s heard about what we will be announcing and doing in the next few months on a conference call. It was so big that after Rob told us what to expect and the magnitude and impact that Citizenre was going to have, there was dead silence on the phone from the regional Directors. No words ….but you could hear the smiles. It was an amazing plan and the pieces are finally coming together.

The time is near . It is not tomorrow or next week but it is time to start tuning in to the news of what is going on. If you have not taken the new test I would suggest you do so and maybe show up on a regional call or two. Touch base with your sponsor and the other people on your team if you have not in a while. I think the early birds should get the worm but that will be up to you. I will be sending you out an email like this one. Once or twice a week. My goal is to make it an action packed short read. No spam. If it doesn’t have value I will not put it in.

If you are receiving this from me, you are on my team and so are the people you sponsored and the people who sponsored you. I am committed to everybody on my team finding success in this process and I am here to support you in any way I can. The team web page is the first resource to use. I now have a detailed getting started page and team training calls are around the corner.

Send this email on to your team and have them register for this newsletter. Anybody can unsubscribe any time. Here is the link

Remember “Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.“ and not everything is what it initially seems.

Here is a wonderful moving video about perception , reality and possibility.

Thanks for your time

Tim Padden

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others“

Marianne Williamson

This is Ryan talking about how he began with Citizenre on the National call.

Good history (7:00 min)

LISTEN