205: How to Have a Meaningful Conversation

To deepen our current relationships, or to develop new ones, it’s helpful to ask ourselves an important question. Namely, “How do I have a meaningful conversation with someone?” Today’s episode will give you a few ideas to help you answer this question.

But before we get into today’s episode, here’s what this podcast is all about. 

 Welcome to You Were Made for This

If you find yourself wanting more from your relationships, you’ve come to the right place. Here you’ll discover practical principles you can use to experience the life-giving relationships you were made for.

I’m your host, John Certalic, award-winning author and relationship coach, here to help you find more joy in the relationships God designed for you.

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A meaningful conversation with my barber

One way to find this joy God designed for us is to consider how we can have meaningful conversations with people. “Meaningful” doesn’t necessarily have to mean “deep.” If you listened to the episode prior to this one, #204, you may recall the woman on the NextDoor app who posted that she wanted to have 40 “deep conversations” before she turned 40.

As it turns out she was really looking for 40 people to sign up for her life coaching business.  I heard from some of you that you were angry with the woman for misleading people like this.

Now I’m going to save deep conversations for another time, and I have no life coaching advice for anyone. Well, except for one thing. Grown men over 60 should tuck their shirts in when out in public. It will keep your mom happy, if she’s still alive. It will honor her legacy if she’s no longer with us. That’s the extent of my life coaching advice for today.

As for meaningful conversations, they don’t have to be deep in order to derive a measure of joy from them. And you don’t always have to create them, because sometimes they just come to you like a stray dog or cat who appears on your doorstep and welcomes themself in.

For example, several years ago I was sitting in the chair in a barber shop when my barber, Paul, asked me what I was going to do the rest of the day when I was done with my haircut.

“Stain my deck this afternoon,” I said.

“I’ve been putting it off because I don’t like being on my knees putting the stain on with a paintbrush. But the job needs to be done.”

The most meaningful conversation I had that day

Paul then said, “You know they make special brushes for putting down stain on decks. They’re about 6 inches wide and an inch and a half thick. You screw any standard-size pole, like you use for a broom, into a hole in the brush. This allows you to dip the brush into the pail of stain and put it down on the wood without ever bending down or kneeling. Most hardware stores carry this kind of brush.”

After my haircut I went straight to a nearby hardware store, bought the kind of brush Paul described, and started staining my deck just as Paul described. What was once a burdensome task now became something quite easy. All because of this meaningful conversation while sitting in a barber’s chair.

The meaning in my conversation with Paul is that he shared something that made my life better. He shared the knowledge and experience he had to ease a difficulty in my life. It wasn’t a deep conversation by any means, but it brought me joy in knowing how to complete a task in a new and less painful way. It really lifted my spirits. 

To have this