213: Five Things to Watch for in Your Next Conversation

One thing on my mind lately is a question about the meaningful conversations we sometimes have with friends, and what makes them different from other conversations. I started thinking about this while reading news articles about the Super Bowl played earlier this month.

Meaningful conversations and the Super Bowl don’t quite seem to fit together, but they do in my mind.  Keep listening and I’ll explain the connection in today’s episode, number 213.

Welcome to today’s episode

Maybe they’ve always done this, I don’t know, but it seems that sports journalists lately are using a new format to write about upcoming sporting events. It’s a pattern where the headline states a specific number of things to look for when one team plays another.

Take the recent Super Bowl from a few weeks ago, for example. “Five things to Watch for When the 49ers take on the Kansas City Chiefs” would be a common headline in news stories. Articles like this help the reader focus on specifics of the game coming up.

This makes me think what if we took the same news approach to analyze the conversations we have with the people close to us. I wonder what that would do to enhance our relationships.  Would it make for more meaningful conversations with the people close to us?

I’m going to try this out in today’s episode I’m calling  Five Things to Watch for in Your Next Conversation with a Friend

Here goes. First off, 

Notice if the topic of conversation with your friend is new or is it one that’s been repeated many times before? 

Assuming neither of you are suffering from Alzheimer’s, do you or your friend frequently cover the same ground you’ve gone over many times before? For example, does the topic of conversation drift once again to discussing your body’s aches and pains? My friend Robert calls these “organ recitals.” Or does it go to concern about wayward children? The state of our country or culture? Should I buy brown carpeting or grey carpeting? Things you’ve talked about many, many times before.

Why are some conversations with our friends like this? Is there nothing else on our minds? Are we that shallow?

I don’t think so.

My guess is that people who bring up the same topics over and over again are bound up by the unspoken emotions about those topics. No. 1 on the list would be fear, or one of its cousins, like anxiety. Sadness or regret would not be far behind. They are all close relatives.

We sometimes ruminate over things because we haven’t put words to what we’re feeling about those concerns.  Instead, what if we talked about the emotions riding on the backs of the topics we repeatedly bring up and see where the conversation goes? It will be a lot better than going in a never-ending circle we often go around in.

A second thing to look for that’s important to having meaningful conversations is to notice who does most of the talking.

Notice who does most of the talking 

There are certainly times where a conversation with a friend needs to be all about them. One person should have the floor for the entire time when they are dealing with a recent loss or some unexpected circumstance. But it shouldn’t be a pattern every time you talk.  

I have an extended family relative who is quite a charming extrovert that I only see at extended family gatherings like weddings and funerals. Everyone likes the guy. He holds court with all the relatives and goes on for what seems like hours talking about what’s going on in his life. We know all about him. He knows virtually