Be Interested to Be Interesting
Leading psychologist John Dewey discovered one of the most fundamental aspects of people. He found that there is one thing that every person on this earth wants:
Here’s your challenge: Next time you are at an event or out with a friend approach all conversations with one goal: Make whoever you are speaking with feel valued. Try this…
How to be attractive verbally
Ask questions about what they find important
Push their ideas a step further. Ask why and how more than what and when.
Commit to total engagement. I’m totally calling you out on your fake trip to the bathroom, pretending to check your very important email or looking over their head as you talk to them to see who might be more interesting. Stop it! I promise, engaging will make you both interested and interesting.
You can also be attractive nonverbally. You know how much we love our body language research. And studies show that the majority of our communication is actually nonverbal. On the conservative side, studies have found a minimum of 60% (which is still A LOT!) and that goes up to 93%.
How to be attractive nonverbally:
Keep your toes pointed towards the person speaking. I know this seems silly but our brains pick up on people’s foot direction and use it to gauge interest. As you are listening to someone, you can make them feel valued by keeping your toes and torso pointed at them as they speak. It’s kind of like nonverbally telling them, “I’m with you! I hear you! Keep going!” And that is the best compliment you can give someone.
Use a triple nod. Studies have shown (See our list of citations) that people will speak 3 to 4 times longer if you do three slow nods in a row when they have finished speaking. It’s like a nonverbal … So, when someone finishes their statement, look them in the eye and nod three times as if to say, “keep going.” They often will continue and you end up having a much deeper conversation. (And if they don’t it’s no big deal, just take a sip of your drink and ask your next question).
If you try even one of these techniques, all with the goal of making other’s feel important and fighting boredom, you will be amazed at how much more interesting your conversations will be.
How do you know a boring person
1. Boring people have unbalanced conversations.
Instead of finding a rhythm between talking and listening, boring people are on either conversational extreme. Quora user Jack Bennett calls it an "asymmetry in the conversational 'give and take' - e.g. all listening and no talking, or all talking and no listening."
2. Boring people can't tell if people are engaged in the conversation. If you're emphatically boring, you're probably missing the other person's body language. User Garrick Saito argues that what makes a person boring is the "continual blathering and ignoring of signals and body language that say (perhaps not loudly enough) 'I'm not interested in what you're saying, but am nodding every few seconds only to be polite.'" To avoid this, learn how to listen to what people are saying with their bodies .
3. Boring people can't make people laugh. Humor shows "cognitive flexibility" :
the ability to assess an idea or an event from a variety of perspectives, and then, naturally, make light of it. Boring people lack it. "I'm an easy sell," admits Will Wister . "I mean come on let's face it - it's not that hard."
4. Boring people always do the same thing. User Andy Warwick complains of friends who go to the pub every weekend and then subsequently get frustrated when he can't make it out to join them - since he was going to museums, reading books, or hiking around hills. "For me what makes a person boring is living a sedentary life without variety," Warwick says . "Diverse experiences improve one's conversation for those weekends when you do go down the pub. You actually have something to talk about."
5. Boring people don't have an opinion. "Someone who says Hitler was a noble soul and believes it vehemently is not a boring person," says Shrindhi Sondur . "Maybe a nutcase, but not boring." So how do you develop an opinion? By knowing both sides of the argument, says legendary investor Charlie Munger .
6. Boring people don't know how to tell a good story. "To interest someone and to truly engage others, you have to be able to tell a story," says Dave Cheng . "And you have to care about that story. You also have to solicit stories out of others. And you have to care about those stories."
It's a lot like Kurt Vonnegut's advice on writing: "Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about," the "Slaughterhouse Five" author once advised. "It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style."
7. Boring people can't see things from other people's perspectives. "Boring people are usually those who can't (or won't) understand how the conversation is experienced from the other person's perspective," says Drew Austin . "The ability to place oneself in another person's shoes makes someone interesting to talk to." In this way, emotional intelligence is key to conversationality
8. Boring people don't have anything new to add. Research into our brains reveals that we're basically hard-wired to seek novelty. It's a need that's been rattling around evolution for some 800,000 years. The conversational takeaway: If you don't provide anything new to the listener, they're not going to be stimulated. "To me, a boring person is someone from whom I cannot learn anything new," says Stan Hayward . "Thus, it takes time for me to decide someone is really a boring person, though some people give out cues pretty early in a relationship."
9. Boring people don't include anybody in the conversation. What makes someone boring is "the inability to include the others with interest into the conversation," says Marie Holland , "which I feel usually happens when the 'boring' person just wants their point to be told with too much detail that isn't relevant." This goes along with the empathy thing: If you can't figure out that someone in the circle of conversation is feeling left out, you're boring.
Leading psychologist John Dewey discovered one of the most fundamental aspects of people. He found that there is one thing that every person on this earth wants:
To feel important.
Once someone has the basics of food and shelter all they want is to feel cherished, valued and worthy. When we are interested, we are more interesting! Here’s the psychology behind it: If you can make someone feel important by valuing their opinions, time or feelings, and being interested YOU will be attractive and interesting to them.Here’s your challenge: Next time you are at an event or out with a friend approach all conversations with one goal: Make whoever you are speaking with feel valued. Try this…
How to be attractive verbally
Ask questions about what they find important
Push their ideas a step further. Ask why and how more than what and when.
Commit to total engagement. I’m totally calling you out on your fake trip to the bathroom, pretending to check your very important email or looking over their head as you talk to them to see who might be more interesting. Stop it! I promise, engaging will make you both interested and interesting.
You can also be attractive nonverbally. You know how much we love our body language research. And studies show that the majority of our communication is actually nonverbal. On the conservative side, studies have found a minimum of 60% (which is still A LOT!) and that goes up to 93%.
How to be attractive nonverbally:
Keep your toes pointed towards the person speaking. I know this seems silly but our brains pick up on people’s foot direction and use it to gauge interest. As you are listening to someone, you can make them feel valued by keeping your toes and torso pointed at them as they speak. It’s kind of like nonverbally telling them, “I’m with you! I hear you! Keep going!” And that is the best compliment you can give someone.
If you try even one of these techniques, all with the goal of making other’s feel important and fighting boredom, you will be amazed at how much more interesting your conversations will be.
How do you know a boring person
1. Boring people have unbalanced conversations.
Instead of finding a rhythm between talking and listening, boring people are on either conversational extreme. Quora user Jack Bennett calls it an "asymmetry in the conversational 'give and take' - e.g. all listening and no talking, or all talking and no listening."
2. Boring people can't tell if people are engaged in the conversation. If you're emphatically boring, you're probably missing the other person's body language. User Garrick Saito argues that what makes a person boring is the "continual blathering and ignoring of signals and body language that say (perhaps not loudly enough) 'I'm not interested in what you're saying, but am nodding every few seconds only to be polite.'" To avoid this, learn how to listen to what people are saying with their bodies .
3. Boring people can't make people laugh. Humor shows "cognitive flexibility" :
the ability to assess an idea or an event from a variety of perspectives, and then, naturally, make light of it. Boring people lack it. "I'm an easy sell," admits Will Wister . "I mean come on let's face it - it's not that hard."
4. Boring people always do the same thing. User Andy Warwick complains of friends who go to the pub every weekend and then subsequently get frustrated when he can't make it out to join them - since he was going to museums, reading books, or hiking around hills. "For me what makes a person boring is living a sedentary life without variety," Warwick says . "Diverse experiences improve one's conversation for those weekends when you do go down the pub. You actually have something to talk about."
5. Boring people don't have an opinion. "Someone who says Hitler was a noble soul and believes it vehemently is not a boring person," says Shrindhi Sondur . "Maybe a nutcase, but not boring." So how do you develop an opinion? By knowing both sides of the argument, says legendary investor Charlie Munger .
6. Boring people don't know how to tell a good story. "To interest someone and to truly engage others, you have to be able to tell a story," says Dave Cheng . "And you have to care about that story. You also have to solicit stories out of others. And you have to care about those stories."
It's a lot like Kurt Vonnegut's advice on writing: "Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about," the "Slaughterhouse Five" author once advised. "It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style."
7. Boring people can't see things from other people's perspectives. "Boring people are usually those who can't (or won't) understand how the conversation is experienced from the other person's perspective," says Drew Austin . "The ability to place oneself in another person's shoes makes someone interesting to talk to." In this way, emotional intelligence is key to conversationality
8. Boring people don't have anything new to add. Research into our brains reveals that we're basically hard-wired to seek novelty. It's a need that's been rattling around evolution for some 800,000 years. The conversational takeaway: If you don't provide anything new to the listener, they're not going to be stimulated. "To me, a boring person is someone from whom I cannot learn anything new," says Stan Hayward . "Thus, it takes time for me to decide someone is really a boring person, though some people give out cues pretty early in a relationship."
9. Boring people don't include anybody in the conversation. What makes someone boring is "the inability to include the others with interest into the conversation," says Marie Holland , "which I feel usually happens when the 'boring' person just wants their point to be told with too much detail that isn't relevant." This goes along with the empathy thing: If you can't figure out that someone in the circle of conversation is feeling left out, you're boring.
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