Page 29 - Effective communication Skills by Dale King

understanding. Real conversations give you a place for learning, and it helps

to promote the deepening and nurturing of relationships. The most important
of all is that real conversations feed our souls in ways that many other things
can’t.

So, improving your ability to grow, maintain, and create real conversations is
a skill that needs to be practiced, whether you are coming from it as a friend,
spouse, child, colleague, or parent. One habit that can help you to nurture a
real conversation in any area of your life is curiosity.

Curiosity tends to be associated with children or highly creative adults. But

curiosity is an important and fundamental quality that is needed for anybody
interested in lifelong learning. There are four areas in conversations that
curiosity helps with.

1. When curious, we ask questions.

Alright, who are the most curious humans on Earth? Kids. What is that they
do ad nauseam? Ask questions. What is it that will keep interactions with

others from developing into a conversation? No questions.

When you have a conversation and you say something and they say
something but no questions are asked, you might experience an exchange, but
it doesn’t go much deeper than that, does it? If you really want to stimulate
the conversation, don’t just create points and opinions, instead create
questions about things that you would like to learn. If you ever start feeling
like you are talking too much, shift the conversation and ask them a question.

2. When curious, we listen for the answers.

Asking questions may be important, but having a barrage of questions thrown
at you can feel like an inquisition. What takes us from an inquisition to a
conversation is that after you ask a question, shut up, and listen. If you really
want to learn the answer, you will listen for their response because you want
to know. The main reason why real conversations are able to improve

relationships is that they require a person to actively listen.

3. When curious, we are interested.

Curiosity is what drives interest. Think about classes you did well in while in
school and those you didn’t. What was the difference? My guess is you found