Love Life with Matthew Hussey - No More Awkward Silences (My #1 Tip for Amazing Conversations)

Episode Date: February 5, 2016

What’s your biggest fear when you think about striking up a conversation with a man you’re attracted to? That you’ll run out of things to talk about, of course. We all feel that way. In today’s LOVE Life I’m going to give you 3 tips for becoming an amazing conversationalist – including my #1 tip that guarantees you’ll never have another awkward silence again.

Hi, I'm Matthew Hussey. Welcome to Love Life. It's a privilege to be able to offer you bite-sized bits of advice on this podcast that you can use every day. But what if you're ready for a big transformation and you want to do it now? You want to reinvent your career or finally find lasting love or break free from the self-doubt that's holding you back from living the abundant life you were meant to live. If you're saying, yes, Matt, that's me, I'm going to tell you exactly how to do just that at the end of today's show. So make sure you stay tuned. First, let's get to today's episode. Awkward silences. Let's talk about those. We all have them. We've all been prone to them in the past. It's one of the reasons that we get afraid of going into conversation in the first place is

we're incredibly concerned that at some point we're going to run out of things to say. The truth is the reason we have awkward silences is because we over censor ourselves. We get incredibly worried about saying the wrong thing. Now I think of this kind of in the same way as I think of writer's block. When a writer gets writer's block, what it really comes down to is they're overly censoring themselves. That's where writer's block comes from. It comes from trying to be a perfectionist about what you're writing. And one of the greatest ways to get over writer's block is to lower the standard for what you're writing down. Stephen King said, write for the waste paper bin. In other words, just write for the trash can. And if you do that, you'll be able to get words on the page. And of course, the intelligent thing about that notion is once you start getting words on the page, you start to get into a flow state. Once you've written down 10 bad ideas, you actually have a good shot at stumbling across an 11th idea, which is a good idea. Now, the same is true in conversation. The reason we

don't want to do that is because we don't want to say 10 stupid things in order to say one intelligent thing. But of course, how do you start getting more witty? How do you start getting better in conversation, thinking of more interesting subjects to talk about, getting more natural in the way you flow in conversation? It's by having more conversations that are of better quality. But in order to get to quality, you have to actually start going for quantity. In other words, get your practice in. So Christopher Hitchens, one of my big idols, he said, be a self-publisher even in conversation. So most people, by the way, are a self-editor in conversation. They just self-edit the entire time and they never actually get to publish it. If you see someone you're attracted to, if you see someone that you know would benefit your life to

go and talk to, go and talk to them. Don't self-edit before you've even gone over there. Actually go to self-publish, go to talk to them. And if all else fails, if you can't think of anything to say, I have one quick cure for you. And that's to get intensely curious about whatever area you want, whatever area they know about, whatever situation you're in. Be curious about life. People who are intensely curious about life never struggle in conversation because even if they don't have much knowledge in an area, they know how to ask a question. And the best way to ask a question is earnestly. If you were to come across someone who knew far more about art than you did and you knew nothing about art, so what are you going to say?

You're getting writer's block. You don't know what to say that isn't going to sound like you're ignorant about art. Here's what you do. You come up with a question that might be the most obvious thing in the world. What does everyone who doesn't know anything about art know about? Well, they know that the Mona Lisa exists. So here would be an interesting question. If I know nothing about art, I would be thinking to myself, why is it that with all the art out there, the Mona Lisa is this piece that we all know? Now, isn't that an interesting question to ask someone? Someone who knows about art appreciates the fact that you're not saying it in a dumb way where you're going, what's the big deal about the Mona Lisa? Because that does make you sound like an idiot.

But if you ask it in that earnest way of saying, really, I'm asking, I'm so curious. Why is it that that is disproportionately more known than any other piece of art? Now you're getting somewhere. So that's how to have great conversations. Don't self-edit, self-publish. In order to avoid that writer's block, lower your standard in the beginning for what you say and then correct and improve later on and if all else fails get curious now if you said earlier yes matt i'm ready for a big life transformation now then i want to invite you to apply for my retreat program. Now, spots are limited, but if you're accepted onto the

program, I'll lead you through a series of powerful coaching sessions and enlightening exercises that will remove every barrier standing in between you and the extraordinary life you deserve. You'll walk away with a practical set of tools to achieve the career, love, balance, and fulfillment you've always wanted. To claim your spot for a phone interview with one of my expert mentors, just go to lovelifepodcast.com forward slash retreat. Take care and I'll speak to you soon.