The Art of Active Listening-Listening Skills

Here’s a quick excerpt from the book that I’m currently working on right now.

The Art of Listening: I once told my friend Edward about a good friend of ours that never seemed to have great listening skills. I remember telling Ed “Man, he’s such a horrible listener. All he does is just want to get his own input in. He’ll talk for like half an hour, and then when I need two minutes of his time, he can’t even give it.”

Ed listened to me sympathetically. I remember about a month later, Ed and I were having a conversation on the phone. “Hey you know how you mentioned that he can’t seem to listen, I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN NOW…all he does is talk and talk, and then he just seems to ignore me when I say something, or he’ll let me talk for like a minute and then he’ll go on tangent again.” I wish I could say that this is not a common pitfall in conversations, but active listening doesn’t happen as often as I would like. In this case it can be quite understood why

Art of Conversation- Introducing People with Style.

Hi Everyone, it’s Vincent again back with another Art of Conversation blog.  So in this particular blog I wanted to talk about introducing people with style so that not only will it make the other person look good, but it will also make you look good as well. And any time you can kill two birds with one stone, I highly suggest that you do. Now what I’m about to share with you is meant to be used in social settings, such as parties, casual and fun networking events, at bars or lounges, and generally wouldn’t be advised for serious places of business.

Let’s say you’re at a party…you’re going with a person you’ve known for a while. You see another friend there, and you invite him or her to come on over and meet the two of you. There are a few options here.

1. Introduce the two people generically

The Art of Conversation- Start Small

I find that there’s always opportunities to practice conversation no matter where you go, or where you are in life. And I hear from a lot of people how hard it is to make small chat with people they don’t know, or they’re not too sure what kind of topic to mention. Sometimes putting that pressure on yourself to have meaningful conversations with everybody can be really tough.

So that’s why it’s good not to overwhelm yourself…and start off with the basics.

A good foundation when starting off will eventually lead

The Art of Conversation- Questions Rephrased.

The Art of Conversation: Questions Rephrased

Hi Everyone, this is Vincent here again, I hope you’re all out there practicing conversation. I’m also hoping that you’re finding the blogs and the bits and pieces of information useful. So this particular entry is one that people seem to have trouble with which is how to do you engage someone with the questions you’ve asked. I’ve found that there’s a really simple answer, but it takes a little work to execute.

Generally how people are is that they’ve been asked some of the same questions their whole life,

The Art of Conversation- 3 Minute Rule

This is Vincent Ng again, with the new post!

I just finished teaching my last class for this term’s course at the Vancouver School Board. And am looking forward to the next term to teach my course, Art of Conversation. Anyway, some people ask me how to start conversations, and a lot of people ask how do you transition from one topic to another, but mostly it seems like people get discouraged from pushing their conversation forward.

Starting a conversation is never easy, it’s rather difficult, and then trying to continue the conversation after the first minute is hard too. But what I’ve found is that people can be really hesitant at first to talk to you (especially under situations like the grocery market, book store and so forth) , and so sometimes the best thing to do is to continue the conversation even if you are uncomfortable. Your feet may want to walk away, but you have to keep your feet planted. Mentally you have to be in the uncomfort zone.  I find that 90 percent of people will never talk to a random stranger on the street…and then what ends up happening is that even fewer  will push beyond the first minute of talking. It’s just too much pressure.

One of the rules that I’ve found happen when talking to strangers in places is to push to

The Art of Conversation-Conversation Tips (Breakfast Television)

This is an interview that I did for a dating company I work for called Man Meets Woman on Breakfast Television in Vancouver. It gives some helpful tips on how to have conversations, a good structure of talking and so forth. I hope you enjoy.

I’m also in the works for finishing up my second editing of my book. If you’re looking for tips on how to be a great conversationalist, then this book is great. It will teach you the Art of Conversation, and there are a lot of exercises to help you practice conversation.
Feel free to e-mail me: conversationarts@gmail.com

The Art of Conversation- The Put Down, Big No No

style=”float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-top:5px; border:1px grey solid” class=”alignnone size-medium wp-image-8″ title=”conversations-4-square ” src=”http://conversationarts.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/conversations-4-square.jpg?w=284″ alt=”conversations-4-square” width=”284″ height=”300/>Ever have a conversation that went something like this:

Girl: “So what do you do?”

You: (About to speak.)

Bert: “This guy, all he does is sit at home and play video games all day. I mean he’s so lazy his mom still does his laundry.”

You: (Wanting to give him a slap on the face for making you look bad in front of the girl you’re interested in.) Actually, I work with children on developing their confidence through public speaking presentations.

Bert: Yeah presentations on how to chase girls all the time!

I think there have been times when we’ve all met someone like “Bert” in our life. He’s the person that seems to always unintentionally insult us. He often means it as a joke, and then when you mention to him that he should stop, he either says “Can’t you take a joke” or is defensive about the situation because he’s felt like he’s been personally attacked.

I can tell you from personal experience and from having an older brother that I’ve felt insulted from the words he says about me. And it stung, and most of the time out of politeness I bit my tongue. Sometimes it has happened with close friends that I have known for a long time and sometimes it’s from strangers I’ve met for only five minutes. Chances are it happens to you all the time as well.

Let’s look at a few reasons why people do the above scenario. Most of the reasons that people will insult you are because they aren’t even aware of what’s being said.

People will try to insult you because they want to get the approval of the group, and so if they can make the group laugh at your expense they feel like they’re in. It’s the equivalent of roasting someone during a comedy show. And when a group does laugh, they get that validation and therefore may even stack another joke on top of this. This may occur when people are meeting someone new and want to fit into the group as soon as possible.

An example of this might be “Look at Bert girls, what do you think of his pink shirt girls, I mean come on…Pink? I think the metrosexual look was so last year!” The girls might laugh. “Come on man, dress up like a real guy. Seriously, don’t dress like a pansy when you come out!” The girls smile at the insulter.

Remember there’s no need to insult someone to get approval from the group. If you’re a witty person, positive, a good listener and outgoing, you don’t need to put down anybody. .

Sometimes people will insult each other unintentionally because they are competing for a girl or a guy in the group. And in order to do it, they try to make the other one look as bad as possible.

You happen to be out at a party. Your good friend introduces you to someone new. She’s attractive and you strike up a conversation.