Ep06: Deepen the Conversation

On this episode, Mike discusses the process of deepening a conversation. Taking the conversation from small talk to big talk with high quality questions.

---Transcript---

(Intro)
This is the conversation Iq podcast. I'm your host Mike Ford. Are you sick and tired of dealing with social anxiety? Do you want to overcome your fear of feeling awkward or looking silly in social situations? Do you struggle with just saying hello or maybe keeping a conversation going? Well, welcome to our community of communicators where we are on a mission to rid the world of loneliness by sharing tips, tricks, and techniques from some of the world's best conversationalist. Super excited to have you guys on this journey with us. We'll see you on the other side of this episode.

(Episode)
All right, welcome to another episode of the conversation Iq podcast with your host Mike Ford. So the last episode we talked about conversation openers, so if you haven't had a chance to listen, I highly recommend you guys take a look at that. Starting the conversation ladder, breaking the ice tends to be the hardest thing for folks is just getting things started. So we went over the three different types of openers you can use. And again, it's a great place to start to gain the skills needed to start conversation, which is really important. So today we're going to move into the next phase of the conversation ladder, which is deepening the conversation. And that's a step that comes right after breaking the ice. Before we move into really making a connection and really deepen the conversation is going from a small talk, right? So we launched into this small Taco, we're going back and forth kind of superficial top level stuff, and then we start to be able to get a little bit further down below the surface, right?

So the way that that works is it's really important that we understand this way of progressing through conversation. The Ford methodology, sometimes it's called form, but I like it, the Ford methodology, because it's my last name, one I do. It's a good acronym that keep in mind as you're having a conversation. So the F in Ford stands for family, O is occupation, r is recreation. And then the D is dream. You can work your way through each one of those. You don't have to necessarily start with family or occupation or recreation. However you can work your way through different parts of those categories so that way you can start to deepen the conversation. I give you a couple of examples of conversations that I've had in the past and then you know, you guys can be able to essentially through those examples you can start to model what the conversation can look like.

You know, as you're moving through each one of those steps there of the Ford model. So you know, the other day I was in Starbucks sitting down reading and I saw a gentleman who had on like a fire's chief. He was like the chief or the fire department in our city, or at least that's what the shirt said. And the way I broke the ice with them was I basically just said, hey, you know, just wanted to thank you for your service. Basically serving as a firefighter Pharr city. My parents served in uniform and I was in the military for 11 years, but I really admire and appreciate the hard work that you and the other firefighters of the city do. So I just wanted to say thank you. I'm going appreciate your service. They'll response was obviously a positive response because, and there's a couple of things that I'm doing with the opener one, I'm being specific, I'm answering the question, why is this individual talking to me?

The next thing is I'm leaving with a compliment, which by the way, people really appreciate compliments because people are naturally self centered to talk about themselves or to again be affirmed in just someone acknowledging their significant is really important. Right? That's the top of that Maslow's hierarchy of needs where he talks about self actualization. So anything that allows us to contribute to someone's self actualization is really great. Those are some awesome ways to gain in, develop rapport quickly. So I broke the ice starting with a compliment and his response to me during that was, hey, you know, thank you. I really appreciate that is just something that I do. I really enjoy doing it. I just started asking him, how long have you been serving as the fire chief here in the city? He let me know the amount of years he'd been doing it and that he really enjoys doing it.

I was like a couple more followup questions. Right. What was the motivation or the inspiration to pursue a career in firefighting? And he started to tell me about his experience growing up. You told me about, you know, being young and seeing firemen show up at their front cations in their firetrucks and being able to get out and save people's lives and fighting fires and it was something that was exciting for him and he had family that also we're fire fighters and were involved somehow or some form or faction in doing that. A couple of things to keep in mind as you know, I'm talking about this conversation is how much interest I'm taking in the other individual. Right. I'm asking him questions about why did he decide to pursue firefighting? And the way I ask it is what motivated or what interested you, cause I don't want to ask a question.

It sounded like why do you do that? Like you know, like it was a stupid decision, right? It's an awesome decision. And so I want to know what inspired him and what motivated him to want to pursue firefighting. I'm also asking a follow on questions, right? Cause there's a lot of information that he's sharing with me when he's talking about growing up, family members, being firefighters, watching you know, people and saving lives and being able to be a part of that. You know? And he's telling me about his journey, that moment that he caught the bug to want to be a firefighter. So those are what I'm listening for in a conversation. Cause those are things that allow me to ask questions to deepen the conversation. When you start asking about people's occupation and kind of their origin story of how they got started, you're going to start finding out more about family, occupation, recreation, and even their dream.

If you listen deeply, you have to listen, which is really important because most of the time when we're a conversation we have a bad habit. I know I did when I was first learning about, you know, improving my conversation Iq as I spent a lot of time thinking about what I was going to say next versus listening to understand rice. I was listening to respond versus listening to understand, which is really important. So I've taken genuine interests on asking questions about, you know, kind of his origin, how he got started and you know, what inspired or what motivated them. And I'm listening deeply so I can identify other areas where I can start to ask questions. It's really important to that as you are moving into a conversation that you have a purpose behind the conversation. My purpose when I step into any conversation is that I want to get someone to the phase in the conversation where I can elevate and cocreate and I'm gonna work my way through that conversation, a ladder.

And if we have time and no, I'm not getting any of the nonverbal signals that someone is done talking to me, right? Or they have to get somewhere and during the rush or whatever, I'm going to go as far as I can in that ladder to get to the cocreate place. Cause that's where now I can start to be impactful. And there's an opportunity for us to develop a relationship to develop a friendship. So as I continue with the conversation, I take enough interest while I'm asking enough questions to get deeper that he turns around and he will eventually, and this has happened, you know, eight out of 10 times where I ask enough questions or I take enough interest into someone where that person turns around and asks, what about you? You know, what's your story? What's your deal? You know, I now have a chance to start to share a little bit about me and now we're moving into the next phase of conversation.

That's a very quick look into how to deepen a conversation, right? Asking questions, take genuine interest in someone, listened deeply, and then think about for family occupation. And recreational and dream as you're listening to the individual because those are the things you can ask questions to get deeper in and really it's not terribly difficult. I think the biggest challenge when it comes to it is being able to identify when someone is engaged in a conversation and when they are ready to end the conversation and not taking any of the interaction that you're having with that person. Don't take their responses or the way that they are coming across as anything personal. Because again, the challenges, one of the things that happens and when we step into a conversations, we experienced a spotlight effect and that spotlight effect is you think that that individual knows what is going on, knows that you're, you know, working on your conversation skills, knows that you're moving through the conversation ladder and all that. And the reality is they more appreciate interaction. Anything else, more than half of the world wants to have a conversation. Right? And they're just waiting for the other person to say hello. And that's what you'll find as you step into more conversations as you're increasing your conversational Iq man, as you're working on improving your conversation skills. So that's all I want to share with you guys today. Hopefully there's something in there that you can take and start to implement immediately and I definitely look forward to catch you guys on the next one.

(Outro)
Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Conversation IQ podcast. It's always a pleasure just to spend time and share and to encourage and empower folks to be better conversationalist. If you aren't picking up things that you can implement and you had positive results from that, please share with us. We love to hear about your successes. We'd also like to hear about any challenges you are experiencing so that way we can continue to serve the community. We can continue to provide value and continue to equip you with the tools you need for you to be an awesome conversation list. Please check us out at www.conversationiq.co for an opportunity to be a part of our Facebook group Increasing Conversation IQ. It is www.conversationiq.co we'll see you guys on the next episode.