Some occupations come with a natural tendency for lots of conversation.
Hairdressers, taxi-drivers and other industries put you in a situation where a service is being performed for a significant portion of time while the customer waits. Rather than dead air, it’s common courtesy to have a chat.
I still remember a conversation I had with a taxi-driver 10 years ago. We was a political refugee, but seemed rather calm about the fact. At the time I was engaged to wed, and when he found this out he became extremely animated. He implored me with all his heart to not get married, warning me it was a terrible idea. Even as I paid and was exiting the cab, he was nearly begging me to promise him that I wouldn’t marry.
It was a memorable conversation! What a heavy discussion to have with someone who was both a stranger before I met him and someone who I would never meet again.
“You may be forced into a conversation but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be rewarding.”
We never know the seeds a conversation will plant. It’s sometimes a message in a bottle, a thought that bobs around in the ocean of our mind until one day it turns up on a shore somewhere.
When we talk all day or when we’re in a situation where conversation is forced, the temptation is to go into a default mode. We pick light filler topics, trying to avoid uncomfortable silences. But we act like we don’t want to pierce the surface of who someone is.
Yes, you may be forced into a conversation but that doesn’t mean it shouldn't be rewarding.
We may not share our deepest darkest secrets every time we walk into a salon, but there’s nothing stopping us having a gripping conversation. You are talking to someone with a lifetime that you are unaware of. And you have 15 minutes to see a piece of that, or even be a piece of that.
When the options are that broad, we can sometimes struggle to pinpoint a starting point. So have some conversation starters up your sleeve. The conversation will soon reveal itself.
If you are in one of these professions, you’ll be a regular highlight in the day of your customers. A good conversation leaves people buzzing.
If you are a customer, be the standout conversation of the day when your service-provider has been grinded down by mediocre conversations all day.
Let’s Talk.
New year’s resolutions are more successful when you start them in March.