Have you ever been stuck in an English conversation? You have an English speaking person in front of you. But suddenly you run out of things to talk about. So then you start getting a little tense. And you start thinking about possible questions or topics that you could start speaking about with this person. But the more you try and the more your think, the more tense the situation becomes, the more anxious and nervous you get on the conversation tends to get weirder and more uncomfortable.

I suffered this problem for years. I would be standing in front of a person and suddenly I would run out of ideas. Guess what to say, if we didn't have a pre planned objective, or a business conversation to have or a meeting or a specific thing to discuss and to agreed, I wouldn't know what to say. And that made me very nervous or uncomfortable. So if you can relate with this, don't worry. It's very simple to fix this issue.

It's very simple for you to have an infinite conversation with anyone. So today, let's learn precisely that. How to have continuous conversation. Now, I long more than 10 years of teaching English. Most of my students are professional people, business owners or people that work in multinational companies that have global roles. I think I've met and taught hundreds, if not thousands of people like this And something that really surprised me was how many of them share a common problem with me.

They say that they feel confident when they have to speak about business. They're comfortable speaking out their area of expertise. But when it came time to share a taxi, or a plane, or they were having dinner together with a foreign colleague, and they had to make relaxed social English conversation with these people. They all mentioned how uncomfortable that made them feel, how blocked they felt. And I mean, if you're stuck with a person for two hours, having dinner, and you don't have a lot of things to talk about. That's not a good situation to be in, right.

So let's forget about the usual click che boring, horrible topics of conversation such as, huh? How's the weather today? What's the weather like in your country? Ah, how about those snakes? Right? Chicago Bulls is doing great.

These are good questions later on in the conversation. If you find that the person likes basketball, football, American football, soccer, whatever. That's a great topic of conversation to connect. But as a general open question to anyone, don't talk about family. Don't start talking about sports. Don't start talking about the cliche, things that everybody talks about.

That only makes the conversation more monotonous. And you're not getting anything productive about it, nor the other person is. So how can you keep a conversation going? in a way that's exciting beneficial positive and nice for you to have and for the other person to enjoy. Okay, so this is what you need to do to make sure that you never run out of topics of conversation. Are you ready?

Tip number one. I love this tip become a renaissance man. You know the Renaissance, right? The stage in human history where everything was reborn. There's new life. Everybody's creating new art, new currents of thinking, of painting, of creating music of everything.

That's the key. Why don't you become interested in absolutely everything that exists. Of course, you don't need to be passionate about all but you could be all pens. I'm interested to learn things outside of your realm of experience. This is what I call becoming a renaissance man and Renaissance woman. So when people talk to you about their profession, if it's nothing related to you, instead of just disregarding it unconsciously, like, Oh, that's cool and changing the topic to something you're interested in.

Start trying to learn to get a perspective and a feeling of what is it like to have that job, to have that experience to be that person to have those interests. So be open to everything. Of course, you need to have things that you don't like, but if you don't like them, is because you already considered and contemplated this IPS. If you learn to be open like this, you'll be able to connect with anyone. If you don't become a renaissance Man or Renaissance woman, you run the risk of going throughout all of your life, connecting only with the people that similar to you, which is a fraction of all the people that exists. Tip number two, observe the patient to the person in front of you.

Take a look at their physic how they move, how they express themselves, the facial expressions they're making, the clothes are wearing, and the accessories that they have on. Notice the things that catch your attention and make a comment or a question about it. Everybody loves to hear a positive comment about how we look about how we move how we communicate. So You can honestly find something nice about to say about the person in front of you in terms of how they look or what they're wearing or they're using, it will be very powerful. They will immediately start talking in a very excited way, telling you about the story of that sweater that you commented on, or where they bought the necklace that they have, or why they love to move like they do, what results it has given them in the past. So if you simply learn to observe people and how they look how they communicate, and how they move, to get thousands of ideas of what to say and what to ask them, that resonates and connects with them, that will spark up the conversation like nothing else.

Tip number three use what is the most Or what is the best type of questions? Now, these questions have saved me hundreds of times when a conversation is going plain, or it's getting a little boring. I simply use one of these questions. And boom, right before my eyes, I can see how this conversation is revived. And it becomes so exciting and lively again. So this is how it works.

Now you're observing people a little bit more. You're learning to observe how they talk, how they move, what they wear, what they like, what they're passionate about, and what they don't really like. So whenever you find some of these things that make people passionate, take it to the next level, and ask one of these questions. For example, if the person likes to travel, you can immediately follow up with a question Like, wow, so what's the most exciting city? Or what's the best city or what's the most beautiful city you have ever lived in or you have ever visited. And right before your eyes, you'll see how their face lights up and be prepared for them to start speaking, non stop for a few minutes about their experience in that particular city or country.

If people love food, you can say something like wow, I love food as well. What's the most exotic dish you have ever tried? What's the most delicious, weirdest thing you've ever seen in your travels across world was the best dish you like preparing was the ECS dish to prepare on a Sunday morning was the most difficult complex that you have ever prepared. Right? This is magic, because what you're doing here is you're sending a message to the other That immediately sends them back to their memories and their past experiences about the most exciting, the most interesting or most important things they have ever done or lived. So you'll notice in their faces, how, as they're reliving these memories, they start reliving the emotions as well.

They start getting excited. But this time, they're getting excited with you. You're sharing these feelings. And that's very powerful. Tip number four. Another kind of question that you can always use very effectively, to spark up a conversation and make it more exciting and lively, or why questions.

The reason why why questions work is because people cannot give you a simple straight answer. Right? Where do you live the United States? Where do you travel to Canada? When will you go back tomorrow, so on and so forth. But what if you ask them?

Why did you decide to work in this company? So, that sense these people in words to reflect about the reasons why they chose this and they have to give you an explanation. If you notice, when we try to give explanations, we usually go more and more and more to try to transmit all the feeling. So when you ask why questions, we prepared to start listening to the person speak non stop for a few minutes about the reasons why he or she chose her job, why he or she is passionate about cooking, where he or she loves to travel, so on and so forth. Use why questions to open up a conversation Finally, Tip number five, one of my favorites. Ask people for tips and advice about their areas of expertise.

We all feel proud about the things we know how to do well. We all feel happy and satisfied about our talents. And we all love to feel helpful and useful to other people. Right? So, if you detect a talent or a skill, or something that the other person is really good at, well, you're a renaissance man or a renaissance woman. Remember, you love to learn about anything and everything.

So use this opportunity to get some benefit from another person. Let them teach you about their skill. You will get a lot of benefits and they will be ecstatic about sharing it. I'm teaching you these skills. You'll be surprised at the connection and rapport. That asking and learning about the skills that other people have, will have in your ability to speak English and to connect with English speaking people.

Alright, so let's put this into practice. In this session about influence, we talked about finding one thing to like about every person you meet. Now, let's do this a little bit more seriously. I would like you to think of three people that you don't really like. In fact, think about the three people that you dislike the most in your life. Now, can you look into yourself and be honest to yourself, and find one thing from each of these things?

Dividuals that you like, or that you admire, or that you respect from them. Take a piece of paper and write it down. Write the name of this person and write one thing that you admire or that you like about themselves. Once you have it, start thinking about three questions that you could ask to each one of these people, if you didn't know them. Imagine these people are strangers, and you meet them tomorrow, in seminary, you're assisting and immediately when you see this person, they strike you as not very nice or not very friendly. There's something that you don't like.

So detect the thing you like, and come up with three questions that you could ask them that would open up a conversation. Now, check your feelings when you're doing this. If you make your questions with an arrogant or challenging, or at this liking, tone of voice or attitude, it won't work, it will actually backfire. So, I know we're thinking about people that you really dislike. So you have to let go of these negative feelings and try to connect with an authentic interest of learning about themselves of connecting a little bit with these people. I learned this lesson A few years ago, when I was working with a colleague that is one of the few people that I really couldn't stand.

I like most people, I can only think of three or four people that I've met in my life that I really don't like. And he was one of these people. I think he was so arrogant, so cocky or arrogant. colicky, so snobbish, so full of himself that I just couldn't stand him. I couldn't connect with him. Every time he opened his mouth or even every time he walked his facial expression and his body language gave me a signal of No, don't even get close to this guy.

Thought I exercised the steps. And I realized that I really admired his sense of style. The clothes he wore, the way he looked everyday was astounding. So I tried to let go of these dark negative feelings or resentments, which I later found out were irrational. Yes, he was where he is a little arrogant, but we all have our mistakes. We all have our vulnerabilities or weaknesses.

So I just learned to Accept it, and to appreciate the other aspect. So one day I came to him and I said, Hi, I need to get together a beautiful outfit. I have a nice looking style of clothing. And I love how you dress. Would you help me a little bit? Since that day, we connected nowadays He's my friend.

And we meet once a day to talk about life, to talk about work, and to ask each other for advice. Alright, so now you're ready to go out to the real world and start applying it. So remember to download the PDF file that you will find in the webpage. And your homework is that whenever you go out to the street today or tomorrow, find a stranger. Nobody's a stranger pay attention to this stranger. I think have three questions that you could ask that would open up the conversation with this stranger.

Now, if you're especially daring, if you're becoming passionate and falling in love like I am with getting out of your comfort zone because you know how much benefit it will give you. Go ahead and open up a conversation with a stranger and ask him or her these three questions. I promise you have fast heart beating fun time. I'll see you next time. Stay well.