An advisor can guide you in creating an estate plan and will engage the right experts to ensure your wishes are fulfilled. It’s important to make these decisions together and communicate your plan. If you want to make sure your children are looked after in a certain way or want to leave a legacy to a specific charity, your estate plan can help make that happen. The result will be a conversation that is more meaningful and fulfilling, and will leave you both feeling happier.Conversation #5: What will happen to our finances and loved ones when we’re no longer around?Ĭonfronting the possibility of a death or serious illness is uncomfortable but planning ahead can help you ensure your specific wishes are carried out. To in return ask you to go a little deeper. Your interest will encourage the other person to open up. Then just keep listening, and asking questions that help you learn even more. If you’re sincere - which you can show by actually listening to the answer - the other person will quickly warm to the subject. While it may feel awkward for a few seconds, that’s OK. What’s the toughest part of your job?” (Because every job is hard.) We all want to feel not just listened to, but heard.Īnd if it sounds too hard to dive right in, feel free to lead with a standard small talk opening like, “What kind of work to do you?” but then follow up with a deeper question. The overly pessimistic expectations about deep talk stemmed from the misplaced assumption that one’s conversation partner would be largely indifferent to the interaction. The people in our experiments expected that deeper conversations would be significantly more awkward than they actually were. Or will make the other person feel awkward. And don’t be worried that they dive too deep. “What’s the easiest thing that someone could do that would help you the most?”Ĭlearly those questions are just as likely to spark deeper conversations in person as they are in virtual interactions. “What do you love most about yourself that’s hard to share with others?” “What’s the scariest question you could ask your partner or friends?” “Do you often forgo transparency for kindness?” (That’s an interesting one.) “Which comes more naturally to you, gratitude or generosity?”.“Given the choice, would you live alone or with others?”.“Are you more sensitive to news, or fiction?”.“Are you better at working, or relaxing?”.(If you’re wondering, my answers are neither, others, and forgive.) “Is it easier for you to apologize or forgive?”.“Is it easy to make other people happy, or yourself?”.“Are you more often bored, or overwhelmed?”.As the poet Lee Suksi describes in this article for Beside, questions they asked Instagram followers sparked surprising levels of candor. Going deeper by asking good questions can also apply to virtual encounters. Our research suggests that the person next to you would probably be happier talking about their passions and purpose than the weather and “what’s up.” In reality, the other person also typically enjoyed getting beyond superficialities. Turns out those questions were just as likely to make people feel more connected, more engaged, and happier. “Where do you see yourself in five years?”.Then the researchers asked participants to come up with their own questions. “If you were going to become a close friend with the other participant, please share what would be important for him or her to know.”.“If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, your future, or anything else, what would you want to know?”.“For what in your life do you feel most grateful?”.Besides the “time you cried in front of another person” question, researchers had different participants ask other questions. Keep in mind there are no magic questions. To afterwards say you liked each other person.Īnd the happier you’ll both feel afterwards. That’s the Rule of Awkward Conversations: the more awkward and uncomfortable a conversation sounds like it will be, the more you - and the other person - will tend to enjoy that conversation. In fact, while participants predicted that answering a question from a stranger like, “What is one of the more embarrassing moments in your life?” would make them feel extremely awkward and uncomfortable, the opposite turned out to be true. Either way, most don’t enjoy it.Īs I’ve shared before, participants in a study published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology who had conversations with strangers based on what seem like too-personal questions felt much less awkward, much more connected, and a lot happier than they expected.įor example: “Can you describe a time you cried in front of another person?” Meeting someone new? Uncomfortable as it might seem research says skipping the small talk is the best approach.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |