Open + Curious

What if thinking could be done with others? The theory of dialog suggests that these situations reflect a series of problems in how we think, for we have learned to think alone. And what I mean here by “thinking” involves the whole of us—our emotions, our ways of feeling in the body, our ideas, and…

Who’s playing at your jazz club? Conversation is a musical thing, like jazz or birdsong: more ‘call and response’ than question and answer. It enables us to travel great distances, but the joy is in the journey not the destination. We are meant to sing and dance along the way, jamming with others, riffing off…

Let go of self-judgement and follow your curiosity Genuine interest on our part is appreciated by all true conversation partners. Our sense of salience is a super-power. (Salience is the quality of being particularly noticeable or important.) We all have this super-power. I believe it arises from our sub-conscious when something we’re just encountering, rhymes…

What has surprised you recently? That’s not a good way to live. That’s a way to live in stagnation and complacency. Great conversation is rooted in experimentation and exploration. It’s an art of discovery, and play. Great conversation is about composition: Listening to many people or ideas, and create something new. That’s common for us…

Great conversations require intention and effort The difference between the negativity of bait, and the high road of a good lure is our intention. It’s true that good conversation might be stumbled into. But if we desire good conversation, then we’re going to need to seek it. Good conversation can be found, and even directly…

Looking outward to do your inward work We must be able to think about any idea without it breaking our ability to think. Choice is at the center of everything. It’s important that we ask ourselves why we are conversing. It’d be great if we could always do that in advance, but we can settle…

Making space to clean up our thinking The correct posture is preparation for uncertainty by expecting exploration and discovery. There’s no recipe for great conversation. Sometimes we click into harmonious discourse, and sometime we don’t. No amount of preparation will guarantee success. In fact, preparation can guarantee failure. We will fail if we prepare by…

Probing for the strong points If we’re in conversation for the connection, we’ll never be bored. What is failure in a social context? I think failing to connect with others is the most important sort of failure. Our job in any social conversation isn’t to force connection. Our job is to be ready for, and…

Flipping the internal to be external Taking action implies taking responsibility. One of the keys to great conversation is to be active, and not passive. It’s important to go into any conversation with a clear intention, but intention alone is not enough. Your intention must affect your actions: What you do, how you act, and…

The yearning to explore I don’t want to teach you how to do conversation well. I have long been the sort of person who likes to explore every detail, and who attempts to create the complete and accurate map. That will not be my contribution to the art of conversation. Rather, I wish to inspire…