How Can You Become Effortlessly Better at Conversations Starting Today?

What Makes Certain Conversations Memorable—and How Do You Create More of Them?

A practical guide to the five conversation commandments that elevate everyday interactions, strengthen relationships, and help you connect more deeply. Learn how curiosity, charisma, thoughtful questions, and genuine listening can transform the way you communicate.

Keep reading to explore how these five commandments can help you create richer conversations, build stronger connections, and leave people feeling energized after talking with you.

You’ll have over 100,000 conversations in your lifetime. Why not get really good at them?

After all, every friendship, partnership, or job offer begins with a conversation. Master this one skill, and your life will be richer. Here are five vital conversation lessons that I learned from the great communication book (I call them the five conversation commandments):

Conversation Commandment #1: Thou shall be genuinely interested

Before a conversation, don’t waste time thinking about personal stories that you can share. Instead, focus on what interesting stories you can get out of others. Start by taking the FORD acronym for a drive, and imagine what interesting things may have recently happened in their Family, Occupation, Recreational time, or ambitious pursuits (aka Dreams).

• Family: What activities are their kids really enjoying these days?
• Occupation: What’s the most surprising thing that’s happened in their job this past month?
• Recreational time: Are there any excellent restaurants, activities, or local events they’ve really enjoyed lately?
• Dreams: What’s something they’re building or working toward that lights them up?

Conversation Commandment #2: Thou shall maximize their charisma

Some people pull you into a conversation and make you feel special. Other people are distracted, uncomfortable, and awkward, which leaves you searching for an excuse to leave the conversation. The difference isn’t God-given gifts, but a learnable skill we call charisma. In The Charisma Myth, Olivia Fox Cabane breaks it down into three teachable qualities: presence, warmth, and power.

If you follow the first conversation commandment and are genuinely interested in what people have to say, you’ll naturally convey presence and warmth (when you’re truly curious about someone’s life, you naturally become more engaged, and when you care about what someone’s saying and value them as a person, you convey warmth).

Convey power by feeling like you’re the biggest person in the room. Lift your head, open your chest, set your shoulders back, and then imagine your body is expanding to take up more space. When you speak, insert more pauses to show that you’re in control of your voice. By combining strong posture and confident pauses with presence and warmth, you draw people in and create the foundation for a great conversation.

Conversation Commandment #3: Thou shall be slightly unexpected

Most conversations are painfully predictable and die due to boredom. So whenever possible, inject unexpected answers to questions and be unexpectedly honest.

• When asked where you’re from, don’t just say, “Seattle.” Say, “I’m from Seattle—where we take our coffee more seriously than our sports teams.”
• When asked, “What do you do?” provide any insider information you feel comfortable sharing. For example, don’t just say, “I’m a teacher.” Say, “I’m a high school English teacher who is getting really good at catching students using ChatGPT.”
• When possible, be unexpectedly candid. If you think an event is awkward, turn to the person next to you and say, “Is it just me, or does this feel like a middle school dance with better wine?”

Conversation Commandment #4: Thou shall ask deep questions

Most people ask questions to gather facts like, “Where are you from?” or “What did you do last weekend?” But in the book Supercommunicators, Charles Duhigg explains that great conversationalists ask questions that generate feelings—questions like, “What do you love most about your hometown?” or “What was the highlight of your weekend?” These types of questions get people to reveal their values, beliefs, and experiences, helping you to connect with them on a deeper level. Therefore, start asking deep questions by remembering the acronym D.E.E.P. (Dreams, Elevated experiences, and Passions) before your next conversation:

Conversation Commandment #5: Thou shall make others feel heard

Everyone you talk to craves positive feedback—they want to know you’re enjoying and understanding what they’re saying. In the book Just Listen, Mark Goulston stresses the importance of using nods and “hmmms” to show people that you’re tracking what they’re saying. He says, “A ‘Hmmm’ is a relationship deepener. It tells people that what they say is important, worth listening to, and worthy of some sort of action.”

When others make a point or finish a story, hit them with a paraphrase. Simply highlight what you heard in your own words. For example, if someone tells you about their Saturday struggling to put together IKEA furniture, don’t just say “that must’ve been frustrating.” Instead, echo part of their story by saying: “That’s hilarious that the shelf was upside down the whole time…gotta love those IKEA instructions!”