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Conversations That Change Everything

Conversations are what we do as human beings—we talk, we listen, and we exchange words with one another.

Some of us tend to talk more, while others tend to listen more, but if you have any doubt that conversations virtually define our human experience, listen to these statistics.

The average person says between 13,000 and 20,000 words per day.  Men speak approximately 4.68 million words per year and 375 billion words in a lifetime.  And women speak approximately a trillion words in a lifetime.  That’s a lot of talking!

Despite the difference of a few hundred billion words between men and women spoken throughout life, the reality remains—we all know how to talk.  

But…just because we are good at talking doesn’t mean we are good at conversation.  It would be a mistake to think that because we’re inundated with words (billions throughout our lives), that we will automatically excel in dialogue.

Just as someone who has excessive contact with water doesn’t (as a result) become an Olympic swimmer, so it is with conversations.  Becoming a skilled swimmer is determined by what someone actually does while they are in the water. It’s how they practice, how they strengthen their muscles, and how they treat their bodies.

Michael Phelps didn’t become the greatest swimmer in history by taking warm baths all the time. In fact, in his pursuit of winning an unprecedented eight gold medals in the 2008 Olympics, Phelps spent extraordinary amounts of time not only in the water, but diligently developing his swimming skills. In the 7 years leading up to the Olympics, he spent only 5 days out of the water! In addition, he ate between 10,000 and 12,000 calories per day to gain the energy he needed.  How I wish I could eat that many calories and have that physique. Phelps didn’t accomplish something that no one else has ever done simply by having contact with water.

This same principle applies to how we use our words in conversations. We can’t simply be in contact with words and expect to become Olympic level conversationalists. It will only become a reality when we strengthen our conversational skills, when we learn how to better treat the people we interact with, and when we consistently practice the discipline of creating meaningful and intentional dialogue.

That’s essentially what conversational mavens do. 

Conversational mavens are experts of dialogue who understand the power of words, and are able to create, sustain, and catalyze substantial and meaningful conversations that affect people’s lives, even after the conversation is over.

Leaders who establish the deepest levels of influence are those whose interpersonal conversations leave a lasting and distinct mark. They consistently walk away from a dialogue having provoked new thoughts and ideas that people continue to mull over even after the interaction ends. This doesn’t mean they’re always trying to say something profound, because sometimes their impact could come through a question they ask, by expressing something they’ve been pondering, or by simply challenging someone’s paradigm of thinking.

Being a conversational maven is not just about being clever or witty with our words, and it’s not simply about making people feel good, or even making ourselves feel good. It begins by understanding the power and gravity of our words so that we learn to use each and every one of them to generate life, inspire greatness, bring us closer to one another, and ultimately, to unite people with the God who created them.

The essence of conversation involves stringing our words together to create the impact we long to make. The words we choose to use are primarily how we relate to one another, and if we want to increase our impact, we must spend them wisely because conversations are the currency of our relationships. How we spend our words determines the quality and depth of our relationships as well as the expansion of our influence.

To become a conversational maven, we must never underestimate the substantial impact even one conversation can have, remembering that our words can be a force of good that creates life, or a force of negativity and evil that breeds pain, brokenness, and dysfunction.