and how many of you know at least one person that you because you just do not want to talk to them.
you know, it used to be that in order to have a polite conversation
So this world that we live in, this world in which every conversation has the potential to devolve into an argument, where our politicians can't speak to one another and where even the most trivial of issues.
have someone fighting both passionately for it and against it, it' s not normal.
Pew Research did a study of 10,000 American adults, and they found that at these moments, we are more polarized, we are more divided than we ever have been in history.
we less likely to compromise, which means we are not listening to each other.
and we make decisions about where to live, who to marry and even who our friends are going to be, base on what already we believe.
again, that means we are not listening to each other.
A conversation requires a balance between talking and listening,
and somewhere along the way, we lost that balance.
Now, part of that is due to technology.
The smartphone that you all either have in your hands or close enough that you could grab them really quickly.
about a third of American teenagers send more than a hundred texts a day.
And many of them, almost most of them, are more likely to text their friends than they are to talk to them face to face.
he wanted to teach them how to speak on a specific subject without using notes.
I came to realize that conversational competence might be the single most overlooked skill we fail to teach.
kids spend hours each day engaging with ideas and each other through screens
but rarely do they have an opportunity to hone their interpersonal communication skills.
It might sound like a funny question, but we have to ask ourselves: Is there any 21-century skill more important than being able to a confidential conversation?
I talk to some people that I disagree with deeply on a personal level, but I still have a great conversation with them.
So I'd like to spend the next 10 minutes or teaching you how to talk and how to listen.
Many of you have already heard a lot of advice on this, things like look at the person in the eye, think of interesting topics to discuss in advance, look, nod and smile to show that you are paying attention, repeat back what you just heard or summarize it.
So, I want you to forget all of that.
There is no reason to learn how to show you are paying attention if you are in fact paying attention.
Now, I actually use the exact same skills as a professor interviewer that I do in regular life.
So I am going to teach you how to interview people, and that' s actually going to help you learn how to be a better conversationalist.
learn to have a conversation without wasting your time, without getting bored, and please God, without offending anybody.
We have all had really great conversations, we all had them before, we know what it's like.
The kind of conversation where you walk away feeling engaged and inspired, or where you feel like you are making a real connection, or you' re been perfectly understood.
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