Barriers are bad. They restrict. They stifle. They choke. But barriers are of many kinds. The barriers that choke an average person today are mostly personal in nature. Our nation is a billion and a quarter strong, and yet the chances are that the average person reading this post is lonely at some level. Loneliness, in a sea of humans. Can things get any more ironical than this? And all because we fail to break the barriers that stop us, impede our learning, deny us friendship and love, eat our opportunities and kill our dreams. * How to break barriers? * Communicate. Communicate more. Communicate better. Destroy your inhibitions and hesitations. Till 17 years of age, I had pathetic communication skills. The primary reason was my stammering problem, which meant that my brain would be experiencing a flood of thoughts, but they would never translate into spoken words. But that wasnt the only problem. The bigger problem was not physical, but psychological. So at 20 or 21, when I was no longer suffering from stammering, I was still unable to win conversations. Because I never had many. * How to win conversations * 1. When you know what you are talking about - People need things to be easy, or they need someone to make things easier for them. People prefer to be guided by someone who sounds genuine and experienced, rather than burning their own hands in experimentation. Be the guide, the people will follow. Throw them a line, and they will latch on to it. Its a bit like being a politician, except that you promise them nothing except a few minutes of an interesting conversation. 2. When you do not know what you are talking about - When you talk about a topic, do not pretend to be a master of that subject if you are not. You need not know everything about that subject, but you do need to know how to weave words, phrases and sentences together so that your limited knowledge of that subject does not hamper the conversation. So if the conversation is about a book that you have never read, ask the other person about it. Questions like these lead to immensely satisfying conversations and build friendships over a period of time. In point# 1, you tried to be the guide. In point# 2, you made the other person the guide. Q. What if neither of the two people know anything about the subject? A. Thats unlikely. Why would either of you broach a topic that you know nothing about? And in case you still do, it makes no sense to let an unknown topic eat away into your conversation time. Just change the topic and talk about something else. Q. What if both people know about the subject? A. Then there is no barrier, and at the hands of two mature people, the conversation will be a smooth one. ~ Abhijit
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 04:32:55 +0000
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