A Guaranteed Way to Supercharge Your Powers of Influence with People So They Never Ghost You
September 19th, 2023
When it’s your turn to talk in a conversation, do you ever pay attention to the span of time you take up to say what you want before turning things back onto the other person?
Would you say it’s generally more or less than 10 seconds?
Why do I ask?
Well, did you know that powerful communicators almost always know what’s happening in the minds and internal thoughts of the people they talk to?
Isn’t that what makes them so influential – they know how people are responding internally to what they say?
But how did they come by this ability, and how can you do the same?
Let me ask you this:
Have you ever met one of those people who rambled on endlessly and if you didn’t jump in or interrupt them, they probably would have gone on for five minutes or more straight, without giving you a chance to contribute to the conversation?
Do you remember what you were thinking at the time?
Wasn’t your mind starting to wander onto other things while you pretended to listen to them?
But did it start out that way – or did you lose interest in what they had to say somewhere along the way?
When they first started speaking, they probably had your attention, right? You gave it to them. But as they continued to ramble on about whatever they were talking about, didn’t your patience slowly start to wear thin and your interest die out?
In effect, didn’t they essentially outwear their welcome?
Well, what can be learned from people or situations like this?
I mean, have you ever noticed that to become good at anything (including dealing and relating to people), the process is a mixture of not only starting to do the right things, but also stopping ourselves from doing the wrong things simultaneously?
And what can be learned from people who ramble on for longer than 10 seconds at a time?
And why do I keep bringing up this 10 second timeframe?
What’s that got to do with anything?
Well, I simply bring it up because I’ve found that that’s about the amount of time we have to speak before we outwear our welcome and start causing people to grow impatient with us or zone us out – unless you know you’re speaking about something that’s of great interest to them.
But generally speaking, 10 seconds is all you have.
After that 10 seconds elapses, if you haven’t touched on something the other person is interested in, they will start to zone out. Thus, the connection between you is placed in jeopardy.
If you want to become a powerful communicator who connects well with others, I encourage you to start paying attention to the length of time you speak when it’s your turn and work toward making it as brief as possible before giving the turn back to the other person.
I mean, do you want to outwear your welcome with people?
Do you want them zoning out while you’re talking to them?
Do you want their mind filled with completely unrelated thoughts while you’re speaking to them?
The guaranteed way to avoid these things is to keep your turns at speaking under 10 seconds.
But what if you have more to say?
What if you can’t possibly fit everything you have to say into such a short timeframe?
Guess what?
It’s up to the other person; if they’re a good conversationalist and a good friend, they will ask you for more information.
So let them.
And if they don’t ask you for more information, it just means they weren’t interested in the topic you brought up, and it’s probably wise not to push it on them if it’s not something that interests them, even though it may be interesting to you.
Why?
Not only do you risk boring them, influential people never speak on topics they know have no interest to the recipient. They always speak on topics that are of common interest, or are at least in the process of moving the conversation in that direction.
So I encourage you to pay close attention to your conversations over the coming days and weeks. Work toward figuring out whether you tend to surpass that 10 second mark when it’s your turn to speak. And if you do, work toward cutting that time down to under 10 seconds, or as short as you can make your turn.
You’ll find that this empowers you to gauge what the other person is thinking and how they’re responding to what you say more effectively.
And especially if they follow-up by asking you questions, you will know that you’re making the desirable impact.
This will give you the certain knowledge that people are interested in what you have to say and you’re not boring them.
Remember, you have about 10 seconds to grab someone’s attention. And if you abuse that time and go overboard, you’re likely to bore and even irritate people, and you’ll definitely kill any chance of a connection or your power of influence with them.
Want to republish this article?
Next Post:
A Terrible Mistake People Make When Starting a Conversation That Short-Circuits the Connection