"You know nothing”: a conversational mindset

We too often think that deep conversations have to be painful or vulnerable conversations. I try to compensate for that by asking questions about the positive sides of life: “Tell me about a time you adapted to change.” “What’s working really well in your life?” “What are you most self-confident about?” “Which of your five senses is strongest?” “Ha

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I have been thinking a lot about the continued and increasing lack of importance being placed on the idea of conversation , things over the past few years can feel so transactional. Thing is, like everyone, I love the one-way form of conversation that exists via the abundance (and abundance of forms) of content that is out there that drives me to c... See more

Sherry Turkle made a provocative observation in her 2016 book Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. She claimed that it takes seven minutes for a conversation to really get good. In those first seven minutes, participants are mostly giving standard answers to one another’s questions. However engagened and genuine they may be,... See more

Life is a series of problems to be analyzed and addressed. How do we fix our failing schools? How do we reduce violence? These problem-centered questions are usually the wrong ones to ask. They focus on deficits, not gifts. A problem conversation tends to focus on one moment in time—the moment when a student didn’t graduate from high school, the mo... See more