Football, politics, religion? Not in a business…
Posted on August 19, 2017 • 2 min read • 297 words
A long time ago, my then coach/course leader gave me some good business advice. Don’t talk about football, politics and religion in a conversation if you expect anything from your conversation. If you just want a nice discussion, then nothing stands in the way of talking about football, politics and religion.
To this day, I still think that’s good advice. Topics such as religion, politics and football are generally charged topics. Everyone has his or her opinion about it. You may be lucky enough to make a comment that elicits the opposite emotional response from your conversation partner. Whatever you wanted to do together, now you can forget it.
It is better to avoid these kinds of things. There are plenty of topics to talk about, so why talk about explosive topics?
Then what should I talk about?
There’s plenty to talk about, so get creative. And above all, let your conversation partner talk. I have drawn up a list of ‘starters’. You will probably come up with other ideas from here.
- introduce yourself, of course
- the weather
- the environment
- pets
- vacation/travel
- going out / restaurants / movies
- passions and dreams
- hobbies
Perhaps the most important thing is to make them open questions. If you only have to say yes or no, the conversation will of course end quickly.
Also try not to be too eager. Sometimes it’s good to have five seconds of silence. Don’t feel obliged to fill that space, better yet: don’t do it. It could be that your conversation partner wants or is going to say something. When you talk through it, it could be a conversation killer.
Shy?
Then you certainly shouldn’t start talking about these topics. Then read the book I recommend in [I was shy. And now?]( https://ajelsinga.nl/en/2017/i-was-shy.-and-now/
