The question that makes you great at conversation

Transcript

At the dinner party, one night in New York, a man spent the whole evening talking to a botanist and at the end of the night, the botanist told the host that this man was the most interesting conversation that she had ever met. The funny thing is, this man had barely said a word. His name was Deen Karmiqi and he knew almost nothing about plants. So he did the one thing he could do. He asked a question and when the botanist answered, he asked about the answer. He sat on the edge of his chair for hours just listening because he was genuinely curious. And decades later, Harvard researchers tested that exact habit across more than 2000 speed dates. People who asked follow up questions, then wait and then what happened kind of questions were life more in every study they ran. And the math is almost funny. If someone asked just one more question on each of their 20 dates on average, one more person said, yes, I want to see you again. And I think I know why it works. Anyone can ask how was your day, but the second question proves you actually listen to the answer and most people go up very long time without feeling that. We think being interesting means having the best stories at the table, but Karmiqi had nothing to say about plants and he still walked away being called the most interesting conversationist. All it took was the second question.

Transcribed automatically from the video, so small errors are possible.