How To Make People More Interesting

Listening. It’s a critical life skill. Everyone thinks they are great at it. Few really are. It’s a powerful skill that takes focused effort to develop.

It can transform relationships, dramatically improve our lives, and is necessary for all kinds of long-lasting influence.

Why is it so hard to do?

I’ve had several clients tell me they just don’t find people that interesting. Their solution? Find more fascinating people to talk to.

Consider this though: The University of Utah did a study where people talked to both inattentive and attentive listeners.

They found out that the talkers were both less articulate and remembered less detail of what they were talking about when someone wasn’t listening very well.

On the other side, when speaking to an attentive listener, the talkers presented more detail and gave a better performance of whatever they were talking about.

The listener was able to make the talker more interesting just by listening.

We might be the problem.

It may be hard to get the benefits of listening because…

We’re not listening!

If we listen, we unconsciously encourage others to present what they are saying in a more interesting fashion.

We may look out in the world and see interesting or boring people. But they may be interesting or boring not because they actually are, but because we’ve already decided what group they fit into.

Give it a try. See if anyone can become more interesting to you if you listen a bit more attentively.