The Art Of Good Conversation & Finding Friendship (with Jamie Ivey)
Photo by Pavel Danilyuk from Pexels
When I studied journalism in college, I had one particular professor who impressed on us the importance of being good interviewers. Yes, of course it was crucial to develop strong writing skills; to be able to craft a compelling headline and uncover a unique angle. But equally important was the art of conducting a successful interview with the subject of your story. After all, without the opinions of experts or thought-provoking sound bites from the humans in the story, your reporting just turned out to be your own empty words taking up space.
And so, we practiced. We incorporated proven interview techniques and strategies to encourage our subject to open up to us. We learned the importance of pausing to give our questions room to breathe, asking the right follow-ups, hearing what wasn’t being said and exploring it. And as I think back on those years, it’s not lost on me that, in the end, my journalism professor was really just teaching us to have great conversations.
I’ve been thinking about what would happen if we approached our day to day interactions in a similar way; with the same intentional approach and objective to learn something and forge new connections. Would it help us feel less lonely, more grounded in the lives we’re living, if we were better at knowing how to know each other?
When it comes to the art of the interview, podcaster and author Jamie Ivey is among the best. Her top-rated podcast, The Happy Hour with Jamie Ivey, has hosted hundreds of guests over its eight years of life.
I’ve been a fan of the show for years and I’m always struck by how the authors, speakers, and talents on the show so quickly open up to Jamie, and by the way she so humbly guides them through a conversation that feels intimate and interesting.
I’m not the only one; Jamie’s guests consistently make comments about the same thing. So, I wanted to know — what were her secrets? And how might we incorporate some of those practices into our day to day in an effort to deepen our relationships and form truer, more tangible community? Jamie graciously agreed to sit down with me and as we chatted, five key themes emerged.
01 | Listen without an agenda.
One of the first things Jamie told me was that she never walks into an interview with any sort of outline or rigid plan: “I don’t come to the table with any questions, really, and I don’t give guests questions ahead of time. Because of that, I’m not trying to just get to the next thing on the list. And I think that’s applicable in our conversations with friends as well. When we come in with an agenda, we tend to rush conversations.”
By coming into her role as host with an open mind, she’s able to truly listen to her guests, and to allow conversations to develop in a real, natural way. So often, we enter our own interactions with specific goals. But when we intentionally lay our own opinions, objectives, and judgements aside, we’re able to hear and respond more authentically.
02 | Don’t avoid discomfort; it leads to connection.
Discomfort is, well… uncomfortable. We don’t like sitting in situations or conversations that don’t feel good. And so we tend to avoid them like the plague, or move away from them as quickly as possible. Our conversations are governed by this idea that uncomfortable topics push others away. But Jamie says, in her experience, the opposite can actually be true.
“Early on, when people would be emotional on the show, my human reaction would be ‘Oh, no — it’s okay, it’s okay!’; to try to clean it all up. But learning to just let it sit for a second, and for me to be with them in that discomfort, too… that’s when the best stuff comes out.”
Jamie says these experiences helped her to understand the value in not turning away from topics that are emotional or uncomfortable.
“When you’re having a conversation and someone is being vulnerable and opening up, we can diminish what they’re feeling when we’re not willing to sit in the tension of someone’s pain and discomfort and just be with them. I have felt the most loved by people when they’re just willing to sit and listen. I think that is so bonding. And we’ve lost that a little bit… In our fast-paced society, we’re missing out on sitting in the tension of, ‘I don’t know how this is going to work out.’ Acknowledging that pain instead of dismissing it can be so meaningful.”
03 | Let care come before solutions.
We have a natural inclination to solve problems; especially the problems or challenges those closest to us are facing. But Jamie says that one of the most important things she’s learned is that offering up immediate answers can actually stunt the growth of our relationships.
“I think we try to fix things too quickly; things that aren’t ours to fix. Do I care more about what they’re saying, or am I trying to solve a problem for them? A lot of times we skip over to the solution, when the relationship really needs to slow down and show care. And so we miss out on community and really just being with someone. We are a ‘fix it’ type of people. And it’s faster, if we can just fix it. Providing empathy takes time and commitment. It takes checking in. That is a lot harder than providing a solution. But it’s worth it.”
After all, it’s in the care we offer, not the solutions we suggest, that builds real trust among those closest to us.
04 | Be willing to be the vulnerable one.
Someone has to go first. Someone has to initiate. And if we’re being honest, we’d probably admit that we’d prefer that someone to be someone else. But Jamie says that a willingness to initiate vulnerability is something that most of our relationships are missing.
“Becoming vulnerable with people is really hard and really scary. It takes time and practice. It takes getting hurt and trying again. But I like to say that vulnerability breeds vulnerability. I have found that some of my deepest relationships are those where I can be my truest self and they’re not judging me, and then, they’re their truest self with me. But we have to be willing to be our true selves. And in turn, we have to be willing to not be shocked by someone else’s sins or problems, fear or doubts.”
05 | Take advantage of the tiny moments.
We often think that, in order to forge the sort of “doing life together” relationships we long for, we need hours of uninterrupted time with another person in which we can pour out our souls. And, because most of us don’t have schedules that allow that, we assume that this type of connection just isn’t possible in our current season (as I write this, I can recall those very words coming out of my mouth).
But when I mentioned this to Jamie, she pushed back on that assumption. She encourages us to look for the “little cracks of opportunity” — in the car pick up line, when we run into a new friend at the grocery store — moments we’d normally disregard, and to instead use them as a chance to go further.
“It’s this idea that you feel this connection with someone, you keep running into each other and so you open up yourself just a little bit — there’s this little crack — and you see how she handles it. And when she handles that vulnerability well, then you’re opening yourself up to a new relationship.”
In short…
We’ve all seen the research that shows we are the most connected humans to ever live — with more ways to communicate and access information (and each other) than ever before — and that we’re also the loneliest generation. Clearly, the Zooming and the DMing (and all the other nouns we’ve turned into verbs) aren’t cutting it.
Perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that we’re all just a little out of practice; that the things we thought would enrich our relationships have also kept us from putting forth the effort required to give them life beyond a screen.
Our technology-drenched routines may have stunted our growth, but hope isn’t lost; we can look for opportunities to practice genuine care, initiate vulnerability, and listen for the sake of truly understanding.
Slowly but surely, I believe we can change our stories; to go from our own empty, lonely words to pages filled with rich conversations and truer relationships. And, maybe it’s the journalist in me, but that sounds like a story worth printing.
