Phone Conversations - The Best Ones and How to End on a High Plateau!

we talked about the like design of our diploma, thomas being a doctor, my awesome NLP stuff I loved, That felt like a REAL conversation. A great and valuable and meaningful conversation, too! Because we talked about something obscure (a lot of my conversations are like my reciting some blog post or future blog post sometimes haha!) the diplomas, thomas being a doctor -- stuff that basically only we could have a conversation a bout, so that made it more fun and rewarding and meaningful too. On that topic, what exactly is qualifications for a "good, rewarding, GREAT phone convo"? Well, I've give this lot of thought. I think the best phone conversations are ones that are unique and highly-specific and maybe even obscure to the people in the conversation. In otherwords, highly relevant somewhat subjective phone calls! Now, I love universals -- universal truths, universal math, universal language, those solid everywhere you go truths, I love! But in phone calls I've spent a lot of time telling, kind of broadcasting, almost to people the same update or current event of my life or inspirational idea. That's GREAT to do for a seminar or for a motivational lifecoaching session because if it what you say is inspiring and great and motivational then more people should hear it! Great!! But for a casual phone conversation...sure it's great to share the inspirational snippet great! But ultimately, I could broadcast an inspirational snippet in a blog or hopefully when I get actual lifecoaching phone sessions going, so for a casual conversation, strangely I feel the most rewarded when we discuss something highly specific and relevant to each other!

I just had a great, great convo with my brother James and we talked about the text-font-design of our college diplomas as well as our younger brother's career path! haha! A very bizarre thing to examine but it was a topic -- a conversational topic -- that only could really exist from the relationship that exists between my brother and I.

For the longest time I erroneously thought the best phone conversation was me broadcast some inspirational lesson or message, and YES, that DOES have a place, if I'm in rapport with an audience or a person who's interested at that time in hearing and experiencing a motivational message, but if it's just a casual conversation, broadcasting a huge motivational message kind of just has a neutral effect and isn't as uplifting as a highly specific person-to-person relevant conversation!! That was very surprising to me!

One of the best things we talked about was how to properly end conversations. I've had tons of people and articles provide advice on the MILLIONS of lines, the script, the dialogue, the words, you can say to end a phone conversation such as...

• "I'm really sorry, but I have to go, it's dinner time. I'll call you tomorrow, OK? (pause) Bye!"
• "Sorry got to go, there's someone at the door, bye"
• "Oh my gosh! [Insert name of pet, younger sibling or child here!] Stop! You're going to kill yourself! Stop! Hold on!" [Hang up] If they call back later or something tell that the pet/ younger sibling/ child almost fell off the counter, or pulled a bookshelf down or something similar, but they ended up OK, despite some bruises and scrapes.
• "Hey, I'm going to have to let you go because I have to get off the phone."
• "Well i must be running up your bill, so Ill let you get on now, take care, bye"
• Blah Blah -- USELESS!

Those words are useless unless you know when you should or want to end a phone call!! My problem was that, frankly, I have all these little projects in my life that I could easily get to but valued phone conversations (I can be a very chatty person at times) and always feared ending a convo that might provide inspiration or interesting discussions. So the solution is WHILE you're talking you think of things on your todo list that you want to get done and then weave those into the conversation and share your excitement about doing this next project and then say so I'm "adios to go do xyz"! So you aren't "ending terminating, severing" the phone call; instead, you're getting stoked, psyched, and sharing your interest in this next project that you have to do (writing a blog entry, taking dog for walk, some appointment, a computer project I'm working on, making done, going to meet a friend) and then telling the person that you'll love to continue talking but are going to do that.

People have all these "lines", "excuses" to say in phone calls and I've experienced people saying those to me and frankly, it kind of bites. It hurts to have someone make up something they have to do to end a phone call. So basically I never gave myself permission to end phone calls, even when I mentioned another project I always "asked" the other person if it was okay for me to go!! I'd say "I'm so psyched about xyz, Isn't that a cool project! Is it okay if I go do that?" haha!! I seriously felt Sooo uncomfortable simply saying I have to go and choosing to end the phone conversation. Like my problem was not not having an awareness of how to end a phone call, but rather, that I never knew when I wanted to or when it was best to do! The key, again, is openness, sharing a project I'm working on and saying I have to get back to that!

I'm a very talkative and happy social person when I'm in the mood but that does not have to coexist with being focused and clear and sharing projects that I'm working on then weaving that into the convo to then launch into that next project or action from the convo. In other words, you shouldn't ever "end-terminate" phone calls with friends (you SHOULD with obnoxious people and I'm quite good at terminating phone calls haha!) But segueing-launching into the next action of your life is what you should do with phone calls with friends. Cool!



eHow suggests:

Use phrases that come at the end of a conversation such as, “it’s been great talking to you” or “thanks for the chat.” This is a subtle way to let the other party know you are trying to wrap up the conversation.

So in other words, ending a conversation is NOT saying no to the person, no to their ideas, nor anything like that! I erroneously assumed that if I ended a conversation, I would be trampling on the person's ideas and essence and personality. I literally ALWAYS waited for the other person to say they had to go. Seriously! Just about every single phone call I was in, I felt like I the other person needed to say they had to go or else I'd terminate the conversation at the wrong time or "illegitamately" which is ridiculous because there's no legitimate or illegitimate phone convos, it's just a chat. The mind maketh good or ill; if someone has to go and someone chooses to interpret that as a disparagement, that's an insecurity problem of THEIRS!! So basically I learned to validate ending phone conversations and the missing element of that for me was NOT learning knew ways to express or communicate saying no.

Instead, the missing link that I needed was that I never knew internally what needed to happen in my mind to validate ending the conversation. I never knew knew when I "should" or even "when I wanted" to end the conversation. When I tried to practice it I said "I'm doing this great awesome project where I scan in photos from experiences in my life and apply this very precise chronological naming system so that I get the things done

101 Ways to Say No -- Very funny!