Introduction to Conversing with Contemporaries

Hello reader, my name is Matthew McCarthy and I am currently a freshman at SUNY University at Buffalo. As a part of my Business Writing class, I have been assigned to create an account here on Medium and to blog about a research topic (a specific skill) I chose that interests me. I chose to blog about conversational skills that can more specifcally improve my ability to connect with a diverse range of contemporaries with various interests and ideas. Conversation skills particularly interest me because I believe they are the key to making personal connections with my peers. Not only can this benefit me with friends and family, but properly conversing with future clients and business officials (owners, bosses, co-workers and whatnot) can only enhance my ability to earn the respect of my associates and climb the ranks of the business world. I believe that work is something vital to life, and that in order to live in luxury you must work for it. With that being said, why not build my conversation skills so that I can make new friends with my co-workers and actually enjoy my job? Work is something we all must do if we wish to live long prosperous lives. With this in mind, I believe enjoying and loving what you do for a living is important for your overall mindset and outlook on work, as well as your life. Besides myself, this skill can benefit those around me. Being able and enjoyable to talk to can make my co-workers and contemporaries more comfortable when they are around me. My parents have wonderful conversation skills, and seeing the abundance of friends and family members they have that love and respect them makes me realize how important conversation skills are. The effects conversation skills have on my parents is why I know being able to meaningfully converse with others can go a long way. I wish to figure out what the best ways to converse are, and how to improve my own conversation skills. I plan on researching and improving my conversation skills by repetition, practice, observing and learning from others, and trial and error. Continuously finding and making conversation can only help me in my efforts to improve my skills, because repetition and practice are the keys to perfecting any craft. Observing how others converse with each other and learning from their techniques will help me to learn how to relate better with those I am conversing with. Lastly, trying and failing in a conversation will build perseverance within me and will identify which methods I use simply won’t suffice when trying to talk with others. I plan to use all of these aspects over the next two weeks to help me learn how to better converse with my contemporaries.