How to be more interesting: 18 ways to be incredibly fascinating –

Before, I used to be terrified by the idea of ​​being boring. That’s why he filled in all the blanks with irrelevant chatter. But some events made me wonder if this was really working for me.

During work meetings, while I talked non-stop, several colleagues did their best to hide their lack of interest.

So I started paying attention to how the most interesting people around me managed to keep other people’s attention.

And I realized that just as you learn to be a better leader or a more effective negotiator, you can learn to generate greater interest in others.

And that’s wonderful news for you, no matter what career you pursue. When you’re interesting, everyone you meet, from your boss to your future business partner, wants to be around you.

Not only will you make more connections, but those relationships will be easier to maintain and strengthen.

To achieve those benefits and also never be afraid to talk to another person again, check out these six ways to become a more interesting person:

1.- Look for interesting topics that have nothing to do with your career

Last week, I spent almost 10 minutes explaining to a product manager why I showed up for a two-hour briefing on a career I’d never pursued and probably wouldn’t try in the future.

I told him I was just curious about the packaging design.

The truth is that I regularly go to these types of meetings or events that deal with things that have nothing to do with my ambitions and my career.

Just for the pleasure of learning something new. These accumulated learnings have, in the long run, made me a great conversationalist because I have many topics at my disposal.

For example, I learned that manufacturers spray coffee aroma on the lids of instant coffee jars so you get that cloud of aroma when you open it. I also discovered that the original purpose of the bubble wrap was textured wallpaper.

Not only will you get some interesting facts, you will learn to talk to virtually anyone and expose yourself to new ideas.

2.- Inaugurate the month of “yes”

If you want to become a more interesting person immediately, follow Editor-in-Chief Adrian Grandzella’s same trick and make a firm resolution to say yes to any invitation that comes your way, no matter how random, strange, or exhausting it may seem.

What’s the best part about doing this? That you literally can’t lose. When things go wrong, you can at least end up with a story to tell.

When things don’t go as you expected, you’ll be left with an even better story. And if things go well, in addition to a good story you will get a pleasant experience.

The idea of ​​accepting any invitation that puts your life in front of you can seem dangerous, especially if you are the introverted type. But you can help yourself by setting a time limit. It could be a month, or two. Even just a week if you want to start with something less drastic.

3.- Try an experiment

It’s almost impossible to stop reading articles like “I unsubscribed from social media for a month, and this is what happened,” or “Three weeks of eating alone hot dogs“This is how my body changed.”

These are attractive topics because they are about people who are doing things that are out of the ordinary that we all do. Giving yourself a challenge is a proven way to make yourself more interesting.

And there’s no reason why your experiment has to be unpleasant. Emily O’mara, a systems consultant at Oracle, ate 101 cheeseburgers in her challenge to find the most delicious one. Writer Kevin Roose, meanwhile, documented his attempts to create the perfect setting for getting up in the morning.

However, there are challenges that can also make you more productive and healthier, such as giving up alcohol or cigarettes for a full month, having family dinners every day, leaving the phone off in the office for a week, or calling every day. to a friend.

Giving them the character of a “challenge” also helps us achieve our goals with more motivation. From the process to the results, they will give you plenty to talk about.

4.- Listen to podcasts

Lately, I’ve noticed that my conversations with fascinating people are littered with references to things we heard or learned on a podcast.

It makes a lot of sense since podcasts are full of very useful data and knowledge, as well as new stories or stories told from new points of view. In addition, they are a perfect complement to books, since you can listen to a podcast or an audio book while driving, for example.

I recommend listening to a healthy mix of topics that integrate your interests and also new things that you are not familiar with. With this balance, you will stay updated in your area of ​​interest and you will also learn many things that you did not know.

5.- Learn new data

Interesting people tend to pique the attention of others with interesting and novel facts that most people don’t know. Like, do you know that building is actually the tomb of a famous person?

Can’t you imagine how many calories it has? frappuccino What did you just buy? etc These are interesting facts that automatically make you a person worth listening to because you always have something worth hearing.

Plus, a bit of surprising information makes conversations fun and can even break the ice. There are many pages on the Internet and magazines that are dedicated precisely to collecting interesting data on endless topics.

6.- Become a better listener

It might sound a little counterintuitive, but one of the pillars to acquiring the knowledge and sensitivity that will make you more interesting is precisely knowing how to listen and know how to observe.

Listening carefully to others will make you more interesting for a couple of reasons. First of all, you turn to relevant information, which you can then use for yourself with other people.

For example, a couple of months ago I met a woman who had grown up in a remote fishing village in Alaska. She told me a lot of things that I found completely fascinating and that she was completely unaware of about her family’s lifestyle.

Then, when a colleague of mine was about to go on vacation to Alaska, and I told him what I had heard, he thought it was very nutritious and useful information for his trip.

Additionally, speaking only 30% or 40% of the time helps you avoid rambling. It’s very difficult to discover when another person goes from being interested to being completely bored but pretends to stay interested.

If you stop before this can happen, you will encourage the other person to feed the conversation as well. Finally, remember that almost everyone’s favorite topic is themselves.

So if you bring the conversation into the other person’s life, you will immediately seem more interesting.

As you can see, we can all benefit from becoming more interesting. We live in a scandalous world, and the more interesting you are, the better chance you will have of being heard among all that scandal.

There are many reasons why you might be looking to be more interesting:

A) You want to impress your circle of friends

B) You want to meet new people

C) You want to flirt with a person

D) You want to make a lot of strategic business contacts

E) You want to be the type of person to whom all doors open

Here are 12 more ways to be more interesting:

7.- Become an active person

There is an incontrovertible formula that tells us that the more active you are, the more interesting you will seem to others. On the contrary, if you are passive and lazy, you will get the opposite impression.

A person who never does anything new will hardly have anything interesting to say. When they ask him what did you do today? What are you reading? or What’s new? They really have nothing to answer.

An active person, on the other hand, is always having experiences that nourish their interactions with other people.

8.- Happy people are magnetic

Is a reality. People are naturally attracted to those who seem to be happy or in a positive mood all the time. So if you’re very pessimistic, you might want to start working on that to become more interesting.

9.- Let something really excite you

If you want to be truly interesting, become passionate about something. Can be anything. Whether it’s saving the planet or an endangered species, your job, your social circle, your hobbies, etc.

This will give you the opportunity to know a topic in depth and for others to recognize you as an expert on the subject.

10.- Fill your brain with interesting things

Instead of spending hours updating your Facebook page, spend all that time browsing Wikipedia or similar pages.

We guarantee that it is just as entertaining, with the advantage that you are also filling your head with great topics of conversation.

Also read our guide on the 15 ways to be more popular on Facebook

11.- Let your particularities become your strengths

Many people consider themselves strange and feel like they don’t fit in. But in reality, the difference between “strange” and “special” is made by ourselves based on the way we interpret those particularities that characterize us.

To do this, you must stop being afraid of being seen differently and let people get to know you as you are, sharing your unique interests and making it clear that you are passionate about them and that they make you proud.

12.- Be boldtoz

To have experiences that become great anecdotes that everyone wants to hear, you need to get out of your comfort zone a little, be bold and dare to do things that most people don’t do.

13.- Live in the present moment

Living in the moment means paying full attention to what is around you. If you do, you will be able to detect much more easily what the expectations of the people who are close to you are and anticipate what types of stories or comments can fit perfectly into the context.

14.- Ask people about themselves

As we already said, almost everyone’s favorite topic is oneself. Exploit that to your advantage by giving your interlocutor the opportunity to tell you something meaningful about his life.

Listen carefully and feed back to your talk with comments that complement the conversation.

15.- Become a good storyteller

We can all learn to be good speakers or storytellers with a little practice.

The fluency of words and ideas is not achieved overnight, but feeding your mind with a lot of reading and listening carefully to how other people successfully tell their stories can help you a lot.

16.- Have some interesting stories ready

In this sense, the complex thing is not so much finding a good story, but rather knowing what the triggers are in a conversation that you can take advantage of to tell it. To do this, make sure they are…