Let me ask you a question.
Do you have those situations when you are talking to somebody, and maybe they are sharing a story, or they get very excited about a concept, and they keep talking and talking and talking and, you know,
You have to leave, or you just want to leave, right?
You don't want to talk to them anymore.
You had enough and enough of those stories, and you just want to go.
Or perhaps you already told them.
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| How to End a Conversation Politely Without Being Rude? |
You said, Hey, by the way, I have to leave in 5 minutes because I'm going to be late otherwise and 5 minutes pass by, and that person still keeps talking and talking, and they are getting deep in their story.
And I want to ask you, how do you feel in those situations?
What is your body language now?
The chances are you are probably not nodding and getting super enthusiastic.
Hey, please tell me more.
Yes, I want to hear more.
Know you're thinking about the fact that you are going to be late.
If you don't leave right now and you have to go, you may be checking your watch.
You may be given certain cues, like crossing your arms.
Right.
Or trying to kind of move away.
Oh, yeah.
John Yeah, that's a good story.
Yeah.
And you may be rocking your body.
You may be getting very impatient, and your feet may be pointing in the direction of the exit.
You may even start really moving around and start fidgeting and doing things like that, right?
We all do it often.
We are not even aware that we are doing it, but that's our body basically telling us, Hey, you've got to go, you've got to go.
You don't have the time to stay there.
Now, why am I talking about it here?
Well, because other people sometimes feel like this in our presence.
Now, I'm sad to say that I had those situations both ways, right?
Sometimes I was the person who wanted to leave, but I also had situations when I was the one who got overly excited, and I was a little bit oblivious to the body language of the other person.
Only later did I realize, Oh, I talked too much about that thing.
Like that person had to go right?
We all do it.
We are just human.
We make those mistakes.
So I want you to be aware of the body language of other people.
Very important.
Right now.
I want you to start noticing how the other person may feel based on their body language.
Now, one of the things that I always like to pay attention to is the open versus closed position.
When I talk to someone and say, you already had a half an hour conversation, maybe one hour of conversation,
and they are open all the time, and at some point, I can see that they are rocking their body or they're checking their watch.
I know that they're probably they're getting impatient.
Not only that, but they are getting impatient, and probably they want to leave.
They may have to go to the bathroom, or maybe they are late for something.
Or maybe they just had enough of our conversation.
Right.
When I see someone being open and then suddenly they cross their arms, imagine I'm making a point.
They're like, Oh yeah, Interesting.
Yeah, I see your point, man.
I see your point.
Do you really?
Or your body says something else, right?
So our bodies often speak before we even speak verbally, right?
So that's why we have to pay attention to the bodies of other people.
Because again, if I say something and that person does something like this, and especially if you add to it somebody rocking and moving their feet in the direction of the exit, and maybe kind of shifting position, that clearly suggests that this person has to go.
But the last thing you want to do is to keep talking and talking and talkingabout what you want to do as a great communicator, as somebody who is aware of other people's energies, as you want to acknowledge
What you see.
Right.
So, for example, the moment I see that someone is rocking their body, moving their feet away to the exit, or crossing their arms, or just fidgeting, that's when I verbalize it.
Now I don't tell them, Hey, Jessica, I noticed that you just crossed your arms and you started fidgeting.
I don't want to say it this way, but I may say something in the lines of By the way, I have a feeling, correct me if I'm wrong, I have a feeling you probably have to run.
Is that correct?
You are probably very busy.
You probably have another thing going on.
And I'm right.
Like, literally 95% of the cases write off.
And what happens is the other person responds, Yeah, how did you know?
Yeah, I actually, you know, I would love to talk to you more, but I have another meeting scheduled, and I literally have to jump on it in the next 3 minutes.
Otherwise, I'm going to be late.
Right.
Like, how did you know?
Right.
But the reason I knew is because I read their body language.
I was in tune with their level of energy.
So I want you to think about this, and I want you to pay attention to those signs.
And next time, when you talk to somebody, the moment you see it, I want you to take it as a cue that maybe you should be stopping your conversation.
Maybe this is the time to finish it off.
And again, if you acknowledge what you see without necessarily telling them exactly what you see,
But if you acknowledge that, you can sense that they may have to go, wow, that's going to really create this perception that you are the next level communicator, people will.
A CV is a person who can literally read other people.
It's incredible when you do that, and people are just shocked.
How did you know how you could possibly know that?
By the way, this is also good for business negotiations.
When you talk to someone, and you propose something.
Well, if they are always open like this, and then they cross their arms.
Well, that should tell you something that probably tells you that they are not on board with what you are saying.
And often what happens is, even though people feel in a certain way, they don't want to admit it verbally, especially during negotiations.
Somebody may not like what you just said.
They crossed their arms, but they still said, yeah, I agree with you.
I agree with you.
No, they don't.
They don't.
Right.
Otherwise, they wouldn't be doing this.
Obviously, if it's very cold, you may want to cross your arms.
Right?
I do it from time to time.
If it's really cold, I would cross my arms.
Or, for example, if the person was crossing their arms from the very beginning of the interaction,
That's also a bit different.
But again, when it goes from here to here, you should take it as a cue.
Anyhow, I really hope that you find this useful.
I certainly found this.
Well, I don't want to say life-changing, but definitely game-changing when it comes to communication skills.
So please be aware of it.
Go ahead and implement it in your life.
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