Welcome to the new season 3 of Come chai with me, once again, hosted by Simmi Arora. On this episode her co-hosts are: Daksha Mistry and Manjusha Malhotra. This episode focuses on understanding and outlining what makes a good conversation.

How important is listening in a conversation?
Conversation is a mental link that connects humans, it’s an adventure and it gives us a whole new prospective. It can define who we are as humans and can help us make friends out of strangers. It can make peace but can also make war!

This podcast is inspired by Celeste Headlee’s Ted talk on 10 ways to have a better conversation: We Need to Talk - the talk gives listeners 10 simple tools to help facilitate better conversations, ranging from the errors we routinely make, for exampling putting down our smartphone when being face to face with someone, to the less obvious blind spots that can sabotage any conversation, including knowing when not to talk, being aware of our own bias and avoiding putting yourself at the centre of a discussion. When your job hinges on how well you talk to people, you learn a lot about how to have conversations and that most of us don't converse very well.

Celeste Headlee has worked as a radio host for decades and she knows the ingredients of a great conversation: Honesty, brevity, clarity and a healthy amount of listening. In her career as a National Public Radio host, journalist Celeste Headlee has interviewed hundreds of people from all walks of life, and if there's one thing she's learned, it's that it's hard to overestimate the power of conversation and its ability to both bridge gaps and deepen wounds. In her Ted talk she shares what she's learned on the job about how to have effective, meaningful and respectful conversations in every area of our lives. Now more than ever, Headlee argues, we must begin to talk to and, more importantly, listen to one another - including those with whom we disagree.

Conversation is like reading a book, an opportunity to learn from others. In Bill Nighy’s words, ‘Everyone you will ever meet will know something that you don’t.’

As Maya Angelou once said, ‘ I have learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’

We hope that you find this episode interesting and useful.