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How To Remove Awkward Silences With The Only Conversational Hack You Need

Lukas Schwekendiek
4 min readJul 14, 2024

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The best conversational trick I have ever learned is that your emotions project into the situation, and therefore, the other person.

People remember emotions more than they remember what was said.

Whatever you feel, or emotions you bring into the situation, will be what the other person notices and probably will feel as well.

That means, when you find a silence awkward, the situation will likely feel awkward to the other person as well and they will remember that awkwardness.

If you are comfortable with these awkward silences or accept them as they are, they will not feel awkward to you and that will greatly reduce the chance that the other person feels awkward too.

I know this sounds backwards at first, but as long as you keep an open-mind to things being awkward you won’t try as hard to prevent them from becoming awkward, which usually leads to even weirder and more awkward situations.

Usually, the more you try to save something the worse it gets.

Learn to be okay with the silences first.

From there ask yourself what emotions you remember from your favorite interactions with others and try to emphasize and embody those.

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Lukas Schwekendiek
Lukas Schwekendiek

Written by Lukas Schwekendiek

Life Coach, Speaker, Writer. Published on TIME, Inc & Huffington Post. Coaching available again! Email: Lukas.schwekendiek@gmail.com with the word "Coaching"

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