Can you confidently walk up to someone and start a conversation? Do you know how to evaporate a silent pause? If you answered yes, you are not alone!

Many people struggle with starting conversations. Unfortunately, this leads to poor social skills, uncomfortable pauses, and boring conversations!

That's bad news. The good news is that anyone can learn how to start conversations and keep them going. You just need right tools.

Think a moment. If I gave you a birthday candle and a couple matches, you could easily light candle. However, with no matches it would be nearly impossible!

So also starting a conversation can be tough if you don't have matches. However, with right matches or conversation starters, you can quickly strike up a conversation.

Conversation matches come in form of conversation starter questions. Whip out one of these questions or conversation starters and you can start a conversation with virtually anyone!

One question can start a conversation with a complete stranger. Using a conversation starter with your coworker or classmate can lead to several minutes of enjoyable conversation.

Here are a few conversation starters which are proven to work for starting conversations. Memorize them and use them.

* Conversation Starters for Strangers

What works good with strangers is to ask about something around you. Here are a few examples:

=> To a clerk: Has it been a busy today? => To a airline passage: How often do you fly? => To a classmate: How are you enjoying class?

1)Awareness and Perception 2)Law of Cause and Effect 3)Law of Accumulation

These categories are what you need to understand in order to be in total control of your being!

Most go through life never reaching their potential because they never take control of all their faculties or abilities.

This information is designed to help you gain complete control of your life!

So lets get into it

1)Awareness and perception.

In order to be in complete control of our self, actions, and ultimate success - we must learn to expand our awareness of what is around us.

FACT: there are certain states of mind that enable us to learn more information, retain more information, and be more aware of our environments

This state of mind is open to all of us; however, most people never call it to action.

In other words we just don’t look… The problem with that is if we are not using our resources… we are virtually blind! Or at least vary limited.

Most of us look at world through a tunnel vision… really blinded to what is all around us.

CAMERA

E.g.: Imagine having a really nice camera…problem is that it is always stuck on highest zoom! You can see a limited amount very detailed. However, you ignore majority of what is around you…

Here is what I mean

ACTION: Focus on a point… (Pick a point, any point) stare at it intently. Don’t move. Stare and Focus all of your energy into that point!

That is a great quality that we can focus so intently on one thing - but…

Keep starting at point… but while staring… try to notice what is to sides of point… sides of room… keep going. All way and you will realize that you can even see people sitting right next to you while still focusing on point!

That is what is called your peripheral vision…

Every leader that I know has ability to use both their focused vision, as well as their peripheral.

They can be laser focused on a task at hand while simultaneously keeping an open mind to other situations and opportunities…

This is what I mean by awareness…

The first step to taking charge of our lives is to broaden your vision of what is all around you all of time…

Once we are more AWARE of what is going on, we can then start making progress on expanding our perception! It’s when we do this that our transformation of self begins

Why do we get control of our perception?

We must learn to see all vantage points! All angles, all sides…

You cannot really be in control of your thoughts of you have limited thoughts!

E.g. Lifecycle?

Hit a threshold… what do you do. Some might stay quite… I say find a new lifecycle…. A new challenge and new ideas and compound!

Just a change in perception!

What about your greatest strength!

What is it? It is only strength.

I bet if you thought about it, your greatest strength when taken to an extreme could be your greatest FAULT! E.g. TITANIC!!!! Unsinkable!!!! Got rid of lifeboats… turned up speed!!! What happened?

Most people are inside box thinkers… even though it’s almost a cliché to say thinking outside box, most people don’t! Why not. Most don’t change their perceptions

Control of self comes from learning to shift your perceptions to all vantage points!

E.g.: at one point everything strange that happened on this planet was an act of god!

Then Isaac Newton came around and said no - everything happens because of universal laws!

The problem that people run into when trying to shift their perception is that most people think that their perception is reality!

Is it?

Is what you perceive always what is real! MATRIX!

Perception may be your reality…. But there is a difference between reality and actuality?

Once you can understand that what you perceive is only what you think is there and may not be what is actually there! Now you have foundation to understand next law!

Cause and effect!

This is a universal force of nature C -> E

You are always on one side of equation or another!

Either you assume causes for everything you do, or you are effect!

E.g. my organization won’t listen to me!

What side are you on with that statement? Are you a cause?

No.

What if you decided to be at cause and say that results that I get from my organization are a direct response from my communication skills and ability to move them into action!

Our communication is always a result of that information we put out, not what is heard on other side. If our message is not communication clearly, we should strive harder to improve our ability.

Now you are at cause.

It always easier to blame something or someone else with a result that you don’t like.’

But if you do that you are no longer in control. You are not a cause.

Another e.g. how many of you run into “circumstances in life”…. What do you usually do? Most blame others. Many of us may have had that situation just recently, you always have two options:

You can blame people around you, weather, events, situation or whatever else and see how your circumstances are everybody else’s fault but your own…. basically admitting that you are no longer in control of who you are and what you do!

Or you can choose to be a cause for your present moment! Personally, if a circumstance comes to me, I call it a challenge, and I think this was presented to me for a reason. I look at what other’s use as reasons not to excel, and see them as challenges to test my mental toughness and emotional intelligence to see what I deserve, what reward may be just on other side of that obstacle!!!

I am a cause! I am in control. I choose to perceive and respond do different things!

You see once you understand that YOU can choose how you perceive things… from what vantage point you want to view…. Then you we realize that you are a cause for everything in your life. You can always be in control.

You see most people never do this…. people are so predictable! When we say something wrong… what do we do? We Blame, Mimic, deny and justify!!!

Most people will do this. You can’t go around changing people. You simply must learn to control yourself.

A unique realization: When you decide to change yourself, you in fact change your environment!

How?

If you take a different viewpoint – you change your perception of reality. Your perception is what you perceive as real. Therefore by changing yourself you change your world!

So don’t ask for your environment to change… That’s in EFFECT

Ask for you to change… now you are a cause!

You are either affecting your environment or your environment is affecting you! Which is it?

The catch is, sometimes you don’t want to be a cause. Sometime it’s easier to blame… to stay inside matrix!

That is what personal transformation is all about!