WE NEED TO TALK
By Shirley Moulton - Founder, The ACADEMi of Life, NYC
I recently read Catherine Blyth’s The ART of Conversation a manual on how to be a great conversationalist. I was particularly interested in this topic since our new venture The ACADEMI of Life (www.theacademioflife.com), a place where we discuss ideas to perfect our lives, offers a weekly conversation dinner event.
These dinners confirmed that attendees had no difficulty being conversationalists. In fact I learned that there was this great need to talk. And this talk needed to be face to face. I also learned how essential these conversations were to our well-being and how valuable the simple pleasure of talking to one another is. People were open, eager to spend time with each other connecting and sharing their life stories…one more intriguing than the other. The conversations were transformative and provided great insights on how we can lead happier and more fulfilling lives.
The book contains these wonderful gems:
• Good conversations can come close to heaven
• Conversation is where the raw stuff of life is spun into art
• Conversations awaken us to each other
• Conversation is good for the brain – better than a hundred pills
• Conversations can heal us
• Conversations give us humanity
• Talk less we understand each other less
I am reminded of the old French salons where conversations were most revered, where the great thinkers, writers, artists, politicians got together to share ideas to innovate, to reason and to produce best-selling books and form lifelong friendships.
I am excited about the possibilities of these dinner conversations…and remain confident that we can change the world one conversation at a time!
