Death to tedious conversations!

"What did it feel like the first time you laid eyes on your significant other...what was it about them that attracted you?" I asked a group of Deloitte partners and private equity sponsors at a dinner to start the evening. Three hours later, we finished the dinner as we finished hearing the responses from the 10 people sharing that dinner - a whole dinner exploring one question! At the end of the dinner, we all thanked each other for such amazing, authentic, heart felt stories that made our time together truly captivating in every sense of that word.

Yes, this actually happened in February.

Have you ever experienced such a dinner that you did not want to end (even after the amazing desserts were served)?

I am guessing that you have not.

But you can.

Last night, I shared a dinner with 9 other Deloitte colleagues at an off-site . I only knew my friend and Deloitte partner but had never met or spoken to any of her teammates from all levels of our consulting team. We started the dinner with "What was the craziest job or career you ever wished to have?". That got everybody comfortable for the zinger a young dinner participant asked: "If you could decide at the age of 30 to keep your mind or your body healthy and the other deteriorated and you knew you would live until you were 90, which would you choose to keep healthy?" That was one of the most fascinating conversations I have ever had with Deloitte colleagues (or in any context, really) in my 28 year career. Everyone shared perspectives from their life, from Formula 1 racing, from their families when responding. I shared my experience caring for my father as his "father" for 31 years until his death last summer. I told of how, as limited as my father was physically and mentally in his final years, he would cry when he heard songs he loved such as "Four Strong Winds" the memories of his younger years flooding his mind. I described, choked up in tears last night, how I played "Four Strong Winds" in his final moments and told him "OK dad, you have heard one last great song...you can go now" and how he died moments later. Incredibly, one of our young colleagues summed up a lot of our thoughts when he said (paraphrasing here) that the mind is at the core of humanity and is what differentiates us from other animals. How fascinating it was to get to that level of "being real" with each other that he made such an observation?

How can you too have such amazing engaging conversations with your significant other, your friends, your date, your family, your co-workers, your clients and even just the person you randomly meet?

You will be surprised at the humanity you may discover, the empathy that you may have for others, the thrill of hearing from other people with diametrically different perspectives and experiences.

Let's never again limit conversation to the weather, politics, or sport and speak instead of the many things that will wow us into feeling more alive. Or let's not even talk about the weather. politics or sport - can you do it?

What is your killer question that you will ask in your next conversation?