When I met my husband, I remember saying to him and to other people that he was SUCH a good listener. Like, oh-my-goodness-I-had-never-met-such-a-good-listener-in-all-my-life. I’d talk and talk and talk and talk and he’d listen And not just passively but actively listen. Oh my heart, he had me at “hello” and I”d talk until it was time for one of us to head home (while we were dating) or to bed (once we were married).
Fast forward a couple of years and I read The Respect Dare and it kept talking about how men and women communicate differently and how men use their words and how women use theirs and it even went so far as to suggest silence as a form of respect.
I’m sure I laughed out loud. It was that funny to me. Sitting at my little desk in my classroom, I thought “but he’s SUCH a good listener, why would I take that away from him?”.
But curiosity got the better of me and I determined to not ramble on and on when I got home from school. I wanted to know about his day (I’d be embarrassed to venture a guess on the number of times in three years I had gotten more than a “my day was good” out of him and cared to dig a little deeper.)
The first few days were crickets ladies. I’d say “How was your day?” and he’d say “Good” and we’d talk about dinner. And then we’d go to our chairs and work. And that was that.
And I thought “Ok, I’m not doing something right here. How do you get someone to talk about themselves?” And then it occurred to me over the course of a few days that I needed to ask better questions.
Enter my inspiration.
I would love for you all to meet Cassie Keck. Cassie is one of my best friends and I don’t think written words can do her justice in a description but I will surely try: she is Spirit-filled woman of God who makes everyone feel welcome and loved and has this super-contagious laugh and ridiculous dance skills who always knows what she wants and works at it with determination and is married to a great guy and I’ve (not-so-secretly) enjoyed watching her grow as a wife maybe the most. I’ve known her for seven years and we became friends because I decided she would be a good friend and so I made her hang out with me until she agreed and the rest is history. (For the record, I don’t recommend this form of forced friendship in all situations but it obviously worked here ;).)
Cassie plays this awesome game on birthdays which is so fun and it’s called “The Birthday Question Game”. I had her write her thoughts up about TBQG to share with you all. I hope you enjoy! I will blog again tomorrow and let you know how I applied it to my marriage – it has been HUGE!
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Teachers and parents know this best of all. If you want to get something out of a kid you need to ask the right questions. The thing is, this method does not just work on kids, it works on adults too; but after a certain point we forget or get scared or are too self consumed to ask other adults questions. We ask, ‘ How ya doing’ mostly to be polite but where do we go from there? What is our next move? How do we go deeper? Jesus himself asked questions frequently, in fact, there are over 80 accounts of Jesus asking questions in the New Testament. He asked questions more than he did anything else, more than healing, more than preaching, more than rebuking. Why? Because questions are the best way to get people talking. One of my favorite to do this is by playing the birthday question game.
I cannot honestly tell you that I started the birthday question game with any deep spiritual intention. I really think that I just wanted a fun way to interject conversation into a group setting. In college, I found that when I would go to a birthday party for a friend I was often thrown into groups with people I did not necessarily know. But since a mutual friend was having a birthday here we were and I would make it a point to keep conversation lively. I would start by asking the birthday person questions about their birthday. The best way to do this:
step one- find common ground. At a birthday, the common ground was the birthday person. I would always just ask simple yet personal questions. Some examples of these questions; What is the best gift you have ever received? What is the earliest birthday you remember? Do you have any birthday traditions? Simple yet these are things you do not know about your friend. I loved playing this game with good friends because even people that you have known for years give you something new to learn about them, something to discover, some way to deepen your relationship. I always found that when the questions start rolling conversation does too . People open up because what do we know better than ourselves! Others at the party seemed to join in as well with their own questions or comments. Not only were we learning about the birthday person but everyone else seemed learn about each other.
step two- allow them to speak. (that is just a polite way of saying shut up and listen!) I know that conversation is a two way street but if you are anything like me and like to answer your own questions you will never get to know others deeply. Step back and look at your motive, if you are just waiting for the person to finish answering so that you can jump in, it would be better for you to just keep quiet. During the birthday question game the birthday person is the focus of the game so they are the only ones answering. It would be strange for me to answer questions about my birthday on someone else’s special day so that keeps me in check. Listening also helps you to remember so that the next time you speak to this person you have something in common and you know something about them which helps to build relationships. Allowing people the freedom to be themselves with the knowledge that they are heard and cared about makes a difference in relationships that are just beginning as well as life-long friendships.
My story does not end with the birthday question game it ends with a marriage which may seem unlikely but the fact that I am married to an introvert is living proof that the right questions can change lives. I met my husband in 2010, during our first encounter we ended up talking for over two hours not because he is an overly talkative person by any stretch of the imagination. We talked for so long because I cared to get to know him and he felt open enough to share his life with a complete stranger. We talked about what we would have in common, our work place, we found shared interest and similar inspirations. We talked about dreams and hopes and expectations for our lives. This happened not because of any magic formula or special technique but because like with the birthday question game honest simple questions and an intent listener helped open the door for meaningful relationships. Getting past ‘how ya doing’ leads to really knowing someone and isn’t that the desire of our hearts, to know and be known?
Allowing people the freedom to be themselves with the knowledge that they are heard and cared about makes a difference in relationships that are just beginning as well as life-long friendships. There is no way to learn everything about a person, but if you truly care about the people in your life, try.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————
So come back tomorrow and I’ll talk about how I use it and what kinds of things to ask!
Haha I love the title of this post! Great insight!