Also by this author: This Seat's Saved
Published by Moody Publishers on October 4, 2022
Genres: Non-Fiction, Christian Life
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It’s time for a conversation revival!
Conversation is getting harder. We’re feeling more isolated. Loneliness is becoming an epidemic. The Six Conversations: Pathways to Connecting Again in an Age of Isolation and Incivility reflects one of the deepest passions of Dr. Heather Holleman’s heart: to connect people in loving community. Professor Holleman often fields questions like:
How can I foster meaningful connection with others?
Why doesn’t anyone ever ask meaningful questions?
If my personal happiness depends upon having warm relationships—like all the research shows—how can I become a better conversationalist and create connection?Can you relate? Are you longing for loving, meaningful, and joyful conversations? For practical skills to connect with others? Heather invites us to reimagine better conversations. Her work demonstrates how we can develop authentic community by changing our relational mindsets to become more curious, to believe the best about others, to express concern about their lives, and to share our own. Heather shows us how to embrace the Four Mindsets of a Loving Conversation and the Three Fresh Goals for Conversation. Using the latest research, she shares the foundational training necessary for engaging in truly loving conversations. Readers will be equipped with effective questions, self-assessments, and action steps to immediately implement in any situation—both personally and professionally.
If you desire deeper relationships with your spouse, dating partner, children, friends, in-laws, grandchildren, coworkers, clients, students, people in your neighborhood—or all the above—then read this book and grow in the art of The Six Conversations!
This highly readable, encouraging book offers paradigm shifts and practical advice for pursuing meaningful conversations. Heather Holleman, a professor, author, and speaker, shares stories and social science research about how essential it is for people of all personalities to experience forms of meaningful connection. She writes some about the specific challenges of our cultural climate, and although she doesn’t focus on how to have political or social conversations without relational breakdown, she offers helpful advice for how people can cultivate meaningful relationships regardless of their differences.
The Six Conversations: Pathways to Connecting in an Age of Isolation and Incivility includes three parts that are well-organized and best read in order. The first focuses on the nature of conversation, why it matters, and what goes wrong in conversation. The second part is about how to have meaningful conversations, how to overcome anxious, self-conscious feelings when talking to others, and how to pursue the six core avenues of conversation. Holleman credits this framework to her husband and shows how we can ask social, emotional, physical, cognitive, volitional, and spiritual questions to deepen our conversations in different directions. The final section of the book focuses on how we can identify our own and others’ preferred conversational styles to recognize our strengths and weakness and better connect with others.
I greatly enjoyed this book and found it very helpful. Holleman writes in an engaging, personal style, frequently sharing moving stories about her life and her conversations with her students, and she speaks to both secular and religious readers in a natural, comfortable way. Holleman weaves in references to her faith throughout and shares a chapter about what the Bible teaches and shows us about conversation, but this book acknowledges and welcomes people of all backgrounds and can be a blessing to any audience.
