20 Excellent Conversation Questions Everyone Loves

By: Peter Murphy

Once you have experimented asking questions for a while, you will realize just how great questions are for starting conversations, helping them flow and for getting to know someone better. Now it is time to have some fun with it!

What makes an excellent conversation question?

1. It is easy to answer
2. It does not cause offence
3. It includes everyone
4. People will not be judged on their responses!

This last point is particularly important, as people will be reluctant to talk if they feel they will be judged. So you can see a good conversation question is also about tone and circumstances.

Below is a list of excellent conversation questions to delve deeper into the personalities of people you feel comfortable with and find out a few more things about them. These are great for social gatherings and parties or anywhere where you want to have fun and get to know someone in the process.

It is a great spin on the old party game "Twenty Questions" but see where each question leads you when you get the answers. Do not turn your questioning into an interrogation and listen to the answers you get.

Pick up on these answers and as subsidiary questions, add your own answers: ask whatever seems appropriate and whatever the other person seems to want you to do. Just go with the flow and enjoy it!

1. If you were God for a day, what would you do?
2. If you could be the parent of one famous person, who would you want it to be and why?
3. What was the last thing you regret buying?
4. If you had a chance to bring one person back from the dead, who would it be and why?
5. What three things you regret not learning to do?
6. If you had a crystal ball that could tell you the truth about any one thing you wished to know about yourself, life, the future, or anything else, what would you want to know?
7. What's worse... having expectations that are too high, or having no expectations at all?
8. How do you know when you're in love?
9. What is the most important invention or innovation that has happened during your life-time?
10. How would you spend your ideal day?
11. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
12. What three adjectives might other people use to describe your personality?
13. Who would you choose to be shipwrecked on a desert island with?
14. What is your idea of a perfect romantic evening?
15. If you were to be remembered for one thing, what would you like it to be?
16. If you were guaranteed honest responses to any three questions, whom would you question, and what would you ask them?
17. If you saw someone shoplifting, what would you do?
18. Is there anything you would willingly give your life for?
19. If you could re-live a day of your life again, which would it be and why?
20. If you could be invisible for a day, what would you do?

These are all light-hearted questions that should cause no-one offence, but they also touch on philosophical issues and allow you to really get to know a person - if they are honest with their answers. You make it a lot more likely that they will tell the truth if you set the scene and provide a relaxed atmosphere and if you are prepared to chip in with your own answers.

Under those circumstances, these provide excellent conversation questions to enable you to know more about your friends than you might ever have found out in any other way.

Article Source: ABC Article Directory

Peter Murphy is a peak performance expert. He recently produced a very popular free report: 10 Simple Steps to Developing Communication Confidence. Apply now because it is available only at: conversation starters

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Stage6 to Shut Down on February 28

I’m Tom (aka Spinner), a Stage6 user and an employee of DivX, Inc., the company behind the service. I’m writing this message today to inform you that we plan to shut down Stage6 on February 28, 2008. Upload functionality has already been turned off, and you’ll be able to view and download videos until Thursday.

I know this news will come as a shock and disappointment to many Stage6 users, and I’d like to take a few moments to explain the reasons behind our decision.

We created Stage6 with the mission of empowering content creators and viewers to discover a new kind of video experience. Stage6 began as an experiment, and we always knew there was a chance that it might not succeed.

In many ways, though, the service did succeed, beyond even our own initial expectations. Stage6 became very popular very quickly. We helped gain exposure for some talented filmmakers who brought great videos to the attention of an engaged community. We helped prove that it’s possible to distribute true high definition video on the Internet. And we helped broaden the Internet video experience by offering content that is compatible with DVD players, mobile devices and other products beyond the PC.

So why are we shutting the service down? Well, the short answer is that the continued operation of Stage6 is a very expensive enterprise that requires an enormous amount of attention and resources that we are not in a position to continue to provide. There are a lot of other details involved, but at the end of the day it’s really as simple as that.

Now, why didn’t we think of that before we decided to create Stage6 in the first place, you may ask? That’s a good question. When we first created Stage6, there was a clear need for a service that would offer a true high quality video experience online because other video destinations on the Internet simply weren’t providing that to users. A gap existed, and Stage6 arrived to fill it.

As Stage6 grew quickly and dramatically (accompanied by an explosion of other sites delivering high quality video), it became clear that operating the service as a part of the larger DivX business no longer made sense. We couldn’t continue to run Stage6 and focus on our broader strategy to make it possible for anyone to enjoy high quality video on any device. So, in July of last year we announced that we were kicking off an effort to explore strategic alternatives for Stage6, which is a fancy way of saying we decided we would either have to sell it, spin it out into a private company or shut it down.

I won’t (and can’t, really) go into too much detail on those first two options other than to say that we tried really hard to find a way to keep Stage6 alive, either as its own private entity or by selling it to another company. Ultimately neither of those two scenarios was possible, and we made the hard decision to turn the lights off and cease operation of the service.

So that’s where we are today. After February 28, Stage6 will cease to exist as an online destination. But the larger DivX universe will continue to thrive. Every day new DivX Certified devices arrive on the market making it easy to move video beyond the PC. Products powered by DivX Connected, our new initiative that lets users stream video, photos, music and Internet services from the PC to the TV, are hitting retail outlets. We remain committed to empowering content creators to deliver high quality video to a wide audience, and we’ll continue to offer services that will make it easy to find videos online in the DivX format.

It’s been a wild ride, and none of it would have been possible without the support of our users. Thank you for making Stage6 everything that it was.

--Tom

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Why Some People Hurt Others - Blame It On The Pain

When someone does something to you to intentionally hurt you, it can make it much worse than if they were to do the same thing accidentally.  When speaking of mental wounds, part of the reason for this is that you feel like there must have been something about you that made them want to hurt you.

That is almost never, quite possibly actually never, the real cause.  The real cause is nearly certain to be the internal pain that they feel from something in their own life... it could be something from early childhood, or it could be something from earlier today, but the desire to inflict pain on someone almost always originates from your own pain.

Think back to the last time you did something to intentionally hurt someone, even if it was very small.  What were you feeling at the time?  It wasn't sweet, sugary feelings of happiness and love, was it?

You may not have thought directly of pain... you may have been angry, or jealous, or some similar emotion.  Those feelings only come from pain, however... you don't get angry, for instance, without feeling that someone has done something wrong to you.

The same is true of others... no one truly does things just because they enjoy inflicting pain.  Even if it seems that way to them,  THAT feeling in turn is caused by some pain from their past.

That doesn't mean that their actions are justified, by any means... it's still wrong to hurt someone intentionally, regardless of how badly you've been hurt in the past.  Your own pain isn't a valid excuse for inflicting pain on others.

On the other hand, once you realize that the harm comes from the pain of another, it does make it far easier to forgive them, and somewhat easier to not take hurt from the actions in the first place, even when they are intended to cause pain.  It takes away their power, because you realize that they are attacking from a place of weakness, not a place of strength.

And it's amazing the amount of relief that you feel when you truly forgive someone... it takes a lot of energy to hold a grudge.

Try this, when you have a chance:  Think back to one of your hurts that you carry with you... it doesn't have to be a big one, but it could be if you choose.  Now think about the person who caused that hurt, and picture them as having done it because they were lashing out from their own pain (a feeling the vast majority of us are familiar with).  Let yourself feel that feeling, the conscious knowledge that you are saying or doing something you don't really mean because of your own hurt, and then understand that whatever they did came from a similar place, that they had just as hard a time controlling it.

It changes the way you feel about it a lot when you look at it that way, doesn't it?

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10 Tips to Feel Good Instantly

10 Tips to Feel Good Instantly

February 20th, 2008

I thought this was too good to pass up. Trisha is always telling me to smile because she likes my smile and it always cheers me up. I thought this was a great idea to use for a post. It’s been scientifically proven that a change in your physiology will change the way you feel. Here are 10 tips to feel good instantly:

1. Smile

2. Smile more.

3. Smile even more.

4. Smile even more than that.

5. Smile when you don’t want to.

6. Smile when you do.

7. Smile if you feel good.

8. Smile if you don’t.

9. Smile everyday.

10. Keep Smiling :)

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lloyd_delorean.jpg (JPEG Image, 780x585 pixels)

lloyd_delorean.jpg (JPEG Image, 780x585 pixels)

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10 Tips to Change Yourself From a Dedicated Couch-Potato to a Gym Enthusiast | LifeRemix Blog

10 Tips to Change Yourself From a Dedicated Couch-Potato to a Gym Enthusiast

Written by Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project.

Photo by kajo55

Exercise helps keep you happy and vital. Studies show that folks who exercise are healthier, cheerier, more energetic, think more clearly, sleep better, and have delayed onset of dementia. What’s more, they get relief from anxiety and mild depression—comparable to medication and therapy.

But of course, no one really disputes the benefit of exercise. The trick is actually DOING IT.

My own favorite activity is reading in bed—preferably, while snacking. It took me a while, but I’ve managed to get myself into the habit of exercising regularly.

These ten strategies helped me stick to my routine:

1. Always exercise on Monday. Starting the week on the right foot makes it easier to stick to your plan.

2. Never skip exercising for two days in a row. You can skip a day, but the next day, you must exercise no matter how inconvenient. This rule dramatically increased the number of times I exercise over the course of a month.

3. Remember, exercise GIVES energy. If you feel too tired to exercise, remember that exercise boosts energy. It took me a long time to notice that I’d drag myself to the gym, work out for forty minutes, and leave feeling far more energetic than when I went in.

4. Any work-out “counts.” Give yourself credit for the least effort. My father, a runner, always said that all he had to do was put on his running shoes and close the door behind him. Why does this work? Because if I know I can quit after five minutes, I get started—and once I start, I usually follow through with my usual routine. Getting out the door is by FAR the toughest part.

5. You don’t have to shower. One problem—mostly for women—is that taking a shower can take too much time. Look for exercise like strength-training, yoga, or walking, that don’t make you sweaty.

6. Throw money at the problem. Spend more to go to a more convenient gym, or to get an iPod, or to work with a trainer. Exercise pays off BIG in your quality of life, so this is a place to splurge.

7. Don’t set the bar too high. I have a friend who thinks it’s not worth exercising unless she’s training for a marathon – and so she never exercises. She’d be better off going for a one-mile run five times a week.

8. Don’t kid yourself. Belonging to a gym doesn’t mean that you go to the gym. Having been in good shape in college doesn’t mean you’re in good shape today. Be honest about what your habits really are now.

9. You have time. Just take a twenty-minute walk. If you can’t do more, do that! Just a twenty-minute walk will really pay off.

10. Exercise for SANITY not VANITY. I find it more motivating to think about the fact that exercise is going to make me feel happier, calmer, and more energetic, right now, rather than to think about vaguer long-term benefits, like strengthened immunity or longer life. It’s not clear that exercise has much impact on weight loss, so don’t be give up when the pounds don’t fall off. It’s worth doing for so many other reasons.

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