Tactics Tuesdays: Open Loops

An open loop in conversation serves as a conversational "fallback" – and it makes your conversations FEEL more interesting, too.

An open loop is a conversation line you open, which you then leave open as you switch to a different topic.

For example, you say "You know, I found this incredible little restaurant when driving around Southside last Sunday. Do you ever drive around Southside? I know it's a little down in the dumps but blah blah..."

You opened the topic of 'incredible little restaurant', then switched to a different topic (driving around Southside).

Meanwhile, you've left the 'incredible little restaurant' topic open. You can now loop back to it later if you wish.

Open loops are handy, because they serve as ready topics for you to switch back to later on. If one topic of conversation dries up, you can flip back to a loop you opened earlier.

Master conversationalists create lots of open loops. Open loops can serve as lifelines, bailing you out when something you tried conversationally does not work.

Seeding is a kind of open loop -- where you open the loop of something you'd like to do with someone at some point, then return to it later on.

Open loops have many uses.

For today's Tactics Tuesdays installment, I'll show you several of those uses (to help you get the gist of the tactic... but there are myriad uses for open loops), and I'll give you more examples of how to open a loop within your conversations.