145: The Art of Conversation with Stuart Chittenden, Founder of Squishtalks - a podcast by Jen Arnold

In today’s world, we can reach out to almost anybody through social media, an email or a website. Our co-workers are just an IM or text away. But despite this ability to digitally connect, we are lonelier than ever. In the past 50 years, rates of loneliness have doubled in the U.S. Former U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy likens loneliness to a public health crisis, and the workplace as one of the primary places where it can get better — or worse. 

Today’s guest, Stuart Chittenden, believes conversation can help. Stuart has focused his time and efforts to Squishtalks, a conversation social practice he founded in 2010. Promoting the art of conversation in the belief that conversation helps us to live well and work better, Squishtalks has collaborated with numerous community groups and businesses.

According to Stuart, conversation is the bridge that connects our individual selves with those of people around us. Conversation enables us to recognize the humanity in others, and thereby in ourselves. In our most fundamental experience of being human, every one of us yearns for connection, which conversation helps to enable.

In this interview, we start out talking about a community project called “a couple of 830 mile long conversations,” which received Humanities Nebraska’s largest grant award in 2015. In an RV, Stuart adventured for four weeks along side roads and among small towns to talk with Nebraskans, discovering the lives, cultures and stories of people he met.

Stuart also explains the principles and practices of conversation that foster human connection, how these conversations are intrinsic to personal wellbeing but are missing from wellness programs and conversation considerations for extroverts and introverts.

Thank you to our sponsor, Workplace Money Coach. Workplace Money Coach’s 4-week, Living Paycheck to Purpose financial empowerment program, helps employees address the root causes of their financial challenges so they can better align their financial choices with their purpose and the life goals that matter most to them. You can find out more at http://www.workplacemoneycoach.com/. Shane’s email: shane@workplacemoneycoach.com

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