I was listening to Bill Burr's Monday Morning Podcast (www.billburr.com/podcast) and came up with this exercise. The beauty of this podcast as that Bill is basically ranting for about an hour, unplanned, unrehearsed and freestyles shit that is better than some comedians whole act. Reading about conversation threading on this site has helped me a lot with my day to day interactions but I was thinking "What ways can I practice when NOT talking to people?" Then it hit me, why not do exactly what Bill is doing?

The exercise is simple: 1) Get a timer 2) Start when ready 3) Just Talk. Pausing for a couple of seconds is ok but if it goes over 10 secs then you have to start over.

Look at it like a game. After doing this exercise for a while you'll be able to carry a conversation with ease. When someone brings up a subject in conversation you'll start to think of multiple responses. It's great at breaking down the barriers that the mind sets up sometimes. You might lead yourself to believe that you have nothing to talk about but after doing this exercise, your mind under the pressure of the timer will start to think of another topic to segue into almost immediately. Try it and tell me what you think. Hope this helps!