[glenngillen]

Hey, congrats on trying to put yourself out there and also reflecting on how to improve things!

There’s probably many things you could experiment with. My suggestion for a simple start would be to reframe from “when I try to contribute” to “how can I help someone continue the conversation?”.

So for your travel example, people may not want a second retelling of what they just heard. But what if instead you asked “did you get to see X? What did you think of it?”. It shows the speaker you were listening and engaged, gives them the opportunity to continue their story, and gives you both the opportunity to have a shared experience.