Follow your train...

When was the last time you had a fresh unguided thought? There’s usually an unknown element which brings some ‘angle’ to thoughts. What is that? Is it in the way the thought is approached? Or is the problem/solution/destination that determines what we say?
Many a times some folks have a tendency to repeat themselves, without realizing. This is a crime. Your responses shouldn’t be automated, but should be based on the ‘reality of now’, i.e. realize what we say, when we say it. If not, you’d end up with many a contradiction, and at the receiving end of animosity for no conscious fault of yours (if you don’t realize you are saying the same things to the same folks, they’d feel that you didn’t really notice/care who was listening the first time). Guard your thoughts and words, it’s essential.
Some folks, the wise ones (I’ll explain why I call them this), knowingly explore same topic to the same audience or slightly different audience at a time when the responses of people would be triggered by other circumstances, or other events, leading to a different direction of conversation (different outcome). Some would feel ‘baited’ at the end of this, but in all fairness, fishing is a sport only when the fish bites. Knowing the time and place to say things is crucial.
Now, these ‘wise’ ones do not have control over other people’s thoughts, rather they realize that certain thoughts expressed at certain times might be guarded. Their experience teaches them to realize (or feel) an unknown/incomplete element of conversation when others are guarded. So they prod and probe with similar questions when the time is ripe, and take the learnings from the responses. The smart/shrewd ones use it to their advantage, albeit a short lived one.
Bottom line? - "There are no accidents." Sigmund Freud. Exercise regularly, work out your grey cells actively to process thoughts, evaluate options, and follow your train of thoughts till it reaches a station. I have reached mine!