The School of Life (4) - Communication

By chrysolite, 15th Sep 2010 | Follow this author | RSS Feed | Short URL http://nut.bz/26q15yl2/
Posted in Wikinut>Health>Mind & Spirit>Self Help

This is part 4 of a series of 12 articles about what they should have, but didn't teach us in school!

Silence is golden!
You said it, but what exactly did the other person hear and understand?
Generalisations
The art of listening
Sales talk
Body Language
How do you sell yourself?
Do parents really love their children?
Slag off your spouse?
Playing petty little games ...
Humour, joy and love
How communication can empower you

Silence is golden!

Silence is golden - have you ever tried this most powerful conversation tool? Just thought I'd mention this at the beginning of our little conversation page. ;) No, I don't mean sulking or ignoring your partner, I mean attentive silence. Well, you might want to try out once in an opportune situation.

You said it, but what exactly did the other person hear and understand?

And then you might want to learn about the words you are choosing. Why? - Very simple, because it is NOT important WHAT YOU THINK YOU SAY - it is only important what the other person HEARS AND UNDERSTANDS! Let me give you an example. My friend told me the other day that her boyfriend makes walking stick from wormwood. And I instantly got the picture of one of those tube adverts in London featuring: "From Wormwood Scrubs to Liberty Street in just 10 minutes" (or so). This is a very unfortunate association, of course, but I actually did not visualise walking in the country side or mountains with a walking stick, I actually visualised a prison at the time of talking. Now, if that friend of mine had wanted to sell me such a wormwood walking stick, well, I would not have been in a very resourceful state of mind wanting to buy this stick.

Generalisations

Another example. Your boss, your wife or whoever starts the sentence with: "You always do this ......" If you want to hold a good conversation, stay away from generalisations. Most people get very cross if you do that because they rightly say that they are individuals and don't always .... Another good one that never fails to annoy me: "90% or all people do .... why don't you ....." Very simple, because I'm not ..... and I don't.

The art of listening

Oh, and have you mastered the art of listening yet? - Well, not easy to learn, because you always know better, you always criticise (ah, getting annoyed because I write always ...? See?) Well, if you really want to change your life, start being an attentive listener, you'll see, you'll learn a lot and everybody'll love you.

Sales talk

Hang on, I just got to sharpen my knives .... Right, have you ever been on one of those sales training courses? Now there's the stuff, conversations are made of. They teach you everything politeness, persuasion and a bag full of tricks on how to make you buy a certain product. And then the punter says: "I don't have any money and can't do HP either" and the whole conversation ends. It never ceases to amaze me that this is the only objection they don't train properly at those sales training courses. Or silence. That's a good one, what do you do if your punter goes into attentive silence mode?

Body Language

Oh yes, body language. Don't we have hundreds of books (I told you a million times not to exaggerate ;)) about it teaching us which way to cross our legs and how not to cross arms and don't we try diligently to follow these instructions? At this stage I would really like to recommend NLP to you. That's Neuro-Linguistic Programming. That's where you learn about communication, body language, psychology, listening, even hypnosis if you feel you need to learn it and about pulling resources, the resources that make communication a useful and joyful experience.

How do you sell yourself?

Now, own story: One day I decided to get self-employed which at the beginning means that you have to sell yourself and your products and/or services. And that's when I had to decide how I'm going to do this. Follow the sales training manuals or simply be me, straightforward and honest. Well, I chose the latter. Sometimes a client of mine tells me I'm weird or different, but they appreciate my honesty. Ahhhhh ......

Do parents really love their children?

And now a word to you parents out there (especially parents with kids in supermarkets!!!). I simply fail to understand how parents can be so loving and affectionate with their children one minute and a split second later they abuse their children verbally in public and even worse at home. And if you watch closely, they usually shout at their children for something that THEY THEMSELVES have taught them!!! "Don't you swear at me!" or "Don't you dare hit me!" they shout. Now where would the child have learnt these swear words and hitting out? Exactly, these innocent little children just copy you as you tell them to all the time. You look into your own mirror when you shout at your child and hit it. Look at you! It's your unfriendly, insecure self you are looking at while you are shouting and hitting. How ugly your face is while you are shouting and hitting! And since you are not perfect, you certainly cannot demand from your child that it is. Maybe you'll see me watching you next time you are in a supermarket fighting with your child. And if you are very unlucky I might even talk to you.

Slag off your spouse?

Yes, the lady next door slagging off her husband with her friends in the garden. What a conversation! I'd be so ashamed of talking bad about my husband as I'd be admitting at the same time that I had made such a bad choice in marrying him. Or is it simply that they can't communicate with each other?

Playing petty little games ...

My all-time favourite: Your petty little games you are playing ALL THE TIME! I simply fail to understand why people think that this is necessary. A woman says "yes" and means "no and says "no" and means "yes" is the standard typical example of the game. Pretending, pretending, pretending to be different, different, different. Look, it doesn't work, people will soon find out and won't like the real you. But if you always ARE the real you, then you'll only attract people who like the real you and you've saved yourself a million problems all at once by simply telling your truth and being yourself.

Humour, joy and love

Communication also means humour and joy to me. Does it mean humour and joy to you too? And it also means unconditional love for everybody. Ahhh, very difficult at times if you really hate someone or something nasty that a person has done to you. Well, the other day I learnt this expression: "He/she is simply on another level of awareness and that's why he/she did this to me. But one day he/she will see his/her error, meanwhile I'm sending him/her loving thoughts in the hope he/she will change his/her ways". I don't know if this will work for you, but it works for me.

How communication can empower you

And remember, communication can empower you or make you sad and miserable. But also remember, it's your choice. You can choose who you talk to and you can also choose the subject. And you can even choose to talk about

A SUCCESSFUL, HAPPY AND HEALTHY FUTURE

Thanks for calling in!