Bruce BassiHaving good communication skills is key to a happier life
With good communication, you find more meaning in the things around you, and better connected to loved ones. Follow the advice of Celest Headlee:
1. Don’t multitask during a conversation. If you are in a conversation, be completely in the conversation. Don’t be half in and half out.
2. Don’t pontificate. If you want to get your opinion out without anyone engaged with you, write a book. In the words of therapist, Peck, true listening requires setting aside one’s self. Assume that you can learn something from everyone. In the words of Bill Nye, “everyone you will ever meet, knows something you don’t.”
3. Use open ended questions. It allows the other person to think about what they felt, rather than using your words to respond.
4. Go with the flow. Allow your thoughts to come and GO when you have thoughts in conversation.
5. If you don’t know something, say that you don’t know.
6. Don’t equate your experience with theirs. You don’t need to interject your experiences in the conversation to prove how amazing you are or how much you’ve suffered. You don’t need to tell the person about yourself to convey empathy.
7. Don’t repeat yourself. Don’t say “Like I said earlier.”
8. Leave out all the details! How often have you been listening to someone who gets side tracked in their own mind trying to remember a detail such as a year, or date, or event, unrelated to what you are talking about? Let that go and talk about the big point. That’s what they’ll remember.
9. Listen. “If your mouth is open, you’re not learning.” “No man has ever listened his way out of a job.” Some reasons why we don’t always listen are: we would rather be in control (by talking), we would rather bolster our mood (by talking), we are distracted by our mind that tries to fill in the gaps of what others are saying. “Most of us don’t listen with the intent to understand. Most of us listen with the intent to reply.”
10. Be brief. Be interested in other people.
