Effective communication skills will help us become an effective communicator. To understand effective communication, we need to first find out the intention behind the communication. What is the main purpose of communicating with others? What is the intention of the communication? what do you plan to achieve with this communication?
why do you need it to be an effective communication in the first place?
Is it just that we want to prove to others that we can do better than them?
Is it a behavior seeking approval from others? or to just show off your verbal skills?
These (or something similar) may be the primary motives. Let’s say you have already grounded the golden rule and now you are better than before, but still, it is not satisfying. Somehow it does not fit in right and you feel uncomfortable. Why would that be? What else would it take to have an effective communication skills? Any ideas?
Here is one of those million dollar principles that can boost up any skill you want to master
As long as it is not natural to you…..as long as you are not congruent with what you say, it will not be a powerful communication….the type which brings more and more confidence to you. Most of the good material out there which talks about being an effective communicator are missing an important principle. (Or to reword, they are not emphasizing it enough).
Effective communication skills do not start with or end by telling about the TOP 3 tricks and techniques……
It only shows that the sellers of such stuff (as well as buyers) are lazy.
Self help of any kind, be it developingleadership skills or being a powerful presenteror todevelop effective communication skills, does not start off….……Until you fix the inner game,
Until you know where you are and you feel comfortable with that, no amount of techniques or exercises will help you!!!!
So internalize the first principle of being an effective communicator,
Know where you stand and be comfortable with that.
When I started off, I saw all these great people exuding power just by their presence. They did not have to use any words to command attention. Neither did they change their body language, or have a condescending look. It was their mere presence that made all the difference. Some of these people were not even well recognized. Their presence conveyed their power. The effect of their communication skills was quite visible.
On the other hand, I have seen many speakers in expensive seminars work the crowd into hair pulling frenzy; even with good content, they were driving people nuts with their talking style.
In the same breed you will see people who had gone to some fancy high price workshop and end up being terrible speakers. This is largely due to the lack of congruence in their speech. It just does not fit in right with the rest of them.
I have also been to some of these seminars. I would sit in the audience and realize,
“Woops that it is so and so technique from so and so author or so and so trick from so and so workshop….
Jee that didn't work!!….What shall I do?”
If you were in my place, you would have felt the frustration too! You can avoid it all by using the principles and techniques in our website.
So here I was, with a lot of high price material and in front of my eyes were examples of how it won’t work. I was feeling guilty. I had all that I needed but still I could not be an effective communicator and develop effective communication skills.
To summarize Rule number 2:
As long as anything that you do is a technique or a trick, it is not going to work 100%.
For that matter no technique will ever work 100% because deep down you know it is not you and you know it is odd and not really your style. Your subconscious will be sending out the " He is a fake!! He is a fake!!" signal to your listeners or audience.