Whenever I think of the word skill, my brain drifts off to the scene in the movie ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ when he is telling Pedro that he doesn’t have any good skills. (*Disclaimer: if you haven’t seen Napoleon Dynamite… ….. ….. … whatever.) I always laughed at his naming “nun-chuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills”. His point was: girls only like boys who have great skills. This is the same for communication. People like people who have great communication skills. People get along better with people who have cultivated great communication skills. I think people are born with a natural sense of communication. For instance, a baby cries to communicate it has a nasty, dirty diaper and it wants to be comfortable again. A baby will also smile to say, I’m happy, revealing it’s inner emotion. And the one thing I love about babies: they are completely genuine. Their communication is never hindered by lies or deceit or what’s relevant and hip. It’s pure and from the heart. They’re not trying to get anything else across except to tell you what’s on their heart (or in their diaper. You pick).
What do babies have to do with communication skills? I know we all fail at times when it comes to communication, because we’ve forgotten where we’ve come from. I think everyone can tell when a baby has a poopy diaper. Not just by the smell, which always is horrifically pungent, but the dirty deed is written all over their faces, followed by a giggle or a scream. Simple. The scent of their uncomfortable disposition floats across the room into your nostrils and they don’t even have to do anything, yet they’ve already communicated with you. What am I trying to say? Communication isn’t hard! It’s pretty easy as poop.
I have never stepped into a public classroom growing up to go to school. I was at home. All day. I home-schooled with my two older brothers while my sister was in college. Because of the obscure classroom I was incubated in, I didn’t get out much and I didn’t talk much. I was the most rambunctious of my family, being the youngest, yet I had two older brothers. They were stronger and better than me. So, I learned to be quiet. Along with mother always telling me young ladies needed to be gentle and meek, which was entirely the opposite of what was inside of me. I always felt I had something to say and whatever it was was muted. So, in the process of the whole “being seen and not heard” syndrome, along with the dorky label “homeschooler”, I have always felt socially awkward. I felt I could never communicate what I wanted to say because of my concealed childhood. But, I was born with a natural sense of communication.
So, I guess it’s time for me to start from the beginning.
Communication should be the most natural thing for me. At least, the basics of it. As I grow older, I learn different forms of communication. So, why is it when it comes to doing things that I absolutely love to do, I forget how to communicate the message?
Now, I don’t think a baby thinks about that. They don’t go through a series of questions like: Why am I communicating? What am I communicating? Who am I communicating to? How am I communicating?
These questions may be effective to a certain extent, but are they necessary always? If communication is the most natural thing to human beings… why do we have to think about who we’re communicating to, what, why, how.. etc…
I’d rather think… what or who are your surroundings?
Let’s dive into this. People can be categorized by personality types. If you notice, most personality types can only be categorized by either a response to a situation or the way a person communicates. As we grow older, we tend to lean towards a more familiar and comfortable communication structure (if you will) categorizing us into a personality type. Some people talk, some people don’t. Some people are aggressive, some people are passive. It’s all in the way you attack communication.
We spend years in school learning the languages of science and social studies, words and art, english and law, health and computers, not even realizing it, but to find everything communicates in this world and everything has a language.
Today, I sat in two breakout sessions/workshops and a keynote speaker tonight at Echo Conference 2010. Subliminal messages kept popping up everywhere I went. It seemed an overall theme of the day. The theme was communication. But it wasn’t communication alone. It was communication married to language. And I realize, I can’t communicate to anyone until I learn their language. Communication is a natural thing, but the studying of a language increases the capacity and ability of your communication. Like babies. They may scream or giggle, but as they get older, they learn to speak the language of their surroundings. Communication hasn’t changed, but the language has. So, you’re actually getting nowhere saying you have great communication skills, because you’re really trying to say… I speak several different languages so I can respond to people better.
I used to be an introverted person. Until, I learned the language of people.
I work in media. It’s hard to communicate. It’s hard because, I can’t speak this generations language sometimes. I just don’t. Because I was home schooled? probably not. I just am not interested in learning. But as long as I’m not interested, there is a whole sect of people that I need to connect with and haven’t because of my acknowledged and ignorant lack.
One thing I’ve learned though, presentation is great, but communication, well… it is the action. Like, the man who will tell his wife everyday that he loves her, but when it comes down to saving his marriage in a time of crisis, he stays faithful and clings to his beloved. The action love is more powerful in communication than the word and/or the presentation of love. These are the different facets of the language of love. The action being more aggressive in communicating the language.
One thing about babies is that they communicate purely what is from their heart. Their communication is completely unhindered by near anything of what we let our creative languages be hindered by. They don’t care about relevancy or what’s the newest trend when communicating they are hungry. Neither should we. Because it’s not what everyone else is saying, it is… what you are saying.
Dan Merchant brought a great presentation tonight. It was great to end the night off with a more focused goal and walk away with something mentally tangible (if that is even possible). Now my brain has a ball to play with all night. Great.