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Chapter 1: What is Communication

Before we can bring ourselves to the techniques and facts, we have to first learn what communication is. What is it? How does it work? Without being able to answer the basic questions of communication, you will not be able to successfully communicate.

It’s like trying to predict the future. How would you be able to predict what will happen if you don’t first look at the repetition of the past? Core knowledge is the stepping-stone of advance knowledge.

So, what is communication? Communication is the act of talking, or a conversation between two individuals or a group of people.

For ironically, despite the fact that communication is a natural ability that we were born with, it is also the hardest ability for us to improve on.

Some people, on the other hand, cannot communicate at all. These are the people that tend to stay within their closed shell and try their best to stay silent.

Then there are those that are unable to voice their thoughts properly. The point is, there is a wrong way to communicate and your goal is to communicate the right way.

If you’ve never thought about it until now, many conflicts - like war - often stem from the act of miscommunication.

Words are powerful and, if conveyed improperly, it can be viewed as offensive to the other party whether you mean it or not.

The number one reason why miscommunication tends to occur is because the speaker does not take the listener into considering. The speaker might say something that seems as a joke to him, but proven offensive to the listener.

The main reason why because the speaker may have disregarded the listener’s circumstances, past, state of mind, or even culture. Think about it. If you were a speaker and you made a light joke about someone’s race in an attempt to be funny, you will either receive a laugh in return or a slap to the face.

It’s good to add humor to the conversation sometimes, but be careful as to what joke you tell to the person that’s listening.

Also, with the raging technological advancements that are presented to us in the present day, personal communication has dimmed itself down thanks to the use of social networking and the Internet.

Before, almost all conversations were done face to face. Nowadays, almost all conversations are done throughout the Internet. Rather than sending mails with written letters, people are now emailing them all over.

Granted, it’s convenient, quick, and easy, but too much use of it will cause you to deny human interaction.

They say that every person has two faces, a personal face and a public face. When you communicate with someone face to face, you try to act your best.

However, when that same person interacts with other people online, would you believe that they are the same?

The reason why communication is so difficult in the present day is because many people do not bother to publicly interact with each other. The more technologically advance our society becomes, the more emotionally detached we are.

In addition, the quality of a conversation decreases over time. One-worded replies are too often used because the other party does not know what to say and the speaker does not know how to continue the conversation.

Even so, having the right people skill is one of the foremost requirements that are needed for you to survive and succeed in this world. You cannot get by without the help of the people around you.

Therefore, it’s about time you start to learn how you can properly communicate with them if you want to get anywhere in life.

So, for the next two sections in this chapter, we will be going over what a great communicator does and what the benefits of a good conversationalist is.

Basic Requirements

Everybody communicates. Therefore, everybody is a communicator. However, a good communicator is able to express his message across to his audience just enough for them to understand.

However, a great communicator is able to express his message clearly to his audience while paying attention to their reaction and making sure that his listeners understand what he is saying.

He pays attention to every detail that his audience sends out and puts his audience in the center of his attention until the conversation has ended. He knows his way around with words and he is sure to confidently portray what he wants his audience to hear.

Despite the audience, a great communicator will make the conversation work no matter how many times he has to change his words around or change the subject.

The proper term used for a great communicator is a conversationalist, and in order to become a conversationalist you must first be a great listener. Although being a listener seems like a simple job, it’s not.

If everybody was given the opportunity of being paid to listen to someone else, many people wouldn’t have been able to receive their first paycheck by now.

Being a great listener can be very difficult, especially since everybody will prioritize himself or herself over another. It doesn’t matter how big or small a person’s ego may be. What matters is that it’s still there.

In order to be a great listener, you need to have patience. You need to listen to what your audience wants and you need to reply to their questions.

For certain audiences, you have to deal with them politely even if you don’t want to. You have to show that you’re interested at all times and you have to pay attention to what they have to say even if you don’t want to.

If customer service is the type of job you want to pursue then you will meet people who you will like and you will meet people that you will possibly hate and never want to speak to ever again.

However, what can you do but to be patient and put up with it? As tedious as it may seems, this is the job of a great listener. So it’s not something simple where you have to just listen and respond.

You have to listen, comprehend, care, and respond. Therefore, you will have to sacrifice your talking time. You’re going to have to relax your mouth muscles and start working your ear muscles.

In order to show your interest to what your audience is saying, you should try asking questions after they finish talking. A great listener shows his audience that he is paying attention to what they are saying.

Therefore, a great listener asks more questions and listens to the answers rather than adding his statements and making answers.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that you’re not entitled to talk about what you want to talk about. Just remember: if you’re not evenly dividing the speaking time and the listening time, then you have to make sure that your audience is not tired of listening to you ramble.

Benefits of a Conversationalist

The great thing about being a conversationalist is the fact that it will help make your life easier than it was before. If you’ve ever been stressed out about trying to find some trustworthy people to help you with your business or dilemma, being a conversationalist will bring those people to you.

That’s right. Rather than having to spend the time stressing and worrying about who would be a good candidate to work with, all you have to do is talk and have those candidates flock around you.

For a conversationalist, social gatherings are the best place to be at. The reason why is for the marketing purposes. Everybody that you meet through life will know someone who is a self-made entrepreneur.

Whether the person’s business is a big corporation or a small one will not matter. All you need to know is that entrepreneurs know other entrepreneurs. So once you’ve met one, you can meet the rest of them.

That is why most conversationalists see social gatherings as a land of opportunity. The more people you know, the wider your connections become.

How valuable you rate that connection won’t matter. What matters is that some people you will meet will become your best friends, some will be your future business partners, and some will see you as a potential client.

Either way, if anybody wants anything to do with you in the future, it means that they like you as a person and that you’ve made a good impression on yourself to them.

If you’re ever planning on becoming a business owner one day, it’s actually required for you to become a conversationalist.

You need to learn how to speak with all types of personalities, as they will become the expansion of your list of contacts in the future.

In order to gain attention, you must be the center of attention. You must stand out to your audience for them to notice that you’re there. If the person that you’re talking to remembers your name then it means that you’re doing something right.

Don’t worry about how your audience thinks of you during a conversation. Chances are, if you show more concern for your audience rather than their perspective of you, you’ll end up making a better impression of yourself.

It’s a lot more nerve-wracking trying to read your audience’s mind rather than going with your own instincts. If you are a good conversationalist then people will naturally draw themselves to you.

The great aspect of being a conversationalist is the fact that you’re able to immerse yourself with a wide variety of people.

Once your social skills boost up, you’ll notice that you also become more open-minded than before. You become more accepting of others because your listening skills have improved and you understand what the other party is trying to tell you.

As a conversationalist, you start to become more considerate of others because they will always be at the center of your attention because you will have to focus more on them rather than yourself.

If you’re the type that enjoys seeing other people happy then, as a conversationalist, you will be able to make them feel special.