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Communication

Here, I write about communication and the topics around it. Communication is one of the most essential skills to have, and even though I struggle a lot with this, I want to improve considerably and become a skilled communicator.

Think Faster, Talk Smarter​

These are techniques for understanding how to talk more easily in spontaneous situations; most of the information I got from the talk is here. The speaker also wrote a book on this particular topic. He also has a podcast on the subject.

Methodology​

Tame the anxiety beast.​

  • Take a deep breath. Exhale, this is important. Try to exhale twice as long as you inhale.
  • Drink water and chew gum beforehand. To make it easier to cope with the feelings and reactions of stress.
  • Get present-oriented. Don't think ahead; think now.

Maximise mediocrity​

  • We are the biggest impediment to our spontaneous speaking.
  • Reduce the cognitive load on yourself.
  • Allow yourself to do that thing and not the right thing.
    • Give the answer, not the correct answer.
    • Give feedback, not the best feedback.

Don't do something, stand there.​

  • It is very important to listen and listen deeply.
  • What's the crux of the speaker's intent? What is the speaker trying to tell you?
  • Collin Dobbs on listening
    • Pace, slow things down
    • Space, move yourself into a good position to get yourself comfortable with listening.
    • Grace, listen to your intuition. You need to listen to your sweat. Listening is an exercise and you need to train it.
  • Paraphrasing helps you listen—work on always being good at doing this. After all, conversations, tell what you learned or heard.

Structure your spontaneity.​

  • Never lose your listeners. Structure proposal:
  • What? Is your idea, product, or feedback?
  • So what? Why is it important to the listener?
  • Now what! It is the action. Planning your next meeting, take the feedback. Using this structure can help you prioritize what to say and package your information in a way that is more likely to be understood and remembered by the listener.

Focus​

Tell me the time, don't build me a clock. Have a goal for the conversation, know, feel, do. Make a structure around the topic, an example can be answering/completing the following sentence

  • What if you could ...
  • So that ...
  • For example ...
  • And that is not all ...

Links

Thoughts