Tag: Communication

Meet People Where They Are

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

When we have big plans or we want to bring something new into the world or we are strong with our views, we often forget to see the position other people are in, because we are so focused on our own message.

This way of communicating often feels natural or the right way to behave, but when we do we miss a huge opportunity. When we communicate in this way we meet people where we are, we project 100 percent outwards. This often causes clashes and conflict, because others are doing the same thing.

We could let others communicate 100 percent and become completely passive, but this is not good either. The ideal is to meet people where they are and where we are and aim for a 50/50 exchange. This involves actively listening and caring about the other person and taking turns. All very basic things to do, but often forget to do them.

The Art Of Interaction

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

We don’t often think of how we interact as something to work on or improve. We learn how to communicate with each other during our childhood years and that’s that. However, if we are to make a real difference in the world then we need to master how we interact with each other.

I first came across the concept of the ‘art of interaction’ in Seth Godin’s book Linchpin, where he describes every interaction with a colleague or customer as practicing the art of interaction. It is an integral part of becoming a linchpin within your organisation, someone who is indispensable.

It is also good to practice how to interact with others on a general basis in order to develop good relationships and to uplift others. Treating it as an ‘art’ also means that how you interact with others can be unique to you. It is an art not a science. It is also one of the strings to your bow that are needed in order to have self mastery.

Communicating With Others

Happiness, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Recently, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp stopped working and for many their world suddenly stopped, as they are all owned and operated by Facebook. To be fair it was a shock.

We think of the availability of these apps as a certainty, as if they will always be there, like the air or the sky, but they are just mobile and computer applications and technology does not always work.

There is an argument that we crave other people ‘liking’ or ‘sharing’ one of our posts or someone ‘follows’ us, as if our self worth is tied to it. I think it has more to do with the hit of dopamine we get when we get acknowledgement via a like, share or follow, and how addictive this is.

Many of us use these apps to communicate with others, but often we use social media apps as entertainment or to just sustain our attention, so we can switch off and not have to think.

The problem is that when we get absorbed into the infinite scroll we check out of reality for a while. All sorts could be going on around us but we would have no idea. This is the power of social media.

Communicating with each other is supposed to he done face to face with eye contact and hand shakes and pats on the back. When we spend a lot of time with our eyes down and our attention on a mobile phone we avoid the opportunities to develop the skill of socialising. The ability to make friends and influence people is a skill that is becoming more scarce due to the lack of practice.

I saw the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp outage as a blessing to unplug and socialise the old fashioned way. It also highlighted our dependency on technology and social media in particular. We need to rebalance ourselves and reduce screen time and increase actual facetime.