Communic-8!

Communication, listening and sharing is so important to get right. People often don't realise how important developing our communication skills is. It can improve our marriage, our relationships with our children, friends and work colleagues and help others to understand us better.

8 is a lucky number in my eyes. I lived at number 8 for over 8 years. My husband gave me a beautiful figure of 8 necklace on our wedding day. 8 is the luckiest number in Chinese culture because the pronunciation “Ba” sounds similar to the word “fa”, which means to make fortune. The number 8 is associated with prosperity, success and status. According to Kabbalah, 7 is associated with completeness. 8 is talked about as supernatural, above the natural phenomenon. Life should be about this, going beyond your natural boundaries. So let’s communic-8!

So here we have the ‘super’ 8 C's of communication:

1. Clear - give over your ideas or feelings with clarity and conviction. Know what you want to say.
2. Concise - think about how you want to say and say it well using selective or better still, effective, words or resources.
3. Compelling - think about how you want to come across and give good and interesting reasoning for your opinion. Be responsible with your ideas.
4. Creative - I had to fit this one in! It's always good to be creative in our thinking and communication and all that we do. Creativity opens up some many possibilities in our lives. It allows us to more openly share and solve problems, and with a different, more flexible approach. It can also broaden our perspectives on matters which works hand in hand with communication, and compromise.
5. Curious - listen to the other peoples’ opinions and you don’t always need to be correct (yet another c!). Consider (and yet another c!) the speaker. Ask questions to show further interest or clarification. Remember communication is a two way thing.
6. Compassionate - be understanding of others, this will stand you in good stead as a person to be trusted, to confide into and to respect. Consider the speaker and be aware. Sometimes just being silent and hearing what the other person has to say is the most powerful skill in communication and consideration.
7. Confidence - we need to speak with conviction and knowledge in order to give over an understanding of our views. This will makes us more decisive. We will feel empowered to share our message.
8. Complete - finish effectively, make sure that all parties are happy with what has been discussed or decided on, and know the action steps if relevant. Be courteous (another one!) with your message. You will become an effective communicator and have far more successful interactions with people.

With all these areas in mind, we can be confident that we are communicating with care and we can get the results that we are looking for.

Thank you to those who have taken time to give me feedback. Please keep the feedback coming, it is really appreciated.

If you would like to discuss any of these ideas further, be in touch for a free 15 minutes one-to-one session.

Life is good,
Lisa

[email protected]
+44 7958 342522