Tag: communicate

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Simplify Through Talking

Get it out of your system

Communicating your taste for laypeople has an excellent side effect.

It forces you to simplify and contextualize what you’ve done.

To do that, you have to go back to your work and figure out what is important. You have to ask yourself, what do you want people to take away?

There is clarity through simplification.

An excellent time of year to try this is during the holidays.

When your family gathers around the table, see if you can explain your current project.

Take the questions they have and try to figure them out. What inspired them to ask?  It is a chance to get to know someone’s worldview, and it’s useful, even if they aren’t your customer.

Don’t get defensive. Those around you want to help, and those notes they are giving through questions are perfect to take back to your workshop to improve your pitch.

It’s a great barometer for oversimplification, too.

If you want to save whales and they think you are trying to save the ocean, it’s time to reframe.

So, talk and know your product better through other’s eyes.

Your family and friends will appreciate getting to know you a bit more, too.

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Over-communicating is All About You – What I Learned in May 2016

Get selfish

Over-communicating is as much about dealing with yourself as it is dealing with another person.

That is counter-intuitive, but through looking at the world with an “over-communication” first lens, I realized that my effectiveness with carrying out tactics relied on how I dealt with internal strife.

I didn’t see this as a chance to deal with self-awareness, but here I realized that all the tactics in the world won’t help you with communicating unless you listen to yourself first.

Battles with depression, fear, and impostor syndrome came with every time I confirmed a meeting, told someone something difficult, or didn’t hedge my opinion.  Prior to this month, I got away from those things because it was uncomfortable.  I saw failure before each one of those decisions.

How many times have you confirmed a meeting with someone and felt pushy?

That feeling of being “pushy” is fear. And it obstructs you from seeing that confirmation doesn’t make you seem anxious, it makes you look like a compassionate professional .

Compassionate?

Yes, it shows respect for someone’s time and respect for their character. It displays enough vulnerability to allow them to make decisions.

Even if you fail, even if what you fear comes true, it saves you time. Time is the most valuable resource we have. Our focus and our filtering decide how effective we are in the world.

“Over-communicating” is time intensive, so you need to focus and filter.

In order to make it count, you need to understand that your “selfishness” creates the space for you to communicate effectively.

If you don’t, you end up second guessing yourself and dealing with regrets, an emotion that I find far more punishing that failure. There are failures I laugh at now, I never laugh at regrets.

So deal with the fear, get vulnerable, and don’t let regret have room. You are better for it.

Biggest Lesson – Listening to yourself gives you the ability to over-communicate, and therefore become more effective to the world around you.

Important Posts

Exercises

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A Way to Tell

It’s on your mind.

There is a topic to discuss. Often, I see (and do) one of two things.

  • Hold my tongue. We decide to spare the person what we need to tell them, and we get frustrated.
  • Blurt it out. The point wraps around emotion, and it obstructs how the other person could understand.

Both actions leave both parties confused, and when combined, i.e. someone blurting something out then holding their tongue because they didn’t like the result, it can lead to disaster.

How do we get out of this devastating loop?

Here is an exercise.

Exercise:

  • Write down what you need to tell someone.
  • Close your eyes, imagine you are in the shoes of the other person. What is important to them?
  • Look back at your “tell:” how does it address something that is important to them?
  • Simplify. How can you make that tell as simple as possible, while addressing what’s important to them?
  • Rewrite what you plan on telling them with this information.

 

 

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The 5 Ways and How To Ask

Say what you need, please.

Asking is difficult for me.

I take pride in doing things on my own. As a result, I often either reinvent the wheel or miss out on opportunities.

Learning how to ask, wherever you are in an organization or community, is powerful because it both tells someone what you need and allows someone to help you.  They feel connected to you, and you, in turn, feel connected to the work you are doing. 

Human beings are social animals.

Below is an exercise that will help you with getting used to asking.

Weekly Exercise:

  • Write down five questions you want to ask someone (a boss, co-worker, significant other).
  • Pick three of them.
  • Choose a day on the calendar that week and ask away.

This exercise goes further than the superficial, allows you to pick what is contextually important, it digs into your thinking, and most importantly, it allows you to ritualize asking the asking of questions.

The normal result is often that people are often on your side and what to help you succeed.

Don’t miss out.

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Cultural Divide

We are all cultured.

All of us come from a background where there are rules on how to talk, dress, see the world, etc.

Knowing these things allows us to communicate more effectively with someone from another culture.

Here is an example: when an American says “how are you doing,” it’s flippant, almost directly following “Hello” as a courtesy. In some parts of France, this is a no-no, as “how are you” is a very personal question.

Think about these before you engage in deeper communication (more than just a hello), what is the culture, how can you learn more about it? It can save you the hassle. 

It can save you the hassle. 

You don’t want to over-communicate in a bad way.

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Contain the Week

A Time Standard

Count the number of meetings, lunches, dinners, dates, etc. you have in a week. Try it for a few weeks and come up with an average and use that as a baseline.

After the baseline, communicate clearly, in writing, how much you want to do per week.

The simpler the better. Each item becomes a catagory.

For example:

  • 5 meetings
  • 2 coffee requests
  • 1 lunch/dinner

As/When people invite you out, mark it and remove one item from that category.

If I got invited to a meeting, I would mark the meeting down and have 4 meetings remaining for the week.

Experiment with the numbers. Once you found a sweet spot (where you have slightly more requests than slots) freeze it, and prioritize. Give the most meaningful items priority.

Use it as standard to mark time, start refusing things that aren’t important.

Communicate this clearly to the people around you.

If you don’t set a standard for your time, no one will. 

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