Communicating

Everyone seems to have a different sense of the word "communication," but the definitions usually go something like this: "It's an exchange of information between two or more people" . . . "It's getting your message across" . . . "It's being understood." In the early days of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), a research project devoted to "the study of excellence and a model of how individuals structure their subjective sensory experience," Richard Bandler and John Grinder created an effective definition: "The meaning of communication lies in the response it gets." This is simple, and brilliant, because it means that it's 100% up to

you whether or not your own communication succeeds. After all, you axe the one with a message to deliver or a goal to achieve, and you are the one with the responsibility to make it happen. What's more, if it doesn't work, you are the one with the flexibility to change what you do until you finally get what you want. In order to give some form and function to communication here, let's assume that we have some kind of response or outcome in mind. People who are low on communication skills usually have not thought out the response they want from the other person in the first place and therefore cannot aim for it.

The skills you will learn here will serve you on all levels of communication from social dealings like developing new relationships and being understood in your daily interactions all the way to life-changing moves for yourself and those in your sphere of influence.

The formula for effective communication has three distinct parts:

Know what you want. Formulate your intention in the affirmative and preferably in the present tense. For example, "I want a successful relationship, I have filled my imagination with what that relationship will look, sound, feel, smell and taste like with me in it, and I know when I will have it" is an affirmative statement, as opposed to "I don't want to be lonely."

Find out what you're getting. Get feedback. You find that hanging out in smoky bars is not for you.

Change what you do until you get what you want. Design a plan and follow through with it: "I'll invite 10 people over for dinner every Saturday night." Do it and get more feedback. Redesign if necessary, and do it again with more feedback. Repeat the cycle—redesign-do-get feedback—until you get what you want. You can apply this cycle to any area of your life that you want to improve—finance, romance, sports, career, you name it.

Know what you want.

Find out what you're getting.

Change what you do until you get what you want.

This is terrifically easy to remember because a

certain Colonel had the good sense to open a

chain of restaurants using the abbreviation KFC

for a name. Every time we see one of his signs,

we can ask ourselves how well the development

of our communication skills is going.