How Important Is Being Able To Communicate?

Many years ago, when I was a lad in high school, I was sitting in a class in one of the many rows and columns of single desks, with the Math teacher writing lots of numbers and lines and shapes on a blackboard. On this one particular day I noticed with a start that the teacher was looking at me with that look on his face that says “Well, Darrell, do you have an answer?”

The interesting thing is that I had right at that very moment awoken from what I can only call a sleep while awake – my eyes were open, yet my brain was somewhere else but here. My muscles limp, but only to the point of keeping my body upright in the chair, my mouth closed loosely, yet not enough to stop that small amount of drool exiting the corner of my mouth making its way to my chin. For all intents and purpose, I had checked out in a big way.

As I eventually came to the realisation Mr. Matthews (not his real name) was looking for a response from me, I scanned the board for a hint of a clue… an equation not complete, or an angle that hadn’t been named, or for that fact, any sign of anything I could say that had anything to do with what had taken place over the previous five minutes or so.

And there it was… that elusive question mark, beckoning for a response from me to solve one of the questions for the ages. Luckily, I had taken notice of a class two days earlier that was, while not as ‘trance inducing’ as the current class but still able to sedate a charging rhinoceros, that the angle opposite to the hypotenuse was the square of your sister’s age minus your uncle’s birth date. So I responded to the query with the only answer it could have been – 12.

Only, in the hazy faze of newly opened eyes where I thought Mr. Matthews was asking me a question, he was actually preparing for a sneeze the likes of which I have yet to see such power since, and was looking for nothing from me at all. Having given him the answer of ’12’, after wiping his nose on his yellow and turquoise hanky he looked at me and asked what the question was. For this I had no answer!

Have you ever experienced that moment where no matter how hard you try, keeping your eyes open while listening to the teacher, lecturer, speaker, boss, pre-flight checklist crew or significant elder seemed like an absolute impossibility – where your body was just turning off? Where the work meeting involved listening to someone, and it felt like words were coming out of their mouth, but they just didn’t make any sense? Or have you had the fortune to be the one at the front of the group, looking at colleagues with anticipation in their eyes, only to demonstrate that innate ability to put your audience to sleep with your dulcet tones? Or worse still, stood in front of a group of people and had your brain, mouth, heart and tongue freeze in place with no possibility of movement of any type?

There is a saying that says “You cannot not communicate”, and when you don’t not communicate badly, initiating and holding someone’s attention can be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Over the next few posts, I’d like to provide some tools and techniques for improving and developing your communication skills.

Let’s face it, sometimes when we’re put under pressure our brains just seem to simply switch off leaving our mouth to go into autopilot, sprouting whatever it feels it wishes to say. Have you ever had that experience? And I believe that this event is the catalyst for the fear a large number of people have when speaking in public – that all of a sudden their brain will simply stop working.

Well, stick with me over the next few weeks and I’ll give you some great strategies and tools that will ensure you can handle yourself under pressure… unlike this unfortunate lass…

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Until next time, Live Your Ultimate Life