“TOOLS FOR ARTFUL COMMUNICATION”

News Letter

Seventh Issue

Welcome to “Tools for Artful Communication”.

How did you do with the map of reality?  Our map of reality represents our personal view of the world in which we interact.   Again, it is our map of reality, not actual reality. It is our perception of life.  So when people tell us how they see things it can be significantly different than how we see things and neither of us is totally accurate.

For example, when someone says “I could never do that”, what they are saying is “that particular behavior is not within my map of reality”.  You may think the particular behavior is no big deal.  You can say that because the behavior under consideration is within your map of reality.

 

People get challenged when they have to travel outside their maps into uncharted territory.   The key to adding new behaviors to our lives is opening up our maps of reality to encompass new territory.  Some may wonder why they would want to open themselves up to new territory.  They feel safe where they are now.  That is a valid consideration.  Something to consider: if you stay within your map of reality you will travel the same ground and repeat the same behavior over and over and over. All growth and learning in life will be out of your reach because growth requires covering new territory.  The question is, “do you want to grow?” I would like to show you how you can cover new territory and remain safe in the process.

 

Ponder this information and next week we will begin talking about how to safely navigate new territory.

I welcome your observations.

Till next week,

Wally Foster

Interpersonal Communication Trainer

News Letter

Sixth Issue

Welcome to my sixth issue of “Tools for Artful Communication”.

How did you do with the map of reality?  I suggest you keep reviewing the map; it is a real key to understanding others and ourselves. Yes, we are very different and learning to work with these differences is where quality communication begins. I reprinted the map below and encourage you to continue to play with it. Refer to last week’s news letter for further information.

 Image unavailable

To expand on last weeks exercise I suggest you use the skills you learned over the last few weeks and begin to understand others’ maps.  By observation and rapport see what you can learn about other people’s perspectives on things.  Later we will work on specific questions that will help you navigate others’ maps of reality.  These questions will really stretch rapport, so it is good to continue to hone your rapport skills.

I welcome your observations. If you have trouble viewing the graphics in this news letter, look for the archived version.  It will be posted on the site very soon at www.1-life-skills.com .

Till next week,

Wally Foster

Interpersonal Communication Trainer

wally@1-life-skills.com

“TOOLS FOR ARTFUL COMMUNICATION”

News Letter

Fifth Issue

January 29, 2007

Welcome to my fifth issue of “Tools for Artful Communication”.

Last issue I encouraged you to review the previous issues.  How did you do?  I suggest you keep reviewing the information and applying the lessons in various areas of your life. I also promised we would talk about why people are so different.  One of our big challenges in life is getting along with other people.  We all tend to think everyone should see things as we do. “Why don’t they?” we ask ourselves.  In reality, they can’t!  Here is why. (I will explain below. You may find it helpful to print this out.)

Image Unavaliable

 

The Territory is the actual world or events in our life.

We take in information through our senses V A K O G.  This information includes all sights, sounds, emotions, smells, and tastes.  Much of this information comes from within us, our feelings, thoughts, emotions, heartbeat, pulse, etc.

 

Our brain has literally recorded everything we have experienced in life. As we take in all this information our brain deletes most of it from our conscious awareness yet, much of it stays in our subconscious mind and we can access it if needed.

 

We also distort much of this information.  For example, if you went back to your grade school, the lockers are not six foot tall.  The lockers are really much smaller than you remember. A phobia is also an example of a distortion of an actual event or thing.

 

Our brains also generalize much of this information.  For example, when we were children we learned to use a light switch, then, applied this learning to all light switches.  If our brain did not do this, every time we came to a new light switch we would have to study it and learn how to use it.

 

Next, the information we take in goes through our own unique history.  This unique history includes all the events through which we have lived. This information is processed through our own unique perspective and then stored.  For example, have you ever talked with one of your siblings about growing up and wondered if you grew up in the same household?  Yes, we all have our own unique view of the world.

 

Another example might be a conversation about a couple kissing. (See diagram on right hand side of page) You are speaking about what you saw in a movie yet the one listening could be thinking about “kissing fish” in a fish bowel.  This is also why two people never describe an automobile accident in the same way. We simply can not see the world exactly as someone else does. 

 

Right now, I would like you to concentrate on observing how others’ unique history and your own, affects perspective.  In the next issue, I will talk about what we can do with this knowledge.

Again, I welcome your observations. If you have trouble viewing the graphics in this news letter, look for the archived version.  It will be posted on the site very soon. You will find archived news letters on my site at www.1-life-skills.com .

Till next week,

Wally Foster

Interpersonal Communication Trainer

 

“TOOLS FOR ARTFUL COMMUNICATION”

News Letter

Fourth Issue

Welcome to my fourth issue of “Tools for Artful Communication”.  In this issue I want to spend some time reviewing the last three issues and making sure you have been able to make application of your new learning’s.  I appreciate the feed back I have gotten from you so far. I especially appreciated the comments dealing with your new learning’s and awareness.

In the first issue we covered how we actually give meaning to our life by means of communication, and the quality of our life is determined by the quality of our communication.  You learned about our internal communication, our thoughts, feelings, and internal messages we get from within ourselves.  This is how we form opinions and make decisions. 

Based on this possibly new perspective, what did you notice about yourself?  Did you pay attention to your thoughts and feelings while communicating with others?  Did you notice that by paying attention to these internal messages it helps you to be more effective in your communication?  It helps you to understand if your reaction to the other party has to do with them. It could be your reaction has nothing to do with them; rather, you could be hearing an internal tape that was simply set off by a similar situation.  These internal messages can also be very valuable when your “guts” tell you something is not right…pay attention.  Many victims of violent crime will tell you that they “felt” something was wrong but they ignored their gut feeling.  Keep paying attention to your internal communication and later we will consider in greater depth some of the insights we can gain from them.

Still in our first news letter you took the teach ability index test.  How flexible did you find yourself to be?  Were you as flexible as you thought you were?  Are you willing to increase your flexibility?  Flexibility is a real key to growth.

In the second news letter we further considered observing the other person. Have you been noticing the different languages we speak?  You learned that people use auditory, visual, kinesthetic or feeling, smell, and taste modalities. We don’t want to label people like so many do in pop psychology. What we are speaking about are communication preferences individuals are using at that moment.  These preferences may vary in different contexts.  Our goal is to be as varied as possible in our use of each modality. 

You were to pay attention to the words used, and then match their words.  How did you do?  Are you still paying attention and taking personal responsibility to change your communication style to better communicate with others?  It is our responsibility to change our communication to match others; we can not leave it up to them.   

This brings us to news letter number three where we talked about rapport.  Remember rapport means a relation of harmony, conformity, and accord.  Rapport is a requirement for all quality communication.  Our first goal in effective communication is to achieve rapport and maintain it through communication. We can gain rapport by putting to use our new skills.

You assignment was to practice gaining rapport with others. You were to practice matching others when you are near them or when in conversation.  Match their posture, breathing, facial expressions.  Match the words they use, their intensity and volume.  They will almost never notice you doing it; in fact they will like it.  People actually crave rapport.  When you think you have rapport, test it.  Try ever so slightly moving, changing posture, and breathing.  Notice if they come with you to keep rapport. If they don’t, go back and deepen your level of rapport and try again with a little less of an adjustment.  Remember, there is no failure, only feedback.

How did you do?  Did you find gaining rapport a challenge?  Did you notice the difference when you did and did not have rapport?  Were you able to regain rapport when you lost it through the communication? Keep practicing.

I want to commend all of you in your efforts to improve your communication skills.  Keep practicing and growing.  There really are fewer things you can learn in life that will have as great an impact on the quality of your life!!

Again, I welcome your observations. Have you ever wondered why two people have never described an automobile accident the same way? In my next issue we will discuss why we are all sooooooo different.

You will find archived news letters on my site at www.1-life-skills.com .

Till next week,

Wally Foster

Interpersonal Communication Trainer

“TOOLS FOR ARTFUL COMMUNICATION”

News Letter

Third Issue

Welcome to my third issue of “Tools for Artful Communication”.  How did you do with your flexibility?  Did you run into any internal communication (complaints) about the process we have begun thus far?  If so, that’s okay, observe them and keep growing.   If you did not, great; you may in time.

What did you observe about the different languages we speak?  When telling the story did you notice it was harder or easier depending upon the words used?  Did you notice it was more interesting when listening depending upon what words the other person was saying?  Keep noticing and practicing, remember our goal is to be comfortable using all modalities.  There was a hidden test in last week’s news letter, did you notice it? The sixth sentence in paragraph two said “You may have heard internal tapes playing from the past, unspoken thoughts you did not say, but “whished” you had.”  Yes, wished is the correct spelling. Visual people were much more likely to notice. Auditory folks may have thought is looked kind of funny but it sounded okay.  Spelling is a visual skill. People that have trouble spelling often hear the word rather than see it.

This week we are going to talk about the most important element in our communication, rapport.   We have no real chance of effective communication: without the ability to achieve and maintain rapport. I believe we have no real RIGHT to effective communication without rapport.  Our first two news letters gave us a number of skills we can use to develop rapport.

Rapport means a relation of harmony, conformity, and accord. Rapport is a process, not a state of being.  It is giving others the experience of being understood. There is a great difference between giving people the experience of being understood and respected, and actually understanding what their communication means.  We cannot know exactly what someone else is thinking.  We can, however, give others the experience that we care and want to understand. Out of this experience, trust is built. We will continually go in and out of rapport throughout a conversation. With this trust comes an obligation to honor and respect others. We can motivate others; we never have the right to manipulate them.  We are manipulating others when we use rapport to get what we want irrespective of what they want. Liking the other person is not required to establish rapport. We build rapport by matching the other person’s facial expressions, body posture, movements, gestures, vocal qualities-tonality, tempo, volume, intensity, timbre, representational systems, actual wording, and breathing.

Here is your exercise for the week.  Practice matching others when you are near them or when in conversation.  Match there, posture, breathing, facial expressions.  Match the words they use, their intensity and volume.  They will almost never notice you doing it; in fact they will like it.  People actually crave rapport.  When you think you have rapport, test it.  Try ever so slightly moving, changing posture, and breathing.  Notice if they come with you to keep rapport. If they don’t, go back and deepen your level of rapport and try again with a little less of an adjustment.  Remember, there is no failure, only feedback. 

In our next news letter we will talk more about rapport and the value it brings to your communication.

Again, play with the lesson this week.  I welcome any observations you may have.  You will find archived news letters on my site at www.1-life-skills.com . Over the next few weeks I will be adding much more content to my site.

Till next week,

 Wally Foster

Interpersonal Communication Trainer

“TOOLS FOR ARTFUL COMMUNICATION”

News Letter

Second Issue

Welcome to my second issue of “Tools for Artful Communication”.  In this issue we will briefly review what you observed over this past week and build further on our communication skills.

In the first issue I wrote about our internal communication which is made up of our thoughts, feelings, and internal messages.  Based on this information we make decisions and create opinions.  Your exercise was to observe any internal messages you receive while interacting with others.  How did you do? What did you observe? You may have heard internal tapes playing from the past, unspoken thoughts you did not say, but wished you had.  You may have noticed tightness in your stomach, or anxiety, just to name a few.  All these are internal communication messages you are receiving however at this point we are simply going for awareness, later on we will look at meaning.

How did you do with the “Teach Ability Index Test”?  Did you find yourself as willing to accept change as you would have liked?  I can not over emphasis the importance of flexibility in life.  It is simply impossible to learn anything without the ability to change.  We are all here to learn so accepting change is imperative.  Continue to observe yourself, your internal reactions, any limits you may run into that challenge your flexibility.  You may not understand the significance of some of our exercises, but I guarantee in time you will see an improvement in your communication skills.  Part of the challenge you may run into is that you may run into a limit on your ability to change.

This week we will continue to learn about ourselves while also gaining insight into others.   It is nothing new to say people speak many different languages, such as, English, Spanish, French, etc.  What may be new to you is that even if we are all speaking English we are also speaking different languages.  We learn about these differences by listening to the words people use.  These words are grouped into five senses, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, taste, and smell.  These five categories are literally five different languages, each having distinct differences. 

Words a visual person might use are, see, focus, clear, perspective, and dim.  A statement made by a visual person is “This is how I see it” Auditory words are, talk, silence, listen, and tell.  The auditory person might say “It sounds good to me.” Kinesthetic (feeling) words are, tired, feel, solid, handle. They may say “It just does not feel right to me.” The person that processes information more by taste and smell would use words such as, sour, smell, taste, and flavor.  They may say “Something just does not smell right to me.”  It can be very hard for a visual and kinesthetic person to relate with one another. The visual person tends to process information by pictures.  You have heard it said a picture is worth a thousand words.  The visual person has to keep up with the pictures they get from their mind.  They have to relate the thought before the picture changes. The kinesthetic person first feels then speaks, it is a longer process.  One is not better than the other; each has its own strengths.  What often happens is the visual person runs out of patience while waiting on the kinesthetic person to speak.  The kinesthetic person feels overcome by words and that the conversation lacks feeling.  What can make things worse is they each could judge the other, the visual person my feel the kinesthetic person is slow, and the kinesthetic person may judge the visual person as insincere.  This is one example of how communication can go wrong.

This week’s exercise is to listen to the words you and other people use.  Are they visual, auditory, kinesthetic, smell or taste words?  In order to communicate more effectively listen carefully to the words others are using and adjust your words to match theirs.  

Here is an exercise you can have some fun with.  Think of an experience or story.  It does not matter what it is.  The experience should be about 3 minutes long.  Relate the story to someone else.  Tell the story 3-4 times, each time using only one type of speech; auditory, visual, kinesthetic, smell or taste words.  Have the other person do the same thing. 

What you will notice is that sometimes when you relate the story it will just flow, other times it will be very difficult.  The one listening will also notice that sometimes they were interested in the story, other times they were not.  Our eventual goal is to be able to tell the story using all types of words when we talk.  When we use all types of words we can communicate more effectively with a larger number of people.

Again play with the lesson this week.  I welcome any observations you may have.  You will find archived news letters on my site at www.1-life-skills.com

Till next week,

 Wally Foster

Interpersonal Communication Trainer

“TOOLS FOR ARTFUL COMMUNICATION”

News Letter

First Issue

Welcome to my first issue of “Tools for Artful Communication”.  In this issue I am going to discuss what communication is and suggest an area of communication you can observe. I am also including a brief test to help you assess your learning ability.

What is communication? Webster’s says “communication is to transmit information, thoughts, or feelings so that they are satisfactorily received or understood”.  

Communication encompasses so much more.  Communication is how we give meaning to our life.  Communication is the basis for all human interaction.  The quality of our communication determines the quality of our life. You will learn why I say this in future news letters. For now we will consider two primary areas of communication.                                            

First: Internal communication is our thoughts, feelings, and internal messages.  Internal communication is our response to the information we get from the world around us. Based upon this information we make decisions and create opinions.  Understanding our internal communication gives us more control over how we feel and how effective we are interacting with others. 

Second: We take in information from the world around us.  We receive information from our senses; sight, smell, hearing, etc.  (This information comes from other people, events, and our environment.)  It has been estimated that 90 plus percent of communication is nonverbal.  Coming to an understanding of this information gives us much more control over how accurate and effective we are in our communication.

Exercise for this week. 

When communicating with someone else pay attention to any internal messages you receive.  (Things you hear, thoughts and feelings you are having, your posture, your breathing.)  Notice your reactions while interacting with others.  At this point we are simply creating awareness, so just observe for the time being.

In a later exercise we will spend time observing the other person.

Now here is the test.  No, you won’t be graded. 

I call this your “Teach Ability Index Test”.  Flexibility is the key to growth and accepting change.  It is simply impossible to learn anything without the ability to change.   It is important to have self-awareness.  Now it is time to rate yourself.

1.      On a scale from 1 to 10 what is your desire to learn?_______________

2.     On a scale from 1 to 10 what is your willingness to change?_________________

Both of these numbers are very important.  You can be a 10 in desire to learn and a 1 in willingness to change and you will never learn a thing.  As stated above it is impossible to learn without the ability to change.  I will assume you have at least some curiosity about learning since you are receiving my news letter, but how did you rate your ability to change? 

I suggest you play with this information, play because you have an entirely different perspective when you’re having fun.  We look forward to having fun and run from what we perceive as “work”.  There is no failure only feed back.  So have FUN!

Thank you for subscribing to my weekly news letter.  You are welcome to pass it along and invite others to subscribe. If you received this news letter from someone else you can subscribe to it at www.1-life-skills.com  .  You will receive my weekly communication news letter which will include a brief lesson and exercise for the week.  I will keep your contact information completely confidential.

I would appreciate any feed back you have on your experiences with this information.  Visit my site www.1-life-skills.com  to get more information.

Thank you,

Wally Foster

Interpersonal Communication Trainer