How to Communicate More Effectively and Win in Life

We often think of charisma as a special gift, the ‘Je ne sais quoi’ that makes someone star-like, when actually there are extensive studies that show it’s not so much a gift as a learnable skill.

Think about the people you admire. What traits do they have? These people usually carry a sense of style, flair, and confidence. Crucially, they are also excellent communicators, have a certain maturity and character, and tend to be humble and compassionate. They also talk the talk and walk the walk, are well aware of people around them, have excellent listening skills and positive body language.

If that sounds daunting to you, it need not be because all of these skills and behaviours are underpinned by successful strategies and can therefore be learned and improved upon until they become highly effective weapons in your armoury.

The first step to connecting with someone is to empathise with them. If you can see things from another person’s perspective and understand how they feel, you will unlock ways to influence them that you cannot access without empathy.

The best way to get better at empathising is to focus on whole-body listening so that you can truly hear what someone is trying to communicate to you, both verbally and non-verbally. To do this, always be in a state of curiosity when you listen. Keep your focus entirely on the other person, match their posture and their language patterns and ask predominantly open questions that encourage them to reveal more about themselves.

After you become a better listener, the next step is to become a better communicator when you speak so that your audience listens intently to you. To do this, focus on the following key elements:

• Eye Contact: We intuitively feel that when someone’s gaze shifts away from us, their attention has also shifted away from us. So when you are present and looking someone in the eye, the impact of that connection can be powerful. In addition to feeling heard, because of your empathy and good listening skills, people feel seen.
• Enthusiasm: This is difficult to fake because it is such an authentic emotion. It can only occur when you sincerely engage with what someone else is doing or saying. For your enthusiasm to come across powerfully, you have to feel it sincerely. When you do, it tends to be contagious and gives you the ability to uplift another person by praising their actions or ideas.
• Self-confidence: If you can act authentically and with assurance without worrying about what other people think, you naturally come across as composed, genuine, and natural. Many people are so busy worrying about how they appear that they come across as nervous or inauthentic. Their focus is on themselves rather than on the other person. When you are fully present, you are focused on others rather than yourself.
• Humour: Humour is a valuable and effective tool for communicating just about anything because it breaks down barriers. ‘Carefully’ disguised as fun, humour can smuggle new ideas into people’s hearts. And it does not have to just be incorporated in the form of funny anecdotes in your presentations. You can also use it in casual conversations, emails, and even your out-of-office message. If you’re sending out a mundane communication where humour wouldn’t be out of place, consider dropping in an amusing comment to make it more memorable.