Communication Skills and Relationship Advice: Reward Yourself For the Rest of Your Life

Verbal and especially non-verbal communication is often over-looked. Using these simple ideas could bring you more meaning, fulfillment, and success in life. Ever heard?

"We need to talk."

If you're like most people you just got chills. Why? Because usually this phrase has an implied negative meaning. I know when I've heard them I could almost feel my stomach flip-flop, I could see tension in the speaker's eyes, and I thought, "Oh boy! Get ready." 98-99% of the time it was unnecessary.

It's funny how four little words could have so much power over us. Wouldn't it be nice to avoid it when possible? Would you like to feel more comfortable in your current personal and professional relationships? Most everyone would like life to go smoother, get more from their relationships, and have more friends. Wouldn't you?

Now I'll tell you right away I'm not a psychologist...what I will say is after interacting with people for 30 years, tak-ing various seminars, classes, reading different books, and material, having "eye-opening" realizations, and just living life...I've found these break-through ideas can make life
significantly better, when I use them. Yes, I'm human too. I get busy, forget, or get "interested in other things" at times too...when I use them though...WOW!

How to make people like you:

This is the most important point I'll mention here. It can turn your life around if you give it a chance and it requires patience and work at first. Once you get the hang of it, practicing this simple idea should get easier. What is it?

Listen. Listen not like you do to the TV or radio, r-e-a-l-l-y listen. Put down what you're doing.  Turn off the TV, computer, stereo, whatever and get rid of any distractions before you start listening. This does two things:

1) It non-verbally tells the person you sincerely want to make time for them. This gesture alone can be very powerful. We live in a rush, rush, "I want it now" society. When you take time with someone and really give them your full attention, it says very good things about you.

2) It will help eliminate distractions and save time. If you're not giving your full attention you make things worse, because you're not showing respect. Think about it. How do you feel when you bring up something important with your significant other, colleague, or boss, and you're ignored? If you're like a majority of us, you probably get a little irritated, huh?

So why treat someone the same way? People want, need, and crave to be listened to sincerely. Truly mastering this will give you a significant advantage in your love, family, professional, and even casual relationships. I've been sur-prised many times by how much complete strangers tell me about their life, even though I just met them. Things their own spouse doesn't know, and it's all from taking a sincere interest in someone's well-being. Let me repeat, taking a sincere interest in a fellow human-being by listening with undivided attention is extremely powerful. It can strength-en your relationships, your career, your likability, and fi-nancial status. And guess what...everyone wins.