Connecting through Communicating

We are always communicating, that should come to no surprise to anyone. However, if you look at the world we live in today, the majority of the problems, situation, issues, challenges and trials that the human race in general are facing are directly connected to communication.

The great John Maxwell stated in his book Connected, “People cannot succeed in life
without communicating effectively.” I love this this quote, not just because it is simple and to the point but because it is 100% true. Our ability to communicate will directly impact everything we do.

Not sure when the last time I completed a Connect the Dots but I do remember completing many of them in my earlier years. Why is this activity so intriguing to kids? Because once you connected all the dots, you had a complete picture. You felt like you accomplished your goal. Wow, a powerful lesson that the majority of us learned early on in life. If we connect the dots in the proper order, we have a clear picture at the end. On the other hand, if we skip, go out of order or do not finish that connect the dots, we are left with an incomplete picture. There is no excitement in this; in fact we may feel like we failed. So it is with our ability to connect with others through communicating effectively. Understanding the impact of what we are communicating, either directly or indirectly, is absolutely vital to ensure that we reach out goals.

We do not all communicate the same but we all do communicate. It is important to understand that communicating is both sharing and listening or receiving. If we feel that we are good communicators just because we can talk a lot, we are only good at throwing up on people. If we feel that we are a great listener but never share anything, we are simply a wall. The ability to communicate means we know how to balance our talking and listening. It means we strive to hear what is being said or communicated.

I can tell you from personal experience that people will make a connection with you only after there is has been some type of quality communication. When I talk about connection, I mean a relationship passed the initial introduction. They will reach out to you and/or they will respond to you when you reach out to them. The key to ensuring this takes place is your ability to communicate effectively.

I will share more about ways to communicate in the future but for now, I want you to ponder about the relationship’s you have with others and how you communicate with them. This may be at work, home, church, school or just within the community. Are you making the connections you want? Why or why not? How is your communication impacting this?

Now, time go make some lasting connections through effective communication.