Ordinary and normal don’t do it for me, not in any conversation.
Over the weekend I stopped into the pet food store to pick up cat food for my three cats. There was a new guy there. I told him I had placed an order and asked if he could find it in the back. As he was helping me, I applied everything I know about extraordinary communication to a very mundane conversation about cat food. When he was finished helping me with my order, he hugged me and asked me to come back. He went so far as to ask me how long it would take for my cats to eat all the cans I was getting (I buy a lot at one time) and happily calculated I would be back in 6 weeks.
Why did he do that? Because spectacular communication is rare in his life.
At my farmer’s market on Sunday, the farmer where I buy broccoli every week, a guy who normally looks very sullen and disinterested, started grinning when he saw me walking toward his stand.
Why did he do that? Because spectacular communication is rare in his life.
A senior executive in a major corporation whose staff complains he never makes time to meet with them told me to always stop by his office to talk with him when I’m in the building. Our five minute impromptu meetings stretch to 30 or even 45 minutes.
Why does he do that? Because spectacular communication is rare in his life.
A Vice President known for never answering his emails always answers mine the same day.
Why does he do that? Because spectacular communication is rare in his life.
Those are just my results. I haven’t even begun to tell you the results my clients get. They get equally spectacular results when they apply what they learned.
Being causative means the ability to make what you want happen. And the only hope of that in any situation, especially in difficult or challenging ones, or with difficult people, is exceptional communication and your ability to make it happen.
Just because you’re talking, just because you’re listening, does not automatically mean you’re communicating.
Real communication leaves you feeling really good. If you’re not feeling incredibly good, what just happened isn’t communication.
There are different grades of communication, just as there are different levels of ability in any activity. And at the highest level, what you want, happens.
Many people think what happens, the outcome, depends on the other person.
The outcome is out of your hands if your communication skills aren’t up to creatively constructing new realities that capture the imagination of others.
The purpose of communication is to create powerfully good relationships and gain commitment for what you want so it really happens. And happens fast.
Another purpose of communication, not much talked about, is to create joy, for there is great joy in deeply satisfying communications.
Your level of skill determines whether these things happen, how often and how fast.
Most people, even successful ones, have a level of skill that gets them by. They may be good communicators, but they’re not extraordinary.
I noticed this very early in life and, believing there’s nothing more rewarding, I dedicated myself to developing extraordinary communication skills and helping others get there also.
That’s what my writing, my training workshops, my coaching is about. To take your skills to such an extraordinary level that you are able to navigate all of the different personalities and realities you interact with to get spectacular outcomes. Not good ones, but spectacular.
That’s how I measure communication competence. Not just by well how you speak or how well you listen. But by the quality of the outcome and relationships you create, and the length of time it takes you to get there.
Does it take you a year to get to where you want? Three months? Three days? Or do you see it start to materialize in three minutes?
This is so much more than talking, I can’t even fit it into the same universe. If it was just about talking, it would be easy to be successful every time. But you can talk and talk and talk, and walk away feeling less than complete and even frustrated.
Or you can communicate at an exceptional level, see a radical transformation in the other person and experience a spectacular outcome.
So it really comes down to one fundamental goal of being able to make anything you want to happen through exceptional and causative communication.
When you are effortlessly extraordinary, you go on to lead an extraordinary life, both at work and at home.
You are in charge of choosing the standard you live by.
Be the cause!