Excellent communication is a cornerstone of any good relationship. We all know this. The problem is that most people would interpret “better communication” as “more talking.”

Fixing this troublesome misconception was our mission over the past week. 

The checklist

1. Understand the importance of body language and voice tone.
   • A common breakdown of importance is 55% body language, 38% voice tone, and 7% words.
   • Poor body language and voice tone can make your words worthless or even harmful.
2. Body language: the core of communication. 
   • The most important body language signals are those conveying an open or closed attitude. 
   • Learning how to unravel defensiveness through open body language can make you a much better communicator. 
3. Voice tone: more than words. 
   • A deep and engaging voice tone is the emotional glue that makes your words stick.
   • Conscious control of voice tone can also help to keep negative emotions from ruining your communication.   
4. Words: less is more. 
   • If you want people to like you and/or take your message to heart, use fewer words, not more. 
   • Effective communicators concentrate as much goodness and insight into as few words as possible. 

Our modern world has many complex problems. Solving these problems will require many minds to work together. And verbal communication is the best way of connecting all these minds. 

But we often fail to see verbal communication as the full-body exercise it is. Hence, most of the words we exchange have little (or even negative) impact. 

Better communication can make the world a better place. So, let’s stop talking and start communicating 🙂