The Art of Communication

There are certain skills that rise above the rest due to their ubiquitous applicability and transferability. Communication is one of those skills, and in this blog, I'll describe why communication skills are worth developing and how I plan on honing them.

The advent of language was arguably the turning point that separated Homo sapiens from the rest of the animal kingdom as the dominant species on planet Earth. Verbal communication facilitated cohesive cooperation between early humans, which was the sole determinant of our survival and evolution. In isolation, human beings are quite helpless. A lone caveman would be hard-pressed to take down a woolly mammoth, let alone defend himself against apex predators like saber-toothed tigers. However, a dozen or more humans collaborating in tandem is a force to be reckoned with. Hunting aside, effective communication is what enabled humans to work together to construct and maintain the greatest and most complex civilizations life as we know it has ever seen.

There are two categories of communication: Verbal: speaking & listening Written: reading & writing

Effective communication is, in my estimation, the single most important skill that one can develop. It's what allows one to convey thoughts clearly and efficiently. There's nothing more frustrating than having an idea or thought but "not having the words" to describe it. Not only that, but nearly every other valuable skill, from selling to leadership, to interpersonal relations, to influence, is largely contingent upon communication.

When we graduate from university, unless our careers specifically require them, we tend to stop reading and writing as fastidiously as we once did, causing these skills to atrophy. Like anything, if you don't use it, you'll lose it. In my opinion, rattling off a few mindless emails to coworkers doesn't suffice to make one a proficient writer. Nor does reading road signs and the occasional New York Times article make one a proficient reader. And even though almost all of us speak on a daily basis, how much of an effort do we make to be articulate and concise? How often do we speak publicly at that?

All of this is to say that communication is key to success in any field, and possessing exemplary communication skills makes one stand out amongst the rest and confers a degree of professionalism and intellect that cannot be delivered by wearing a suit, no matter how expensive.

For these reasons, I plan on making a concerted effort to refine my communication skills in all three arenas as assiduously as possible. Here's how:

Reading: I have ingrained the habit of reading a book of my choosing for a minimum of 30 minutes per day before bed, and more on weekends.

Writing: I will hold myself to writing at least one blog post per week, while doing my best to avoid nonchalance and colloquialism in my language. I plan on authoring at least one book at some point in my career. I keep a journal which is more casual, but I pride myself on the quality of my writing, even behind closed doors. Instagram captions make for a great opportunity to practice brevity and reader engagement.

Speaking: I started a solo podcast where I speak on whatever thoughts or topics happen to be circulating in my mind at the moment. The content of the podcast is second in importance to the exercise of developing freestyle, unscripted speaking off the top of my head. I'll also make convincing speech a focus of my content creation strategy on social media. Many influencers use text in their content, but my approach will involve speaking to the camera face to face. Not only will this separate me from other creators who hide behind text, but it will also foster a more personal connection with my audience, and I'll sharpen my speaking skills in a quasi-public setting. Lastly, I'm working on being more intentional in my speech on a day-to-day basis, with a focus on conciseness and eloquence, even in casual, domestic conversation.

Listening: Listening is the most underrated and overlooked facet of communication. Listening attentively communicates respect and shows that you care about what the other person has to say. But listening is a skill. The mind has a tendency to wander, so the better the quality of our connection, the more we can make the speaking party feel heard, and the more details of what they communicate we can retain. Listening to podcasts is one strategy I'm using to exercise the endurance of my attention span in the context of concentrating on interpreting the speech of another person.

Vocabulary: While reading is a great way to expand one's vocabulary, I've found that if I'm not intentional about retaining new words and incorporating them into my speech, they slip my mind. So I paid for an annual subscription to a vocabulary app, and every day I write down the definition of a new word and do my best to ingrain said word into my speech as often as possible throughout the day.

There's an even deeper reason to diversify one's vernacular. Granted, this is pseudoscience, but in my anecdotal experience, I find that the more words I have at my disposal, the more ideas I can come up with. In other words, expanding my vocabulary has seemingly made me more creative and has enhanced my capacity to make connections between subjects that I previously hadn't considered. This phenomenon is hard to put into words (hence the importance of communication), but all I can say is that knowledge is power, and all knowledge must manifest as language to be understood. In essence, words are power.

The last point I'll make about the salience of communication is that it is a timeless, irreplaceable skill. With the arrival of artificial intelligence threatening to take over just about every corner of the professional world, if we want to stand the best chance of retaining our market value, it would be wise to develop skills that AI can (theoretically) never overtake from flesh and blood humans. Interpersonal communication is one such skill. Yes, AI can now write essays better than most English teachers, and you can have a deeper conversation with ChatGPT than you can with 99% of the general populace. But the (current) "limitation" of AI is that it requires an input in order to generate an output. I'm no computer scientist, but a human is required to initiate a command so that AI knows what function to execute. Another way to put this is a human has to communicate with AI so that it "knows" what to do. The future of the market is going to be those who evolve with AI by becoming the best at using it. And using AI effectively requires clear communication with the machine.

Finally, I'm of the belief (this is not a statement of fact) that AI will never be able to read facial expressions and body language the way a living, breathing human can. Nonverbal communication is hardwired into our DNA, as this prosocial behavior enabled us to pick up on social cues that were required for humans to function in groups. The ability to subliminally detect changes in emotional state in an instant is an intrinsically human property that carries over to numerous high-value skills such as leadership, sales, etc. AI will have its work cut out for it to catch up with us on that front...

I hope that you extracted some value from this blog post. I highly recommend adopting some of the practices I described into your own life. There's nothing more satisfying than articulating a point clearly or writing a sentence to perfection. Skillful communication capabilities imbue one with a sense of confidence and self-assuredness that cannot be attained through any other means. With that, I'm signing off. Until next blog...