“Sherlock Miller confidently walked into the hotel’s lobby, but confused as to why he got the call.”
It took me more than a month going through countless rewrites to get to the finished that one sentence. The idea originated when I read and later heard the author used the phrase Confident Confusion. The phrase Confident Confusion triggered the memory of countless times when I entered a situation, not understanding why I was called or what needed to be done. All I knew was they called about a complaint. I had to act like I knew the problem and knew how to solve it.
Today, I want to give you a tool for getting past the fuzzy fog to achieving better communication in your personal and professional life. Thus the title Read Hear Write Speak.
Robert Dugoni, (Best-selling author) Known for his crime dramas centered in the greater Seattle area. In his advanced writing class, he starts out telling his students he reads all types of genres. Like romantic comedy, romance, horror and even other crime dramas. He says it helps his writing.
Active listening is a key to any relationship. Active listening involves the ability to rephrase and repeat what we have said with understanding.
I want to focus on the next step. Write. Writing involves both the left and right side of your brain to cement both read and hear.
I know in school all of us have written book reports, research papers. You may even have had an English teacher who made you write a daily thought book for class. Our teachers had a method to their madness. They used this method to ensure we remembered the lesson.
I am curious, in the past week, how many of you have written other than a quick email.
How many of you write in a diary or journal?
How many of you have trouble writing in a daily diary or journal?
I can tell you from experience, getting to that habit on a consistent level is difficult.
I propose a three-step process.
- Free Writing–Free writing is a good start. This is done by scribbling on paper or in a notebook with random thoughts and ideas.
- Daily Log – The next step to develop a writing habit would be: like the captain of the Enterprise (for you Star Trek fans) At the end of the day writing important events of the day. OR at the beginning of the day writing down what you plan to do that day.
- Observational Notes – Take a notebook, sit in a coffee shop or park and describe what you see.
It will surprise you how doing one or all of these will not only help your writing but your verbal communication.
I have noticed a lot of those who do their Ice Breaker speech have their speech written out in almost word for word. I even in preparing for this speech wrote out this speech. You will be happy to note that great speeches start as an idea and progresses to be written out before delivered.
At one point, I thought I had accomplished something by writing a hundred words in a day for five days. Now I write between 500 and a couple thousand. That all depends upon if I am writing a story or what I am observing at the airport or my favorite coffee shop.
The right brain lends toward instinctive reasoning and imagination. The left brain chooses words and understands phrases. Writing forces both halves of our brain to work together. When it comes time to give a sales presentation or express our point of view, the combinations of words will already be in our brain. The only thing left is for our brain’s memory and our mouth to work together reciting those words.
I want to leave you a challenge: Write 500 words each day about what you have seen going to and from work, at the coffee shop or at the park.
You have learned and communicated an idea or concept when you have verbally shared it without notes.
Oh, Sherlock Miller’s brother called him to a crime scene to view a body in an elevator.
