Starting the article by insulting every single reader. Nice. Great start.

Stick with me though, and by the end, I might just be able to talk my way out of this one.

Let's talk about communication, and how we're useless at it.

Well, we don't think we're useless, but we actually are.

And that, in my experience, is the foundation of why we suck at communication.

The foundation of why we suck at communication is that our perspectives of something do not match the perspective of others.

We all think we're good at communication, but we're really not. Mismatch of perspectives. So we don't communicate as well as we should, thinking others would understand us, but they don't, and as a result... Others don't understand us as well as we'd like them to.

*deep inhale*

Anne's Additions

And considering the goal of communication is to convey a message, thought or idea to another person, it's probably a good idea we realize the above sooner than later.

But where do we go wrong?

The issue comes from our overconfidence in thinking that others can pick up on the cues we put down. In addition, we think that there's no way others would think of the situation from a perspective different than ours.

Anne's Additions:

Its like putting on someone else contacts… Is every person going to have the same prescription as you? No, so why would we assume they have the same lenses or frames when we present new information to them and expecting them to see that information the same way I would. 

So how do we effectively communicate and convey an idea to another knowing that more often than not they will hear something different than what we express? Well there are a few things we should consider:

Most communication is non-verbal.

Cues come from our body language, the words we say between the lines, our facial expressions, our tone of voice, and other examples like this. They're pretty much the physical manifestations of our inner dialogue, feelings, and thoughts.

The issue though is that we align those cues perfectly with the thoughts we hold in our heads.

But... That's not really the issue.

The issue is that while you have the thoughts in your head in conjunction with the cues you put out, which together paint a full picture, the person you are communicating with only receives the cues by themselves, without the inner dialogue to go with it.

The thoughts you yourself had, though, they don't receive.

They are entirely missing the thoughts that go with those same cues. As such, they are missing half or even more of the message.

That's the issue.

They only have their own thoughts, perspectives, and understandings of the situation to join up with those cues to make sense of them. And that's where the issue reveals itself.

Different people have different perspectives. By taking the same cues and aligning them with their individual perspectives, the end message changes.

Two people can perceive the same situation but understand it entirely differently.

Not only is our communication non-verbal but motivation is also a factor… What is the motivation for our communication? Best described by the great mind of Dan Nicholson, taught in his Certainty Certification program, is what he refers to as Valid vs Useful.

Here's an example:

If someone is saying stuff but what you're understanding is totally different from what they meant to tell you, are they really good communicators? They could, of course, call you clueless, but how useful would that be?

Don't waste time being valid. Instead, invest time in being useful.

Valid: This person is clueless cos they're not getting what I'm saying.

Useful: Let me get an idea of where this person is at, see what's keeping them from understanding what I'm saying, and then change my words so that I can effectively communicate with them

Anne's Additions:

• Validation: It's about ME not them. "I want to be recognized", "See me and my contribution", "See how smart I am", "Look at what I did"

• Helpful: Focus is on contribution, on getting them closer to an understanding. whatever that understanding may be

Flash Lesson: If someone's not getting it... Don't get angry at them. Instead, spend time in their shoes, and investigate where their perception shields them from understanding the words you put down. Afterward, either change the words you say or give them the preliminary information to understand what you're saying.

---

So what does this look like in real life?

Take a husband and wife for example.

The husband feels very uncomfortable with his body, and as a result, he doesn't join the kids at the pool. And he hates that he can't take part. So after a while, he decides to change and get more fit. After years of not working out, he starts working out and looking better.

His wife sees that he started to work out, randomly out of the blue, and instead of being happy for him, she starts to get very skeptical. "Did he meet another woman?" "Is he preparing for a divorce, and to look good for when he's single?"

This is a true story, and it almost resulted in a broken marriage.

...Until someone helped them bring their perspectives in line. The man thought it would be obvious why he was starting to work out because he just feels so uncomfortable out in the pool, and he hates not being there with his kids when they're at the pool.

He thought that his feeling of discomfort was so obvious because he never shows his body so when he started to workout, it would make perfect sense to his wife why he was doing such.

The woman thought it was also obvious why he was starting to work out too. ...Except what she thought was obvious, wasn't what was obvious to the husband.

You see, they had a happy marriage, she always complimented him and thought he was attractive, so there was no obvious answer as to why he randomly started to work out either than... "It must be for someone outside this marriage".

And thus the problem reveals itself.

We all think others can perceive those thoughts we hold within our individual perspectives, which we help express by cues (Like the husband never coming to the pool, because he was uncomfortable), to the same degree that we perceive them ourselves.

We are so confident in that others can perceive the messages we send without talking, that we don't bother to make them obvious.

But in reality, this is the furthest from the truth.

"Is there proof of this?"

Actually, there is.

A dissertation by Elizabeth Louise Newton, Ph.D. Stanford University. 1990.

Elizabeth did an experiment focused on helping answer a few questions:

• If individuals are overconfident in their partner guessing what they thought was obvious but did not clearly share

• and whether or not their partners would be accurate in guessing their partner's preferences based on the cues they put out.

The result?

Utter cluelessness.

You see, as part of the experiment, two people who've never met got together and talked for 10 minutes. They then rated how tense they themselves felt during the interaction, how tense they thought their partner felt, and how tense they thought their partners thought they felt.

And even though certain people felt they made it extremely obvious how they felt, thus thought their partners would guess correctly...the truth was:

"Subjects were unable to discriminate how tense their partners were really feeling."

Meaning: People can't read your thoughts, feelings, or cues from those feelings easily, or at all.

There was virtually no difference between the subject's self-ratings and their anticipation of their partner's ratings of them. Meanwhile, subjects weren't able to recognize that their partners also felt tense.

Meaning: What people rated their own level of tenseness, and what they anticipated their partner's rating would be... Was identical. So they expected their partners to pick up on and read their cues perfectly.

But the ratings their partners gave, in reality, were described like this:

Subjects were unable to discriminate how tense their partners were.

Meaning: In reality, people had no clue how tense their partners were feeling.

But, all the meanwhile, those same partners still remained overconfident that the person on the other side would recognize their discomfort.

Meaning: The person couldn't discern how tense their partner was feeling. But even though they themselves couldn't guess what their partner was feeling, they thought their partner would totally be able to guess how they were feeling...

Why though?

Because people's inner dialogue, thoughts, and feelings are so vivid to themselves, they are blinded to the fact that other people can't hear theirs!

Let me say this again:

Even though subjects were highly aware of their own tension. Even though the inner thoughts, feelings, and dialogue of tension or discomfort, to them, were extremely vivid and obvious.... ...Their partners did not have access to these cues and thus... Showed no ability to discriminate what the others were feeling with any level of accuracy!

Their partners did not have access to these inner thoughts, feelings, and inner dialogue.

So for people looking at you... It becomes very hard to discern what you're feeling, or the message you are trying to convey between the lines.

Meaning that, if you want to make sure someone gets it, you have to:

• Use your words (I know, very complicated theory)

• And ask them how they understood what you said, to ensure they got the same message you put down

So what does this study prove:

1. People's inner dialogue, their thoughts, and their feelings are extremely vivid to them. So vivid, in fact, that they think others would be able to see it too

2. Because of the above, people feel extremely confident that others would be able to pick up on the physical cues that result from this series of inner conversations

3. But the truth is... We are blind to it. And as a result, we can't discern what people are actually thinking. At most, we can just guess.

The truth is, people can have hundreds of different perspectives on the same events.

At the same time, people can't see the inner dialogue that matches the cues they put down.

So what's obvious to them, while putting the cues down, isn't obvious to others, who don't receive the same cues.

And that makes us horrible communicators

But why?

Specifically, because we all think that others can hear the same inner dialogue we have perfectly

When I started this article, I said that we suck at communication and that if you think you're the outlier, you're most likely the problem.

The reason I said this is because to communicate effectively, you have to first understand that we as humans truly do suck at communication, and in which ways. You also have to understand why our overconfidence makes our communication worse.

And by going into discussions with this understanding you can, instead of spending most of your time talking, spend more time asking questions, testing your assumptions, and double-checking that both your and your partner's perceptions are matching.

So that's why I feel that the people who are actually great at communicating would know that they too, indeed do suck at communication! And as a result, they must take extra effort to ensure their perspectives match the perspectives of the entities around them.

Because at the end of the day, you can be the best debater in the world, but talking to a dog, you'd still come off like a buffoon.

Thinking further about communication, let's look at how communication has evolved throughout the last few years and how this compounds the problem created by our overconfidence in our own communication, written by the illustrious Guardian, Orphan Annie.

Social Distancing with COVID has changed how we communicate. We don't know if this will be the new norm or if we will slowly move back to old (traditional) communication forms. Most communication between people in non-verbal, so how with all the separation, distancing and isolation do we expect that communication can remain the same, using the same language, communication style when the status quo of communicating as a whole has changed. 

As a society our communication style must change with the changing landscape of societal norms. now the new standard, the new Norm, Video chats, phone calls, texting, emails, Social media are the preferred method of interacting.

Communication is the foundation between spouses, domestic partners, parents and children, business partners, customers and clients. So how do we adapt, how do we change out interaction to allow for not only the exchange of information from one to another but convey understanding? Ensure that what I as the communicator is attempting to convey through my communication is received on the other end by the receiver as I have intended? Who’s responsibility is it to ensure the communication is received as it was intended?

If you want to add comments or have additional thoughts on this article, reach out to me on Discord.

If you are interested in having deeper conversations with like-minded individuals, you can do so in The Guardian Academy.