What’s the FASTEST way to improve your communication skills?

I have two quick things to share with you today:

1. The #1 technique to improve your communication skills – fast

2. My communication pet peeve 

“What’s the fastest way to improve my communication skills?”

People ask me this question all the time.

Can you guess what my answer is?

It’s recording yourself and then watching or listening to yourself. 

Watching yourself is painful. Trust me, I know!!! But it is incredibly effective. 

I used to edit all my Talk About Talk podcast episodes. Nowadays I have a professional doing that for me. (Thank you, Brian!)  But listening to myself certainly accelerated my progress in improving my communication. 

For example, like most of us, sometimes I would have a crutch word that I was trying to avoid. Listening to myself talk helped me quickly learn to avoid that crutch word.

 
A few months ago I delivered an in-person keynote. I asked for a copy of the recording so I could do exactly what we’re talking about here. I wanted to evaluate my performance on my communication goals – demonstrating confidence and empathy, avoiding my crutch words, and using effective body language on stage. 

It was very painful to press play and watch myself! But there’s no better way to improve.

So please – if you can create an opportunity to record yourself and watch/listen to it later, do it! 

I promise you it IS painful. But that’s because you’re more critical of yourself than anyone else. 

I also promise you, it works.

PET PEEVE ALERT

Has this ever happened to you?

You call someone and get their voicemail, which instructs you to leave a detailed message. So that’s exactly what you do.
 
Then a few minutes later, the person calls you back and says, “Hey! I saw that you called. What’s up?”
 
This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Please please – LISTEN to your voicemail messages BEFORE calling someone back. Not only is this the courteous thing to do, but it is also more efficient.

And if you’re the person whose voicemail was ignored, try to avoid snarky responses like this:

Talk soon,