Want to Succeed in Life? Then You Better Learn to Communicate Effectively.

The following is adapted from Big Brain Little Brain by Kevin T. McCarney.

I’m in the people business. So are you. We all are. No matter what you do, or make, or sell, you interact with others every day, building relationships with them. Communication is your biggest asset and your most important export, import, and product. Even if you are not in business, you’re always in the people business — with daily communications being your stock-in-trade.

In any relationship, our success or failure is in large part due to our communication skills. Relationships have a very simple measure: if your interactions and communications have left a good impression, people will think and speak highly of you and desire to have you around. If not — if you did or said something that resulted in a negative impression — they may speak poorly of you or be reluctant to support you.

How we handle these moments comes to define us. And in a social world where it can seem like “guilty until proven innocent” is the new norm, and anything you say, text, tweet, or post can go viral in an instant, having control of your words has never been more critical.

The Road to Communication

Most of us gather our communication skills along the trail of life. We’re not taught everyday communications skills in school. We acquire them by happenstance from the people around us. We collect them through family, friends, and our experiences — the movies we watch, the songs we listen to, the media we take in.

With everyone coming from different environments and absorbing different lessons, this leaves a lot of blind spots and a lot of gaps in our ability to communicate clearly. And in an age when most of our communications are recorded, permanent, and often amplified, we can’t let those blind spots blindside us.

Every moment presents an opportunity to react or respond, either to choose our best responses for the day or let our emotions and instant reactions define us. Every communication has the potential for long-term impact on every relationship we have, whether personal or professional. It’s our job to continually grow our existing communication skills, fill in those blind spots, and consistently choose the best responses in every interaction.

Do You React or Do You Respond?

Even though we may know better, sometimes, in the pressure of the moment, we miss the opportunity to say the right thing. Instead, we say things we wish we hadn’t. Sometimes, this causes problems.

Sometimes, it causes really big problems.

Psychologists make a distinction between reacting to situations and responding to them. Reacting happens when you act impulsively, on reflex, without thought. All too often, these reactions happen without truly considering the consequences.

Responding, on the other hand, is taking the time to think things through. In that moment, you realize there’s more going on than the single thing someone else just said or did. Here is where you choose how to respond in that particular moment. Making that choice is central to good communication.

Observational Street Psychology

I have researched and studied communication, and how we make the choices to react or respond, across hundreds of thousands of encounters with individuals, coworkers, customers, colleagues, board members, and across a world of relationships. There were no lab coats used over the decades, and no animals were part of the study. Instead, the bulk of this intensive study took place on the front lines of communications dealing with real-life situations and real people.

The study yielded a pattern to which I’ve given the name Big Brain vs. Little Brain. These are the two major guiding forces, I discovered, that decide how we react or respond in any particular situation. They impact how our interactions with others advance or diminish and ultimately define our relationships with others.

What I’ve found is that every conversation, every encounter, every situation is an opportunity. Every moment holds the space to further your relationships through positive communication or cloud them through poor communication.

Remember, we’re all in the people business. The success or failure we find in life is tied to how well we communicate with other people. That’s why it’s so important that you seize the opportunity for positive communication in every interaction. No matter who you are or what you do, your success depends on it.

For more advice on how to communicate positively and effectively in every situation, you can find Big Brain Little Brain on Amazon.

Kevin T. McCarney spent several decades managing customer and employee relations across a wide range of industries and organizations. He has been a guest speaker at the USC Marshall School of Business, the UCLA Anderson School of Business, and Woodbury University, among many others. A successful entrepreneur, speaker, mentor, husband, and father, Kevin has served on the board of directors of the California State Compensation Insurance Fund, the California Restaurant Association (Chairman 2014), the Burbank Arts in Education Foundation, the Boys and Girls Club of Burbank, and the Universal City North Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.