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Communication is everything. The way we wear our clothes, style our hair, down to the shoes that we wear for the day communicate who we are as a person. This conscious yet non-verbal way of communicating is notoriously evident in women because they are better at reading signs. They have been trained to look someone up and down and figure them out. This is how women develop their superior communication techniques. One very important thing to keep in mind is that there are different components to every aspect of communication.

I’m very excited to be here talking about my absolute favorite topic: communication. In this show, I give my eight favorite tips of how to have superior communication around intimacy and relationships and desires. These are old school communication tips I used to speak about it in my workshops around communication. We then travel up to San Francisco to my friend, Sayed, who is having problems with intimacy and the reason is, he never had it. He was never taught it. We go down to the basics of learning to pay attention and to take some chances and risks to have the intimacy he wants in his life. For more shows, please visit us at TuffLove.Live.

065: Superior Communication Techniques

It’s very nice to be here. I’m always a pleasure to be here to help, to contribute, to add to the world and just having fun. It’s been a great year so far. It’s probably the best way to say it. It’s been fun and exciting and nonstop. Hopefully, you’re having the same experience. Hopefully, this show is going to add to some of your enjoyment because what is life worth living if you’re not enjoying it? If you’re not enjoying it, take a look around and see what needs to change to have more. It’s pretty straight forward. We’re going to do one of my favorite topics, the topic of communication. I had a pretty intense experience around communication that sparked the show, which led to a conversation with Morgan about communication and how it goes. I realized that I had never done a show with my favorite communication tips and techniques. I’m going to do that and give you my eight top favorite tips around communication all in one piece. Hopefully, you can take it and go. We’re going to talk then my new friend, Sayed, is going to come up on the show.

I’m going to give you the mix of my favorite top eight tips. Some of these come from as far back as Scientology. Scientology wrote a bunch of these communication tips that meet my lineage. More University wrote a lot of them, which went down to the welcome consensus and then Nicole Daedone of OneTaste introduced me to a lot of this communication. I want to give credit where credit’s due. It’s very important and hopefully these tips will enhance your life. The first tip is everything is a communication. In the time where I used to run communication courses, I was very dramatic and for some of you that have been in the communication course, you knew how dramatic my comm courses were.

What I would do is I would tell the people, introducing the front desk people, registering them doing, “Welcome, how are you doing? Just so you know, the class would start at 10 AM on the dot. At 10 AM on the dot, we were to start the class.”That’s all they would say. They would give one communication, telling the participant that the class was going to start at 10. Then I would prance in at 10 AM, there’d be a whiteboard. I would take my Sharpie, rip up the white board and I write really dramatic scripts. Everything is a communication. No matter what people were doing, we would riff off their experience of the start of the class. Would they be ready? Would they still be flirting? Would they still be getting coffees? Will they show up at 10:05?All these things that people would do were direct communication. The first hour of the class was around this concept that we’re missing an incredible amount of information because we’re not looking at the specifics of communications.

TL 065 | Superior Communication Techniques

Superior Communication Techniques: If you could look at everything that you’re doing, it’s communication, then you can actually communicate better and also read communication better.

Look at yourself right now. Take a scan of yourself. Look at the clothes you’re wearing. Is it a purple hoodie? How does your hair look? What are you wearing and what are you trying to communicate with your clothing? What is your facial, your beard or mustache, what is that trying to communicate? Everything about you is a communication. We don’t know that we’re doing it. Sometimes it’s very conscious. Sometimes we wear very specific clothing, other times we don’t. Everything you do can be termed in the communication. It is going to add how you see your body, how your body stands, how your shoulders are, how your facial gestures are. If you could look at everything that you’re doing, it’s communication, then you can actually communicate better and also read communication better. Women are notoriously better at reading a non-verbal communication than men. They’ve been trained to look someone up and down and figure these pieces out.

For men, you’re missing out on a lot of information by not noticing how much time and deliberate work women often put into their outfits, their nails, what jewelry they’re wearing, what shoes they’re wearing. All these pieces are very specific things. If you can take a look beyond the obvious, you’ll be getting a lot of communications. If you’re not willing to do that, you’re going to miss and then the person’s going to feel ignored. Women often think that men communicate or notice as much as women do. When men don’t acknowledge the specific things women do, women think where consciously avoiding it. A large breakdown between men and women dynamics is that women assume that men notice, but in fact we don’t. We haven’t been trained to do it. Just know that everything that’s going on is deliberate and a communication.

Second viewpoint. There are three components to every communication. There are the words, the intonation and the intention, three components. The words are the context basically. The words you’re saying, the words you’re texting, the email you’re writing, even the painting, the painting colors, it’s like the context is the word. That’s only one part of the communication. People tend to take us a lot of stock at the word level, but in fact, it’s only one of the three. The second is the intonation. The intonation is the modulation of the voice. “Am I speaking really quickly? Am I speaking really slowly?” What’s the pitch of the voice? How long the eye contact? The intonation is the up and the down of the voice modulation and that is a huge piece of it. If I scream, “Go get me some milk.” The word says, “Go get me some milk,” but the intonation, the yell is very often the words and if all three parts don’t match up, you get what’s called cognitive dissonance. You get an awareness that something is wrong. There are the words, the intonation, then there’s the most powerful part, which is the intention behind the communication. The intention is what you really want it to say, what you really want to communicate.

This is sometimes really subtle. This is something unaware. What happens is we often Y word say, “You look great today,” but you walk away feeling like shit. What happens is, is that the intention of the communicator is not to be nice. It’s be biting or cutting. Just for you to be aware that there are three parts to every communication and it’s for the master communicator to ensure that his communication lands, all three parts do need to line up, intonation, intention, and the words. Tip number three, close the cycle of communication. This is a powerful communication technique. When you say, “Yes, okay, thank you, I got it, or all right,” then what that does, it closes the communication. Just imagine I say to Morgan, “Do you want to go out tonight?”She says, “Maybe.”

That communication is still open. That communication is still unknown in my mind. There’s a missing piece. It’s not completed. When you have uncompleted communications, it takes energy and time and often or I’m really not familiar with how much energy and time that’s taking. It’s important when you’re in a communication pattern or a dance with someone to close the communication. One of the most powerful ways that you can close a communications by saying, “Thank you.” Thank you is pretty much one of the most powerful ways for you to say, “I have acknowledged your communication and now the communication dance is over for now.” Saying thank you closes cycles and then completes that communication dance.

The fourth viewpoint is something called a communication bridge. This is something that a lot of people do consciously, but not a lot of people do well. A communication bridge is when you want to move from topic A to topic B. When we were in topic A and topic B, we’re talking about the weather and all of a sudden, we want to talk about something personal, a lot of people will switch quickly from point A to point B and the listener will get lost actually in the conversation because we quickly switched from point A to point B. A communication bridge, what it says is I want to finish talking about topic A and want to start talking about communication B. Saying something like, “I want to change topics now. Is that okay with you?”

If someone is saying like, “I want to stop focusing on this piece, can we talk about this other thing that’s bothering me?” That’s a communication bridge. Often what we do in communication is we have these long run-on sentences. Where we’re talking about one topic, talking, talking, talking, and then all of a sudden we’re on a new topic and we’re like, “How the fuck do we go from the weather to your mother? How did we switch from point A to B so quickly?” The communication bridge will ensure that your listener will follow your communication from point A to point B. It’s a really powerful tool to do that.

When you have uncompleted communications, it takes energy and time. Click To Tweet

Viewpoint number five says, “The responsibility of the communication is on the communicator.” I think this is one of the most important ones I wrote down. The responsibility of the communication is on the communicator. Now a lot of times, we’ll think, “If I just send a text message, it’s done. It’s complete.”Like taking a letter and throwing it over someone’s fence and hoping that they get the letter. The more powerful way for the communicator do that is to ensure that the communication lands. The way that we use to describe this was imagine that the communicator has something they want to say. Where they’re going to open up the front door, they’re going to walk down the hallway, they’re going to knock on the door of the person they want to communicate with, they’re going to wait until the door is opened.

They’re going to say, “I have communication for you.” They’re going to have that communication to that person and wait for that person to say, “Thank you.” That is the best way to ensure that the communication will land, is to go through that whole process. That process could just take a second. “Mom, I have something to tell you.” ” What is it?” “Blah, blah, blah. Thank you.” That could be a very quick 30-second experience. Other times, that could take a day. If you want to ensure that your communication has land, don’t throw it over the fence. Don’t assume that it’s landed, and this is important in terms of text communication. We are relying on our texts and our phones more and more. What happens is, is that we don’t take the time to ensure that our communication lands. Take the time to know that what you wanted to say landed, and that’s on the responsibility of the communicator.

On the flip side, it is the listener’s responsibility to accept that they are adding connotation to the communication. I’ll say that again, it’s on the listener to acknowledge that they’re adding connotation to the communication. If I say to someone, “That’s a really great dress.” The listener might think, “He’s hitting on me.” The second thing is, “He’s such an asshole because he’s with someone else and he’s complimenting my dress” or “Do I look fat in this? Is that why you’re saying that this dress looks really nice?” It’s the listener’s connotation. It’s them taking the stimuli of the communication and adding connotation to it. That’s on the listener. The communicator can ensure that the ability to take on connotation shrinks, the more specific that they make the communication. That’s why vague statements are really challenging. I could have said something like, “I really want to flirt with you and I want to tell you that I really think that dress is hot on you.” That’s a little clumsy of communication. That’s not going to get me much nookie, but the point is, is that I could add details to shrink the connotation of the listener.

If you want to make a vague statement, know that the worst and the best situations around the communication can land. The more specific you are in your communication will shrink the ability of the listener to add connotation. If the listener gets offended or hurt or turned on, just know that they’re responsible for that piece. You can have anyone feel any particular way. It’s on them to choose on how they feel and you can make it easier and easier for your communication to be deliberate by adding specific notions to it and making sure to go back to the previous viewpoint. That’s your words, your intonation and your intention match up so that the communication is very clear.

Number seven is one of mine. There’s the power of the reframe. Reframe is basically one person thinks this experience goes this particular way. When you reframe something for someone, you have them take their perspective of how they’re looking at an experience and changing the way that they could see it. If someone is really mad at their mom for yelling at them, a reframe might say, “Did you see that your mom is showing how much she loves you. She maybe a little enthusiastic in communication, but isn’t that an example of her passion, not her anger?” The reframe actually can take an experience and change the whole feeling around it.

When you want to really be of benefit, of value to someone, learn how to reframe places that they feel stuck, not to change their minds or fix them, but to offer them a new opportunity, a new way of looking at something. The reframe is a powerful way to shake things up and take a different way of looking. I’m doing reframing all the time with my clients and not to minimize how they feel about something, but just to offer them a new perspective. I’m constantly reframing things for myself because I’m looking at the things that are happening to me and then saying, “What’s the value? How did I co-create this? Why did this happen? What’s the lesson I can get from it?” and from that there’s a lot of power in terms of my life and what changes and how things get affected.

TL 065 | Superior Communication Techniques

Superior Communication Techniques: The responsibility of the communication is on the communicator.

Number eight of my communication. There is a difference between masculine and feminine communication. I’m not talking man/woman at this point. I’m talking in terms of masculine and feminine. Masculine communication tends to be projectile. They tend to push out. they communicate for reason. They communicate to solve a problem, to get something from point A to point B. Masculine communication is in terms of solving a problem or creating something or fixing something, to have the action forward. Feminine communication on the flipside is one of receptivity. It’s one of connection. It’s one to evoke empathy. Feminine communication is not about production, but about building bonds and intimacy. To break down masculine and feminine to one statement, masculine communication is to produce, feminine communication is one of connection.

What happens often in fights that happen between people, men and women or same sex or a feminine man or a masculine woman is that people are speaking on different levels. They’re speaking at levels of the masculine is communicating to get something from point A to point B and the feminine just wants to connect. That’s when women often say, “I just want to be able to tell them about my feelings without trying to fix it.”The whole John Gray Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. That’s a very common thing that happens. If you find yourself in a communications sticking place, what you can do, is examine, “Is your partner speaking a different language?” Masculine and feminine have very different connotation, very different goals and very different ways of being.

Live Coaching

That was a different kind of TuffLove, eight viewpoints on communication. Let me know what you thought. Let me know if you have any thoughts and let’s shake off this week’s rant. Hello, my brother.

Hello, Robert.

How are you?

I’m very good. How are you?

Good.

Where are you?

I’m in San Francisco.

We can talk about any topic and how can this be most optimal for you?

I think you’ve covered a great chunk of them in the communication because that’s where I was feeling them conversations with me could be so masculine that people don’t look forward to meeting me again. I think I have problems in general forming intimacy and connection and I think I’m aware of some of the things I do that breaks that connection from developing. I think maybe that’s an area where if you can magnify, communication is one part of connection, but there could be other. I just wanted to open up, this is the area where we can explore and that could be really helpful.

You said that people meet with you, then you’re so masculine communication, they don’t want to meet with you anymore.

That’s just one way, but the end results. Maybe I can give you and end results then we can work backwards on that. For example, people are like excited to see me or sometimes, they might be curious about me somewhere and what happens is after a little bit of talking, it just fizzles out and they don’t see my personality or they don’t get to see that I care or something happens and their initial interest almost all the time. For example, I was in this class and somebody who was really excited to “Who are you. I want to talk to you,” but after a while, the kind of respect and everything goes down. We just become like somebody to keep in touch with but not someone that they bonds with. I get that a lot and I’m sure that there are aspects of it that shutdown because of fear of maybe my personality, but also communication-wise and then also, things that prevent intimacy. I have some rough idea, but I don’t have like a very good answer.

It’s on the listener to acknowledge that they’re adding connotation to the communication. Click To Tweet

Do you want to be more intimate? More in relationship with people?

Yes but I’ve never had that kind of experiences. Maybe by default sometimes, but I think I don’t understand this topic.

It’s a rote way of saying it. The first thing I would do is really look at and investigate your inner fear around being intimate.

I don’t even know what intimacy is. I have some idea that maybe you can’t wait to meet this person and share and you always want to share. Maybe that’s my intimacy, but is that what you’re thinking? I have not been able to see what’s the fear of intimacy? I might have. Do I even have a fear?

I’m going to take a different tact. That was a communication bridge. What was your relationship like with your parents when you were younger? What was the most intimate relationship you could remember growing up?

My mother was kind of narcissistic. I grew up in a lot of hatred environment with lots of abuse and things. That’s why I don’t have like a reference point to look back and say, “This is how we ought it should be.”

I think this would be the core challenge you have is you don’t have any primary examples of intimacy and connection. We mimic a lot of our parents’ relationship. We learn a lot from our parents relationship and we learn very quickly as youngsters, as had been educated from zero to eight, has a huge impact and imprint on who we are. Who you are then, it means you probably didn’t have any secure attachments, any secure connection that you could even practice intimacy. This is my lady, Morgan’s area of expertise. I’ve learned a lot from her and she’s on research and we co-raise these two kids, relearning and learning the importance of a secure attachment when you were young. How old are you now?

I’m 32.

You have 32 years of habits and I don’t call them bad habits because they’re just habits. Habits born on an unattached, unintimate foundation that enables you to have them right now. The first thing is, I don’t know if this is going to make you feel better or worse, you were not set up to be intimate. You’re not taught to be intimate. My first hope is that you don’t a beat yourself up. You don’t blame yourself, you don’t a flagellate yourself in terms that you don’t have the skill set because you weren’t raised to have it. If you’re beating yourself up, my plea for you is just stop and start to be nice and intimate with yourself first and foremost. If you’re beating yourself up, you’re wasting a lot of energy on that experience and not on expanding your skill set with other people. Have you ever witnessed any relationship, any connection, friends of yours or other couples that there’s been an intimacy that you’ve liked and respected and felt good around?

That’s also another problem because I didn’t learn to be around people and friends. I see lately that people are whispering like in my class. I see some people like whispering each other in the ear and when they’re talking they’re so happy and extreme of energy like a tennis match. I see some behaviors from a distance, but I’m always like, “How can I be like that?” As an outsider and having to watch movies maybe sometimes, the movies gives you an idea, but I think I should watch more movies but I don’t go to movies as well.

Movies will fuck you up like everything else. My whole childhood was based on John Cusack and Breakfast Club and that genre. I think we need to give you some really basics on initial intimacy training. That’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to give you some basic tips on how to learn to be intimate and your homework assignment for the rest of your life is to go and experiment and practice. This is an important piece. When we look at life as an experiment or we look at life like it’s just practice, you can’t do it wrong. An experiment sometimes results that don’t prove your hypotheses are more important than the ones that do. “The best people learn from their mistakes.” Some people are like, “How did you go out and fail? How did it go and expand your range by failing? Just know that you’re going to make a thousand miscues along this ride, but that’s okay because it’s part of the ride. Here’s some basic stuff. Number one, people love to have attention paid to them.

If you’re in a conversation with someone, the way to get connected and create intimacy is for you to put your authentic attention on them and be curious and ask questions. I wonder in some of these conversations when you’re speaking, I wonder if you’re just talking about yourself, if you’re going on about your own experience, which is important. I would recommend the majority of your connection with people, spend three-fourths, 75% of the time asking them questions, getting into their world, being curious. If you pay attention, the next question will always arise. Don’t machine gun these questions. Don’t interrogate them, just have kind of a soft focus, curiosity and attention on that. Does that make sense?

That makes sense. I remember I come across as very distant and lack of eye contact so maybe with an eye contact and I do a lot of that. One thing, I realized that the only way I can communicate is during compositions from my topic and then going on a big run. If it comes to talking about other people or environment or the present moment or feelings, either I go ask a lot of questions or just talk about myself. This is a very good, 75%give them your attention.

TL 065 | Superior Communication Techniques

Superior Communication Techniques: Feminine communication is not about production, but about building bonds and intimacy.

Second tip, you know the word brevity? To be brief. Don’t speak and run-on sentences. Speak in as short and as little words as possible to get your point across. If someone asks you a question and you think about 74 words or 150 words you could say about the topic, but you could answer in twenty words, be brief and be to the point. Keep things really crisp and clear. The third tip is don’t lose your audience. If you’re talking to someone and after the first four or five minutes, you get the notion that they might be full or even getting bored, close the conversation. A lot of times people will keep talking and keep interacting because they’re afraid that conversation will never happen again, but if they keep talking and communicating and overdoing it, they’re ensuring that communication will never happen again. Always leave them wanting more. There was a comedian that used to say that, always leave them wanting more. To know when you hit that point of the most intensity of the communication to quickly close up after that, will actually entice someone into the next conversation.

The fourth one, if you want to talk to someone again, don’t leave it up to chance. Take the vulnerable action of asking for the next interaction. You meet someone at your class, you’re really enjoying it. You had that hit that they’re starting to get bored. You could say like, “It was really awesome talking to you. I really love to have this conversation again. Would you be available to go for a cup of coffee someday?”or a little less invasive, “Can I get your phone number? Can I text you some time?” Take some vulnerable action to show your interest, your curiosity, because a lot of people don’t do that. A lot of people just having a great conversation, then they feel awkward and then they end the conversation and then what happens is the person doesn’t feel valued. They feel dissed. What you can do is take that one extra step being into the discomfort and say, “This has been a really fun conversation. You’re a very interesting person. I’d love to hear more of your stories. I think I need to go check on something. Can I call you sometime? Can I get your phone number?” If they say, “No,” you’ve tried it. If you don’t try it, if you don’t actually make that step, you’re ensuring that it may never happen again. How did those lands?

Very useful. This has been one of the most important things I’ve been learning.

Do you have a crush on anyone right now?

That’s a different topic. Is it crush or is it just validation-seeking?

Let’s not over think it. Do you have a crush on anyone?

Yeah.

Makeup a first name.

Dana.

How often do you get to see Dana?

I used to live in a co-op, but not anymore.

Do you have any connection to Dana at this point?

On Facebook but I never chat.

You’re Facebook friends?

Yeah.

Does she live in San Francisco as well?

Yeah.

Then do you stalk her Facebook?

Yeah.

It’s so much fun stalking to people on Facebook. The worst thing that’s going to happen is someday Facebook is going to make it available to find out who’s been stalking you. That will be a sad day for a lot of people, myself included. We’re not there yet. What does Dana like to do?

A lot of outdoorsy things.

Hikes and camping?

Yeah.

Does she have a boyfriend?

She threw mixed signals at me and when I was living in the co-op, the fear I got paralyzed then. She wanted to at least be on a friendly level, but it was hard. It was very intimidating. She’s like six feet tall and very good looking. When she walks in, she just own the room and it closes up my personality even more that I can’t even respond normally. I felt like she tried to talk to me multiple times in addition to just talking logically, I was not able to show my full personality and stuff.

This is an opportunity for you. Here’s one option for you. You Facebook Dana, and say, “Hello. How’s it going? I want to tell you something intimate, but I hope you don’t mind me revealing. During the whole time we were at the co-op, I felt your attempts to befriend me and I want you to know I was so crushed out on you that I couldn’t keep my clarity around you and I apologize if I felt standoffish, but it was really my own nervousness. I would love to ask for us be friends. Thank you.” Rewrite that for your language. Rewrite that for how that’s authentic for you.

The way to get connected and create intimacy is for you to put your authentic attention on them and be curious and ask questions. Click To Tweet

What’s going to happen is that one, you’re going to practice the vulnerability of being connected to another human being. The worst thing that happens is she’d be friends with you. You’re on the same spot now than you were before. If Dana is too tall a mountain to climb too big of a thing right now, you could try with someone a little easier, but I can tell you for being a person who crushes on a lot on people, who often says, “I have a crush on you,” and they’re like, “I had a crush on you too.” Often this mutual thing or “I always wanted to be friends with you],” and they’re like, “I always wanted to be friends with you too” or “I was thinking about talking to you.” There is so much isolation going on in society. It just takes one person being the hero to be vulnerable, to cross over that bridge that a lot of intimacy can be created.

It’s easy for me to do this on Facebook or one-on-one conversations. Let’s say you’re alone with the person. However, in group situations, I have a lot of problem when they’re like six people because we don’t know who’s been there to lead and people might lose attention and then find someone else more interesting. At the co-opportunity, that was the reason where since there are a lot of people my age and the person who was the most loudest or melodic in talking can then lead and that automatically makes me feel worthless.

What’s your profession?

I used to be a software engineer.

What was the first language you learn to write in programming?

C.

You start it off in C and then did you move to Java after that? C language is the one-on-one, Java is the group dynamic, get it. It’s like Algebra is the one-on-one, Calculus is the group dynamic. Start off small, start off simple and don’t beat yourself up for not being good at Java when he first started because the ability for you to get more and more complex will happen in time. You are not set up for the basics of intimacy, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t live the rest of your life in total intimacy and it’s going to take practice. Start small. Don’t beat yourself up. Take a risk and just practice really basic intimacy techniques to putting your attention out. You can change your whole story of your relationship to relationships. We’ll leave you there.

Thank you.

My pleasure. Thanks for being on the show with us. I really appreciate you taking the chance of being on the air to talk about this. That’s a really big step.

I briefly talked to you once. I was comfortable.

I’m glad we’ve hooked up again. Stay in touch with me. I’m so glad to be part of it. Thanks for being on the show. Thanks for helping me bring my message out into the world and I’m just grateful every week that you guys show up to be my audience. Thank you so much. For more shows, please visit us at TuffLove.Live. There’s an archive of 65 shows. It’s growing. My downloads are growing. Please tell your friends, your enemies. If you know you want to have better relationships, tell them, listen to Rob Kandell’s Tuff Love so they can learn to communicate, learn to be intimate. I will do the hard work for you. Just point people to the show and you don’t have to say like, “You’re fucked up around jealousy, listen to Rob’s show about jealousy. Change your life,” TuffLove.Live. Also, if you’d like to visit iTunes, I’d be really grateful about that. Visit iTunes and give a review and you can search Tuff Love with Rob Kandell. Thanks so much. We’ll be back next week with a guest. I’m very excited and until then, go forth, take care, get some nookie, and until then, take care.

Thank you so much for joining me on Tuff Love. Thank you, Sayed for all the intimate things you spoke about and the deep-seated feelings I got from it. It’s really just about taking chances and about being out there and true. For more shows, please visit us at TuffLove.Live. If you want to support the show, please send us a little loving to Patreon.com/TuffLove. Thanks so much. Go forth and face the day.

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