Brian Tracy (speaker) argues that communication skills are crucial to success (claims ~85% of success depends on them) and centers the advice on achieving clarity. He gives concrete tactics: pause and think before speaking, speak slowly and patiently, rephrase and repeat until understood, use paraphrasing to show attention, and ask clarifying prompts like “How do you mean?” He also outlines a simple sender–receiver communication model with external and internal "noise" and emphasizes checking for understanding through feedback. The clip ends with a brief call-to-action (comment/subscribe).
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Fully 85% of your success in life is going to come from your ability to communicate well with other people. All successful people are excellent communicators. In fact, the work at Harvard University on multiple intelligences concluded that social intelligence, the ability to interact well with others, is the highest paid and most respected intelligence in our society. So how do you communicate more effectively with others? My favorite word in communications is the word clarity. Almost all of our problems in life become because of lack of clarity. We say things, but they don't come out clearly. So in order to be clear, first of all, stop and then think, and then proceed slowly. Another great word is to rephrase or repeat something. Let's say you say something and somebody goes, huh? Or it's clear that they didn't get the message. I speak different languages, French, German, Spanish, and I'm busy working on learning Russian and Chinese now. And one of the things I learned in languages is if you say something in your limited language and they don't seem to understand it, rephrase it and say it again. And if they don't understand it, rephrase it and say it again until people go, ha. Now I understand. So effective communication starts with you being very clear in your own mind about what you want to say, and then being very clear when you say it, and then saying it slowly and patiently and making sure that the other person hears the message that you sent. You know, you can imagine in communications that here is you and you want to communicate with this person. And so you send a message almost like a message by telephone or by a carrier pigeon. You send a message into the air in the form of words. These words are then received by the other person, who then interprets the words in their own mind based on their own thoughts, feelings, whether they're paying attention, and so on. And then reformulates or formulates a response and sends the response back. You then receive the response, translate that into meaning and significance, and then you send it back. Between these two responses, there's what are called noise. Noise can be physical noise, outside, around mechanics, trucks, and so on. But it can also be internal noise. The person can be hungry or distracted. It can be emotional noise. The person can be unhappy or excited. The person can have other noise in that they are interpreting what you say in a different way. So if you think about this, communications requires sending the message and having it received and checking and then sending the message back and having it received and then checking and simply going slowly. So it's better to be sure at every stage of the transaction that people are sending and receiving with tremendous clarity. And here is my favorite question of all. When somebody says something that you're not really sure about, say how do you mean? Or how do you mean exactly? And they will always expand on what they just said and make it clearer for you and easier for you to understand and to respond effectively. If you like this video, please leave a comment below. And don't forget to subscribe to get new videos like this in the future. By paraphrasing the speaker's words, you demonstrate in no uncertain terms that you are genuinely paying attention and making every effort to understand.
