Welcome to LINKOU Toastmasters Club

In the film “Up in the Air” starred by George Clooney, he traveled around the world to sack people. Well, in real life, it isn’t the kind of job you or I would fancy simply because telling others that they have been fired is nothing but easy.

Imagine if you’re George Clooney for a second (oh, I’m not saying you’re going to look like him), how would you break that news to people? How do you communicate that message to them? Tough, eh?

I’m sure you can all draw many parallels to life. It could be something like a girl telling her boyfriend that she’s no longer in love with him. Or it could be a parent trying to convince his teenager to quit smoking. Resolving any of the above issues, without a doubt will require tremendous amount of communication.

Some of us may not realize communication actually takes skills. Many parents have complained to me that their kids are addicted to computer games despite much effort being put in to fix the problem. But, when asked what they did to alleviate the problem, it usually came down to nothing more than nagging.

Unfortunately, time and time again, nagging has proven to fail miserably. Look, when we talk to someone, we actually expect to get a message across in hope of achieving some kind of desired result, right? There’re many ways of getting our message across, nevertheless, only some can work their magic.

So, what are those skills? You might ask. We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. One of the things that irritates me is when I repeatedly get interrupted. Can you tell me if …..  No, we don’t have it. Uh…, I actually meant to say if you can tell me how much that is!! This all sound awfully familiar to you? Right, apart from the interruption, equally annoying was he just recklessly “assumed” what I was about to say….. sigh……..go figure….

Men and women belong to two different species, and communication between them is still in its infancy. A wife says to her hubby, honey I’m soooo tired, can you help me with the dishes? The husband replied, listen, I’m more tired than you. Plus I warned you to stay home and you just wouldn’t listen. You need to learn to listen to me! What do you hear? What do you think the wife hears? I’ll tell you what I hear. I hear attacking, criticizing, blaming and shaming, moralizing, preaching and all the rest of emotional accusations.

I was widely known as the girl that hardly spoke during my junior high and high school years, let alone being aware of how effective communication could impact me until…… much later. But, once that became clear to me, boy! I started talking, and since then, I tell ya, it’s hard to stop!

Even though going from extremely quiet to “sometimes” ridiculously talkative is not exactly what I intended, over the years, I did learn to commute with skills and get to taste the fruit of successful communication. One perfect example I’m excited to share with you is the lavishly complementary and encouraging feedback I recently got from some of my clients. 

Fellow toastmasters, we need to equip ourselves with good communication skills, as this is what will make us a happy and successful social being. To acquire such skills, one needs to first acknowledge the importance of communication, and the need to improve one’s skills by learning to listen attentively, instead of jumping into conclusions, assuming, interrupting, or being judgmental.

Being a good communicator is half the battle won. The subject of communication can take days to discuss. I’ve only barely scratched the surface of this topic in approximately 6-7 minutes. However, I do want to make sure this evening you all walk away with something – that is listening skill. So, please turn to your neighbor. I’d like you to practice listening to your neighbor for 15 seconds without interrupting while your partner is talking.

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