Tuesday, September 9, 2008

The Art of Communicating by Dr John F. Demartini (Audio Set)

John’s tapes are some of my favourites to listen to. He is very funny at times and I have definitely had a few looks on the bus when I was laughing out loud!
The Art of Communicating is a fairly short CD and centres around communication (surprise!), values and relationships. The basic message is, that we all live according to our own value systems which can be vastly different from one another.

We perceive the world according to our values and the priorities in our lives. Think of the classic example: How do a businessman and a mother perceive the same situation? For instance a childcare centre may be perceived by a mother as a haven for her children to play and learn, while the businessman may see how the centre is not earning enough money and not operating properly as a business.

We can’t expect others to change their value system. So the key is to find out about their value system and to communicate in it. Your boss may only be interested in meeting the budget, but if you show him/her how an excursion will increase motivation and productivity and promote team work, they might just re-evaluate your proposal.

One of the most interesting points that John raises is that many people have no idea what their value system actually looks like! So he proposes a basic formula to find out what your REAL priorities are in life (and not what you pretend they are). Ask yourself the following questions:

•How do you spend your time?
•How do you fill your space?
•How do you spend your energy?
•How do you spend your money?
•What do you think about?
•What do you visualise? What do you see for yourself, what is your dream?
•What do you talk about (to yourself and others)?
•What do you react to?

You can write down a few answers (say three) for each question and see which one occur repeatedly. The one you have named most often, will be your highest value. You may just surprise yourself!

John also makes an interesting point about ‘Should-ing’. Whenever we think ‘I should do this’ or ‘I should do that’ we are imposing someone else’s value system on ourselves. Clearly, if we think we should go to the gym, but we’d much rather stay at home and read a book, we value reading a book more but are imposing on ourselves the idea that going to the gym is more important. Similarly, if we spend our monthly wage on a handbag and think ‘I really should be saving this money’, we clearly value the handbag more but are thinking about our parents who are telling us to save our money to invest.

Recognising this can be really powerful: every time I now think ‘I should’ I start to analyse whether I really want to do something. Do I just think I need to do this because everyone else is doing this? Or is it actually helping me to go where I want to go? If it is helping me and I can see the connection to my value system, it suddenly changes from ‘I should do this’ to ‘I want to do this because it helps me achieve X’. If it is really just a ‘should’, then I won’t even bother doing them!

All in all I find this CD is definitely worth listening to! It’s so short you can listen to it in one go and in fact I often re-listen to this one. Whether it is the whole thing or just bits and pieces that I particularly like, this CD is a good reminder of how we communicate and interact with people and definitely helps to increase self-awareness!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I’ve read all your blog post that mention John Demartini. What a great teacher! Thank you for sharing your thoughts.