I have read How to Win Friends & Influence People a few years ago, It’s an amazing book filled with great advice on how to talk to people. However, I have ended up using it on the wrong people, I’ve found myself sugar coating a lot of stuff when I communicate.
Sugar coating stuff is great when you are talking to strangers or people whom you don’t communicate with a lot. But, when you do that with your family, the people you work with, it increases the noise in your communication. For instance, if I compliment my mother on the food, she just thinks I am trying to be nice, because I always complement her. Nowadays, everyone is trying to peel of the layer of my bullshit sugar coating to see what I mean. It has reached a point where, If I don’t talk to my folks for a day they think I am mad at them, because of something they did.
I read something about this a while ago, but I didn’t understand the full extent of it. It’s like the story about the author who wrote:
The hero opened a blue door and walked into the room.
The reader thinks blue door signifies that the hero must be feeling down. Even when it’s just a bloody blue door. It doesn’t have any frigging meaning to it. People end up trying to read between the lines even when there is nothing to read.
I have learnt a valuable lesson from all of this. Don’t make it difficult for people to understand what you are saying. Especially your family, friends and colleagues. You might end up hurting them without even knowing. And, end up an unconscious player in a game of hide and seek with your words