to a career in life you'll truly enjoy and in today's video I'm going to teach

you four key steps on how to improve your communication skills whether you're

talking to just one person or a whole group of people and so that you can feel

natural at ease and confidence

as a career strategist I've had the honour of being able to help numerous

professionals land their dream job offers and so if this is something that

you're interested in working with me one on one I can definitely give you details

about that at the end of this video in my line of work where I work with

corporate professionals and help them to advance their careers a common topic of

discussion is communication if you struggle with communication then this

may also be you where you're in a situation where you're talking to people

and you find that the conversation is very unnatural it's forced and it

doesn't really go anywhere and you find that the other person is struggling to

hold their interest in you and you feel that there's something wrong with you

because of the way that you're communicating to them and this can

easily happen in a situation where you're at a let's say networking event

and you have to talk to a group of strangers where you just feel awkward

you feel unnatural and you're not able to really develop any connections with

anyone so today I'm going to teach you four steps that will really help you to

improve your communication skills whether you're in a social setting or in

a professional setting and so that you can feel more confident and at ease step

number one listen intently now I know what you're thinking how can

communication be about listening when really it's about talking you assume

that to improve your communication skills it's really about your ability to

speak right well yes and no the key thing about communication is that if

you're able to listen intently to the other person and you're able to hear

what they're really saying beyond the words that are coming out of their

mouths you're gonna be able to have more value to add to the conversation because

you're gonna be able to say something that is beyond what it is that they're

just talking about at a surface level listening intently doesn't just mean

using your ears and hearing what the person is saying it's really being able

to get a sense of what they're feeling it's being able to get a sense of really

what they're trying to express and wait maybe what they're not trying to express

as well so it's really about using your intuition as well being able to read a

person hear the words that are coming out of their mouths but also hear what

it is that they're really try to mean when they're talking about that

and whenever you can really do this exercise where you're really extending

yourself in a way that you're really listening and paying attention to

someone they can feel that off of you and automatically they feel that you're

more engaged with them and they're more likely to share and to talk to you and

to feel comfortable around you and that is a key part to being a good

communicator step number two respond with phrases that relate to what that

person is talking about you can start off with phrases such as that's

interesting because I can relate because that's true

because starting your conversation with these types of words shows that you're

interested and engaged in the other person and so if you want people to be

engaged and interested in you when you're communicating with them you first

have to give that energy saying things like that's true because etc etc etc

shows that you can relate and you can validate what the other person is saying

and that is what as human beings we're all looking to do to be validated to be

heard by other people and to feel connected to those that we're talking to

step number three to improving your communication skills tell stories after

the because part of your conversation tell a story that relates to what that

person is talking about the story obviously has to have a point and it has

to be something that is in relation to what you guys are discussing as I always

say a good story follows the same pattern as a movie think of any good

movie you've watched and when you can break it down there are actually three

key parts to the movie and I call this SAR an acronym that stands for situation

action and results the majority of the movie is made up of this situation the

setting up of the story getting to know the characters their stories their

situations the things that they're dealing with the issues that they're

having to go through and the situation the setting that they're in the second

part of the movie is the action where the good guy fights the bad guy so

you're actually seeing what are the steps that that guy is

taking or that girl is taking to resolve the initial situation or the problem

that they're dealing with and the third part of the movie is the shortest in

length and it's simply the conclusion or the result what ended up happening when

you can learn to tell your stories using this type of structure it's going to

make the other person feel more engaged more interested in you and in your story

and it's going to help you to prove the point that you're trying to make as well

and finally step number four to improving your communication skills

practice this is something that so many professionals seem to overlook when

they're going to any networking event or meeting people for the first time and

they know that they're gonna have to meet these people and talk to these

people and that is to practice practice ahead of time what you're going to say

if you had an important presentation to do at work you wouldn't just walk into

the meeting and just be unprepared and talk on the fly you would want to

practice ahead of time well in other professional and social settings it also

doesn't hurt to practice ahead of time you want to have your stories ahead of

time prepared so that when you do go ahead and communicate them they're more

fluent they're more fluid and they come off more naturally without thinking

through and developing your stories you won't succeed in your communication so

work on your communication skills by practicing on your own time and then the

next time that you have to go into a group meeting or group conversation or

just a one-on-one conversation you'll be able to communicate in a more natural

and confident way so there you have it my four steps on how you can improve

your communication skills whether in a group or individual setting now if

you're someone who's been searching for a job for a while you've been looking

you've been going on interviews but you just haven't been successful and you

realize that you need one-on-one professional help

then feel free to reach out to me head on over to my website lindaraynier.com/standoutgethired

feel free to read through the page fill out the

application form and if I feel or my team feels that we're a potential match

then we'll reach out to you directly and we'll take it from there if you like

this video then please give it a thumbs up subscribe share it with you

friends thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time