Communication 101: How to communicate and build relationships
What is communication?
Communication breakdown: 90% body language, 8% speech, 2% text.
Did you know that speech and text are merely tools to manipulate others into matching your mental model?
You can't talk or write about something you haven't mapped in your left hemisphere.
It's impossible!
Even text is a manipulation, driven by your left hemisphere through your right hand. Left-handers? They're still connected to the left hemisphere, too.
Now that we've cracked the communication code, let's explore how to communicate perfectly with others as it was meant to be done.
Speech and writing a dogmatic lie
Most humans have their speech center located in the left frontal lobe.
You can test this with a WADA test where you sedate one hemisphere to see which contains speech.
The left hemisphere does not know it is wrong. It only knows what the right hemisphere has taught it. Like AI or a computer.
It runs on dopamine, a chemical in the brain that motivates people to do things.
Like speaking, moving, eating, having sex, running, exercising, get up from a chair.
It is also important to point out that the left hemisphere is dogmatic, narcissistic, linear, mathematical, and rational and contains all the "isms".
When people speak, you can see how reluctant they are to change their point of view.
This happens when the left hemisphere is agitated with the neurochemical called dopamine or Glutamate.
At the same time, the right hemisphere is sedated by GABA or you would become mentally ill.
The brain runs on glucose and about 50% of the glucose circulating in your blood is used by your brain.
By default your brain is always trying to conserve energy or glucose.
That will force the left hemisphere to use the existing mental model of the world rather than engaging in energy-consuming right hemisphere activation.
Body language is subconscious and honest
The right hemisphere is the primary part of the brain.
It's your subconscious and authentic hemisphere.
It has a hard time lying in contrast to the left hemisphere which is your conscious part that knows nothing else but to lie to itself and others.
And the left lives by the statement.
"My worldview is the true one, everything else is wrong."
Since the right hemisphere is subconscious – you can't manipulate it consciously.
Therefore the left side of the face is always honest, regardless of its expressions.
All information – whether it enters through your left eye, ear, skin, nose, or mouth – first passes through your right hemisphere. We know this because the right hemisphere always flares up before the left in brain scans.
The right has much more myelin around the neurons making them send signals much faster.
Therefore you find your crystalline IQ, which is how fast you can use Gestalt to assume how they fit together and make sense.
This is what happens when you dream.
It tries to make sense of things to come to a conclusion or a Eureka moment where it finds a solution to how it must work.
Yes, it is your right hemisphere that dreams.
This also happens just when you are about to fall asleep since the right hemisphere only works when you are relaxed.
The left works when you are stressed and focused.
Creativity is making sense of things:
- Gestalt
- IQ
- Curiosity
- Iterations
It all happens in the right hemisphere.
Therefore, we know that people are never creative under duress.
When people perform under stress it is mostly because they have trained to do a certain thing many times which becomes a habit.
A low level of neuroticism in a person's personality does not trigger stress or duress, which in turn increases access to the right hemisphere during challenging situations
The right hemisphere also contains impulse control (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex-DLPC) found in the right frontal lobe.
Impuls control makes you human and hinders you from becoming a psychopath.
Another type of impulse control is located behind the right ear, which regulates when to stop eating and having too much sex.
It also contains love and empathy.
The left also has empathy but true empathy with mirror neurons is located in the right hemisphere.
The left hemisphere merely copies(psychopaths) others, whereas the right hemisphere truly mimics others, fostering true reciprocity – the key to our social nature.
When the right hemisphere has iterated the information enough and deleted all the excess information.
It sends the information through the Corpus Callosum at the base of the brain over to the left hemisphere, recoding the mental model of the world.
The left hemisphere has the ability just like the right to delete the information and not rewrite the mental model of the world.
You see this in narcissists because one of the key symptoms is that they can't take criticism or feedback.
They refuse to incorporate new information into their existing mental model of their world.
Now, you know how the brain communicates internally and creates your worldview.
When you interrupt others
Once your left hemisphere focuses on speech it has a hard time letting go or relaxing.
The opposite is true for the right hemisphere.
This is why so many have a hard time not interrupting others when having a conversation.
This is highly dependent on your personality and, specifically, your extroversion value, which you can find by taking the Big 5 or HEXACO test online.
If you are lower than 30 then you're an introvert and you do not produce as much dopamine to start talking.
If you are 70 or higher you produce more dopamine and are more motivated to speak.
Anyone who has spoken to me knows how much I talk once I start.
I am 70 in extroversion and once I start talking I have no problem speaking about science for hours.
I also have to relax to listen better.
Professionally, I have no issues with that since I have listened to thousands of people and their mental and physical problems.
From Government heads of agencies, CEOs, welders, cleaners, and seriously mentally ill people who will never get well and mentally injured from war.
I have also coached all of these people.
My 4 steps on how to communicate
1. Breathing: Breathe out slowly and try to push more air out by contracting your abdomen.
Then simply relax all muscles in the torso and let the body breathe in air naturally.
Rest assured, the body will force enough air into your lungs.
This is also how you breathe during a presentation to sound confident and poised.
2. Listening: When you listen, you are not allowed to speak or ask questions.
Your sole mission is to understand the other person's "Point of View," which is their worldview or mental model of the world.
You should completely disregard your own "Point of View" or mental model because it is not about you when another person is speaking.
They are only speaking about their "Point of View."
Do not compare yours with theirs because you do not have the same mental model of the world due to differences in personality and experience.
3. Summerise: When the speaking person finishes, you kindly summarize what they said and ask, "Have I understood you correctly?".
You should also include what emotion they are having to be spot on.
This will create understanding and empathy.
You are showing that you are interested and want to understand them.
By doing so, they will inevitably feel a connection with you.
That is how you build relationships, whether they be professional or private.
4. Start talking: You only start to think about your reply when the other person confirms that you have understood them and got their emotion correct.
If not, simply ask them to clarify until you have it right.
Best books and resources
The Master and His Emissary by Dr. Iain McGilchrist
The Matter With Things by Dr. Iain McGilchrist