Growing a garden is a lot like honing your communication skills. We need to cultivate good habits like listening, knowing our audience, tact, persuasiveness, boldness, respect, confidence, presentation... These are the flowers of your communication garden. However, there are some weeds that need to be pulled from our communication garden.
Sometimes we speak too quickly, are too bold and offend others. Unlike the vegetable garden, you cannot pull these weeds after they grow. They must be pulled before they grow. In the Bible, angels have said Fear Not. I think the motto for pulling the weeds of our communication garden, before they are allowed to grow, is...
Speak Not!
“Tis better to be thought a fool, than open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.” -Abraham Lincoln
Ecclesiastes 3:1 tells us “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:” a time to speak and a time to…NOT! Our society values information and we assign value to the person who shares it. In his quest for acceptance and to rise to that level of value, man attempts to share what he knows, even if he isn’t sure he knows it.
It isn’t a crime to be ignorant. All intelligent and knowlegable men are ignorant of SOMETHING. Great is the man who shares his knowledge with others, but far greater still is the man who possesses the ability to keep silent when he knows not.
Every parent knows the value of the sound of silence. lol Sometimes the most intelligent thing to say is…nothing.
For more communication tips and insights, freebies and exclusive offers, subscribe to What’s New at Art of Eloquence!
