Let’s Play COMMUNICATES (Styles)

Everyone has their own clothing and fashion style. This fashion style makes the person feel good and they are comfortable with it. The same can be said for communication style.

Likewise, everyone has their own communication style that they are is comfortable with. And in that vein, there is no right or wrong fashion style, or communication style, because these are personal choices.

There are a lot of different fashion and fashion trends and styles out there. There are some basic fashion items that make sense for people to have in their closet such as a black dress for women, a black or blue suit for men, a nice blouse, jeans, blazer, and nice casual dress shoes.

Four basic communication styles that you should know about to establish and cultivate rapport in your communication are:

auditory (hear, listen),
visual (see, picture),
kinesthetic (feel, touch),
auditory digital (think, analyze).

In fashion, beyond the basic clothing items, you have some people who go forward with trends or who follow other people’s fashion beyond the basic clothing fundamentals.

Why? Because in some cases they’ve been told that more is better and that you can be more creative when you have more.

Perhaps they’ve also been told that some of their fashion items made them look old or “old-fashioned.”

Rather than wearing what they wanted they followed the trend which made them feel more like someone else and not themselves.

After a while they’ve become someone else, someone they no longer recognize, and perhaps wished they could be themselves and have a desire to wear clothes that represent more of themselves.

Honestly, it’s not necessary to have more than the basic clothing that is needed to go out and do your daily activities.

It’s just nice to have additional clothing in your closet to some flair and fun.

Communication can be the same way.

You might have a way within your own style of communication, however, you’ve been told you can’t communicate this or that way.

You’ve learned to adopt a certain way to communicate that fits more with the “norm” of what is expected in society when communicating in that situation.

You might feel like you’re wearing a mask rather than being your authentic self.

For example, when at a social gathering with friends in a restaurant or at an event, it’s expected that people are smiling, having polite conversations, nice, pleasant small talks, and speaking for the most part at an appropriate volume.

What if you’re an introvert at a social gathering with your friends?

Does all the smiling and small talk made you feel like you’re wearing a mask?

Behind the mask of smiling and participating and engaging in the small talk leaves you feeling drained and as though you’re ready to leave. However, you can’t leave in this case because you’ve only been at the gathering for 10 minutes! All you want to do is find a corner and hide so that you can finally stop smiling and have some quiet time to yourself to recharge so that you don’t drain your battery with all the small talk. You might decide this is a good time to go to the bathroom so you can hide in one of the stalls for a while. Nope, you talked to people along the way into the bathroom, by the sink in the bathroom, along the way back to the main room, and again in the main room. You might’ve had a good three minutes to yourself which is not enough time for an introvert. Plus, you know that no one really cared about what you thought about the weather in the first place.

Do you wish you could just take off your mask and say, “you know, my face is getting really tired from all this smiling, and I know you’re being polite, and you really don’t care what I think about xyz… I really am interested to know how you’re feeling that’s why I asked, but you’re just asking me out of politeness.”

Not all introverts may feel the way I just described since not all introverts are the same.

There might be some similarities, but still, each has his or her own individual style.

Extroverts and ambiverts will have their similarities, and each will have their own communication style as an extrovert and ambivert.

It’s about finding your own style, being comfortable with your style, and finding a way to communicate with your style.

The example I gave about the introvert, wearing the mask, and the feeling behind the mask, you guessed it: It was me.

I no longer wear my mask. I tell people upfront, I’m an introvert which means I need some down time to recharge my battery. I smile and make small talk, and I also let people know that as much as I like talking to them, it’s time for me to recharge my energy because that’s what this introvert needs to do.

By making it lighthearted and fun, the person knows that it’s about my energy and not about them.

Once I embraced and understood what it meant to be an introvert for me, then I could communicate using my humorous communication style to communicate to other people it’s time for me to recharge without having to pretend or wear a mask of consistently smiling and engaging in small talk that drained my energy.

As an introvert, I like to use humorous communication style to get by.

You might be an introvert, but your style might be practical, or avoidance.

There are many communication styles and again it can be different for each of the introverts, extroverts, and ambiverts.

It’s easy to know, understand, and recognize the basic communication styles that I mentioned earlier in this blog so that is where I recommend starting first.

If you know and understand your own basic communication style, then you can start to recognize your partner’s basic communication style to continue cultivating rapport in your communication with your partner so that you have a happy and harmonious relationship.

The other communication styles are good to know, might help you to become creative with your communication, but it’s not completely necessary to help you to cultivate a rapport in your communication with your partner.

There are many different communication styles, and start with recognizing, understanding, and knowing the four basic communication styles.

It’s about using the communication style that will support and cultivate rapport with your communication partner so that you can continue to have a happy and harmonious personal relationship with your partner.

There might be similarities between introverts, extroverts, and ambiverts; however, each introvert, extrovert, and ambivert has his or her own unique communication style.

The Objective of the Game

The ‘winning’ objective is that you’re aware of the four basic communication styles and that there are similarities between introverts, extrovert, and ambiverts; however, each introvert, extrovert, and ambivert has his or her own unique communication style.

There are many communication styles; however, knowing the four basic communication styles is a good start to establish and cultivate rapport with your communication partner.

If you used the communication style that supported you and your partner to establish and cultivate rapport in your communication so that you and your partner felt seen and heard… That’s a win!

If you didn’t use the communication style or know which communication style to use that would have better supported or cultivated rapport with your partner, that’s okay. Guess what?

You learned without losing.

Remember there is no losing in this game, only learning.

Learning points in this example might be:

• What can you do differently next time to establish or cultivate rapport?
• What patterns of words do you notice that you use, and your partner uses that would best represent one of the four basic communication styles?
• What can you do better next time?

You earn bonus points when you’re bold and step into your authenticity of the character you want to portray and hold yourself accountable with using the communication style that would establish and cultivate rapport with your partner in your communication.

This is the Communication Warrior.

You know your way around the four basic communication styles… Now Go Play and Have Fun Communicating!