Keys to Consider in Non-Verbal Communication

Listen to BFF Co-Chair Nan-b de Gaspé Beaubien explain the importance of awareness and development of non-verbal communication skills. Learning to adapt non-verbal communication is one of the most valuable communication skills.

The hardest thing in the world – it goes right back to Aristotle’s self-awareness, how aware is each of us of the impact that we have on others, how aware are each of us of who we are and the way we present ourselves? Can we change that? Are we able to change that? Are we able to be one way in one situation and another way in another situation – to adapt to the people around us – because we must learn to do that and body language is probably one of the most important adaptive abilities for communication that we can have. It's a habit and habits are the hardest to break. We say that it takes two years to break a habit and then another year to build a new one. So just imagine the time that it is going to take for us to learn how to do all of these new habits and put them into place and so it just becomes natural to us. It takes time and it takes effort – but it is well worth it, its well worth it. We cannot have the difficult conversations unless we have learnt how to communicate first, and that means being able to listen to where that other person is coming from, not where I am coming from.