The tool I use: Life Languages™

The tool I use brings self-awareness, develops skills in understanding others, and equips us to grow in communication mastery.

Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

Well, welcome to episode three of the communication mastery podcast. I'm Mark Berlinson. I'm glad you're with me. In our last episode, episode two, we we talked about that takeaway about the communication mastery journey, where we discover and then we understand, then we adapt and then we repeat. And this whole podcast is about discovering things about yourself, things about other people that will help you to communicate. Then, as you learn to understand what you've discovered, and I'm hope going to help you with that as we go along, you can then learn to adapt, to increase your communication IQ, and to communicate more effectively with other people. Now, today in our episode, we're going to zero in on the life languages. This is the tool I use all the time with my communication coaching clients, and I also use it when I'm working with businesses and nonprofits as well. Some of you are listening today because you've seen the value of the life languages. You've taken your profile, or maybe you've done a workshop with me. Some of you haven't, but you can easily take your profile by going to my website, markberlinson.com, just scrolling down a little to the section that says discover your profile, click on that, and it'll start you off on the process. The link is in the description of the podcast on all of your podcast apps. So the life languages I love because it doesn't put you into a box. It creates this profile that gives you self-awareness, but it also helps you to then bridge to the different profiles of other people, the unique preferences of each one that you're communicating with, or adapting to different settings. And so for each of the seven life languages, your profile report is going to give you your unique blend of those seven. And it'll focus in on the major characteristics of each language. Because here's the beautiful thing, it's kind of like a rainbow. Each particular language has its own major characteristics, distinct from the other six languages. And you can learn to identify, oh, okay, this is what I'm hearing, this is what I'm seeing, and therefore this is the language we're communicating in. Now you're not limited to one language. We switch easily between the seven, especially if they're high in our profile and we're more fluent in them. That's why we call them life languages. It's a little bit like learning to speak a foreign language. If you speak Spanish or you speak German or you speak whatever, you can switch into that consciously when you need to to speak to somebody else for whom it's their native language or their preferred language. It may be more uncomfortable for you, but it's more comfortable for them, and you form connection more easily by speaking the language of the person you want to connect with. So those major characteristics are the headline of your profile report, and you will see how those major characteristics fit with your particular wiring, your particular blend of these seven wonderful languages. Then each language also has a filter question that it's asking in communication. So for example, the influencer language would be asking, are we connecting? Are we communicating? And that, of course, is my first language, which is why I love to coach people in communication and to help them connect. I have a lot of skill in that because that's strong in my wiring. It may be less strong for you, but you can still speak that language. But if that filter question isn't being answered, then we need to recognize there's going to be a challenge to the communication and we can figure out how to address that. Tell you more about that in a little while. So if that filter question is answered, then our communication is effective in the language that we're speaking at the time. Then each language also has a need from others. So if we're going to communicate, that's a two-way process. It's a two-way street, and we need to be able to answer the filter question. So the need from others for connectedness and the filter question of are we communicating go hand in hand for that influencer language I was speaking about. The other six languages are different. The mover language, for example, is all about your motives and your innovation and that kind of stuff. And so each language has that filter question that needs to be answered and the unique need from others. And if we meet those, then the communication works. There's only seven, so it's easy to learn them, and that's how we help people become communication masters to increase their communication IQ and to grow their communication skills. Two more things that the profile will show you about each of your seven languages. There's a passion that each language carries. For example, the contemplator language has a passion to know and to discover, to dig deep. And then responder language has a passion to care and to protect others and to focus in on need and where they can make a difference. They kind of wrap themselves around a situation or a circumstance until there's a resolution. Each language has a different passion and also a character strength. So the contemplator language, the character strength would be loyalty, where you know if that language is strong in your profile and you've discovered something that's worth committing yourself to, you're going to be very loyal to that cause or to that person or to that idea. The mover language carries the character strength of courage. And so if there's a challenge to meet, that's the language we want to draw on to put out that courageous strength that that language carries. There are many others, I won't go into all of them now, but those four key things that the life language profile shows you for yourself will give you insight, give you self-awareness, which is so valuable. You can't really communicate without self-awareness first. If I don't understand how I'm wired, how can I connect with you? Once I understand myself, then I can begin to invest in understanding you on the same level with these same scientifically proven tools so that we can connect in a more effective way. So your profile can tell you all kinds of things about you. And firstly, as I've already said, your unique blend of these seven languages is specific to you. How much of each language do you speak in today's world, in where you are today? It's like a snapshot, if you like. Sometimes I use the analogy that it's like your high school yearbook photo. We capture it as you, but you look different from that today. So if we took another photo today, today's photo would be you today. We can still see similar characteristics in you when you graduated high school, but the profile gives you a snapshot of who you are today and how your blend works out today in these seven preferred communication styles. Nobody else has the profile that you have. And so understanding yourself is that valuable self-awareness. And I think I've spoken in previous episodes about how I think it was the Harvard Business Review, had an article a few years back that as they studied executives in business, they found that self-awareness was just as valuable as an MBA in business success. Because people who are not self-aware are unable, incapable of making effective connection with other people. So that's why I love this tool because of the self-awareness it carries. I remember still very clearly the very first time I took my profile. And although I love profiling tools, this was the first one I found that I felt really gave me validation for how I'm wired, how I operate. It really understood me. And I hadn't registered as I took the profile exactly how it was doing that. In fact, I still don't understand exactly how it does it, but I do know that it works and it captures how I'm wired and what the blend is for today. So I felt truly validated as an individual. That gave me the confidence to reach out to others. You remember my story in episode two. Go back and listen to that if you if you haven't heard it. But this made a huge difference to me and also in my relationships. And uh so being validated as an individual is the first gift that your profile gives you. It captures how you are and who you are. And because each language has specific qualities and specific characteristics, you can learn all seven languages and you can become more fluent in each of those languages. For example, some filter questions may be more prominent for you than for other people. Some of your needs from others will be more noticeable in interactions than others. And even though you have all seven languages in your profile, you can bring the right language to the fore for the interaction that you're having, whether it's with an individual that you meet every day, or whether it's with a stranger and you want to make a connection, you want to make a sale, maybe you want to create uh uh a connection that you can understand them better. Um, or maybe it's with a group of people and you want to know how to become more effective in that group, to bring what you have to offer in a way that the group can benefit. All of these things come from understanding the seven languages and listening carefully in the interaction, watching for words, watching for actions, to see which language are we communicating in right now. So, for example, I mentioned that filter question, are we connecting earlier on? That's the influencer languages filter question, but the contemplator language would be very different. The contemplator language will be asking, Am I interested in this? So if you've got one person speaking influencer wanting to feel connected, but another person speaking contemplator, and for some reason I haven't presented the interaction to them in a way that interests them, well they may switch off. They may still be in the room, but they've gone off to think about something else inside their head so that the connection then isn't formed and we miss each other. If we understand some of these key truths about the languages, then we can figure out how to bridge rather than leave each other in separated silos or boxes. So that's the first thing. Uh your unique blend of the seven languages is a gift to you when you get your profile report. But the second thing, as I've said before, you're not just one out of seven, you actually have all seven languages. And even your lowest language will come into your communication, if not daily, at least weekly. And that means that you can learn to communicate more effectively as you bridge from your maybe one, two, or three preferred languages into some of the others. We'll talk more about that in our in our next episode. But let me give you an example. My probably my lowest language on on average in my profile as I've taken it over the years would be the Mover language, which is all about uh raising the standard, innovating, uh bringing uh uh justice and and making sure things are as they should be. And uh that's not a strong uh suit in my profile, but I've been in situations where I've had to step into that. Uh, I remember in one work situation one time, and I won't give you all the details because that wouldn't uh let's just protect the guilty by by not naming names or or being too specific. But I had an employee in my team on one occasion uh who really didn't fit and was constantly pushing against the leadership I was giving. And um my wiring would be to want to include and encourage and bring out the best and develop a plan for the future. But this person wasn't interested in that. They just simply wanted to criticize and resist and object all the time because they thought they knew better. But I was the boss and they were the team member, and so in the end, I had to bring my mover language up. And when they said, I just don't feel like I fit around here, I had to say, no, you're right, you don't fit, and we will pay you through the end of the month, but you finish work today, you're fired. That doesn't come naturally to me, but I had to pull up that language to speak that as directly as was needed because this person was a high mover in their profile and they needed that directness. It's a skill that I've gradually developed over time, and I love to train other people and coach other people in how to grow that skill because it makes you more effective in every setting to be able to speak all seven languages where appropriate. So that's the second thing. Uh, you can bridge with your own self-awareness to someone else's need, whether you know their profile or not. Thirdly, you get a preferred communication sequence when you look at the order of your languages. Some of us think first before we act. Others of us operate more from feelings first. Other people are far more action-oriented. And you go through a sort of sequence that's related to your language order, your language profile. So for me, with my language profile, I tend to feel, then think, then feel again before I act. And then I'll think, think, and act again down the later on in the process, because that's the way my seven languages fit together in my profile. You can do the same with your profile by recognizing what we call the intelligence categories of the languages and seeing those in order. It's a great piece of insight that I tend to approach life through feeling and thinking and then feeling again. Yours will be different. You may be somebody who thinks and then thinks and then thinks. I have clients who their language orders, their intelligence categories come literally in that kind of order. I had a client the other week who was action and action before they had thinking, thinking, thinking. And they were constantly finding that when they got to thinking, thinking, thinking, some of their action wasn't so helpful. And they're like, oh, this will help me in future, because now if I learn to pull up some of those thinking languages alongside the action, then I'll be more effective. So fourthly, you can begin to identify when one or more of your languages moves into distress. Distress is what happens when your filter question isn't being answered or your need from others isn't being met, or the passion that that language that you're preferring, if that passion isn't being valued or validated or made room for, or your character strength isn't being exercised or recognized, all of those things tend to empty your communication tank, if you like. And uh because each language has those four uh specific needs and those specific patterns, if those don't get answered, if those don't get met, then we get into distress. And there are predictable and recognizable distress patterns in each of the languages. So again, particularly for my higher languages, I've learned to recognize what happens when I get into distress. Then I can identify, oh, it's this language in my profile that's in distress, and now I know what to do about it, because then I answer the filter question and I meet the need from others, and I look to express that passion in some fresh way, or to bring that character strength to bear, that then refills the tank. And so if I can recognize distress in others, that's often the first place I go to figure out which language is their preferred communication in our interaction. Because each of the specific strengths and passions has to be fulfilled if the communication is to be effective. Now, sadly, distress is the commonest way to identify the languages because we haven't achieved communication mastery yet. Unintentionally, we drain our communication of the life that it's supposed to have because we don't understand the science that's built into this. We haven't learned these key facts for these seven unique languages that go into our profile. So if you learn to identify distress in yourself quickly, that'll help you to move back into healthy communication. But then you begin to grow your ability to identify distress in others as well. And that is an invitation to help. You have to train yourself to see it that way because normally when you see distress in another, our reaction is like this, isn't it? We tend to push back against that or we tend to avoid that and move away from that person. But actually, I've learned to see distress in another person as an invitation to help. If I can figure out which language it is, I can speak through their filter question to meet their need from others. I can validate the passion that they carry. It may not be the passion we need right now, but if I validate the passion they have, it helps them to move out of distress and back into healthy communication. You can be beneficial to so many people if you develop that skill. We need that so much in our world today, don't we? It's a very powerful benefit. Uh, it's helped a lot of people that I've coached as well. And we'll talk about distress in more detail in a future episode. There's a lot more to discover in your profile, especially if you upgrade to the full professional profile with the communication indicators, but that's probably plenty for today's episode to understand that there's those four key things that we can learn for the seven languages that can make you up to 100% more effective in your communication, especially if you add in recognizing distress as well. So let me give you today's takeaway from this episode. It's a simple little phrase, but it's a very powerful one. You don't know what you don't know. Let me say that again. You don't know what you don't know. Some of the life-giving truths that your life languages profile report can reveal to you are not obvious to you at this point. As you read it, you'll have aha moments of, oh yeah, that's why I'm this way, or that's why this works, or that doesn't. Uh, all of that kind of approach. And uh it'll be really valuable to you in whatever setting you find yourself in. But that also explains why I coach and why I love to do this. Because I love to help people discover more about themselves, I love to help them grow in their ability to connect with other people. So I'd love to hear your feedback on today's episode. What struck you? What did you hear? What helped you? And you can go to my website, markberlinson.com, just click on the contact form and give me your feedback there. I'd love to hear from you what you'd like to hear about in future episodes of this podcast. And remember, you can also discover your profile on my website. Just scroll down to discover your profile, click that button, and it'll lead you through. When you take your profile, let me give you this. Uh, answer the questions as they apply to you most of the time in most settings. Then the feedback that the profile report gives you will be most beneficial to you. If there's difficulty or challenge in some area of your life, try to put that to one side as you answer the questions and answer what's true for you when life's going well, when you feel comfortable, what's true for you most of the time. Because then you won't get a distorted result out of one specific situation or one specific challenge. Then you'll find the self awareness you get. Will be very valuable to you as we develop communication mastery together. So that's it for this episode. I look forward to seeing you again soon.