Communication: Do You Have A Communications Problem Or An Interpretation Problem?

People don’t argue with your intent; they react to your impact. Today we dig into the real heart of communication: creating shared meaning that moves relationships, teams, and communities forward. From the pitfalls of card-slinging “networking” to the quiet power of reflective listening, we share a practical and faith-centered blueprint for conversations that actually land.

We start by reframing communication as an exchange, not a broadcast. That shift changes how we prepare, how we listen, and how we speak under pressure. You’ll hear why honesty without love becomes a weapon, how over-emotion hijacks outcomes, and what it takes to replace the reply reflex with genuine understanding. We also explore prayer as two-way communication—asking and then waiting—so alignment guides your words at home and at work. Along the way we bring clear tools: mirroring statements to confirm understanding, rating your communication and validating it with outside feedback, and simple prompts leaders can use to improve clarity and psychological safety.

If you’ve ever wondered why a message falls flat, why conflict spirals, or why your “helpful” feedback gets defensive pushback, this conversation offers a way through. Expect real examples, story-driven insights, and actionable guidance rooted in timeless wisdom: be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Trade the urge to be heard for the commitment to be understood, and watch the tone of your home, your team, and your community shift.

Enjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with a friend who leads, and leave a review to help more people find the Inspiration Station. Then tell us: what communication habit are you changing first?

WANT A SHOUT-OUT ON THE PODCAST? SEND Mista Yu a text at: (904) 867-4466. Leave your first name and the city you're reaching out to us from. We'll shout you out on the next Fan Mail episode.

Chapters

• 0:36 Welcome And Why Communication Matters
• 3:28 Intent vs Interpretation
• 5:21 Networking Without Listening
• 9:14 Communication As Shared Meaning
• 15:12 One To Ten: Rate Yourself
• 19:44 Two-Way Prayer, Not Santa Lists
• 27:32 Three Common Communication Traps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:36

Welcome back to the Inspiration Station and your everyday edge public helps. I am your host, Mr. Yu. Thanks again for watching and listening. We definitely appreciate your support on all the social media platforms that you support our show. We're excited about what's happening, and you're a big part of it. So thank you for doing that. And making us part of your week. Thank you for that as well. We want to talk a little bit about the idea of communication. I preface that by saying the idea of communication because in a lot of ways we do it very well, in a lot of ways we get it really wrong. And sometimes when we're doing it well, it's well in our own mindset and not from the standpoint of the other person to whom we're trying to communicate with. Communication, where we're getting it wrong and how to do it better, is what we're going to talk about on today's show. If you have any questions about how to find some of our episodes or Inspiration Station, you can find them embedded in the show notes wherever you're listening to this podcast from. If you have a chat or a comment section where you're listening or watching us, by all means, please drop your questions, comments, and concerns in the comment section. Be happy to get with you after we uh complete the show and and kind of get through, you know, all the production and all the things that come with this. Happy to have a conversation with you when time permits. But you know, communication is something that we know we've heard ever since we were little children, as we grew into teenage life and adulthood, we we know that communication is valuable, we know that it matters where you communicate communicate well, it makes a difference in what you can accomplish. If you ever heard of the Tower of Babel, the reason why the people of that time were not able to build a tower that reached all the way to the very heavens, and they had all the motivation you can think of and all the means to do it as well. The reason why it didn't take place, why this what I call the Tower of Babel building project didn't work out was because of a lack of or muddled communication. That's how powerful communication is. It can cause you to skyrocket your heist unseen, take your trajectory to a different level, or it can leave you muddled in confusion, mishaps, mayhem, and all other manners of foolishness. Communication is that important. Where are we getting it right and where are we getting it totally wrong? How can we do it better? As leaders and coaches, parents, spouses, just as fellow builders, most of our conflict is not rooted in intent, it's rooted in interpretation. It doesn't matter what we mean to say, it matters what comes out and the atmosphere in which it lands. How many times have you had an argument with somebody? It could be your significant other, it could be a relative or a good friend of yours where you meant to say this, but that's what came out of your mouth instead. And just keep in mind, just for those that may think this is just a random happenstance and it's normal that that that came out of your mouth that you didn't intend, that's because there's roots of that inside of you. That's why it came out of your mouth. The Bible says, from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. What's inside of your heart has to flow out, it's unavoidable. So if you if you're the kind of person that says a lot of that when you really want to say this, it's because you got too much that up in you. That's what that means. Communication breakdowns rarely happen because people don't care. They happen because people assume they react or defend instead of listening and clarifying. Have you ever been a part of a networking event? Historically, for me, they have a really they live with really bad taste in my mouth. Because the majority of the time, you're talking to somebody, looking them in the eyes, they got their hand on their business card, waiting for you to breathe or take a pause so they can tell you about their business and hand you that card. They came out to that networking event with about 500 cards in their pocket or in their briefcase. They plan to give all 500 of those away before that event was done. That's their idea of a successful networking event. I passed out 500 of my business cards that I got from VistaPrint. They call that effective networking. But to me, effective networking is not that at all. Matter of fact, business cards and websites have nothing to do with this. It's what we communicate, and if people can understand what we're trying to communicate. Communication is not just key in business, it's keys in families and in the development of families. It's keys in relationships, it's key in ministry and in community and in areas of faith. It's key in business and entrepreneurship. Communication is key everywhere. Communication is not merely the transfer of information, it's the creation of a shared meaning. We both understand what one another is trying to say. Are you rate yourself one to ten? How do you rate yourself as a communicator? On a scale of one to ten, drop it in the comment section, drop it in the chat for us. On a scale of one to ten, how do you rate yourself as a communicator? A little to hear your thoughts on that. Drop that there for us. And of course, our landing page and the links to all of the inspiration station episodes are in the show notes where you can grab that. But on a scale of one to ten, how do you rate yourself as a communicator? I think that's really important. If you say eight, ask somebody else that knows you and see what they say. And then ask somebody else. And keep on asking until you get a figure that feels like, you know what? I got room to grow. As long as you're there, we're gonna be fine. As long as you think you're already at a 10, no impetus on you trying to grow anymore, and you're probably not as good a communicator as you think you are. The word communication comes from the word that means exchange. It means to share. It's a a virtual, a virtual, excuse me. It's a well, it's it's a virtual sending and receiving. Somebody gotta send and somebody gotta receive. There's no one way around that. So when you're talking to somebody, think about what you're talking about. Why do they care? Why do you think they should care? You don't think that you have to communicate to them in order to have this exchange of information because they may come back and say, you know what, I don't care about that, or I do, and this is why. If you don't hear that second part of that dialogue, the reciprocation of that dialogue, what you're saying is just a monologue, you might as well be talking to yourself. It's not gonna mean anything because you're not communicating or communing or having a communion with somebody. You're just sending, but you're not worried about what's being received. There are people who I know of and I've seen in the podcast world, in the media space, that all they care about is getting their point across. They don't care about the host of the show that they're on, they don't really care about the audience that's listening to them intently, waiting for some kind of actionable tip or strategy. All they care about is getting their point across, and they make the worst guests in history. And usually they have a very, very low return rate on coming back on people's shows. And once the word gets out, people don't want to have them on their show because their goal and their motivations are purely selfish. They only care about getting their point across and getting out of their thinking today, word and their experience is enough. It's all that matters. They don't care what people think, that people other folks' perspectives, even what the host who gave them the latitude to even be on their show, don't even care what he or she thinks. It's a horrible guest, but a horrible communicator as well. On a scale of one to ten, how do you rate yourself as a communicator? We communicate through words, we communicate through signs, we communicate through sounds, we communicate through actions, and we communicate through behaviors. Let's check this out. When are we getting communication wrong? Now I know that there are a lot of layers to this, and we'll try to get into this as much as possible because I mentioned how you have to communicate in business and entrepreneurship, you gotta communicate in the workplace with your employers and employees and your uh those that work laterally with you, your co-workers, you gotta communicate with your spouse, your children, your relatives. You gotta communicate with your friends, even if somebody who's at the fast food restaurant you're going to to get a cup of coffee or a sandwich. You gotta communicate with them effectively, or your order's not gonna be quite right. But I also didn't want to leave out the most important communication: the communication with creator and the creation, which is you. One thing that I know that we do that I hope that people who are believers, people of faith that are listening to the show, hope today after you hear this, that you never ever do this again in your entire life as long as you breathe breath. Hope you never do this again. Stop treating God like Santa Claus. You give him your list, and then you get to step in. If you are praying, that is a communication. What that really means is that when you're praying, you're having a two-way conversation between you and God. That's what that means. That means that when you're talking, he's listening. But it doesn't give you license to get up and walk away. Once you get done talking, making your requests, repenting, crying out, decreeing, whatever you're doing in that space, when you're done, then it's your obligation, because you're in a conversation, to wait and listen. Because now it's time for him to talk and for you to listen. That's two people having a dialogue and a communication. We didn't learn this back in the day. We didn't even think that's Matthew, there was a lot of religious fallacies back in the day that said that God didn't even care about our situations and our petitions and what we wanted in life. He was just the god of lightning and thunder, and if you misstepped, you would get struck down. We learned those fallacies as young people. But not only does he care about your petitions, he will answer them. The Bible says, I believe it's in 1 John, the 5th chapter, if you ask anything according to his will, according to what his heart desires, he'll give it to you. That means he cares about the communication between you and him. So that's the very biggest picture, the broadest picture, the most important relationship that you're gonna ever have in this life. So here's my reason for saying that because now everything under that should be even more, even more tangible and attainable. A relationship with another person in all those spirits I gave you in business, in your workplace, in family, in relationship, in friendship. Where are we getting communication wrong? Number one, we listen to respond, not to understand. How many of you can attest that you've been there before? You've been on either side of that, you've done it before, and it's been done to you before. Number one, we listen to respond, not to understand. Neuroscience shows that most people begin formulating a response within the first three to five seconds of someone speaking. I honestly don't think that's a good thing. I think we gotta be called to a different posture. We shouldn't be sitting there getting our response ready because that almost guarantees that you haven't heard what the person said. And it could be of vital importance, it could be a cry for help. You would not have heard it because you were more concerned with getting your point across in that space. Number two, we confuse honesty with harshness. Some people think that they're being harsh and critical is communicating, and they think, hey, I'm being honest, I'm just keeping it real. Y'all heard that phrase before, right? Sometimes it's just an excuse to be mean. It's just an excuse to be harsh to somebody and to make people feel hurt because maybe deep down you're hurting. So you're keeping it real as a way to level the playing field and give out what people have been giving to you, which is the wrong way to approach relationships of any kind. If you love somebody with no truth in it, it turns into avoidance. If you have truth without love, it just turns into a weapon that you use to bludgeon somebody you should be caring about. Number three, we speak from emotion instead of alignment. We all up in our feelings, we all up in the feels. Everything that happens, we react to it emotionally with these big open-mouth emojis like, oh, this is the end of the world. Oh my, this is just so bad. Oh my god. It just signals that there's something wrong with us. Not because we're being emotional, but because we're being over-emotional. We don't have uh discipline when it comes to our emotions. Everything is on our sleeve, we just act and react and just show out whenever we feel like it. I've seen people, and they're going out to this restaurant that you guys are pretty well aware of. I won't give them free uh credit because I don't eat their food anymore. But there's a restaurant that people uh attribute to Christians. And I've seen people who you can legitimately go somewhere else for coffee, you can go somewhere else for breakfast or lunch or dinner, you can go somewhere else for a salad or a sandwich. You don't have to go to this place, but they go there, and if that order, I don't know how it was communicated, but if that order was not done correctly and it was a mistake made, I seen people, people that we go to church with, people that have massive Christian-related profiles on social media, act the fool out here in this drive-thru or at the front of this restaurant because somebody messed their order up. Emotion it speaks to what's going on inside of us, especially when it's over-emotive. We should be speaking from a place of alignment, knowing who we are, understanding that we don't have to act a fool to get our point across. We don't have to yell at people to get them to understand what we need. Can somebody say amen? Did that help? How do you define good communication? Because for some people, it's unclear, it's a lack of clarity. People don't understand what you're saying. For some people, it's one-sided. All they care about when you're standing in that lobby or standing by the water cooler or in the park or where you may find yourself, it's just one-sided. They tell you about all of their life and they don't care nothing about your story, and they walk away before you get even get a chance to say how you're doing. For some folks, it's manipulation. They want to hear, but they want the information so they know how to use it to control people or how to make situations work for them. Like that dude at the networking event. He didn't care about the people. He was trying to manipulate the situations so that he can get more business for himself. He didn't care about the people and what they were dealing with. He didn't care. All he cared about was getting that business card out, and then people know that he does insurance or he does sales or what have you. Let's check out James the first chapter, verse 19 to 20. And God is telling you how to act, how to respond, how to conduct yourself. James chapter 1, verse 19 to 20 says everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. If this doesn't speak to that emotional part, point number three, if it doesn't speak to that, I don't know what else to tell you. It speaks to it very, very well. Be quick to listen. Don't prioritize yourself over somebody else that you're talking to. Take the time to be empathetic and listen to what they have to say. Be slow to speak. I got a friend of mine who loves to say this every chance that they get. They say that when I'm quiet, I'm learning. When I'm talking, I learn nothing. I love that. James in this chapter is framing communication as a spiritual discipline. And if for many of us, be honest. If you're not good at this, you can learn. This is a spiritual discipline. We have to learn this. It's not a personality trait. I don't care what all the little tests say. I'm a good listener, please. Most of those quizzes we're gonna answer as favorably as possible. We don't want to look bad and the quiz looks like we are not evolved in some area. But communication is not a personality trait, it's a spiritual discipline. We have to learn how to do this. We have to learn how to impart and exchange information. We have to learn how to send and receive. We have to learn how to be quick to listen and and and slow to speak and not allowing emotions to run us. Proverbs 18 and 21. This is the reason why we can't let our words run us and our communications run us. Proverbs 18 and 21. The tongue has the power of life and death in it. In that speech, the Hebrew word means authority and control. We have the power of authority and control in our mouth when we speak. Things change, situations change, atmosphere, atmospheres, excuse me, change. Atmospheres change when we speak out of our mouth. That's that's the the the importance and the bigness of the power that's inside of our mouths and our tongues. The power of life and death. And Ephesians 4 and 29 reminds us speak only what is helpful for building others up. Like mama used to say, way back in the day when I was a little one. She would say, if you ain't got nothing good to say, don't say nothing at all. That's how she would say it. If you don't have nothing good to say, don't say nothing at all. And that was baked into my life. I was really careful about what I said, and I learned from that. Did I always do it right? Of course not. But this passage of uh Ephesians chapter 4 is saying, speak what builds people up, what encourages people. Proverbs 15 and 1, a gentle answer turns away wrath. And it's talking about being able to have a measured restraint. I think that that, if you dig deep into that, Proverbs 15, it kind of speaks to the fact that the people who have these loose lips that gossip that lie, it's always trying to tear somebody down. They're in the stores making a scene because they thought it was 60% off, but the tag says 20% off, and everybody having a fit because they want to get that discount and they don't care what they gotta do, how they gotta manipulate to get there, that's a sign of a weak person. So if you're the kind of person that likes to berate folks and manipulate people, you're a weak person. You're weak-minded, and you don't have to be that way. Spiritual discipline will help you to be stronger mentally and emotionally, where you're not acting on every single feeling and emotion that you're having right now and unleashing it on the entire world. Just be thinking about this because I think this is one of the most important things, even though it's probably one of the shortest episodes we've done in a while. I think that this is so critical. We need to audit ourselves emotionally. When we're talking to somebody, make sure we understand what they're saying to us. There's a common approach that we have in the bit in business circles, and it's like, okay, somebody's saying something, and you're saying, so what I'm hearing you say is, is that accurate? Is that close to the point you're trying to make? Is that the message you're trying to send? And make sure you understand it. The person that you do that with, they will appreciate you so much. They might think you're the best person in the world because you know what? That person's the best listener. I was sharing about my life, and they just listened and they understood what I was saying. You don't know how many folks could use that ability right now, could use that talent or use that focus being on them. There are people who literally, and I don't mean this in any way to slight anybody, but the people who are standing on bridges, sitting in dark rooms with bottles of pills, thinking about ending all just because they didn't have anybody to listen to their heart, to listen to what they had to say. You'd be surprised how many folks' lives will be turned around just by somebody listening to what they have to say, not judging them and talking over them and trying to give them a business card, but listening to what they have to say. You'd be surprised how crazy and how much their lives can change for the better, just because somebody will listen to what they have to say. So, so questions for you to think about before we close the episode out for today. First question to think about where do you most often shut down or dominate conversations? Come on, don't get in your head, don't get private. Think about that. We all have done that at some point in time. Where do you most often shut down or dominate conversations? If you're not sure, put that question on hold and ponder it. Think about it. Because the answer is going to change your life and potentially somebody else's too. Number one, where do you most often shut down or dominate conversations? Discussion question number two: how does your communication style affect those that you lead? It's a powerful question. If you are a leader in any capacity, you definitely want to understand what this is and how it's been working. Number two, how does your communication style affect those that you lead? And if you're not really sure because it's not affecting you and you don't really see it because you're so busy doing what you do as a leader, it's time for you to take this uh question number two as a social experiment and start asking the people that you lead, not your best friends who are going to say yes to whatever you say because they want to please you. But I'm talking about people who you actually lead, who are not in that inner circle, they're not in the inner sanctum. Ask them how your communication style works. You should be doing that multiple times a year if you really care about where you are as a leader. There's some leaders who don't. And they just do what they do, and if you don't like it, go find somewhere else to be. Go find a different job to work at, go find a different place to serve. They out there. They may even be among you. Number two, how does your communication style affect those you lead? Ask people. Do a poll. Do a poll of 15, 20 people. You get the answer you want or don't want, but you get the truth. And last question number three: what would change if your goal shifted from being heard to creating understanding? What would change if your goal shifted from being heard to creating understanding? Love this. I really appreciate you guys listening to this. This is communication. How do we do it better? We'll be getting it wrong. I think it's really important because at the end of the day, I don't keep you turning your television on, if you listen to the radio or a podcast, I don't keep you talking to a friend at church or in your community, in your neighborhood, or in your workplace or the water cooler, whatever the situation is, at a family gathering, whatever it is, communication we cannot do without it. We don't have an option. So if the teaching resonates with you at all, and you're a leader or ministry builder or coach, reach out. Love to have a conversation with you guys. Thanks for watching and listening to Inspiration Station and your Everyday Edge podcast. I'm your host, Mr. You. Glad to be here with you. Thank you for making us a part of your week. Have a good one.