Importance of Good Communication

I recently had an incident in a business relationship, that reminded me how important clear, honest communication is. For me, my word is my bond and I frequently make the mistake of assuming that everyone else is as honest. 

Start all Relationships with Trust

As many times as I’ve been disappointed by lies and deceit, through my life, I still believe that the best way to start all new relationships is with an open heart and the assumption that everyone is honest and trust worthy. 

I believe that when you start out that way, you give each person and relationship your best. If we start out bringing the baggage from our hurts from previously relationships we are on the defensive before the relationship gets started. This is true in personal relationships as well as business relationships.

The best way to be sure you can start out new relationships with that type of clean slate, is to do the work necessary to clear and release the hurts from previous disappointments in our life. To feel the hurt, the anger and the pain, then to let go of that hurt, anger and pain. Then most importantly forgive the other person as well as yourself, because remember we all play a part in the creation of our reality, even when we feel like we didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not about who’s right or who’s wrong, it’s about healing and moving forward without that dragging that additional baggage with you. It’s easy to blame others, but in short when we also look at and clear our role in each experience we grow and become happier and healthier.

Keep the Lines of Communication Open

So, here’s what happened in my most recent test of trusting someone. I was introduced to to a a fellow who owns a business, by a friend who invited me to work with her to help bring his product to market. I jumped in and started helping them with their business, trusting them on their word, that I would be compensated for my efforts once we started making sales. Doing something like that can be risky, but I felt certain, because I totally trust my friend, that the person was ethical and would do the right thing by me.

Communication lines were open and everything was going well. I learned of a competition where businesses were being reviewed and awarded some prizes. To enter we need to submit a video. I wrote the video script and asked the business owner to record it. I then edited in other images, and contact information and created the video. My understanding was that I would get credit for any leads that came from that effort, so I put my contact information in the video. When the business owner questioned the fact that I wasn’t using his email address, I pointed out 5 reasons, including tracking leads to me, for not using his email address. He said he wanted his contact information in the video and I once again pointed out the reasons why I needed it to have my contact information.

So, to me communication was open and I thought he just didn’t understand, because his contact information directs people to the company, while mine did not. He then responded with I will finish it Krystalya. When I asked what he meant by that, I didn’t get a response. I waited and shortly after that I found that he had posted the video all over the web, but he had edited out my contact information and replaced it with his.

Honor How Your Feel

 I was felt angry and betrayed and my initial reaction was to never trust this person again. I thought what he had done was “Rubbish” and “Bull Shit”. There I said it. 🙂  I allowed myself to really feel the anger, and betrayal. Yes, I ever cursed a bit and ranted a bit. For me, that’s all part of the healing process. I allowed myself to process those feelings and to really feel them.

Then I decided to meditate to see if I could get some clear insights as to whether he was intentionally betraying me or whether I was over reacting. Part of the healing process of a relationship when communication breaks down, is to step back and look at your feelings and ask the question is this fact or just how you feel.

You see it’s very important to honor how you feel, but how you feel (i.e betrayed), does not mean that the other person was definitely betraying you. From my perspective, without further discussion with the other person it seemed that he had betrayed me, but I hadn’t heard his side of the story. Did he do this with malice or did he do it because he was trying to make the deadline and didn’t think my contact information was the right information to put on the video?

I then decided to let my friend know about the breakdown in communication and how I was feeling, after all the relationship was their’s and I thought it best for them to give me insights about the persons behavior. I learned that my friend’s experience with this person is that he is hones and trustworthy and it was unlikely that he meant any malice.

Reopening the Communication Lines

Just as important as it is to process your feelings, it’s also important to have an open
and honest conversation with the other person. You see even though my friend has had good experience working with him, and I am now more comfortable because of her experience, I still can’t ignore how I felt. So, I find that if I do not discuss it openly with the other person it is not going to allow me to truly heal the hurt and rebuild the trust. Instead, for me it’s like trying to sweep it under the rug and hope it goes away.

By opening that dialogue, not by being confrontational or blaming, but instead by sharing how I felt, when they edited and submitted the video without talking to me about what they planned to do. And, then asking if they could explain to me, why they did that, I can begin to reopen the communication lines.

Once they explain themselves it’s much easier to make an informed decision as to how you will interact with that person in the future. For me, in this situation and with my understanding of his reasons, I’ve decided I will trust him once again, but with a little less caution thrown to the wind and most importantly, that I will push for ever clearer communication, if something like this happens again.

So, I’d like to start a dialogue about clear communication here, by asking you to comment on what your experience has been when communication breaks down and how you’ve solved it. Feel free to also ask questions or tell me what you think of the process I used.