The Power of Communication - Part 1

byshenise25

113 followers

Updated 9 years ago

Hi Everyone!

Just wanted to share something I thought would be very useful and also very important in gaining success on an online business.

Everything we do in our day we achieve it by using communication, whether it be in English, Spanish, Japanese, Farsi, Arabic, Chinese, etc... But there are many different ways to communicate something. But the outcomes from doing so can be either positive or negative. I am an english teacher in Mexico city, I am originally from Canada. Long story short, I went from living in a city of 1 million people to one of the largest cities in the world with 21.2 million people. Here in Mexico it's a whole different ball game than in Canada. There are soo many people that means much more competition. I'd never realized that to get hired here for a reasonable paying job you have to go through 3-5 interviews sometimes, and maybe to never hear back from them. Not to lose track I realized I had to learn very quickly in order to be successful here I was going to have to work a whole lot harder than I ever had to when I was in Canada.

Luckily I had the language as an advantage, as my mother is mexican, I was brought up with two languages growing up in Canada. And I welcomed it because I knew that there were many benefits to being bilingual since I was a kid.

When I moved to Mexico I was already fully bilingual but very rusty on the correct wording. So I had to "Do as the Romans do" try and fit in by observing how people communicated with each other in order to get results. Now Mexicans place a huge emphasis in separation of classes, and you can tell right away just by the way someone communicates to you. Someone is who is referred to as a Naco is someone who speaks spanish but changes up parts of words for example Caminaste they change to Caminastes, they add an s to the verb Walk in past tense when it isn't necessary. Immediately this person is branded as someone of low income class with little to no education. When you get into the business and professional world here you really do have to choose your words correctly. It is very common in general for every person to greet you using "Good morning/afternoon/night" as a way of saying Hi. When you are eating at a restaurant it is very polite to leave your table and if there are other people eating at a table next to yours to say "Provecho or Buen Provecho". Which I have the understanding that it kinda means "Enjoy your meal". I have lived here for almost 5 years now, and I have found that these simple ways of communicating politely (which by the way I will emphasize are very common among the majority) have really helped me to improve my way of communicating not only in spanish but also now in english. Words are very underrated but in reality they are soo powerful. I went back for a visit in Kitchener and stayed with some relatives and people began to say how friendly I was. It never occurred to me that I was trying to be friendly, it was merely just habit to communicate that way.

Sometimes getting out of our comfort zones and getting out there even though it seems scary, overwhelming and maybe even unbearable, really does pay off in the long run. I bet in the same way people in Mexico judge those who are educated to those who aren't, the same must happen when reading a website. You will know right away by the choice in wording if the website is credible or not; and whether or not you want to learn more from it or be on their mailing list. We must choose our words wisely and to keep things simple.

To Great Communication and Success to Everyone!!