You are known by the company you keep

As I said in one of the earlier blog posts - humans are social animals. We cannot live alone. We like to have friends and live in a society. We like to spend time with our friends, play with them, work with them, chat with them and in general spend time doing things we love doing.

So when we are such social beings - it is obvious that we are tagged and labeled by the people that we spend time with. As humans we generalize and when others generalize - you get the same label and level of respect that is given to others in your company. One bad person or a person with bad reputation and the whole group gets labeled bad and when the whole group gets labeled bad - guess what - even you get labeled bad. The other weird thing about humans is that - if we show humans a white canvas with a black dot - most people notice the black dot not the white canvas. Moral of the story is - most people notice the bad thing in others before they notice the good thing - so even if most people in the group are good - one bad person gets noticed the most and the whole group gets a bad reputation.

The other strange thing about us humans is that - we do one bad thing and people remember us for that one bad thing and not for the hundred good things you might have done. You do one good thing and most people will tell 2-4 people about it - you do one bad thing and most people will tell 15-20 other people about it.

Keeping a good company has another advantage. Most people in a good group are most likely doing some good things - they are quite likely to be a good student, a good polite person, a hard working smart individual and when you keep company of good people like that - you inherently start realizing that they are doing good things - start following their example, start doing good things and automatically become a good person.

So stay in a good company, a company with good reputation and it will make you a better person and will also result in creating a good impression about you.

Communication matters

This is one of those lessons that you will keep hearing from me again and again. The thing is I cannot overemphasize the importance of communication in human life. Humans by nature are social animals and one of the things that makes us social is communication.

Communication comes in various forms: Verbal or Oral, Written, Emotional and Body Language. We communicate to others using one or more of these and others also communicate to us using one or more of these. There are clues in communication all the time - the words you use, the tone you use, how strong the verbs are, how expressive the language is, how obvious the body language is, how well you show or hide your emotions etc. All of these things matter and form an integral part of our communication. Take communication out and we (the human race) are nothing.

The other important thing about communication is that communication is not just for you, communication is to communicate with others and share with others what you want to, need to and plan to share. All of the 3 above matter. You should be communicating what you need to, what you want to and what you really plan to. You mess up on one of these things and you end up communicating something quite different.

Also remember that when you say it (the words - verbally or written), they are like a bullet fired from a gun - it cannot be brought back and it takes a lot of effort to undo something than to do it the right way the first time and this is more true about the verbal communication than any other type of communication.

You will also hear from me and others that "say what you mean and mean what you say" - but you know what - the funny and sad thing is that - this is not necessarily true in real life. This sounds good in theory and behavior books - not in real life. One of the important thing about communication is that you need to be tactful. Sometimes you need to be polite, sometimes you need to pump up someone's ego and rarely you need to offend others. It is ok to offend others but when you do offend others be damn sure that you are doing it on purpose and not by accident.

Another important lesson about communication is that - you cannot control how the person in front of you is interpreting what you are saying. They are entitled to their interpretation and the onus lies on you to make sure that they understand what you mean. This is especially true about the written communication. When you write something and the other person reads it - you are not there to use the right tone, voice modulation and body language. The person is reading your words and interpreting them in his/her own mind. You don't have the luxury of providing the additional input around the words to explain what you meant.

That also brings up an interesting point - communication is for others to understand what you meant to communicate. If you say something or write something that others cannot understand or follow, the communication fails and you do not achieve the result you had planned through that communication. So be short and sweet but also make sure that you share enough background information, provide enough context, speak clearly, don't eat words, say it loud enough but not too loud, write it clearly and legibly so that others can read and make sure that the main point is communicated.

This is a long lesson and this is not the end of it - there will be more in the communication series - but you know what - I am trying to communicate to you and yes - communication matters!!!