7 Answers To a Highly Effective Question

"What is the one activity that you know if you did superbly well and consistently would have significant positive results in your personal, professional, or work life?"

7 Common Answers:
- Improving communication with people
- Better preparation
- Better planning and organizing
- Taking better care of self
- Seizing new opportunities
- Personal development
- Empowerment

That is a question Stephen R. Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People asks at his seminars. What a powerful question. The usual responses are fascinating; how many of you would answer in a similar manner?

If you think about the most valuable resource you can have; it would almost certainly be "improved communication with people" (sales ability). Want improved relationships? How about more friends? I know, we all want more money. Some parents might want a resource to help with their kids. There are also some of us who are depressed. Some of us lack motivation. A group of us just doesn't believe in ourselves....Do any of these sound like you?

If so, then you must agree that improved communication would be the one ability you would like to do superbly well and consistently, to have a significant positive impact in your life. With all the power promised by communication...you would think that we would all be flocking to resources via books, training, coaching, etc.
Do you?

It amazes me that with all the value in communication we are so atrophied in that arena. A colleague of mine once commented, "Angel serenades his clients over the phone with his voice..." I took this as a complement, however; I couldn't say the same thing for him. Truth be told, I have worked on my voice...and I still do. If how well I live my life has to do with how I communicate with people then I'll definitely work the probabilities in my favor and work on all channels of communication consistently.

Now here's something few people ever think about. You communicate with yourself all day long. You talk to yourself, you convince yourself, you insult, provoke, congratulate, sell,... You are both the buyer and the seller. You try to sell yourself on working out, or the new diet, or taking care of important things. How good are you at selling yourself? Unfortunately, I've met few individuals who are aware, much less competent, at being able to make themselves do the things that they "know" they should do. Why is that? Again, because we have not consistently worked on our communication and selling skills. We don't know how to sell ourselves on anything...thus we are sold anything being peddled in our environment.
As you can see...I'm passionate about communication and its effect on every aspect of our lives.

-Angel Armendariz