Greetings,
I have something to share with you, that has been on my heart and mind for a long time. After much prayer and preparation, I want to present some information to you, that will dramatically improve our community here, even beyond where we are now. I am asking that you take it to heart and implement it into you actions, not only on the forums, but also in your life. It is worth it.
I did not invent anything I say here. I have learned it from men and women who are experts in communication and relationships. What I have integrated into my life has changed it powerfully for the better, and played a large part in my successes. Some of what I say here is paraphrased, some quoted directly from a book called Communication Catalyst, by Mickey Connolly and Richard Rianoshek. I wish I could make that book required reading for everyone I know, but I can only give it the highest recommendation.
Communication drives life, and if used properly, can exponentiate success in every area of your life.
True communication is a network of conversations, linking separate lives into a larger system.
A true conversation is a language cycle that causes perception, meaning, action, and learning. Think about that. If a conversation does not bring those into existence or furthers their progress, it has not fulfilled its purpose. That is its goal, and should be ours. A forum is a place of conversations, and so this is vitally important to us.
Any conversation can be measured, indicating how well it is working towards those goals. I will show you all a meter by which you can measure conversations.
Any conversation fits into one of four quadrants, measured as 0-25, 26-50, 51-75, and 76-100, like on a speedometer. It is, in fact, very much like a speedometer. The higher the number, the faster, the more efficiently, and the more effectively you are traveling towards your goals and bringing about value.
High numbers are good.
So what are these four kinds of conversations?
We can call them with four names: Pretense, Sincerity, Accuracy, and Authenticity. Most people use the first two, and don't even know about the existence of the last two. But those last two, accuracy and authenticity, are our goals: those are where we want to be.
Pretense is lying, evading, and withholding information.
Sincerity is honest, untested opinion masquerading as reality.
Accuracy separates observable facts from explanations of those facts (interpretations and opinions), and then compares the different possible explanations to find value.
Authenticity reveals previously hidden value at the intersection of someone else's view and your own (not compromise: contribution).
Most people would want to think that they use accuracy, but in reality, most people are using sincerity at best. Some people even think that authenticity is either impossible or undesirable.
I can't go super in-depth into these kinds of conversations, but if you want to learn more, feel more than free to ask, and I will do my best to help you.
What I do want to focus on, though, is a contrast between sincerity and authenticity.
While sincerity does its absolute best to present its best ideas and help to a community, it does not work with other people to find out where its purposes and ideas intersect with theirs. If you do this, seeking to find common ground and building off of that, new ideas arise that are better than what either of you can come up with on your own. Trust me on that. Haha. It does not require compromise, it does not require giving up anything: it just requires you to think outside yourself.
If you can realize that other people have a different perspective than you, value that other perspective, and seek to find out how you can benefit them and yourself at once in the same act, then you have gained a level of maturity rarely achieved by anyone in this world.
I have seen this kind of maturity in this community. I have seen people working together, seeking to learn, and contributing to work in synergy, and it inspires me. It is a powerful blessing. That is why I am talking about this, to help us improve, and move on to the next level. I know that you can learn from this, and benefit from it.
I sincerely believe this community has one of the best forums in the world. But I don't believe we have reached the full potential that God has for us here. We can do better, and I want to encourage you to put in that extra effort to excel even more. I would like to impart to you some of the huge blessings that God has taught me.
I believe you can take it and use it to great advantage.
This is only the beginning of a series of things I am going to be doing in Holy Worlds, connected with this. And this post is only the first post in a thread that I hope to become an interactive conversation between us talking about these tools. I want you to ask questions, and we can work back and forth to learn more about this.
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