Reading: You Are The Message (Video Slides)

You Are The Message

Henry Reyenga

The Composite You

What does that mean, exactly? It means that when you communicate with someone, it's not just the words you choose to send to the other person that make up the message.

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (p. 25). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Practical Communication

The receiving person is bombarded with symbols and signals from you. Everything you do in relation to other people causes them to make judgments about what you stand for and what your message is. "You are the message” comes down to the fact that unless you identify yourself as a walking, talking message, you miss that critical point.

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (p. 25). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Congruence! 

The words themselves are meaningless unless the rest of you is in synchronization. The total you affects how others feel about you and respond to you.

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (p. 25). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

You Are The Message

What it means is that your composite message determines whether you're going to be successful in whatever...The stakes are that high. It's that important for you to accept that you (the whole you) are the message-- and that message determines whether or not you'll get what you want in this life.

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (p. 26). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Henry Reyenga restates this to say that who you are in in Christ is really what determines the effectiveness of your ministry. 

You Are The Message

The secret of that training has always been "You are the message.” If you are uncomfortable with who you are, it will make others uncomfortable, too. But if you can identify and use your good qualities as a person, others will want to be with you and cooperate with you.

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (p. 26). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Activities 

Take a piece of paper and list personal assets that help you communicate. Consider your physical appearance, energy, rate of speech, pitch and tone of voice, animation and gestures, expressiveness of eyes, and ability to hold the interest of people who listen to you.

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (pp. 26-27). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Activities

Perhaps you can add other qualities. These assets form the best part of the composite you. Study the list to see which areas you wish to improve. Those categories you feel less confident of are also part of your total message.

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (p. 27). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Going Beyond The Superficial

You can have the greatest head of hair in the world, or the greatest smile, or the greatest voice, or whatever, but after two minutes you're going to be looked at as a whole person. All of those impressions of your various parts will have been blended into one complete composite picture, and the other person will have a feeling about you based on that total impression. Enough of that image has to be working in your favor for you to be liked, accepted,

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (p. 27). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Assignment 

For the next week, whenever you meet someone, quickly form an overall impression. Do I like this person or not? Am I comfortable or not comfortable? As soon as the overall impression is formed, try to identify as many particulars as you can about the person. Look at eyes, face, attitude, style, and voice.

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (p. 28). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Assignment 

Practice by writing down everything your senses tell you about each person you meet. If you cannot list at least twelve impressions or observations, you need some concentrated work in this area. This exercise will sharpen your instincts about people.

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (p. 28). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

You Can Learn If You Want To

The fact that most of us only use a small percentage of our sensory potential is demonstrated by the heightened sensing abilities developed by certain handicapped people. For example, the blind often hear, touch, and smell with great perception and subtlety. It's not that their other senses are better or different than those of sighted people-- they're just more acutely used.

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (p. 29). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Build On Your Victories

Take a piece of paper and list three times in your life when you know you've communicated successfully. Think about those times. What made them work? I'm sure of a few things: You were committed to what you were saying, you knew what you were talking about, and you were so wrapped up in the moment you lost all feelings of self-consciousness.

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (p. 32). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

No Phony Self!

Whether there's one person or a thousand people listening to you, or if you're on television and there are millions watching, the essential principles hold true. The key element is that you not change or adapt your essential "self” to different audiences or different media.

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (p. 32). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Same For All Audiences

The thing that most confuses people trying to learn to be good communicators is the idea that somehow they have to act differently when giving an after-dinner speech than they would while being interviewed on television or for a job, or while conducting a staff meeting. They think they have to act all these different ways, and nobody's given them the script to do this. 

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (pp. 32-33). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

It Is A Dialogue

The trick in good communications is to be consistently you, at your best, in all situations. All communication is a dialogue. You (the speaker) are selecting and sending symbols (words, facial expressions, and so forth) to the audience. The audience may not be speaking back, but they're sending you symbols as well-- for example, facial expressions and body language. Learn to read those symbols coming back to you.

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (p. 33). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

The Take Away

So the principle here is not to change yourself because the environment changes, but rather to become totally comfortable with yourself wherever you are. Once you realize that you are the message, you can transmit that message to anyone anytime and be pretty successful at it.

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (p. 34). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Take Responsibility In The Process

One important note: You can't rely on other people to change themselves to accommodate you. That's a strategy of reaction. The way to influence others is to do it actively-- with your composite message. If there is a misunderstanding between the communicator (you) and the "communicatee” (your audience), it's the communicator's fault. This requires that you take complete responsibility for the flow of communications, whether you're speaking or listening.

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (p. 35). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

A Moment With Bob Hope

He looked at me and said, "Kid, I know nothing about your show. I've never been on it and I don't know what you expect me to do. It's very important for you to speak up and tell people exactly what you want. I'm a big enough star to refuse whatever you request, if I decide to. But if I don't even know what you want, there's no way I can give it to you. Now, tell a little bit about the program and the host, when I'm on, where I enter...

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (p. 36). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

The Speak Up Lesson

I never forgot that lesson-- and I've never been afraid to speak to anyone since then. It's your responsibility-- not your listener's-- to insure that your message gets through, and if you don't speak up, people can't help you get what you want.

Ailes, Roger (2012-02-22). You Are the Message (pp. 36-37). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

The Rich DeVos Story

God used many characters to bring about CLI.

God used Rich DeVos! 

Matthew 7:7    "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”