“You cannot not communicate.”

“You cannot not communicate.”

Go on, read it back one more time and let that line soak in for another moment..

While your inclination here may be to analyze what you’re verbally saying to others, I urge you to also examine what you’re intentionally not saying – and/or, better yet, reflect on what nonverbal communication your body language might be saying..

Here’s an all-too-relatable example: if you’re wearing headphones in the gym, let’s call a spade a spade – there’s about a 65% chance you’re trying to avoid talking to anyone around you… whether you’re actually listening to music or not. 

Now, now. Before you come at me with some kinda “How dare you?!” – allow me to first say that I relate to this all-too-well, too. In fact, if you ever see me with my AirPods in at DEUCE, I’m just gonna come clean now to admit it: there’s pretty much a 100% chance I’m only wearing them to discourage conversation… so I can get my workout done quickly & efficiently. Yeah, I said it.

Headphones in, whether you’re actually listening to music or not, intentional about projecting an occupied or unavailable status or not, consider this: if you were to observe yourself, you would see how wearing headphones could objectively be seen as a piece of pseudo-armor to detract unsolicited outside input. 

Moreover, rather than label this as “good” or “bad” – consider how if this were the message you were communicating – would it be congruent with your intended message? And if not, what actions might you take to show up (and communicate) differently?

Listen, I’m not trying to tickle your brain with double negatives here. Rather, I bring this topic up to encourage you to reflect on two ideas this week:

1.How might you improve the efficacy of your nonverbal communication?

2.How might you be missing opportunities for valuable connection – with yourself and/or with others – by neglecting to train, to work, to walk, to be, etc. – without music? 

By all means – keep listening to all those good jams! Music is magic. But from time to time, I hope you’ll consider how the absence of it while training might challenge/strengthen your ability to focus & engage. Additionally, I hope you’ll consider how occasionally refraining from listening to music might actually improve your communication skills – and I don’t mean so much that you’ll talk to more folks while training or while performing a specific task, but perhaps you’ll learn to be more direct in clearly letting others know when you’re not open for talking, if that’s what your intent is.

How well are you communicating you to the world? #HoldTheStandard