SKILL FACTOR # 2- WHAT SCHOOL DID NOT TEACH ME THAT LIFE ALWAYS ASKS OF ME.

Skill Factor # 2- Relational Skill

Your ability to communicate and interact with other people is more important than all other factors put together it contributes 85% to your success- Brian Tracy

God's blessings are not hanging in the air but are placed in people. You are as blessed as the quality of your relationships-Coach Tarie

When we are in school we learn many other skills that have more to do with things and not much is taught in terms of relating to people. The educational system tends to reward a lot of individual effort and sometimes penalizes team work. Many go into life with great egos of academic qualifications but fail to navigate through life successfully as they cannot override the greater part that relationships have to play in life.

Your ability to communicate and interact with other people is more important than all other factors put together it contributes 85% to your success- Brian Tracy

One day while at our study area at one of our local University, a certain young person who had registered late to start his degree program came where we were seated. Since other people who were part of the class that he was joining had already submitted their assignments he wanted help on how he was to go about with his assignments. Getting in the open area he found everyone concentrating on what they were doing. He paced to and fro not knowing who to approach. He finally saw a face of someone that he had seen before and hesitantly approached her. Apologetically he began to ask about his programme and assignments. Surprisingly when we asked him why he had been moving up and down he blamed the people of being anti-social. In as much as he was educated to qualify for university he did not have good interpersonal skills. It dawned into my heart how many people who were like him and how many opportunities that had slipped through their hands because of the lack of good relational and interpersonal skills.

Isaiah Nesbert in His book Mega Trans said, As we move in the area of high tech we are moving simultaneously towards high touch. The faster things change and the more technological society becomes the more valuable will be people who are excellent in working with and cooperating with others. People with better relationship and people skills are happier, healthier, better paid more powerful, persuasive and esteemed people.

As Brian Tracy also said, “In a world where no one does anything alone and everything that we do involves a whole lot of people, interpersonal intelligence is the highest paid of all intelligencies in our society because what we do every time involves a whole lot of people.

The most effective parents are those who are most capable in expressing themselves clearly, listening well, practicing kindness, consideration and courtesy with the members of their family. The same with marriages, the happily married couples are those who have learnt the true aspect of relating to others, building on what has been called emotional intelligence that includes empathy. Relational skills include the ability to get in the skin of the other person and see things with their eyes then get back in yours so that you can relate to them with understanding. Relationship skills include creating what rapport that was acronymed by Dr Lance Wallnau to say, “Really All People Prefer Other Reflecting Themselves.” So Relational Skills are crucial at family level and the high rates of families and marriages failing are a clear indication of the contribution of poor relationship skills. You can be happier at family level or any other relationship that involves those you love most.

The most successful leaders are those with the most confident in assembling a group of people into a strong working team to get things done in an excellent fashion. These have the capabilities to bring the best out of people and the best out of people is given voluntarily and it takes the best relationship skills to have people do something not as duty but with a joyful and willing heart. At corporate and business level entrepreneurs attribute success to their ability to create strong teams which is all about interpersonal skills. The Sales guru, Brian Tracy talks about the role of interpersonal skills in sales saying, “The most successful sales people are those who will be able to build long lasting relationships with their customers”. This explains why two people selling the same product to the same person will get different results. One will close a sale and the other will not and it is all in interpersonal skills.

Relational skills on the interpersonal basis are built on strong intrapersonal relationship skills. As the life instruction manual puts it, Love your neighbor as you love yourself. You cannot love others if you do not love yourself. You cannot relate to the other person if you cannot relate with yourself. How does one grow to love themselves? Loving yourself comes naturally from self-discovery. It is discovering your true identity according to the designer or maker’s intention. Every human being is created in the image of God and hence to a certain degree possesses all the attributes that God has and hence should not draw value from what the environment defines them to be. It is the good self-concept that gives birth to a good self-image which gives birth to self-confidence and self-esteem which are a foundation of all relationships. We always relate to the image of ourselves that we see in the other person and if we have a wrong self-concept of ourselves we will not be able to treat other people good.

Having realized the place that interpersonal intelligence or relationship skills play in life it’s so sad to know that the education systems that the majority of the people are exposed to, does not equip them with so pertinent soft skills.

The greatest leader of all time is realized by the kind of impact that he had with the least expected of all people. He mentored people who couldn’t qualify for leadership in their time but brought the best out of them and mad them world changers. When we look at His biography and the way that he grew to be so powerful, one writer describes it in a few words saying,

And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. (Luke 2:52) NIV

I understand why when he was reproducing himself in his disciples his first public teaching zeroed mainly on relational skills. At the peak of this teaching is what came to be called the Beatitudes. The set talks about the attitude that one was to be, the first four addressing relationship with the maker to develop a strong intrapersonal relationship that results in a strong character of security. This empowers one for the other four that talks of relating with other people which is real empowerment for interpersonal relationships. The Greatest leader of all time as revealed above empowered his mentees with the most important life skill when he began his journey with them. He placed it as the top priority and so should it be in all that we do.

Fulfilment in life is independent of the amount of things one has but the quality of one’s relationship with those they love and those who are important to them- Coach Tarie: The Wisdom Garden.

Coach Tarie Coaching and Consultancy (COTACC) in partnership with the Arise Africa Cause is determined to work and see people master relational and interpersonal skills together with many other skills to be highlighted in this SKILL FACTOR series developed in the African context.

Chat WhatsApp

Coach Tarie - Coach Tarie Coaching and Consultancy (COTACC)

SKILL FACTOR # 2- WHAT SCHOOL DID NOT TEACH ME THAT LIFE ALWAYS ASKS OF ME.