By Bill Bachrach via Iris.xyz
Could your communication skills save your life? According to my colleague in the Speakers Roundtable, Capt. Charlie Plumb, the answer is YES!
He survived nearly 6 years in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp – the Hanoi Hilton. The same luxury accommodations as John McCain, only Charlie was there longer. Here’s what he has to say about communication, “I had been through the survival schools in the military and been told repeatedly, that if I were a prisoner of war to, ‘maintain contact with my fellow POW’s!’ I thought this was very logical.
How else could we pass along the escape plans? Much to my surprise, the ‘life saving’ value of communication in the camps wasn’t the information we were passing around, but the simple VALIDATION of another human being!
After months of solitary confinement in a very dark cell a person loses track of ones very existence. There is no sounding board … no feedback … nothing to prove that you are real. The simple tapping on a wall (shave-and-a-haircut?) and the response (six-bits) proves your existence. Someone is responding to you! The point for a Financial Advisor: It’s not the ‘data’ that’s the important part of the communication process. It’s the simple validation of an individual and their pain.”
Click here to read the full story on Iris.xyz.