 So just like any skill that we develop in life, we need to work on improving our language if we're going to have it benefit our communication skills at all. So in this video, I want to talk just a little bit about how we can improve our language use, how we can improve our use of verbal communication as our overall communication skills improve. So one of the things that we can do to improve language is to use confirming messages and minimize disconfirming messages. Confirming messages are those messages that convey value. They convey to the other person that we value them. We value their opinion. We value them just as people and they're just in that positive message. Disconfirming messages do the opposite. They send a message of a lack of value that we don't value that person. We don't value their opinion. We don't value what they bring to the table. So we want to maximize those confirming messages and minimize disconfirming messages. Most of the most part in healthy relationships research has shown that there should be a ratio of essentially four to one, four confirming messages to every disconfirming messages to maintain that positive communication climate. So we want to use confirming messages and minimize disconfirming messages. But we want to avoid as much as possible making others defensive. So we want to avoid aggressive language that paints them in a corner, puts them in a corner and causes them to be defensive and we just want to carefully choose our language in such a way that helps avoid defensiveness in others. We want to provide effective feedback. We want to let people know what we're thinking but provide constructive, effective feedback. We also want to own our thoughts and feelings. When we express a thought or a feeling, that's fine. But we want to make sure that we use lots of eye language, meaning that we are taking ownership of those things. Sometimes people think, well, my feelings are just my feelings. I don't have any control over those. But we do. We have control over what we express as well. So we ought to own those and it's not other people make us feel this way. I feel this way maybe because of this behavior that they're doing, but I feel this or I think this. We want to own those thoughts and feelings. We also want to separate opinions from factual claims. Sometimes we have a habit of just stating things as though they are fact when in fact they are opinions. There's a difference there. So we want to separate. It's okay to express opinions, of course, but we want to note that, you know, start that with something, you know, a qualifier like I believe or I think or in my opinion, this is true and not stated as though it's a factual claim when in fact it's opinion. We want to create positive climates especially in EMC or electronically mediated communication. It's very easy when we're using social media, when we're texting, when we're doing these types of things where we're physically separated from that person. We have what we know is the disinhibition effect, right, where we tend to get a little more brave. We tend to say things that we wouldn't normally say and that can spark defensiveness and really create that negative communication spiral. So we want to be sure that we're creating positive climates, especially in EMC that we're choosing our language carefully in those environments, in social media and in texting and emailing and things like that, that we're choosing our language very carefully and that we're really considering how that could possibly be interpreted by the person on the other side and create, again, use confirming language, confirming messages, minimize those disconfirming messages particularly in EMC where it's very easy to not do that. So we want to be extra cautious in those areas. So we can do those things to improve our language use and that will be very helpful in our overall communication skills. So be sure that we're giving full consideration and working on those things just like we would anything else. It's going to take thoughtful consideration to incorporate those things into our language use. If you have questions about improving your language or anything else related to communication, please feel free to email me. I'd like to hear from you there. In the meantime, I hope that you will treat this like any other skill. It's going to take some effort and some work and some mindful consideration on your part, which you can improve your language use and in doing so, certainly improve your communication skills overall.