The Most Important Thing About Communication

Oh yay peeps! Human behavior, personality, and communication. These some other topics that I am interested about in addition to sports and volleyball. I could learn about those and utilize them when I still was playing. And now I took Extended DISC Training this week and got an opportunity to boost that knowledge! If I can work with these matters, wouldn’t even feel like work that much.. And that is the goal 🙂

I love to learn more about how to get more out of humans in a good way and how to make us happier and better functioning individuals alone and in the group settings. How the leaders/coaches could harness the potential of the group, teammates of each other, and everyone of themselves. Not a piece of cake like Americans tend to say. 😉

So this Extended DISC Training was interesting because it touches on that topic. I learned to analyze the results and now I am allowed to analyze the Extended DISC behavioral assessments in addition to the Sports Capacity Assessment. Yahoo!! I think we have not utilized the information we can get from tools and assessments like these enough in the sports settings. Now I will come and change this haha! 🙂

I think there would have been less cries, self-doubts, miscommunications and hurt feelings if we would have more information also for example in the teams about ourselves, so we would appreciate ourselves more, know the strengths and challenges. That will add the understanding of others and how to support them the best. Surely, the information itself won’t be enough but the information should also then be applied.

We also went through my own Extended DISC profile in the training and… Well that would be like three pages long but I am going to pick only one little thing to talk about today and in addition there is gonna be a story! 🙂  

All of the changes in the past and the insecurity of the future have affected how the lines in my graphs protruded. The results of this assessment are not usually changing much even over time but the other profile in the results describes our perceived need to adjust. So that we would match better with the demands of the environment. My lines were pointing towards that I feel like I should be more social. (Not that I am social or anti-social, just the perceived need to be more social).

In Finland I am like a perfectly annoying little extrovert who has a hard time sometimes being quiet. In the USA I am giving more room (or the whole room haha) to others to talk and keep my own mouth shut, I just haven’t felt the same kind of urge or even need to talk. It has been interesting. I like to be social but it is not a matter of competition to me so if others are more vocal, then I have been the quietest person in the room which is not the usual case in Finland. So I have felt kind of that I should be more open and loud in this country. Points to Extended DISC there, boingboing! 

I know I have a voice that I can and want to use. I know we all have. My voice has been quieter because it has not been sure which direction it should crow to and that affects these results. 

I also know that I can get my voice to be heard when I find something important that I want to be crowing about. 

We all have something worth crowing about in this world. When the crowing derives from a genuine place and need, it needs to be let out. If you know and feel that there is something you would wish to affect or change, speak up and try what you can achieve with your voice and unique sound. 

Sometimes we have to work to get our voices heard or weigh whether to clink the glass and stand up or to remain silent and seated. The question is then that will you regret it if you don’t use your own voice in that situation? Will you lose the chance if you don’t use your voice now? That question has helped me to clarify when I need to step out of my comfortable quiet place and speak. 

Example story time! We were playing in Los Angeles with CU so I was the volunteer assistant coach and saw Nicole Davis sitting on the opposite side of the gym! The former libero of team USA!! She was also my mentor on the Finding Your Best-course, so I had been in touch with her in the world wild and wide web but we were not exactly BFFs. It was more like I had been staring at her online classes like the heart eye emoji and then we had emailed about the topics that I needed some extra help pondering over. Ok and I have probably listened to all of the podcasts where she has ever been on as a guest.. So I am kind of like a real fan of her. (And Courtney Thompson). 

So I just stared at her and felt my heart beating faster and faster, almost forgot to follow the game that I was supposed to be focused on. My thoughts did go out of the window oopsy daisey just like this: 

Kääk! Nicole Davis! My idol! She! There! I will wave at her! No no no no, I can’t, she doesn’t know me. Oh jesus god I almost waived at her in the middle of the match… Should I go to talk to her after the game? Oh that would be so cool! Yeah I will go! But wait a minute… What would I say? Hi! I am Saana from Finland, nice to meet you! No, that won’t work. She doesn’t think that Oh yes nice to meet you weirdo. I need to say something else. Hmm. You were my mentor in that course and I admire you and what you do. Yeah that’s better. 

Then I started to sweat and got so nervous! 

I can’t say that either. That’s clumsy. No I won’t go say anything, I will just be embarrassed if I go and don’t say anything smart. 

Then I calmed down and focused the game for a minute again. The excitement and nervousness faded, I got excited for nothing. I am stupid. 

Well what the hell. That is the reason that I took that course that I would live my life the fullest and with authenticity. Daring to live and do things that make my heart race. I want to go say hi. Even if I just say hi and tell that I appreciate what she does. Such important and meaningful work. She deserves to hear that. Yeah ok, I will do that. 

But.. What if I can’t get those words out and I get mixed with the words. And how would I do it, rushing from here to her right after the game is over? Like a raging fan and people will think that I am one of the ball girls?! No I can’t do that, it is going to be so awkward. I am blushing already now. What if she doesn’t remember me? What will I do then, just smile awkwardly and say “it’s ok” even if I was hoping she would remember? And then just say bye. 

But, this is not about me, it is about her. I want to tell her the good feedback she deserves to hear. And I will regret if I don’t. I will do this. I don’t care even if I look stupid for few minutes, at least I am doing something that I might have left undone previously and that is big! 

The buttside of this story is that Nicole left the game in the middle of the match and I never got the chance to say hi and be awkwardly fantastic. I did reach out to her in Instagram right after and she answered! She remembered! She recognized a familiar face from the bench but could not put a name on the face – and that would have been pretty insane because during that course I lived in Finland, I was a very injured and hurt professional volleyball player. Now, 7 months later, I was a volunteer coach at University of Colorado in the game in Los Angeles. What a crazy little throw by life by the way. 

So below is the lesson I have learned from Nicole…

The message that is delivered even with a shaky voice is more meaningful and will give more to the messenger and recipient than the one that will forever remain unsaid or undelivered. 

Thank you for reading <3 

Saana 

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