We lived in Paradise for the next eighteen months as it turned out. During that time, we missed two New York winters. Every day while there, with very few exceptions, I played tennis for hours and also spent a good portion of each day lying in the sun on the beach next to clear calm turquoise warm inviting water. I collected hundreds of beautiful seashells and read many books, developing an insatiable appetite for reading and wordsmithing. I always described this adventure by saying that we bathed but we didn’t need to and that I never needed to say “no” to my son because we owned nothing except our clothes. I believe that living there during such an important formative life stage contributed hugely to the kind of well-adjusted, self-actualized person my son turned out to be. When we disembarked from the cruise ship that brought us back to New York at the end of our time living in Nassau, my three-year old boy looked down into the Hudson River and asked, “Mommy, why is the water yellow?”
I learned more about the basics of living a good life and about the key ingredients of good communication in the Bahamas than from any other personal, professional or educational experience in my life. Many American tourists would come to stay at the top resorts on Paradise Island and return to their homes with a very inaccurate sense and description of the Bahamians who worked in these resorts: I’ve seen a tourist walk up to a hotel beach attendant and ask for a towel and have watched the attendant walk away without even acknowledging that he had been addressed by anyone. Does sound rude, doesn’t it? And if you had paid many hundreds of dollars for your flight to Nassau and your hotel room - and maybe lost a few more hundred gambling in the casino the previous night, you might have described that Bahamian as rude too. Let me paint the real picture of such an episode and then you can decide who the rude person is in these types of instances.
If you stand on West Bay Street in Nassau and observe the people who live there, you will see and hear that each and every Bahamian who passes another Bahamian, greets that person respectfully by saying, “Good morning (or evening or …); how are you today?” Whether the individuals know each other or not, this respectful greeting and courtesy is always extended to everyone so that when an American tourist walks out on the beach and asks a hotel employee for a towel without saying hello and asking how the person is first, it is very likely that the resort guest will be totally ignored. Respect comes before all else and courtesy is a given.
My life in the Bahamas many years ago certainly set the stage for the importance I have placed on the level, mutually respectful, two-way communication that I write about in SPEAK EASY, The Communication Guide for Career and Life Success:
The first fundamental element of good communication is:
No matter what the level of power or station in life
of the other person in a dialogue,
the communication can always be level.
Think of an equal sign with arrows pointing back and forth. See the equal, two-way street of communication in every type of conversation or verbal exchange.
Communication begins to break down when you feel an advantage over or disadvantage with another person. Either of these two imbalances may exist. Life is rarely fair or equal. People do have positions of authority or power.
Hierarchies abound:
♦Parent / Child ♦Teacher / Student ♦Employer / Employee ♦Owner/ Buyer ♦Captain / Soldier ♦Senior / Freshman ♦President / Clerk ♦Boss / Secretary ♦Interviewer / Job Candidate ♦Expert / Lay Person ♦Celebrity / Unknown Individual ………………and so on.
When people are on the offensive or the defensive, communications will weaken. When you see communication as an equal two-way back-and-forth exchange, both to listen and to be heard, respectfully, no matter what the circumstances, you will be able to say what you want appropriately and effectively. Good communication is never at the expense of self or others.
More Bahamian wisdom to follow in future blogging.
Happy new decade to everyone! Health and prosperity to all!
Until next week,
The Wordsmith
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