---
date: 2017-05-06
modified_at: 2019-04-25
tags: [philosophy, productivity]
description: A metaphorical exploration of how people process information differently, comparing them to sheep, rocks, and fish in the river of spoken language to illustrate effective versus ineffective communication patterns.
---
# Effective Communication

A human mind contains a model of reality that helps you to function in the world
by understanding it and how to interact with it. Spoken language is a protocol
of information exchange that helps us to change this model. Lots of people don’t
embrace this, and this results in ineffective ways of communication.

In current society, there is an abundance of information thrown at us. Humanity
has not learned how to filter this information effectively yet.

Everybody has their own ‘filter’ that converts new external information into
behavior, actions and a change of mindset. The filter - many people call it
walls around somebody - prevents all information to have a too big impact.

This is the river of spoken language. All human minds are somewhere in the
river. Every human mind has a different filter. That's why they appear in the
river in three different ways: they're either sheep, rocks or fishes.

 * Some people are like a sheep in the river: they can't swim. They embrace all
   spoken language and go with the flow: they end up where ever the river of
   spoken language brings them, they cannot determine where they are going.
   
   
 * Some people are like a rock in the middle of the river of spoken language and
   aren’t affected by anything that people say to them. Everything that is said
   goes one ear in, the other ear out.
   
   
 * Some people choose wisely and look from a meta-level on the spoken language
   that reaches them. They filter uninteresting information and choose to use
   the interesting information to their advantage. I call these people fishes
   that go upstream in the river of spoken language. They convert information
   effectively into a change in actions, behavior, and mindset.
   
   

Be the fish. Don’t float to much down this river!

Effective communication
Another point I like to make is the point of often occurring ineffective
communication. People often keep having the same conversations over and over
again without consequences. This is ineffective communication. There is nothing
wrong with this except for that it encourages people towards being a rock in the
river, and it wastes their time.

 * If you are too much of a rock and you don’t let the spoken language affect
   you, it will be harder for you to change.
   
   
 * If you are too much of a sheep, you let all spoken language affect you, it
   will be harder to you to reach your own habits, goals, mindset, and even
   lifestyle.
   
   

Be the fish and swim upstream the river of valuable spoken language.

Spoken Language Exchange:
 * If a rock talks to a rock, much is said, but little changes. The information
   exchange has little effect on the model of reality in the mind.
 * If a sheep talks to a sheep, little valuable is said, and both people change.
   The exchange is effective, but the information itself isn’t valuable; the
   same sheep can say something completely different the next time, because it
   just imitates other sheep, rocks or fishes.
 * If a fish talks to a fish, they both choose whether or not this information
   is valuable for them and use it to go further upstream.

Conclusion
Be a fish if you want to decide for yourself what's going on in your mind. Learn
like you were to live forever. Swim back to where you were born, or go even
further.The further upstream you go, the more clean the water gets.