I think about you a lot when I garden. I think about you a lot because I’m a student of gardening the way you are a student of English communication. And just like you strive to incorporate best communication practices into your daily speech, I do the same with planting and harvesting my garden. Here are just a few ways gardening is similar to speech:

1. It’s creative
2. It’s hard
3. It’s unpredictable
4. And, when successful, it’s motivating

I have a funny feeling that there are insights inside this blog post for any craft you set out to learn, but keep reading to get tips on succeeding at your spoken English today. 

Learn to Communicate Skillfully with the Mind of a Gardener

My First Stab at Gardening

When I was 21 years old, I lived in a small town called Williams. It was in Oregon State and it was quite an exquisite place. Back then, I’d never lived in a rural place (although the suburbs of Orange, Connecticut felt quite rustic when I grew up.)

I lived in a little hippie community with a boyfriend who was 5 years my senior. I had just completed a year of studies at a healing arts school in California and I was setting up a practice as a healer.

To bring in the money to pay the bills, I worked on some organic farms. One was a garlic farm and the other an herb farm. I fell in love with having my hands in the dirt and getting to know the names of the plants, flowers, and trees.

My Second Attempt at Gardening

Fast forward five or more years and I was living in Somerville, Massachusetts getting my Master’s Degree in Education at Lesley University. But right before that first semester, I spent the entire summer working at an organic farm in Concord, MA.

This time, I had my hands in fruit trees and vegetable plants.

I’d rise at 6AM to arrive to the farm by 6:30. There was still a chill in the air from the evening before and we all started our farming days wearing a sweatshirt. But, by 8AM, off those came as the sun beamed into the fields of beans and corn.

To this day, I am reminded of those fields every time I smell a tomato plant in full bloom.

I’ll never forget when grad school started in September. I was up early and at the farm and then home for a quick shower before attending classes in the evening.

I never liked school and entering the classroom made me quite uneasy (I did a home study undergraduate program.)

If I’m honest with you, I never felt like I was smart. I struggled with reading in high school and no matter how hard I strived for perfect scores, I always found myself receiving a B+ or A-. School was discouraging for me.

Needless to say, when I walked into my first week of classes (after having worked a full day at the farm), I felt like a loser.

I found myself amongst a bunch of fascinating colleagues from around the globe whose curiosity seemed to be as strong as my fear. 

By the time the second week finished, I called my dad to tell him I thought I would cut back on the number of classes I was taking because it was too much with the farm.

Do you know what he said?

Yep, you guessed it!

“Did you ever think of cutting back your hours at the farm?”

Thank goodness for the tough people in our lives, my friends, because if my dad hadn’t pointed out the obvious to me, I’m not sure if I would be here today writing this blog post.

As hard as it was for me to stop working at the farm, I did cut my employment short and by the first week of October I was fully engaged in my school (and loving it, I might add!)

Fast Forward to 2011

Many years passed since my organic farming days and it wasn’t until 2011 when my husband and I bought a piece of property in Minas Gerais, Brazil that I started experimenting with my hands in the dirt again.

There was some resistance to it at that time since I was fully committed to my communication coaching business and I wasn’t in the mountains often enough to dedicate myself to it.

But, a local gardener helped and over the years we had eggplant, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, and much more to pick from when we stayed in Minas Gerais.

Whenever I was there, I enjoyed getting myself dirty and walking through the garden beds.

Why My Gardening Past Matters

I gave you all this background to share how life happens and how the things we deeply love always come back to us when we let them.

But, I also shared all of that with you because now I’m going to explain how I really learned to garden and what that means for you and your communication skills.

How I Learned To Garden (for real this time)

When The Pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, my husband and I retreated to our paradise in the mountains of Minas Gerais. This time, there would be a huge transformation of the house and the land.

As we were constructing, we were mapping out the garden and a vertical garden made the blueprints. It is 375 feet long by 30 feet high.

The garden wall has various conditions.

Some parts are dry and others are soil-rich. Some spots are in direct sun, some partial, and some no sun at all. Some sections are on an angle while others are completely vertical.

Needless to say, all these conditions require different types of plants. And for someone like me with very little know-how in this department, I needed Lina.

Lina and I worked together for a couple of years on this vertical wall. She’s an Agro-Engineer who works in the Brazilian forests.

For two years there was a lot of trial-and-error planting. I even bought a self-watering system for the dry months, but the people in this part of the world don’t know much about this watering device and today it lays dormant.

But, here’s what I started to learn about gardening since 2020:

1. The leaves of the Lambari are more open when they are in the shade
2. Some vines go up while others grow down
3. Garden beds can be made from stone, wood, and even bamboo
4. Better to plant the climbers in the ground where you can control the soil instead of on the wall itself where the nutrients are not as strong
5. And here’s my most recent lesson with gardening (and it will take us into communication, I promise): Just because I’ve learned how to seed a plant, it doesn’t mean I know how to help it mature.

This struck me last week because I got good at watering the seeds and thinking about them every day, but once I put them in the ground, I somehow forgot that I had to keep tending to them.

Not just with water, but many plants needed stakes to hold them up. Like the tomatoes and the green beans.

So even though I am delighted every time a seed sprouts its little sapling into being, I have to continuously think about these things I’ve learned so that I get to the harvest (I had great green beans this year, but it took me a few weeks after they were ready to remember to go up the hill to gather them every day for fresh eating!)

My point?

There are all these stages to learning.

How Learning Can Feel Overwhelming

You know that feeling when you're first learning something and you feel very scattered?

Your mind bounces all over the place as you try to absorb the new information and all its details.

You want to know everything before you even begin. Your push for immediate perfection causes great confusion and overwhelm.

I was totally like this with the garden. I could feel my brain hurt sometimes from trying to put two and two together.

Here’s the thing: Just when you think you understand one thing well during the learning process, you’re going to discover that there’s more to it to become a pro.    

There’s always going to be another layer to understanding whether its getting that darn garden wall covered in green or speaking confidently in the third round of your interview. 

What if I told you there were one thing at the heart of becoming a communication pro?

Becoming a Communication Pro

Becoming a pro at anything takes one key ingredient: curiosity.

Yep! Curiosity.

Think about the last time you were curious…

Do you have that in mind?

As you reflect on it, can you see how much easier it is to learn when you are deeply curious.

Here’s the catch. It’s not necessarily easy to create deep curiosity.

For example, I’m not deeply curious about politics, so a conversation along these lines doesn’t always interest me (especially in my second language, Portuguese.)

However, if we talk about cooking knives, I’m sure my ears and mind will perk up. I love to cook, so being curious about it is easy.

Gardening, too. With my years of interest in the topic, I can think of a multitude of things I’d like to learn about it.

But, back to the politics topic.

Although I am not naturally curious about politics, when I start to apply curiosity to the subject, I can find myself coming up with interesting questions, too.

So, the first thing you’ll need to become a skillful communicator, whether it comes to you intuitively or with effort, is curiosity.

Let’s look at a couple of communication scenarios that will get you thinking about the communication pro in you.

Organizing your Message

You may already know that giving a formal presentation is a lot like writing a speech.

You’ve got to start with a hook, a purpose statement, and an overview of points.

Then, in the body of your speech (just like an essay), you need to dive into the points in great detail. This is where you’d share data, stories, and examples that back up your point of view.

Once you get to the conclusion, you summarize the points and can even circle back to your hook if you’re really good.

Have you ever prepared for a formal speech like this?

Let’s say that you’ve gotten really good at organizing your speeches (even preparing well for informal meetings and conversations.)

But, let’s say that you haven’t mastered your nerves when you get in front of senior leaders. Do you see how just because you’ve perfected one area of public speaking, it doesn’t mean that you won’t fall on your face when you go to deliver your message.

One thing is connected to the other. (Just like as I learn to garden, I see that one skillset leads to the next.)

It makes sense that once you are aware of your nervousness, you’d tackle overcoming them so that your preparation and delivery operate at the same level of expertise.

Managing your Speed

In this scenario, let’s imagine that you’ve mastered the speed of your speech. You understand the value of pausing and you use it to gather your thoughts and allow others to digest what you’ve said.

Bravo!

But, there’s another level of being a pro with speed and it’s called variation.

Yep!

➔ Not every pause should be the same length

➔ Not every thought chunk should be spoken at the same tempo

➔ And not every sentiment should get the same speed.

So, you’ve got to tap into your curiosity and take yourself to the next level by watching and listening to the experts who ARE creating variety with speed.

The more you observe the skill in others, the more you can discern what approaches will work for you.

And you try them out a bit at a time.

The good news is that as you experience the positive results of mastering speed variation, you’re going to feel encouraged to continue along these lines.

Sharing your Enthusiasm

One of my favorite skillsets in communication is enthusiasm (In fact, it’s my bonus communication principle in The Diamond Method^TM.)

Similarly to levels of knowledge with speed of speech, the same is true when expressing your feelings when you communicate.

You see, you may be a naturally enthusiastic person, but it doesn’t mean that every scenario will call for high and exciting tones.

Or, you might be a fact-based individual who speaks in a steady tone. This may feel good to you, but you may not be winning over your audiences when it’s time to inspire.

Whether you need to flatten that smile from time to time or put on a Cheshire Cat face, there's always a new step to take when it comes to expressing emotions while speaking.

I would say that managing emotions is a more advanced stage in the communication development process, but it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t apply your curiosity to it early on if it interests you.

Summary

I hope by now you can see how important it is to stay vigilant (and diligent) with your communication skills development. And I hope you can see the role that curiosity plays when it comes to learning anything.

Because we don’t want

✔️ Our plants to die

✔️ Or, our messages to bomb

we have to build our self-awareness and know where we are in the learning process.

It’s like me with my gardening.

I got good at seeding and now I’m getting better at nurturing my plants to maturity.

➔ Wherever you are in your communication skills journey,

➔ Whatever step you're on

➔ Whatever you think you're doing well

➔ Whatever it is you think you might want to learn

stay open to what shows up and says: “Hey, pay attention to this!”

If you pay attention and stay curious, you’ll do just fine!

I really do think about you a lot when I’m gardening. I hope after reading today’s post, you can see why.