Experts say that our communication is 70% body language, 23% tone, and 7% words. Intuitively that would lead us to conclude that the best way to improve our communication would be through changing, somehow improving, our body language. The problem is that if we do this in isolation, the results look stilted and comical- conjuring up the image of a bad silent film actor. This is because our body language is a reflection of our inner mental state. It makes much more sense to change our inner state, and then let the outer representation take care of itself.

Here once again, when we try too hard to make ourselves feel confident, or optimistic, we very often achieve the opposite effect. It is like someone beside you at a party telling you to be happy-nothing is less likely to improve your mood.

So if our body language is a derivative of our mental state, what is our mental state a derivative of? In the long run I would suggest it is connected to our passion and audience. If we're talking about something we care deeply about, to people who we care deeply about, it's hard for us to go wrong.

Next we have the verbal message. Many of us when we wish to become better communicators will spend a lot of time on the vocabulary of our message. We will expand our vocabulary or try to tailor it to our audience. The one thing that we almost never do is examine the tone of our message. Most of us have no idea whatsoever how we sound to others. The only thing we hope and pray for is that others find the sound of our voices more appealing than we do ourselves.

My friend Jay Miller, a well respected speaking coach, helped me immeasurably in this regard by helping me to become aware of the tone of the message I was conveying. As with all things of value it is not easy work and can be a little discouraging at first. But after a very short amount of time, you will experience those around you reacting very differently to what you have to say. You will begin to notice that people are not just listening to what you are saying, they are really resonating with your message, engaging with it fully.

This then starts a positive feed-back loop . As you see others reacting positively to you, you start liking them more, and become more confident that they are going to "get" what it is you have to say. This then leaks into your body language making the entire package of your communication that much more effective.

After a short time the conversation starts to take on a life of its own. you feel like you are part of a magical process which is just happening by itself. Then you marvel at how something so simple should have eluded you for so long.

This is the type of communication that people normally associate with the early days of a passionate love affair. How exciting to know that it is available to us each and every day should we choose to open ourselves to it.