Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: How It All Started
Chapter 2: Empathy—The Essential Relationship Ingredient
Chapter 3: An Epiphany
Chapter 4: Key 1: Empathic Awareness Skill
Chapter 5: Key 2: Empathic Listening Skill
Chapter 6: Listening Blocks to Effective Communication
Chapter 7: Key 3: Empathic Speaking Skill
Chapter 8: Expressing Yourself When You’re Upset
Chapter 9: Key 4: Empathic Dialogue
Chapter 10: The 3 A’s: Applaud, Admire, Appreciate
Chapter 11: Nurture Your Relationship Garden
Chapter 12: Practice Makes Permanent
Chapter 13: NOW is the Time!
Action Guide: “12-Day Communication Challenge!”
Here’s How It Works
Day 1: Empathic Awareness Skill, Steps 1 & 2
Day 2: Empathic Awareness Skill, Step 3
Day 3: Empathic Awareness Skill, Step 4
Day 4: Empathic Listening Skill, Step 1
Day 5: Empathic Listening Skill, Steps 2 & 3
Day 6: Empathic Listening Skill, Step 4
 Day 7: Empathic Listening Skill, Step 5
Day 8: Empathic Speaking Skill, Step 1
Day 9: Empathic Speaking Skill, Step 2
Day 10: Empathic Speaking Skill, Step 3
Day 11: Empathic Speaking Skill, Step 4
Day 12: Empathic Dialogue Skill
Congratulations!
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Special Request!
 Introduction

If you’re like most people, you want to have good relationships with the
important people in your life—your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers,
clients, and customers. At the same time, you have no doubt learned from
experience that good relationships don’t happen by accident or wishful
thinking. They are created, developed over time, and good communication
is an essential part of the fabric that creates those relationships.

While that may be true, do you feel, as many do, that your communication
skills could be greatly improved—that you sometimes misunderstand what
the other person is saying or meaning, feel misunderstood yourself, that you
sometimes express your feelings too harshly when you’re upset or get into
arguments and other communication blunders? If so, this book is for you.

For more than a decade, I’ve worked intensively in this fascinating field of
interpersonal communication. I’ve been trained to teach several
communication skills curricula and have taught these skills to thousands of
individuals and couples, in small groups and large audiences, in churches,
social organizations, family resource centers, county jail, federal prison, and
other venues.

On every occasion, I’d witness people have profound personal

breakthroughs in using these skills to radically improve their
communication effectiveness in their marriages, families, at work, and
elsewhere.

In this short book, you will learn the 4 Essential Keys to Effective
Communication that I have honed and distilled from my study, teaching,
and practice over the past several years. I consider these to be the core
fundamentals of successful interpersonal communication.
These skills have helped me greatly in both my personal and professional
relationships, and I’m confident these skills will help you achieve
relationship success with the important people in your life as well.

I hope you enjoy reading this book and use what you learn to take your
relationships to a whole new level of intimacy, satisfaction and success.

All the best,

Bento C. Leal III