Importance of written/verbal communication

I know it seems obvious that writing and speaking are very important skills to have a good expertise in, but I don't mean it's important, I mean it's seriously life changing. Like with most skills in the world, you can have lets say 5 levels of skill at something which could be for instance:

• Terrible
• Bad
• Sound
• Good
• Outstanding

For things like sports, gaming, cooking, education etc the gap between each of these levels is generally quite substantial. The difference between someone with a sound grasp of a concept in comparison to someone who is good or even outstanding is quite a large gap and becomes very noticeable. For example sports at a competitive level you have to be at the very least of the top tier of athletes to be recognised and compete. The difference between an athlete and someone who is considered good at a sport is absolutely extravagant and is what people notice. I would say anything below being considered outstanding in perspective is all the same whether you are terrible bad or just average. I believe this applies to most sports and gaming where the top just seem like on a whole new level and that is what becomes the eye opener. I believe it is less so the case for cooking however it is still definitely a large comparison between the average chef and someone preparing food that is worthy of a Michigan award.

This brings me to my next point about the importance of speaking and writing. For the sake of basic or even slightly more complex communication, there is not a great deal of difference from someone who is an incredibly proficient speaker rather than someone who has a sound understanding of the English language. Their words might be more impactful but at the end of the day, their impressive vocabulary is almost superfluous in day to day use. More straight to the point, no one particularly cares so much about how good your communication skills are as opposed to how bad someone's communication skills can be. Unlike in sport, where the main emphasis is what separates the top from the rest, in writing or speaking, what really sets apart people are the ones who are at the lower proficiency levels. The difference between someone who is terrible at speaking in comparison to someone who has a sound understanding is HUGE. From first impressions, including how smart someone may seem at first glance or how well mannered they are all come from a person's ability to communicate properly. With such poor communication skills mixed messages may be delivered from one another and a completely different result from the intended awaits.

In my personal experience, I have talked to plenty people in my lifetime and have come across many skilled speakers and many unskilled speakers. I can tell you the ones that were not skilled definitely stood out to me more and left a much bigger impression on me than any skilled fluent 50 language speaking person ever could.

I believe a lot of this stems from not having to really communicate on a non colloquial level meaning people aren't as used to speaking in a professional manner or just a manner that sounds appealing to another individual. So it is definitely important to be practicing these things, you never know what opportunities you may have missed out on simply because you used the wrong words or because you lacked the verbal communication experience that was either expected or required.