Communication skills are one of the most important things a person can posses. Being a successful communicator can lead to success, career advancement, happiness, improved relationships, and potential to contribute to society. One of the most important things to understand about communication is understanding ourselves. The reason for that is because it helps us understand who we are and why we are this way and once we understand ourselves we can interact with others in a more competent way. Understanding self has three constructs: Self- Concept, Self- Esteem, and Self- Regulation; all three of these help with both verbal and non- verbal communication. To understand ones self you must understand the three constructs of Self. The first one is Self- Concept. Self- Concept is what we think we know about ourselves. We posses to selves: our public and our inner self. Our public self is the self that we show to others during social interaction; which is our actual self- concept. Our inner self is the self we keep private and reflects how we actually feel about ourselves and this is known as our true self. As a whole it has influences how we view and interpret social interaction and our involvement in interaction. The second construct is Self- Esteem; which is the subjective perception of ones self worth or the value one places on self. A higher self- esteem can lead to higher tenaciousness, increased feelings of happiness, and lower incidence of depression. The final construct is Self- Regulation; which is self- determination, independence and self- control. Its also what gives us the capacity to exercise choice and initiation and allows us to pursue and engage in goal- directed activity. It also helps regulate motive to communicate effectively. Verbal Communication has two categories: Language which is a shared system of symbols structured in an organized pattern to express thought and feelings, and the second is Symbols which is are arbitrary labels that we give to ideas and phenomenon. The way a person verbally communicates is an affect of all three of the constructs of self. The affects that self concept has on the way a person communicates can be related to one of the four functions of verbal communication, which is cognitive function. Cognitive function is how we use language to acquire knowledge, reason and make sense of the world. This affects self-concept through the use of the uncertainty reduction theory which is the use of communication to gain knowledge and understanding by reducing uncertainty and, therefore, increasing predictability. This helps a person decide the type of self that they will portray to others based on an understanding of how best to relate. Self- Esteem affects verbal communication in the sense of the group identity function. Your self- esteem is the self worth that you have or put on yourself, but your definition of your self worth is going to come from the way you identify with other people. A person is more likely to have a higher self- esteem if they have a strong sense of being part of or included in a group’s identity, where someone who doesn’t feel included in a group’s identity will have a much lower self- esteem based on the sense of not fitting in. Self- regulation can be related to the social change function because the determination and ambition that someone has to strive at something will relate to the way they see the world. Someone who doesn’t communicate with others well isn’t going to almost imprison then selves because they won’t have the want to go out in the world and do things if they cant functional communicate with others. Nonverbal communication is defined as all types of communication that do not rely on words or other linguistic systems, any form of message other than one of written or spoken words that convey a meaning, anything in a message besides the words themselves and a message expressed by nonlinguistic means. Someone’s nonverbal communication is going to be affected by there self- concept because they way someone portrays themselves is going to effect the way they use there vocals like if they are someone who wants to be seen as being loud our the way they use there hands which talking if they want to be someone who uses their hands a lot when they speak, ect. Self- esteem is going to have an affect on weather or not they will make eye contact because if someone has a low self- esteem than they will most likely be looking around or down towards there feet or the ground. The way a person communicates weather its verbally or nonverbally is always going to be affected by there understanding of self, because the understanding of self is what shapes the person we are and how we relate, communicate and live amongst others.