How adults are wasting words professionally [How to be an Original]
Yesterday I was watching a fascinating show on Dutch television with medium Derek Ogilvie. He’s a Scottisch guy that uses his telepathic capabilities to communicate with children that can’t talk themselves (either because they’re too young, or because they have an ailment that prevents them from talking).
In the show last night he was working with a three year old that did not talk or walk yet. One of the messages he got through went something like this:
“There are so many words in your house…so many words, but nothing gets done.”
“It’s making your son confused, he thinks: if you want a new car, get a new car! If you want the house redecorated, redecorate it! Don’t talk talk talk, but do.”
“So many words, you talk but don’t decide, the words… YOU ARE WASTING WORDS!”
“There’s no fun in words, they get wasted and lead to nothing…”
Wasting words
The scene struck a chord in me, and especially the phrase “wasting words”. As a writer and a NLP enthusiast I know the power of words, and I use and choose words deliberately. What words you choose to use can make or break a message or result in an entirely different response than intended.
But I never thought of words as an asset that can be wasted. When people talked too much and do not get things done, because they fail to reach an agreement or fail to make a decision, I thought of that as a waste of time. But it is a waste of words too! Words have so much power, but when words lead to nothing, that power does not get used. It gets wasted.
There’s no fun in words if they get wasted
You’re a little kid, you want to make things happen. Make things, break things, throw them around, make a change in the world surrounding you. You want to do something, and experience that the world is different, because you did it. Even if it’s as simple as throwing a spoon from the table to the ground. It’s somewhere else and it’s there because you did that!
One of the things that was holding the kid back (apparantly) in starting to talk, was his experience that words lead to nothing. They lead to more words and not to action. What’s the fun in that? His solution: shut up and do something else…
Adults waste words professionally
My mind wandered of to meetings I have had in many different companies, and the stories people tell about meetings in corporate life. People waste words there!
- First we waste them by putting them on paper (or in a word processor).
- Then we waste them by putting them in email announcing that there are words on paper.
- Then, as the meeting approaches, we repeat them in powerpoint and project them on a wall in a darkened room.
- Then when the light turns on again, everybody starts wasting them by talking.
- In the end nothing gets decided, and we waste more words documenting that in the minutes of the meeting.
- Some more words get wasted, reviewing the minutes of the meeting.
- Then we start over again…
- ARGH!
Can you tell I don’t like meetings? There’s one exception: when there’s a clear objective to the meeting and decisions need to be made on a short notice weighing several viewpoints. In most other situations, things can be solved in another, more efficient way that’s more fun too!
Be like that kid!
Kids want to make things happen, they want to experience that they have an impact on the world surrounding them. When they discover the power of words, they experiment a lot with that. Parents remember it very clear when their kids discover the word “No!” and the question “Why?”. Parents start acting all crazy if you just repeat them often enough…
Be like a kid, but choose another solution than the kid in the show. He decided to not talk, because it didn’t lead anywhere. That’s the negative option that halts progress. The positive option is to choose to make things happen, to use the power of words and to choose not to waste them.
Ask yourself: What do I want to accomplish as a change to the world? It can be large, huge even, but also very small. The main point is to focus on the effect you want to accomplish. If you got that clear, then focus on how to accomplish it. And use your words wise and deliberate. They’re too powerful and too much fun to waste.
Want to read more about the work of Derek Ogilvie? He has a book Baby Mind Reader
Original post here: Lodewijkvdb
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