Siemens People Builders

The power of words is not only amazing, it is powerful. It is a power that many people don’t understand or use properly.

Words begin a marriage and words finalize a divorce.

Words create a mental picture and words destroy the image.

Words win an election and words lose the race.

Words cause people to support and they cause people to withdraw.

Words start a war and words end a war.

Words create action and lack of words creates apathy.

Words reflect the person and the person reflects the words.

Here are five principles to remember when you are thinking about words and their power.

Wisdom is not in words, it is meaning within the words.

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you can get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” –Tom Stoppard

Carefully choose your words focusing more on the meaning than the word. The goal of every person should be wisdom in words. You become a very powerful communicator when the words mean what you say.

Observe your tone, timing, and total picture.

People often respond to our attitudes and actions more than our words. Many petty conflicts occur because people use the wrong tone of voice. Timing is best summed up by Lady Dorothy Nevill: “The real art of conversation is not only to say the right things in the right place, but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”

Resist saying everything you know or think.

A saying that sits on my desk reminds me daily of this point: “Better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it.” If you say everything you know or think, you’ll think you know way more than you do plus the people you are speaking to will know the truth.

Deliver your thoughts.

To deliver your thoughts the best and in the most effective way, ask, don’t tell. When you ask questions to deliver your thoughts, people will tell you what you would have told them, only it came from them, not you. When people think it is their idea, they buy it.

Remember “the delivery” percentages: 7% is verbal; 38% is vocal; and 55% is visual, or body language. Work hard to deliver your thoughts using the right delivery.

Speak less and listen more.

As a society, we can’t stand silence. We thrive on noise. That makes us think we must fill in the pauses of silence. If you don’t believe this, just evaluate all the noise in your life. How many of us fill the silence using radio and television just for noise?

Two ears and one mouth should be enough of a visual reminder for us to get it. Since many of us don’t, we need to know that listening is a learned behavior and it’s a behavior worth learning.

Words are remembered long after actions are forgotten. Don’t underestimate the power of words. Don’t over-estimate your ability to use them properly. Comfort or discomfort comes from how we use them, how we communicate them, how we hear them.

Words make the difference or words cause the difference. Understanding the difference determines your power.

And these are just my thoughts on a Friday morning.

Steve Siemens, CSP
The People Builder

The 92-year-old, petite, well-poised, and proud lady, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o’clock, with her hair fashionably coiffed and makeup perfectly applied, even though she is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today.

Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary.  After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready.

As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on her window.
“I love it,” she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.

“Mrs. Jones, you haven’t seen the room … just wait.”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” she replied.

“Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged… it’s how I arrange my mind.

I already decided to love it. It’s a decision I make every morning when I wake up.

I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do.

Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open I’ll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I’ve stored away just for this time in my life.  Old age is like a bank account: you withdraw from what you’ve put in.  So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories. Thank you for your part in filling my memory bank. I am still depositing.”

Remember five simple rules to be happy:
1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.

Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

And these are just my thoughts on a Monday morning!

Steve Siemens, CSP
THE PEOPLE BUILDER