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You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world’s happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.
- Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) American writer



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Photo by by thinkroni

With my new found passion for the personal development, I have begun to introspect every facet of my life including my verbal vices. We get complacent about certain habits that exist in our life without thinking how germane it is to our personal growth, spiritually and financially.

I’ve been amused by the extent of oxymoron that pervades in our dialect. These words create ambiguity, stress and many times conflict that should not have taken place if I had been conscious about the words that I speak and impact it creates.

Don Imus with all of his stardom lost job when he fell a victim to the word vices. Senator George Allen, once aspired to be Republican Presidential nominee, had to pay dearly for having “Macaca moment“.

These self-discounting words cost us immensely on a daily basis, yet we are insanely busy to focus on them and purge them from our brain. When I realised this sense of importance, I started to write a dairy to discern verbal vices that I and others used and started putting new face on these ugly words to transform my interaction with others. Soon, I found another astounding change. With the careful usage of these words, I began to have far less confrontations with others. I since have felt boost in energy and focus on my goals with clarity, calmness and confidence never seen before. The price of transformation was nothing.

Unlike wardrobe, words do not cost regardless of selection we make. Wait a minute, they do cost dearly if we do not use them in proper context. Choose well.

  • Don’t be Wishy-Washy, be Confident

I have a habit of injecting wishy-washy words in my conversations. I often use phrases like: “I wish,”, “I hope,”, “I think,”, “sort of,”, “Kinda,” For example, few days ago, a friend complimented me for my blog and my instant response was, “I hope that it will be successful.” Duh ? Am I confident or just wishy-washy ? It portrays an image of feeble self-esteem. Last week, a salesman asked me: “So I guess We’ll be moving on this …”(Are we ?). I responded: “Kinda…”(Are we getting anywhere ?)

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    A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words… the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.
    —Mark Twain (1835-1910) U.S. humorist, writer, and lecturer.

  • Don’t be sorry unless you truly are

I have another terrible habit of using word sorry as if it’s on sale at quarter cents a dozen. I went to a subway yesterday. Sabrina, you can tell that I am a loyal customer, was busy making bread. So, I waited few minutes and said, “I am sorry to bother you, but I think I like a veggie on wheat.” She looked at me with perplexed face, thinking what’s wrong with you ? You are sorry to pay for the sandwich that you are not sure you wanted to eat ? Get over it. There is a legitimate usage of apologies when we spill beans or rear end a car, but being sorry for every thing makes us look miserable. Who wants to hang around with person carrying wallet full of “I am sorry ?”. I don’t for sure.

  • Do not speak if, “You Don’t Know” ( Because You Do Know ! )

This is another self deprecating, lethal word to speak. For example, I was talking to friend of mine who is a political junkie. He knows what he is talking about. So, I asked him to articulate the major issues for the Presidential contenders. He at length talked about all the growing concerns that matters most to an average American. I was moving my respect bar up, up and up for his political savvy and all of sudden he said, “It’s going to be an interesting race with these growing concerns, I don’t know,” my respect bar fell like a crashing 747. Are you telling me that with finesse you explained what matters most to an average American but you don’t know ? Give me a break.

  • Don’t use fillers, I will loose my thriller

I’ve been self subscribed oxymoron on this. I have a habit of using too many filler words like: “You know,”, “Um,”, “Ah”,”Do you know what I mean ?,” “Like”. Using filler too frequently shifts attention from the gist of the topic to these filler words. For example, I went to a car dealer last month to look for a used Lexus. I began my conversation with the salesman - “You know, I am looking for a used but reliable Lexus. You know, it should have less than 30K miles, you know, it should have GPS system, you know, it should be in great shape. Do you know what I mean ?” Salesman laughed at me and said - “Do you know what you mean ?” It was embarrassing to create this fiasco. He had no thrill in knowing that I was full of fillers.

  • Never use “You” turns, ever

You may have mastered art of persuasion by reading Dale Carnegie’s famous book - “How to win friends and Influence People” but if you use too many “You”s, you may as well forget about winning your dog’s heart. Let me explain. Using “You” in a sentence interjects strong apathy, attacking verbal anecdote, that no one appreciates. It’s hard to win any-one’s heart without creating harmony and mutual respect. It’s as easy to interject “I” instead of “You” and get the message across with more firepower. I was at the Sam’s club to return merchandise. I noticed that my line was long so I, naturally, tried to listen to the conversation. Customer was saying - “I am mad that you guys opened door at 10 AM, but I was not allowed to get it.” Customer service fired back - “You are wrong. We open at 10 AM for the business members.” “I don’t care.” - customer replied. What in the world is wrong with this customer service rep ? If he’d replied with smile, of course, “I disagree sir. We are open at 10 AM only for the business members,” he would have avoided this can of worm.

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Try to analyze for a period of several weeks the words you speak and try to improve your communication skill by retiring those ugly words. You may not know, but they are costing you dearly my dear.

If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words. ——– Chinese Proverb


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Written by: Shilpan on 2008-04-05 at 7:54 am
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