Words Have Power
I have found my niche. After years of people looking at me and saying, “You’d be great in sales,” I’ve finally convinced everyone I am best at doing research and writing about it. I love correcting other people’s grammar; finding inconsistencies in long standing, scholarly reference materials; and educating myself about obscure subjects to produce the “definitive resource”.
That is not to say I am opposed to a speaking engagement, or the articulate opening of a sale. Now that my mind is clear, I am very quick on my feet. Just don’t ask me to “go for the close,” “convert,” “on-board,” or “pick the low hanging fruit”. I just don’t have the salesperson’s killer instinct, although as Joni Mitchel once warbled, “I am frightened by the devil, but I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid.”
We have just started a running list in the office, of the words and phrases we hate. I am personalizing some of our email templates, and I will occasionally look up from my computer and ask things like, “Does anyone hate the word ‘jiffy’?” (Everyone does, by the way).
Speaking of the words we hate, it’s throw back Thursday, and I am reminded of a post I wrote a few months ago, called The Power of Words. It is about being careful not to glorify past drinking habits with nostalgic phrases like, “my old friend”. I’ve certainly been guilty of that, but I believe words have the ability to evoke strong emotion, and we must always be diligent when we refer to alcohol and our relationship to it.
