words bubble

“Where the emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words.”

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Robert Frost

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I love this quote for a number of reasons. Let me focus on two.

Life & words.

I love words. I truly envy people who know how to take a seemingly mixed bag of words and put them together in a way that makes people laugh or cry or just “feel something.”

Words play such a common role within Life, and lives, I tend to believe they get overlooked. There are so many and so many are used so flippantly without thought that sometimes they can seem like a commodity. We overlook their importance in their seeming absence of distinction.

But.

Words used well can lift a Life above the common & ordinary or steer someone to a better destination.

Words used poorly can submerge a Life into darkness veering someone down a slippery slope of doubt and despair and disappointment.

So.

My advice is to choose words wisely.

Business & words.

This is something practical.

I tell people in business that more great ideas, more great thoughts, have died because they have not been articulated well then anything other reason in the world (more than even process or scared people).

Suffice it to say, great thoughts are meaningless if no one can understand them.

Words, themselves, are ideas.

Words used well give ideas oxygen and Life.

Words used poorly suffocate ideas and kill.

The most powerful thoughts and ideas in the world have typically been captured in some words that have clearly communicated the thought behind it and evoked some sort of emotion.

In the end. You have to find the words or the best thought you have ever had will die. That is almost a postulate in life.

So.

With all that said and with full understanding that I will never be able to use words a well as Robert Frost (or maybe even Jack Frost) I have this book I keep with me everywhere I go.

Choose the Right Word by S. I. Hayakawa. It is THE  book for those of us who challenge ourselves to use the right, or best, words whenever we can.

It is the bible of wordsmanship.

If you have any interest in choosing words wisely, in Life or in Business, this is the book to have on your shelf.

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Written by Bruce