words and deeds

“Sometimes I have my doubts of words altogether, and I ask myself what is the place of them. They are worse than nothing unless they do something; unless they amount to deeds, as in ultimatums or battle-cries. They must be flat and final like the show-down in poker, from which there is no appeal. My definition of poetry (if I were forced to give one) would be this: words that become deeds.”

Robert Frost

I love words. Nothing gives me greater satisfaction then to find exactly the rights words to say at exactly the right time. I am not a quantity of words person (or at least I attempt to listen more than talk).

One woman I dated told me “I never realized how much I talked and how little I actually said until I met you” <maybe I should have talked more because we went kaput>.

Another girl I dated (who I loved talking with … we could talk about everything and nothing for hours on her balcony) once said to me “say something to me, you always say something right”.

Regardless. Unfortunately I don’t always find the right words and sometimes I do say too much. But, no matter what, the ongoing search for the right words to say is a personal quest.

Anyway. As with many people sometimes cocktails help me on the quest to find the right words more often than not (a good long run can sometimes do the same). I think it’s because a cocktail helps me get to “the next level” with words.

Heck. I don’t know.

All I do know is that I have learned to carry a pencil and pad with me wherever I go and write things down when I think of them.

But. I cannot tell you how many a drink ringed cocktail napkin has found its way to my home with something scribbled on it. With life thoughts, personal thoughts and business thoughts.

Cocktail napkins are indifferent to their purpose beyond serving the drink. They have often found a different purpose in my life.

In the end. In my business life often the right words are tied inextricably to some idea you are trying to communicate. Because without the right words the idea never becomes a “deed.”

So. Regardless. In business. In life. In whatever. In the end, it is only the “right word” if inspires “a deed.”

That I believe.