I love the power of the language. I have Tony Robbins to thank for that in his book, Awaken The Giant Within. In it, he devotes an entire chapter to language, and despite being an English teacher at the time, I hadn’t really thought about just how powerful words really are.
The thing is words encapsulate our mood often times. When we’re really upset, we’ll use words like “pissed off,” “furious” or a few 4-letter words come to mind. Behind the words are our emotions. The emotion is where the real power is. But what I learned from Tony is that by changing our words, we can control our emotions.
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People cannot think outside their vocabulary. Just try it and you will see how your thinking is confined to your language. – Stephen Covey
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I clearly remember Tony suggesting I use the work “irk” next time I felt angry, and wow, let me tell you, immediate emotional change. I just couldn’t be angry and say that I was “irked” at the same time.
If you’ve ever seen A Few Good Men, Remember The Titans, or Scent Of A Woman, you’ll know a thing or two about powerful emotional speech. (all excellent movies I might add)
Words affect our lives more than we know. Even in text form. I lost a friend over an ill-written text message. The thing we must remember is that once words are said (or sent in this age), we can’t take them back.
Bottom line, words are powerful.
33 Life-changing quotes
A few months back, I wrote an article about quotes, but here are another potentially life-changing 33 quotes. I encourage you to really think about them carefully and not just gloss over them. Read them each a few times. Ponder them. Write down your favorites and read them each morning before starting your day. You’ll be surprised just what a powerful exercise this can be.
- Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune. — Jim Rohn
- We are what we repeatedly do. — Aristotle
- If you’re looking for a big opportunity, seek out a big problem. — H. Jackson Brown. Jr.
- A goal is a dream with a deadline. – Napoleon Hill
- People cannot think outside their vocabulary. Just try it and you will see how your thinking is confined to your language. – Stephen Covey
- You can have everything if life you want, if you will just help enough people get what they want. – Zig Ziglar
- You can’t manage time. You can only manage yourself as time passes by. – Chris Widener
- If winning wasn’t important, people wouldn’t keep score. Like it or not, we live in a world that keeps score. – Joe Montana
- To know a person simply look at the company they keep and the books they read. — Adrian Shepherd (me)
- If you have time to whine and complain about something, then you have the time to do something about it. — Anthony J. D’Angelo
- Change is inevitable. Growth is optional. – Myles Munroe
- He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. — Friedrich Nietzsche
- The best way to predict the future is to create it. — Peter F. Ducker
- Knowledge is power. – Sir Francis Bacon
- Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure. — George Edward Woodberry
- The most effective way to do it, is to do it. – Amelia Earhart
- Here is a simple but powerful rule: always give people more than they expect to get. — Nelson Boswell
- You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do. – Henry Ford
- Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back. — Harvey Mackay
- Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them. – Ann Landers
- You don’t have to listen to what they say, just watch what they do. — Les Brown
- Don’t think it, ink it. — Mark Victor Hansen
- It’s not can you, it’s will you. — Tony Robbins
- One of the great rules of teaching is to teach only one key idea at a time and give the person a chance to work with that idea until they have internalized it and learned it. — Brian Tracy
- I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying. — Michael Jordan
- The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it. — James Bryce
- You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality. — Ayn Rand
- Greatness isn’t talked about, it’s demonstrated. — Alex Mandossian
- If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. — Former Harvard President, Derek Bok
- Excellence always sells. – Earl Nightingale
- You are your greatest asset. Put your time, effort and money into training, grooming, and encouraging your greatest asset. — Tom Hopkins
Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work. — Stephen King - There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. — Colin Powell
- What quote has changed your mind, and your future?
Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash
