Wasted Words

"Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall." -Oliver Wendell Holmes

As a child my mother would count the "likes" and stammers in my speech. She constantly challenged me to speak with confidence and clarity, something I struggled with continually; I dreaded speaking in front of others and could not carry myself with "the idealized sense of eloquence." But as my confidence grew I began to challenge myself, I began to understand the power I held with my words and the potential they carried if used properly.

As my ability to communicate evolved, I used my words to help others, to help myself, and found a leader within me yearning to break free. But as others struggled to communicate as I once did, I began to listen more than speak, and observe the communication of those around me. Our ability to communicate effectively lies equally in our confidence to speak and our humility to listen. Through this only did I realize a larger destructive failure of many to communicate.

We waste our words on profanity, on ugly, meaningless words. We lack verbal filters and aforethought, and hasten to spew out words that carry no purpose. This is the real challenge, a wide scale inability to make each word count, after all its is our honest words, the reflection of our values and actions, that show who we are.

As leaders, it is up to each of us to model a higher standard of communication. It is our personal challenge to cut out the shits and the damns, and speak with purpose. This is how we better our capabilities to communicate and our abilities to impact people with our words.