What are the most important aspects of self-improvement?
I’m biased. I am a professional writer, former senior lecturer of writing at two prestigious universities, and author of sixteen books, four on self improvement via proper use of the language and proper behaviors. I cringe when the mayor of my city says, “me and my staff …”, or “me and my family …” Too bad he doesn’t know a nominative from an objective. Too bad he hasn’t taken my classes or read my books, or read this blog:
WORDS: YOUR MIGHTIEST FRIEND OR DEADLIEST FOE?
Your Words Can Make You Rich, Poor, Happy, or Sad. It’s Your Choice.
Nothing influences your prosperity and happiness more than what you say and write.
I came to this conclusion back in the 1970s when I noticed that my clients in the larger and plusher corner offices lived more comfortably and happily. Discounting any connections between wealth and happiness (there aren’t any beyond their shared roots in words), I wondered why some people were able to reach that desirable human condition, and others weren’t. My curiosity first led me to a few simple studies based on observations, and then to some powerful assertions by respected thinkers. To paraphrase, one noted that our ability to use our language determines, to a great extent, the amount of money we will earn during our lives; another noted that our ability to create and sustain close relationships, necessarily based on open communications, determines our happiness.
Then I found studies completed by the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation that span five decades and that connect vocabulary to financial success tightly and conclusively. I was uncomfortable with such a giant leap of faith from vocabulary to wealth, and searched for intermediate steps. I found them: vocabulary leads to proper connections of thoughts, clearer understanding of situations, more beneficial decisions, and clear communications of those decisions — the essence of leadership, and more and more necessary as the complexity of situations increases in tandem with management responsibilities.
The bottom line is that, combined with abilities in a person’s main discipline, vocabulary and its outcomes are the tiebreakers in a person’s rise in business. People who can link words to thinking and communicating clearly get to the top and stay there. I call them “The Articulates’; words are their friends.
I then called Johnson O’Connor to find that they had not studied the connection of vocabulary to happiness, and didn’t know of any firm that did. They agreed, however, that such a connection seemed feasible.
I tested the idea first by asking seven of my clients and friends who had risen to the top of business if they were happy, and was rewarded with a resounding ‘yes’. Then I studied the ingredients of happiness in several sources, and found ‘relationships’ to be universally named the most important. I decided that relationships cannot exist without open and honest communications, and they are impossible without vocabulary. The chain from vocabulary to communications spilled over easily from wealth to happiness.
However, vocabulary is a double-edged sword: its lack spills over from ‘wealth’ and ‘happiness’ to ‘poor’ and ‘sad’. I call people who don’t make that connection ‘The Also-Rans’; words are their foes.
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My book, THE POWER OF BEING ARTICULATE explores and differentiates the habits and thinking of Articulates and Also-Rans, enabling readers to emulate Articulates and avoid becoming Also-Rans. The book also offers tips on how to improve your vocabulary and abilities to communicate — how to make words your friends on the road to wealth and happiness.
