Investing in Language 8

The language you use is a tool that can invite or divide. Adding fresh language to your everyday interfaces will give everyone more tools to gain insight, understanding, and wealth.

I was teaching class the other day and a student texted me during class to say she was running late from work and it would take her longer than expected.

I announce to the class that Cathy was running late and read them her text.

“I smell the wine on that text!” blurts out an on-time student.

The room lights up with giggles because they too have texted itty bitty lies.

I caution the group and remind them- we do not know the exact reason the lateness.

Of course when Cathy comes in the entire room wants to know if the distrust is correct.

Loudly the proclamation is tossed onto the audience by on- time student for now late Cathy.

“I smelled the wine on that text!”

Cathy is stunned and a little appalled.

The whole room is looking at her.

Her hand pushes up to protect her heart.

Awestruck she gasps “How did you know??”

Then pours out the confession:  “I just couldn’t leave. I would’ve had to tell ALL of my work people I was taking a class and there would have been too many questions. I was cornered! I was going to have to suck it up and have some wine!”  

Lateness is forgiven and everyone will now look for “wine on a text”.

I'll ask you- is there a language infraction that blocks wealth? 

Investing in Language 7

The language you use is a tool that can invite or divide. Adding fresh language to your everyday interfaces will give everyone more tools to gain insight, understanding, and wealth.

“That looks like an excuse” says my friend after my other friend announces that she cannot afford to have her car fixed.

Stunned she looks at him and says “ HOW does that look like an excuse”

“I think you want to spend your money in a different way and you want us to agree with you that car repair is horrible. It is an excuse. Just fix the car and bypass the complaint. I know a great mechanic. ”

How often do we complain for no REAL reason?

I KNEW that my friend who needed car repair would have resources that could cover the repair; they have savings, credit, and employment. Why would this situation be problematic?  

Then I thought about value part of the comment. It is clear that she would not find value in the repair but instead would rather have 20 great meals out.

My question to you is how often is a complaint really an excuse. 

Investing in Language 6

The language you use is a tool that can invite or divide. Adding fresh language to your everyday interfaces will give everyone more tools to gain insight, understanding, and wealth.

“I am working on trust” announces my office manager

“ Why would you need to do that, you have excellent trust skills?” I puzzled back

“ Just do” she tilts her head. “ I try to control stuff”

It gave me pause to realize how many people add in the word TRUST when the word they need is ALLOW.

Many people that tell me they need to trust in the universe more.

BONG!

Sorry wrong answer.

Most often they actually need to ALLOW and give permission.

Allow for change to work, allow for others to think a problem through, or allow for new outcomes.

Allow is also the place to give permission to the world to unfold on your behalf. 

Investing in Language 5

The language you use is a tool that can invite or divide. Adding fresh language to your everyday interfaces will give everyone more tools to gain insight, understanding, and wealth.

The new bit of language I got this week watching a little boy challenge his father to a race.

They father and the boy had long ago agreed to run together every Saturday.

“If I win- I want a prize!” declares the boy

“Sure you can have a prize” says the father, who knew he did not have a prize handy so he mentally chooses to beat the boy and get a prize for the following week.

Dad is huffing and puffing and a bit out of shape and wins easily.

“Dad, I did not win!”

“I know” says the father still huffing and thinking about letting the boy win the following week.

“We should start again” says the boy as he gets into the ready position.

The father had not expected that they boy would challenge him to a re-race so quickly and laughed at the turn of events. 

I laughed at the power of the language to create wealth. The power to move ahead even in loss is a powerful tool and the boy was clearly in the moment of wanting to gain triumph.  There was no hesitation in his voice and he had a goal in mind.

“We should start again” may be one of the most powerful pieces of language I have heard all year and it came from a boy of about age 6. 

Clean your head

How many times have you looked at the mess in your head and thought:

“ I should do some awesome revamping on this mess and love it up REAL GOOD” .

Or do you look at the mess in your head and just add to it; Tell it how awful it is to be such a mess, how stupid messes are, and how It has been messed up too long.

Hey, here is a message

Your head can’t clean itself. 

Investing in Language 4

The language you use is a tool that can invite or divide. Adding fresh language to your everyday interfaces will give everyone more tools to gain insight, understanding, and wealth.

The new bit of language I got this week was during a meeting with a social media company and an author. Our team was doing a normal report to the client on how much progress had been made on their book project.  

The team-lead lights up in the direction of the client and asks; 

“Have you been doing something magical with your free time? “

The client was immediately intrigued. “mayyybeee”  was the reply

The team –lead dives in by producing details and a chart.

“Well your numbers are par-excellent and noticeably awesome.  Can we review your magical exploits?”

Everyone in the room was immediately sucked into the moment of triumph-  WE wanted to be magical in our free time.

It turns out the client had actually taken the advice of the team on how to build their own platform and it was paying off in numbers that impressed even the professionals.  I watched as the client was now eager to learn more and DO more on their own behalf because now they had an audience AND they liked being magic.

They had now become an investor be being acknowledged with language.  Every meeting the team-lead has with that client the word “magic” is the top of every conversation.

Language is a powerful investment into another.  

Give the GOOD stuff

Have you ever been tired of broken stuff?

Tired of always having to settle for broken stuff? 

Most people living in poverty are.

So I try to give only GOOD STUFF to my community. 

One of the things I do is host a closet for women who are coming out of the homeless shelter. I have only a ten people at any given time that use the closet so it is easy to manage. If they come to class to learn more about how to get on a new track in life they get unlimited stuff from the closet.

"Take what you is right for you, I don't ever run out of stuff for this closet" 

And in all the years I have hosted it I have stocked it in the same way. 

I ask my friends to give their "good stuff".

Stuff that they want to go to someone who will appreciate the gesture. 

Because broken stuff does not allow you to feel not broken. 

Having a place to go and be rewarded with good stuff makes everyone feel a little taller. 

Gifting within rock throwing distance

One of the the recommendations I give about being a philanthropist is to look at how far you can physically THROW A ROCK..

Wherever you are on a daily basis just make a mental scan to see how far you could toss a rock in a radius surrounding you. That is where you may want to consider looking to add your positive efforts.

The closer to you the more you can enjoy the benefits. I have seen many people chooses to gift differently based on this idea.

Here are some of the ways I personally have used this concept

1) Bring good tidings or treats for co-workers,
2) Mow a neighbors lawn while they are out of town
3) Help someone carry groceries
4) Pay a bill for someone on a tight budget
5) Send a hand written note to someone reminding them of how they positively impact your life
6) Pull weeds in a parking lot
7) Pick up trash while out on a walk
8) Meet your neighbors by inviting them over for pizza on the deck
9) Share your ladder
10) Fill in a hole in the road with sand so that it stops hitting everyone's car
11) Plant flower bulbs in a public space
12) learn the names of the grocery clerks and say "HI" when you walk in

Investing in Language 3

The language you use is a tool that can invite or divide. Adding new language to your everyday chatter will give you many more tools to gain insight, understanding, and wealth

The new bit of language I got this week was during a non-profit meeting where someone had a long detailed rant on how to make the program itself a better place while the purpose of our meeting was on an very detailed financial subject.

“I can see you are very excited about this idea but this is not the team that will be the decision maker. You may have more influence and be better represented if you bring this to Kara and her team.”

I was awestruck at how fast this could be positively redirected.  

The facilitator kept the focus of the group, pushed the person towards the direction of positive change, and gained our trust in being able to facilitate the topic at hand.

The group was now interested in helping this person redirect towards a positive outcome and not feeling like they had to battle this outside idea as a invasive species.

I never tire of new ways language can be a wealth building tool.  

Investing in Language 2

The language you use is a tool that can invite or divide.

Adding new language to your everyday chatter will give you many more tools to gain insight, understanding, and wealth.

The new bit of language I got this week was a few sentences that a ghost writer gave to my client while we were going over some copy.

“I am unable to get an accurate temperature on the tone of this message”

I was slack jawed at how cool that was.  

Her language was direct in the fact that she was LOST in the language and she was noticing the paragraph needing more deliberate intention.  She promptly offered up a second helping of language deliciousness.

“A little more spice may help bring more heart to this message. Is there a specific flavor you are trying to convey?”

Her words were empowering and invited new language without killing the writer.

It immediately pulled everyone into the page with a vivid direction.

I love seeing new ways language can be a wealth building tool.  

Investing in Language 1

Language is a tool that can invite or divide.

Adding new language to your everyday chatter will give you many more tools to gain insight, understanding, and wealth.

The new bit of language I got this week was this sentence that the facilitator popped out during an executive meeting

“We may want to massage that idea around a bit”

It was such a great use of letting the idea be the subject of the discussion not the person, it was not “Johns idea”.  it was just an idea that needed more work.  The way it flowed gave others in the group the option to open it up for more work, add to it, or morph the idea totally.

I love seeing new ways language can be a wealth building tool.  

What is my gift?

I have people ask me all the time the same question related to being a philanthropist:

What is my gift?

It makes me giggle because it is so simple that it become very complex.

We all have the gift to see how life on this planet could be made better.

It is that simple. It is that available.

What in the world could use a drop of your flavor to make it better?

A shoreline of garbage could use an upgrade and you could snag a walk at the same time.
The pile of unused soaps could make someone in a shelter very happy.
A child would love to hear that they are special.
A neighbor would love for you to send over a little treat.
Your friend may love an extra long walk in the sunshine.
.
Go forward and share your flavor.
MM

Words are like money

I often tell my students that there are many forms of debt.
Some debt will chain you and some will set you free.

Our words are like coins and those words can do many things.
Today I had someone that loved me consistently tell me the ways in which I was not "perfect".
My hair was a mess, my bra strap was showing, I weigh too much and on and on it went.

I smiled and told them that was not willing to continue this banter because as a CEO of a company those words rolling around in my head will leave me impoverished and unable to lead effectively.

I encourage you to give words as investments and not as chains of debt.

Grace as a gift

Yesterday I was standing in line at the grocery store and saw the cashier just lose it over a woman in mid-check out who had dodged out  mid-ring-up to  run back to get some blueberries.

The cashier was really annoyed and was about to drop the sale and start on my order.

That would have meant that the woman who could not remember berries would have to start her check out of her entire order over AND hustle to the back of the line.

I told the cashier with a smile, I had the ability to be generous with my time and I could hold off a bit while she gathered her forgotten berries.
The woman comes back out of breath from running with berries and starts apologizing to me.

With all my calm, I told her the same thing I told the cashier. I had the ability to be generous with my time.
It was not difficult to give her a few moments of my time to get berries. I added that they seemed important by the way she took off like a shot to RUN and get them.

Tears swell and she tells me her daughter was ill and REALLY wanted those berries. It had been a tough three months and she was tired. Too tired to come back.

I would have done the same for my kids. I told her she must be a really nice mom to go to that trouble to make sure she could deliver that gift of berries.

waves and good tidings and then my turn came with the annoyed cashier.
" Now, wasn't that worth the wait?"

Pushed out of her annoyed coma the attendant agreed.

Grace is often the most generous gift we can all give.

Create change by being open to it.

I have about 6 interns that work for me and they are all from different walks of life, different ages, and they problem solve very differently.

I had a great lesson the other day as I assigned an intern the duty of adding up a huge Ziploc bag of sales tickets from clothing I had purchased from the thrift store to stock a closet for the homeless shelter.

 She looked at the project and asked if I had any specific way I wanted it done.

I said “use your amazing skills” which is sometimes code for; I don’t care how you solve this.

My team watched in amazement as she identified that the store just have 5 different prices and she quickly made 5 piles, added how many tickets were in each pile, did some simple multiplication, and had an answer that was solved to the penny in about 10 minutes.

The other interns and I were in awe. Every single one of us would have done the task ticket by ticket, double checked the math, and it would have taken all afternoon. That’s why we all avoided the task and why it was so huge of a bag tickets.

Astonished by the ease of this task to her method of problem solving reminded me that in order to create change in the world we have to ALLOW change into our lives.

Her new ideas showed everyone on my staff that there was great benefit from grouping like things together and then sorting them.

We all have a gift to give.

I am constantly amazed to how many people have gifts to share that they are not able to recognize the fact that they have something that is greatly needed.

As an everyday philanthropist what I have learned is that you have to be very specific in the asking people for items and give them a way to recognize themselves in the “ask”

Last week I sent out an email to about 50 friends that stated

 “If you have been hoarding hotel soap please send it over, the homeless shelter is OUT”  

It only took two hours before a plastic bag was delivered to my office of about 50 products that someone had been “saving”.  

It took just 30 seconds to make 10 people very happy to have shampoo, conditioner, lotion AND soap too.

Before my email that person who had been hoarding hotel soaps had no idea that she could make TEN people feel better about their life by empowering them with the simple tools of being able to clean themselves up.

I knew.

It is our voice that is strong enough to invite others an opportunity to share in simple deeds.

Remind yourself that you have something to offer, and invite others to participate.

MM