Translator: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Words and communication are my passion,
which is why I'm here to speak to you this afternoon about the power of words.
Words count.
Words count because they condition how we think, what we do and how we feel.
Words are powerful.
Now, the third law of physics states that for every action,
there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In my lexical world, I have a similar theory, and it goes like this:
For every statement,
there is a positive, a negative
and a neutral way of making that statement.
In other words, there's a nice way, a not-so-nice way and a neutral way
of saying what you're saying.
Or as my mother said when I was growing up:
"Susan, there's always a nice way to get your point across.
Your job is to find it."
My mother was a stickler on words, a stickler.
Other people's offspring were called "children."
Not kids; kids were baby goats.
We never said "shut up" in our home.
Shut up was not civil, polite or appropriate.
We said, "Please be quiet."
And she detested the word "cute."
At almost five feet - not barely, not barely - almost five feet,
people always referred to her as "cute," and she detested it.
She said, "Babies are cute. Puppies are cute.
I don't want to be cute."
In later years, I would come to appreciate her sentiments
when a five-foot-six companion, male companion of mine,
was consistently referred to by a colleague of mine
as "your little friend."
Your little friend.
As though this person were some replica in miniature
of a real live human being.
She didn't mean to. Do we ever?
Yet how often do we debase, demean, diminish, discourage,
perhaps even destroy
the creativity of another individual because of the words we use?
And it's not about the words, because they don't remember the words,
but it is about the words
because they make you feel, and that's what they remember:
how they make you feel.
Those words can flip too.
Just as we might make people feel down, we can bring them up.
Case in point:
I was in a ballet recital as a child.
I gave new definition to the word "awful."
(Laughter)
I was horrendous.
And when I approached my mother after it,
I looked up at her, like children do,
with that guilt: "I know, you know, we both know. How did I do?"
I can still see her smile and her eyes dancing
as she looked down at me and said,
"Your potential for improvement is infinite."
(Laughter)
Many years later - always in the dance environment -
a young man would ask me to dance in a disco.
Now I'm dating myself here.
He came up, he asked me to dance, and my response was -
I was with a girlfriend who was having a meltdown; we all had those moments -
and I said, "Not right now, thank you.
I've got some issues. My friend's having a meltdown."
And he sees those three words: "not right now."
"Not right now. Does that mean I should check back later?"
And spontaneously, without even thinking,
I looked and him and said, "Yes, by all means, if some young woman" -
I was about 26 -
"Yes, by all means. If some young woman hasn't been fortunate enough
to secure your attentions by the end of the evening,
by all means, come back."
And he said -
and after he closed his mouth, he said, "I've just been shot down.
I feel so good, but I've just been shot down."
Power of words.
A dear friend of mine,
who didn't have the benefit of good parenting skills,
just mentioned last week - and it broke my heart -
she said, "You don't know what it would have meant to me
if at any point in my life, any point in my life,
my parents had just said to me, 'I believe in you. I believe in you.'"
The power of words.
How often in our daily living don't we sabotage our conversation?
How often do you say "I must, I have to,"
I must, I have to instead of choose "I want to"?
How often, right?
Like we're victims
in lives that are choreographed by someone other than ourselves.
I have to. I must.
How about the "just" and the "only"?
How many of you just or only?
Nobody just or only does anything.
You want to do business with someone who just or only?
Or do you want to do business
with somebody who focuses, concentrates or specializes?
How about that?
Focus, concentrate, specialize.
There's so many words that we use as fillers,
so many words that we use as fillers.
I just lost my train of thought. Don't you just hate that?
And sometimes you just got to come clean when that happens.
We sabotage our words with what we say.
I sent an email to a friend, and I said,
"Could you please add this man's name to our mailing list?"
And I realized that's not what I meant at all:
it wasn't a question.
It was a statement; mine was a declaration.
"Please add his name."
How often don't we do that with our emails?
You learn an awful lot about another language and culture
when you work in someone else's.
I was an interpreter for 30 years; I worked for the Italian government.
I learned some great things; it was a great gig.
The first thing they taught me is that creativity is for those -
rules are made for people who lack creativity.
That's how it goes: rules are made for people who lack creativity.
Isn't that great?
The other thing they taught me -
a lot of things, but these stick out in my mind -
the future of probability.
Do you know how the future of probability works?
Bear with me. This is lovely.
They have the word if in Italian,
"se," s-e, se.
Se dovesse piovere - if it should rain;
se dovesse nevicare - if it should snow.
But they never use it with reference to their own personal endeavors.
They say, "When I will," as though it were imminent
because it's going to happen.
Isn't that incredibly powerful and positive?
When I will finish my dissertation.
When I will write the best seller.
When I will get that job or that promotion.
Is that not great?
The power of positive thinking.
One of my strongest learning moments was with a gentleman, an accountant;
we were having a conversation in Italian.
And you know how we have certain words, expressions?
And our friends have some too,
and by association we start using those expressions? Am I right?
You with me? Okay?
And we also have words we use as fillers.
Like "like" and "you know" and "if you will,"
"outrageous," and the -ly words: "basically," "fundamentally."
They add nothing to content,
but they take up time and space, and we use them - they're habits.
Well in Italian, "you know" is "hai capito."
Hai capito, you understand, you know.
So I was telling this story,
and apparently I must have used "hai capito" more than one time.
And when I was all finished,
at the end of the conversation, he looked down at me -
very effective.
If you want to connect with someone, put your chin up like that;
it smacks of arrogance, detached, aloof; you don't really care.
He lowered his chin, and he looked at me.
And he said, "You asked me if I understood.
I'm Italian. I've been speaking Italian for 40 years, I understand it.
How long have you been speaking Italian?
Are you sure what you said is what you meant,
and what you meant is what you said?
And furthermore,
are you sure that the words you used conveyed your intention?
And if not,
would the more appropriate question not have been 'Have I explained myself?'"
Heavy, huh?
I still don't use that phrase "Do you understand?"
I was escorting a VIP delegation at the Pentagon, VIP military.
One of the junior officers came up and said,
"You guys, you guys. Could I get you to come over here, please?"
When a senior Italian navy admiral put his hands behind his back.
He came up and he said,
"Excuse me, but is 'you guys' the term you customarily use in the collective
to refer to senior military officers?"
You guys. I have no idea if she is still using that.
But it isn't all doom and gloom.
I have some cute stories too.
Another gentleman, an attaché,
was called to the Pentagon to receive an award prior to his departure.
It was a huge award.
It was the first time he winged it; usually people wrote his comments for him,
but this time he did it on his own.
He gets to the Pentagon, and he says, "Ladies and gentlemen,
I thank you very much for this honor which you give to me.
I thank you very much; it's a big honor.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
And my wife, who she cannot be here,
you know, because she already go back to my country,
she thank you from her bottom too."
(Laughter)
All in the words, all in the words.
And this issue with language
becomes even more apparent in the healthcare industry.
I went from interpreter to translator.
Now I'm a medical professional;
I'm a clinician, a speech-language pathologist.
I work in geriatrics, and I work with people recovering from stroke.
I teach them how to speak again.
I work with swallow, memory, dementia.
And it's an issue.
The biggest problem in healthcare, as you probably know,
is the ability of the medical professional
to transfer the clinical expertise into language that other people understand
so that they can make informed health choices.
Am I right?
Now, in my particular world, rehabilitative medicine,
the big issue is want.
You cannot ever make another person want -
not going to happen.
You can cajole, you can encourage, you can inspire to get them to want,
but you can't make them want.
So my first step is to get the person to want.
After I get them to want,
I have to take them to the next level, to believe in themselves - that they can.
Can is the second word.
Then, I have to get them to commit to what it's going to take
to get them to the final stage where they're functional and independent,
and that is I will.
I want; I can; I will.
The three most important words in rehabilitative medicine.
And quite frankly, those are the three most important words in any endeavor,
are they not?
I want. I can. I will.
But now we have another issue.
I don't know how it is up in this area where you come from,
but in the Washington metropolitan area,
where I come from,
a lot of the direct-care providers, the nursing assistants,
do not speak English, as their [first] language.
For those of you who are studying foreign languages, as I have,
or taught English as a second language,
you know that nuance and the subtlety in a foreign language
is the most difficult thing to teach another individual - is it not? -
despite their demonstrated competence in a language.
So we have another issue now.
It's huge in the healthcare industry.
How do we teach these direct-care providers
the difference between "try to do as much as you can on your own"
as opposed to "do it by yourself"?
Not the same message.
They use them interchangeably, but it's not the same message.
How do we teach them the difference,
and how do we help them
embrace and understand the impact on recovery
in using one over the other?
That's healthcare.
But we have a bigger issue in this country right now;
it's rampant; it's epidemic.
Can you guess what it is?
Bullying.
The means by which one person or group
puts another person or group on notice that they don't make the cut,
and they're going to make them pay.
And where does it start?
It starts with the words, doesn't it?
It's how you initially threaten people - with words.
Abuse, it starts with the words.
And I can guarantee you - I'm not an obstetrician, but I can guarantee you
that children aren't popping out of the womb casting aspersions;
they're learning it from someone
or not being corrected in the process of acquiring it.
I just know the cruelty has to stop.
A friend of mine works with at-risk middle schoolers,
He called them in one day - primarily the boys -
he called them in one day,
and he had them write a list
of every bad word they could think of for a female,
every bad word.
They came up with 37 words.
Thirty-seven!
Then he had them do the same thing for the males.
They came up with 12.
Now, if that doesn't speak to you right there, that disparity of 37 and 12,
but his message was this, his question was this,
his question was
"How would you feel
if someone called your sister or your mother one of those words?"
Lots of discussion, intense emotions.
His message: don't use those words.
Don't use those words.
I was stopped on the median strip
the other day.
You know how they come up to you with the cup, their whole history;
homeless; this, that and the other?
This gentleman came up to me, and he said,
"Hi. I'm Harry, and I'm homeless."
That's what his sign read: "Hi. I'm Harry, and I'm homeless."
Suddenly, misfortune had a name.
One word.
Harry.
There's a YouTube video that's getting a lot of play.
Perhaps some of you have seen it.
It's a wonderful video.
There's a blind man sitting on the pavement
in front of a government building.
Sign says, "I'm blind. Please help."
Contributions are sporadic, few and far between.
People are mostly just walking by like we do - it's what we do -
when a young professional woman comes out of the distance.
She sees this sign; she walks up; she stands in front of him.
He gropes out, feels for her shoes to develop a tactile identity
because he couldn't see her.
She scoots down, picks up the sign, flips it over,
hastily writes something on the back and puts it down.
Have you seen this video? Has anybody seen this video?
She puts it down, and with that she's on her way.
Suddenly, people begin to stop and read it; they actually read it.
And they leave money.
They stop; they read; they leave money.
Some time passes,
and the young lady returns from the opposite direction.
She sees the flurry of activity around this gentleman.
She walks over, stands in front of him.
He reaches out; he gropes her shoes,
and immediately recognizes that she was the young woman who was there before.
He looks up at her and says,
"Miss, please, can you tell me, what did you write on my sign?
What did you write on my sign?"
And she says, "Nothing. The same thing you wrote.
I just used different words."
And the camera focuses on the sign.
It says, "It's a beautiful day, but I can't see it."
And the trailer zooms in: "Change your words; change your world."
And so I wonder, can we?
Words count.
Words count because they condition how we think, how we feel, what we do.
Do you know that the Estonian people carried on a revolution -
no blood, no bullets, not one person lost.
They carried on a revolution with words.
Actually, it was lyrics - they were singing it;
they call it "The Singing Revolution."
True story.
But words are still words even if they're sung, right?
Words are powerful.
So I ask you, think about it:
We've split atoms, put a man on the moon,
forever changed the technology with which we're connected to one another.
But what about the communication?
What about the interpersonal skills?
What about the words?
Are we destined to have human relations be our last frontier?
So here's my thought, here's my thought:
What if, professionally, everyone tried a little bit harder
to be a little bit clearer,
a little bit more concise
and a little bit kinder, a little bit politer,
a little bit more civil in their professional dealings?
And what if socially we made an effort to find the nice way?
I mean, if there is a nice way to say something, why don't we use it
all the time?
And finally, and this is the big one; this is huge.
If - you've paid somebody a compliment before, have you not?
And you see how they light up?
You can feel that energy; it's palpable.
You've received compliments and know how good you feel, right?
What if, what if each of us each day
tried to give somebody an "I believe in you" moment.
What if each day we tried to lift somebody else's spirits with the words?
How cool would that be?
What might the impact of our collective efforts
have on the world and on communication?
Those are my thoughts.
I thought it was an idea worth spreading.
What do you think?
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
(Applause)