Watch Your Words — It Impacts Your World More Than You Know
I spent the first week of 2023 in Savannah, Georgia, at a retreat for creative professionals hosted by Ilise Benun of Marketing Mentor and Nancy Ruzow of Creatives Roundtable.
Beneath Savannah's storied live oaks dripping with that iconic Spanish moss, I connected with dear people I knew but hadn’t met in person, and new people who quickly came to feel like old friends.
We laughed hard, harder than I have in a long time. That alone was cathartic.
Trawling Savannah’s cobbled and bricked streets taking in history, architecture, and art—both ancient and modern—at the pace of a Southern drawl was as delicious as the peach cobbler for breakfast my last morning in town.
Two themes emerged during this time of being together and alone:
The power of truly being yourself in how you do your business.
The power of your words.
Being yourself in your business… it’s something I’ve talked and written about often. Yet at the retreat I was reminded how difficult this can be to put into practice. As a client once told me and which I forevermore quote, “You cannot read your label when you’re inside your own jar.”
I need outside perspective just as much as I provide that for our clients.
It's why I continue to invest in coaching and mentorship because having that someone else's expertise and vantage point on my business continues to be the number one lever of its expansion.
As for the power of your words… well, to someone whose profession centers around language that truth is obvious. During the retreat I was struck by contrast in the way people described their hopes and dreams and fears. For some, their words were an almost unconscious self-admonishment, honestly painful for me to hear. Others spoke in a naturally self-affirming way.
Later, at the start of one of the historic home tours I came across this plaque:
I paid attention to how the tour guide spoke about those who'd lived their lives in the home and on the property as enslaved laborers. She was careful and respectful with her choice of words, affording some measure of posthumous dignity to these individuals who’d been stripped of it during their lifetimes.
Of course our external language matters a lot, in business, in relationships. Perhaps more importantly is the language you use when speaking to yourself, about yourself. Do the words you use internally encourage or disparage? Please pay close attention.
The impact you are diligently working to have in the world begins within the one inside you. So pay attention to how you speak to yourself, the words you use externally and internally. It impacts your world more than you know.
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