8 dangerous WORDS to immediately delete from your vocabulary

Some of my recent advertising on Facebook for my book The Four Maps of Happy,

Successful People has stirred up a lot of dormant relationships with family and friends. My cousin, Cathy Hansen (who I haven’t spoken to in several years) emailed me to say she saw my ads for The Four Maps and asked how it was going. I responded by sending her a free copy of the book which she immediately started to read. I was so impressed with what she suggested that I’d like to share it with you. It contains a list of words that you should eliminate from your vocabulary.

Hi Bob, I am through the first chapter of the Four Maps and plan on teaching it to a friend in about a half hour. Then I will sit down and do my own. One thing I noticed on page 15 is your use of the word ‘try.’ I have studied a lot about language, and I’ve learned that it is not a great idea to tell people to ‘try’ to do something. As Yoda, in Star Wars, said. "There is do or do not, there is no try." If you ‘try’ to put your finger on your nose, you either put your finger on your nose or you don't. All the ‘trying’ in the world will not put your finger ON your nose… Also, when you use the word ‘try,’ it gives people an excuse for not performing their best or is a back-door excuse to get out of something. They can use it to tell you that what you told them to do didn't work—after all, they ‘tried’ and it didn't work. :o) How many times have you asked someone to do something and heard them say, "I'll try to get it done" and you know without a shadow of a doubt that it won't get done? I teach people to eliminate the word ‘try’ from their vocabulary.

Note from Bob: Having just learned this lesson from Cathy, I reviewed The Four Maps book and found 32 examples where we used the word ‘try.’ Oops. Looks like we have some editing to do. J

Cathy continues:

I have been teaching The Power of Intentional Language for several years… Words are very powerful and can support or wreck all your good intentions. Here are some more words to edit out of your vocabulary.

• Don't, Can't, Not - The mind has trouble comprehending a negative. For example: Don't think of a purple elephant with pink stripes and roller skates. Your mind has to create an internal representation of whatever I tell you not to do in order to understand it—which makes the likelihood of you doing what I tell you not to do more likely. The solution is to give specific directions on what you want instead.
• But – The word ‘but’ negates everything before it. For example: I really love you, ‘but’ you drive me nuts sometimes. The solution is to put the part you want negated at the beginning of the sentence, such as: You drive me nuts sometimes, ‘but’ I really love you. People hear what is after the ‘but’ as the truth.
• Just - ‘Just’ gives away your power. Only use it for immediacy, such as: I ‘just’ found out I won the lottery! In addition, it sounds more powerful to say: I wanted you to know this vs I ‘just’ wanted you to know this. In the second example ‘just’ sounds wimpy like you are making an excuse. Women use it a lot more than men and they really sound less powerful when they use it. The solution is to eliminate it from your vocabulary unless you are talking about immediate time.
• Should/shouldn't - These words are designed to give guilt trips. If you want to guilt someone into doing something, you would say: You ‘should’ really do this or that. If you use it too much people will begin to avoid you. LOL. The solution is to use other more direct words to encourage or discourage someone. Some good replacements are ‘would’ or ‘could’.

I hope you enjoyed the mini-lesson.

Robert G Allen

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