A question of destiny

One of my favorite people—and one of the most impassioned men I've ever met—is Leo Buscaglia, author of Love and many other outstanding books in the area of human relations. One of the things that is great about Leo is his continued persistence in asking himself a question that his father instilled in him from the time he was a little boy. Each day at the dinner table, his father would ask, " Leo, what have you learned today? " Leo had to have an answer, and a quality one. If he hadn't learned something really interesting in school that day, he would run and get the encyclopedia to study something that he could share. He says that to this day he won't go to bed until he's learned something new that's of value. As a result he's constantly stimulating his mind, and a great deal of his passion and love for learning has come from this question, asked repeatedly, begun decades ago.

What are some questions that would be useful for you to ask of yourself on a regular basis? I know two of my favorite are the most simple. They help me to turn around any challenges that may come up in my life. They are simply, " What's great about this? " and " How can I use this? " By asking what's great about any situation, I usually find some powerful, positive meaning, and by asking how I can use it, I can take any challenge and turn it into a benefit. So what are two questions that you can use to change your emotional states or give you the resources you truly desire? Add two to the standard morning questions I've already given you, and customize them so that they meet your personal and

emotional needs.

Some of the most important questions we'll ask in our lives are " What is my life really about?, " " What am I really committed to?, " " Why am I here?, " and " Who am I? " These are incredibly powerful questions, but if you wait to get the perfect answer, you're going to be in deep trouble.

Often, the first emotional, gut-level response you get to any question is the one you should trust and act upon. This is the final point I want to make with you. There's a point at which you must stop asking questions in order to make progress. If you keep asking questions, you're going to be uncertain, and only certain actions will produce certain results. At some point, you've got to stop evaluating and start doing.

How? You finally decide what's most important to you, at least m the moment, and you use your personal power to follow through and begin to change the quality of your life. So let me ask you a question. If there was one action that you could take immediately to instantly change the quality of your emotions and feelings each and every day of your life, would you want to know about it? Then go on quickly to...

THE VOCABULARY OF ULTIMATE SUCCESS

" A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words...

the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt."

MARK TWAIN

Words... They've been used to make us laugh and cry. They can wound or heal. They offer us hope or devastation. With words we can make our noblest intentions felt and our deepest desires known. Throughout human history, our greatest leaders and thinkers have used the power of words to transform our emotions, to enlist us in their causes, and to shape the course of destiny. Words can not only create emotions, they create actions. And from our actions flow the results of our lives. When Patrick Henry stood before his fellow delegates and proclaimed, " I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!, " his words ignited a firestorm that un- leashed our forefathers' unbridled commitment to extinguish the tyranny that had suppressed them for so long.

The privileged heritage that you and I share, the choices that we have today because we live in this nation, were created by men who chose words that would shape the actions of generations to come:

When in the Course of human Events,

it becomes necessary for one People to

dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another...

This simple Declaration of Independence, this assemblage of words, became the vessel of change for a nation. Certainly, the impact of words is not limited to the United States of 201 America. During World War II, when the very survival of Great Britain was in question, one man's words helped to mobilize the will of the English people. It was once said that Winston Churchill had the unique ability to send the English language into battle. His famous call to all Britons to make this their " finest hour" resulted in courage beyond compare, and crushed Hitler's delusion about the invincibility of his war

machine.

Most beliefs are formed by words—and they can be changed by words as well. Our nation's view of racial equality was certainly shaped by actions, but those actions were inspired by impassioned words. Who can forget the moving invocation of Martin Luther King, jr., as he shared his vision, " I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live the true meaning of its creed..."?

Many of us are well aware of the powerful pan that words have played in our history, of the power that great speakers have to move us, but few of us are aware of our own power to use these same words to move ourselves emotionally, to challenge, embolden, and strengthen our spirits, to move ourselves to action, to seek greater richness from this gift we call life.

An effective selection of words to describe the experience of our lives can heighten our most empowering emotions. A poor selection of words can devastate us just as surely and just as swiftly. Most of us make unconscious choices in the words that we use; we sleepwalk our way through the maze of possibilities available to us. Realize now the power that your words command if you simply choose them wisely.

What a gift these simple symbols are! We transform these unique shapes we call letters (or sounds, in the case of the spoken word) into a unique and rich tapestry of human experience. They provide us with a vehicle for expressing and sharing our experience with others; however, most of us don't realize that the words you habitually choose also affect how you communicate with yourself and therefore what you experience.

Words can injure our egos or inflame our hearts—we can instantly change any emotional experience simply by choosing new words to describe to ourselves what we're feeling. If, however, we tail to master words, and if we allow their selection to be determined strictly by unconscious habit, we may be denigrating our entire experience of life. If you describe a magnificent experience as being " pretty good, " the rich texture of it will be smoothed and made flat by your limited use of vocabulary. People with an impoverished vocabulary live an impoverished emotional life; people with rich vocabularies have a multihued palette of colors with which to paint their experience, not only for others, but for themselves as well.

Most people are not challenged, though, by the size of the vocabulary they consciously understand, but rather by the words they choose to use. Many times, we use words as " short cuts, " but often these short cuts shortchange us emotionally. To consciously control our lives, we need to consciously evaluate and improve our consistent vocabulary to make sure that it is pulling us in the direction we desire instead of that which we wish to avoid. You and I must realize that the English language is filled

with words that, in addition to their literal meanings, convey distinct emotional intensity. For example, if you develop a habit of saying you " hate" things—you " hate" your hair; you " hate" your job; you " hate" having to do something—do you think this raises the intensity of your negative emotional states more than if you were to use a phrase like " I prefer something else"?

Using emotionally charged words can magically transform your own state or someone else's. Think of the word " chivalry." Does it conjure up different images and have more emotional impact than words like " politeness" or " gentlemanliness"? I know that for me it does. Chivalry makes me think of a valiant knight seated on a white steed, championing his raven-haired damsel; it conveys nobility of spirit, a great round table about which are seated men of honor, the whole Arthurian ethic—in short, the wonder of Camelot. Or how do the words " impeccable" or " integrity" compare to " well done" and " honesty"? The words " pursuit of excellence" certainly create more intensity than " trying to make things better."

For years I've observed firsthand the power of changing just one key word in communicating with someone, and noted how it instantly changes the way people feel—and often the way they subsequently behaved. After working with hundreds of thousands of people, I can tell you something I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, something that at first glance may be hard to believe: Simply by changing your habitual vocabulary—the words you consistently use to describe the emotions of your life—you can instantaneously change how you think, how you feel, and how you live.

The experience that first triggered this insight for me occurred several years ago in a business meeting. I was with two men, one who used to be the CEO of one of my companies and the other a mutual associate and good friend, and in the midst of the meeting we received some rather upsetting news. Someone with whom we were negotiating was obviously " trying to take unfair advantage, " had violated the integrity of our understanding, and it appeared he had the upper hand. To say the least, this angered and upset me, but although I was caught up in the situation, I couldn't help but notice how differently the two people sitting next to me responded to the same information.

My CEO was out of control with rage and fury while my associate was hardly moved by the situation. How could all three of us hear of these actions that should have impacted us all equally (we all had the same stake in the negotiation), yet respond in such radically different ways? Quite honestly, the intensity of my CEO's response to the situation seemed even to me to be disproportionate to what had occurred. He kept talking about how " furious" and " enraged" he was, as his face turned beet-red and the veins in his forehead and neck visibly protruded. He clearly linked acting on his rage with either eliminating pain or gaining pleasure. When I asked him what being enraged meant to him, why he was allowing himself to be so intense about this, through clenched teeth he said, " If you're in a rage, you get stronger, and when you're strong, you can make things happen—you can turn anything around! " He regarded the emotion of rage as a resource for getting himself out of the experience of pain and into the pleasure of feeling like he was in control of the business.

I then turned to the next question in my mind: Why was my friend responding to the situation with almost no emotion at all? I said to him, " You don't seem to be upset by this. Aren't you angry? " And my CEO said, " Doesn't it make you FURIOUS? " My friend simply said, " No, it's not worth being upset over." As he said this, I realized that in the several years 1 had known him, I'd never seen him become very upset about anything. I asked him what being upset meant to him, and he responded, " If you get upset, then you lose control." " Interesting, " I thought. " What happens if you lose control? " He said matter-of-factly, " Then the other guy wins."

I couldn't have asked for a greater contrast: one person clearly linked the pleasure of taking control to becoming angry, while the other linked the pain of losing control to the same emotion. Their behavior obviously reflected their beliefs. I began to examine my own feelings. What did I believe about this? For years I've believed that I can handle anything it I'm angry, but 1 also believe that I don't have to be angry to do so. I can be equally effective in a peak state of happiness. As a result, I don't avoid anger—I use it if I get in that state—nor do I pursue it, since I can access my strength without being " furious." What really interested me was the difference in the words that we all used to describe this experience. I had used the words " angry" and " upset, " my CEO had used the words " furious" and " enraged, " and my friend had said that he was " a bit annoyed" by the experience. I couldn't believe it! Annoyed?

I turned to him and said, " That's all you feel, just a little bit annoyed? You must get really angry or upset some of the time." He said, " Not really. It takes a lot to make that happen, and it almost never occurs." I asked him, " Do you remember the time the IRS took a quarter- of a million dollars of your money, and it was their mistake? Didn't it take you two and a half years to get the money back? Didn't that make you unbelievably angry? " My CEO chimed in, " Didn't that make you LIVID? " He said, " No, it didn't upset me. Maybe I was a little bit peeved." Peeved? I thought this was the stupidest word I'd ever heard! I would never have used a word like that to describe my emotional intensity. How could this wealthy and successful businessman go around using a word like " peeved" and still keep a straight face? The answer is, he didn't keep a straight face! He seemed almost to enjoy talking about things that would have driven me crazy.

I began to wonder, " If I did use that word to describe my emotions, how would I begin to feel? Would I find myself smiling where I used to be stressed? Hmmm, " I thought, " maybe this warrants some looking into." For days after that, I continued to be intrigued by the idea of using my friend's language patterns and seeing what it would do to my emotional intensity. What might happen if, when I was feeling really angry, I could turn to somebody and say, " This really peeves me! "? Just the thought of it made me laugh—it was so ridiculous. For fun, I decided to give it a shot. I got my first opportunity to use it after a long night flight when I arrived at my hotel. Because one of my staff had neglected to handle the check-in for me, I had the privilege of standing at the front desk for an extra fifteen or twenty minutes, physically exhausted and at my emotional threshold. The clerk dragged himself to the check-in counter and began to hunt-and-peck my name into the computer at a pace that would make a snail impatient. I felt " a bit of anger" welling up inside of me, so I turned to the clerk and said, " You know, I know this isn't your fault, but right now I'm exhausted and I need to get to my room quickly because the longer I stand here the more I fear I will become a bit PEEVED."

The clerk glanced up at me with a somewhat perplexed look, and then broke a smile. I smiled back; my pattern was broken. The emotional volcano that had been building up inside of me instantly cooled, and then two things happened. I actually enjoyed visiting for a few moments with the clerk, and he sped up. Could just putting a new label on my sensations be enough to break my pattern and truly change my experience? Could it really be that easy? What a concept! Over the next week, I tried my new word over and over again. In each case, I found that saying it had the impact of immediately lowering my emotional intensity. Sometimes it made me laugh, but at the very minimum it stopped the momentum of being upset from rushing me into a state of anger. Within two weeks, I didn't even have to work on using the word: it became habitual. It became my first choice in describing my emotions, and I found myself no longer getting in these extremely angry states at all. I became more and more fascinated with this tool that I'd stumbled across. I realized that by changing my habitual vocabulary, I was transforming my experience; I was using what I would later call " Transformational Vocabulary." Gradually, I began to experiment with other words, and I found that if I came up with words that were potent enough, I could instantly lower or increase my intensity about virtually

anything.

How does this process really work? Think of it this way: imagine that your five senses funnel a series of sensations to your brain. You're getting visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory stimuli, and they are all translated by your sense organs into internal sensations. Then they must be organized into categories. But how do we know what these images, sounds, and other sensations mean? One of the most powerful ways that man has learned to quickly decide what sensations mean (is it pain or pleasure?) is to create labels for them, and these labels are what you and I know as " words."

Here's the challenge: all of your sensations are coming to you through this funnel, like liquid sensation poured through a thin spout into various molds called words. In our desire to make decisions quickly, rather than using all of the words available to us and finding the most appropriate and accurate description, we often force the experience into a disempowering mold. We form habitual favorites: molds that shape and transform our life experience. Unfortunately, most of us have not consciously

evaluated the impact of the words we've grown accustomed to using. The problem occurs when we start consistently pouring any form of negative sensation into the word-mold of " furious" or " depressed" or " humiliated" or " insecure." And this word may not accurately reflect the actual experience. The moment we place this mold around our experience, the label we put on it becomes our experience. What was " a bit challenging" becomes " devastating."

For example, my CEO used " furious, " " livid, " and " enraged"; I called it " angry" or " upset"; and when it came to my friend, he poured[66] his experience into the mold of " peeved" or " annoyed." What's interesting is that all of us, I discovered, use these same patterns of words to describe multitudes of frustrating experiences. You and I need to know that we can all have the same sensations, but the way in which we organize them—the mold or word we use for them—becomes our experience. I later found that by using my friend's mold (the words " peeved" or " annoyed")

I instantly was able to change the intensity of my experience. It became something else. This is the essence of Transformational Vocabulary: the words that we attach to our experience become our experience. Thus, we must consciously choose the words we use to describe our emotional states, or suffer the penalty of creating greater pain than is truly warranted or appropriate.

Literally, words are used to re-present to us what our experience of life is. In that representation, they alter our perceptions and feelings.

Remember, if three people can have the same experience, yet one person feels rage, another feels anger, and the third feels annoyance, then obviously the sensations are being changed by each person's translation.

Since words are our primary tool for interpretation or translation, the way we label our experience immediately changes the sensations produced in our nervous systems. You and I must realize that words do indeed create a biochemical effect.

If you doubt this, I'd like you to honestly consider whether or not there are words that, if someone were to use them, would immediately create an emotional reaction. If someone hurls a racial slur at you, how does that make you feel? Or if someone were to call you a four-letter word, for example, wouldn't that change your state? There's probably a big difference between someone calling you by the initials " S.O.B." and having them articulate in graphic detail the phrase these letters stand for.

Wouldn't it produce a different level of tension in your body than if they were to call you an " angel"? Or a " genius"? Or a " dude"? We all link tremendous levels of pain to certain words. When I interviewed Dr. Leo Buscaglia, he shared with me the findings of a research study done at an eastern university in the late fifties. People were asked, " How would you define communism? " An astonishing number of the respondents were terrorized even by the question, but not many could actually define it—all they knew was that it was horrifying! One woman even went so far as to say, " Well, I don't really know what that means, but there hadn't better be any in Washington." One man said that he knew everything he needed to know about Communists and that what you needed to do was kill them! But he couldn't even explain what they were. There is no denying the power of labels to create sensations and emotions.

" Words form the thread on which we string our experiences."

ALDOUS HUXLEY

As I began to explore the power of vocabulary, I still found myself fighting the idea that something as simplistic as changing the words that we use could ever make such a radical difference in our life experience.

But when my study of language intensified, I came across some surprising facts that began to convince me that words absolutely do filter and transform experience. For instance, I found that, according to Compton's Encyclopedia, English contains at least 500, 000 words, and I've since read from other sources that the total may be closer to 750, 000 words! English definitely has the largest number of words of any language on earth today, with German running a distant second, tallying roughly half the number.

What I found so fascinating was that, with the immense number of words we could possibly use, our habitual vocabulary is extremely limited. Various linguists have shared with me that the average person's working vocabulary consists of only between 2, 000 and 10, 000 words. Conservatively estimating English to contain half a million words, that means we regularly use only Ѕ of 1 percent to 2 percent of the language!

What's an even greater tragedy? Of these words, how many do you think describe emotions? I was able to find over 3, 000 words related to human emotion by going through a group of thesauruses. What struck me was the proportion of words that describe negative versus positive emotions. By my count, 1, 051 words describe positive emotions, while 2, 086 (al- most twice as many!) describe negative emotions. Just as one example, I found 264 words to describe the emotion of sadness—words like " despondent, " " sullen, " " heavy-hearted, " " moody, " " woeful, " " grievous, " " tearful, " " melancholy" —yet only 105 to describe cheerfulness, as in " blithe, " " jaunty, " " perky, " " zestful, " and " buoyant." No wonder people feel bad more than they feel good!

As I described to you in Chapter 7, when participants at my Date With Destiny seminar make out their list of emotions that they feel in a week, the majority of them come up with only about a dozen. Why? It's because we all tend to experience the same emotions again and again: certain people tend to be frustrated all of the time, or angry, or insecure, or frightened, or depressed. One of the reasons is that they constantly use these same words to describe their experience. If we were to analyze more critically the sensations we have in our bodies, and be more creative in our way of evaluating things, we might attach a new label to our experience and thereby change our emotional reality.

I remember reading years ago about a study conducted in a prison. Typically, it was found that when inmates experienced pain, one of the few ways they could communicate it was through physical action—their limited vocabulary limited their emotional range, channeling even the slightest feelings of discomfort into heightened levels of violent anger. What a contrast to someone like William F. Buckley, whose erudition and command of the language allow him to paint such a broad picture of emotions and thus represent within himself a variety of sensations! If we want to change our lives and shape our destiny, we need to consciously select the words we're going to use, and we need to constantly strive to expand our level of choice.

To give you further perspective, the Bible uses 7, 200 different words; the poet and essayist John Milton's writing included 17, 000; and it's said that William Shakespeare used over 24, 000 words in his varied works, 5, 000 of them only once. In fact, he's responsible for creating or coining many of the English words we commonly use today. Here's a list of just a few you might find interesting:

RIPPINGLY ON THE TONGUE

Here, from the book, Brush Up Your Shakespeare! by Michael Macrone, is a smattering of powerful, state-inducing words coined by the master of the English language, Shakespeare.

amazement money's worth savagery

arch-villain moonbeam shipwrecked

assassination mortifying shooting star

bloodstained to negotiate to sire

bluster nimble-footed to sneak

to champion obscene to squabble

cold-hearted Olympian stealthy

disgraceful pageantry to swagger

eventful to perplex tardiness

fathomless to puke time-honored

gallantry puppy dog to torture

hostile on purpose tranquil

invulnerable quarrelsome transcendence

jaded radiance trippingly

lackluster reliance unearthly

laughable remorseless watchdog

lustrous rose-cheeked yelping

madcap sacrificial zany

majestic

Linguists have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that culturally we're shaped by our language. Doesn't it make sense that the English language is so verb-oriented? After all, as a culture we're very active and pride ourselves on our focus of taking action. The words we use consistently affect the way we evaluate, and therefore the way we think. By contrast, the Chinese culture places a high value on that which does not change, a fact reflected in the many dialects featuring a predominance of nouns rather than verbs. From their perspective, nouns represent things that will last, while verbs (as actions) will be here today and gone tomorrow.

Thus, it's important to realize that words shape our beliefs and impact our actions. Words are the fabric from which all questions are cut. As we noted in the last chapter, by changing one word in a question, we can instantly change the answer we'll get for the quality of our lives.

The more I pursued an understanding of the impact of words, the more impressed I became with their power to sway human emotion, not only within myself, but within others as well.

" Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know men."

CONFUCIUS

One day I began to realize that this idea, as simple as it was, was no fluke, that Transformational Vocabulary was a reality, and that by changing our habitual words, we could literally change the emotional patterns of our lives. Further, we could therefore mold the actions, directions, and ultimate destinies of our lives. One day I was sharing these distinctions with a longtime friend of mine. Bob Bays. As I did so, I could see him light up like a Christmas tree. He said, " Wow! I have another distinction to give you." He began to relate an experience to me that he'd had recently. He, too, had been on the road keeping an intense schedule and meeting everyone else's demands. When he finally came home, all he wanted to do was have some " space." He has a home on the ocean in Malibu, but it's a very small place, not designed to have house guests, much less three or tour.

When he arrived on his doorstep, he found that his wife had invited her brother to stay with them, and that his daughter, Kelly, who was supposed to visit for two weeks, had decided to stay for two months. To add insult to injury, someone had turned off the VCR that he'd preset for a football game he'd been looking forward to viewing for days! As you can imagine, he hit his own " emotional threshold, " and when he found out who had turned off his VCR—his daughter—he immediately unloaded on her, screaming all the four-letter words he could think of. This was the very first time in her life that he had even raised his voice to her, much less used language of that color. She immediately burst into tears.

Witnessing this scene. Bob's wife, Brandon, broke into peals of laughter. Since this was so unlike Bob's normal behavior, she assumed this was an outrageous and massive pattern interrupt. In reality, he wished he had been doing a pattern interrupt. After the smoke began to clear, and she realized he was actually furious, she became concerned, so she gave him some very valuable feedback. She said, " Bob, you're acting so strangely. You never act this way. You know, I noticed something else: you keep using a certain word that I've never heard you use before. Usually when you're stressed, you say you're overloaded, but lately I hear you talking all the time about how you're overwhelmed. You never say that; Kelly uses that word, and when she does, she feels this same kind of rage and behaves very much like you just did."

" Wow, " I began to think as Bob told me the story, " Is it possible that, by adopting someone else's habitual vocabulary, you began to adopt their emotional patterns as well? " And isn't this especially true

if you've adopted not only their words, but also their volume, intensity, and tonality, too?

" In the beginning was the Word..."

JOHN 1: 1

I'm sure that one of the reasons we often become like the people we spend time with is that we do adopt some of their emotional patterns by adopting some of their habitual vocabulary. People who spend any amount of time with me soon find themselves using words like " passionate, " " outrageous, " and " spectacular" to describe their experiences. Can you imagine the difference that produces in their positive states as compared to someone who says they're merely feeling " okay"? Can you imagine how using the word " passion" could cause you to peg your emotional scale? It's a word that transforms, and because I consistently use it, my life has more emotional juice.

Transformational Vocabulary can allow us to intensify or diminish any emotional state, positive or negative. This means it gives us the power to take the most negative feelings in our lives and lower their intensity to the point where they no longer bother us, and take the most positive experiences and move them to even greater heights of pleasure and empowerment.

Later that day, as Bob and I were having lunch, we became immersed in a series of projects we were working on together. At one point, he turned to me and said, " Tony, I can't believe that anyone in the world could ever be bored." I agreed. " I know what you mean. Seems crazy, doesn't it? " He said, " Yeah, boredom's not even in my vocabulary." Just as he said that, I asked, " What did you just say? Boredom is a word that's not in your vocabulary... Do you remember what we were talking about earlier? It's not in your vocabulary, and you don't experience the feeling.

Hmmm. Is it possible that we don't experience certain emotions because we don't have a word to represent them? "