Seven magic words (I)

If you communicate well, you would be able to move people. Someone who moves people with his words, can move mountains. Someone who moves people, people follow.  He’s a leader. Yehuda Berg was right: “Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of […]

If you communicate well, you would be able to move people. Someone who moves people with his words, can move mountains. Someone who moves people, people follow.  He’s a leader.

Yehuda Berg was right: “Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.”

We all cherish the power to communicate appropriately, so that people collaborate and work with us.

Yehuda Berg, while writing for the huffingtonpost.com, continued:

“Our words have the power to change destinies, both our own and that of others. Often we throw around words in jest or perhaps in anger that harm and hurt and create long lasting damage. If we understood the seriousness of what we were saying we might never say it. Words have power and they have energy that we put out there into the minds, and thoughts of our children, our friends, our mates and our peers.”

Tim David in his book, “Magic Words” listed seven little words that can facilitate that power. The words can elicit yeses, direct attention, make people think and motivate.  I want to share those magical words with you today.

Getting to yes.

In order to get people to agree with you, always structure your request in such a way that would elicit a yes. We’re hard wired to favour a yes. Whenever someone says yes to us, we’re elated. Recall how you felt by getting a yes to a marriage proposal or request for promotion?

Therefore, it pays to adopt simple, yet effective strategies to get to yes.

For example, instead of saying “please fix this for me,” you could say, “can we fix this?”

That’s likely to get you a yes. And once someone says yes, he’s likely to continue saying yes.

Actually, a study showed that when salespeople got their prospects to say yes three or more times before asking them to buy, their sales jumped from 18% to 32%.

Also, don’t forget to stay in the yes mode.

What is a yes mode?

Stay positive. For example, we all tell children “I can’t” is a bad thing to say. But what some of us don’t realize is that even when we negate it, as in advising your child, “ don’t say I can’t “ still moves the conversation into the negative mode.

Instead, tell the child , “say I can!”

The same way, don’t tell the child “don’t break that!” Or “don’t litter the house.” Instead, say “keep the house clean.”

If an airplane pilot tells the passengers “don’t be concerned, we’ll reach our destination in four hours” you’re likely to be concerned.

But if he tells you that you’re going to have a smooth ride, he would keep the conversation in the yes mode.

Negative words even when negated, inspire fear, caution and even rejection.

Directing attention

Grab attention by using names.

Imagine you are in a crowded hall, you can’t even hear the person next to you. But someone from across the room calls out your name and you immediately sift through the noise and hear him.

It’s said that a person’s favorite word is his/her name. So if you want to get someone’s attention, say his name then make your point. Besides, the person is likely to be flattered when you mention their name especially in a group conversation.

I also like using names when I respond to comments on the social media. Besides the above benefits, such as feeling important, it gets people to be responsible for what they say. It’s like telling them they’re no longer anonymous, so “let’s have a human conversation.”

Interestingly, we even value things that sound like our names. That’s why statistically, someone called Cathy prefers Coke to Pepsi. And Peters prefer Pepsi.

It’s probably this insight that Coca Cola was using during a campaign in Africa that used the common names in the population. It said “share a Coke with Fatima,” “share a Coke with Ibrahim.”

Now, it would be difficult for you not to pay attention if your name was mentioned either on the billboards or on their bottle caps.

To be continued tomorrow. So you shouldn’t miss the conclusion if you want to know one word that can erase half a sentence and then increase the impact of the other half of the same sentence.

Also, you will learn the two words that you can use to motivate and make people think.