Episode Transcript

Hey what’s up? What’s up? What’s up, everybody? Welcome back to THE a.m guys, welcome back to five minute rants. I’m your host, Michael Abernathy. And welcome to the show predicated on the journey of life business. Hope life is treating you well guys, I’m honestly doing better than I deserve. And I’m really blessed.

Well, everybody, I’m going to go ahead and just get straight on into this, I want to talk about language. And first, I want to talk about a definition. And this comes from a lot and just being in business and working a lot with clients is comes in a lot with negotiation. I’ve been told this term so many times, like, hey, we just need this, it’s really simple, right? And What happens is, we end up going down this path, normally of argument from technical to simplicity, and What is actually happening is with clients, like, Oh, I just need a website, I just need marketing, or oh, I just need this sort of process I need I need this roadmap, I need this build whatever. And like it’s just really simple, right? It shouldn’t be a lot, it should be time.

And What happens is, there’s two things occurring when this happens. One, it’s a definitional problem, which is What I want to talk about today is definition how language matters. And then the other is a value problem. And so it’s a value problem, because the client doesn’t see the value, but as a language problem, because simple, is being taken out of context. And I’m giving you an example of this, because it’s just going to go into the rest of the podcast, and the rest of the show or the rant. And the point is this language matters. Because when a client or a lead comes up and says, Oh, it should just be so simple. It’s so easy. Simple, does not equal easy. Simple means simple, right? Simple means that the concept is easy to understand that What I really want is very easy, or very, not dumbed down, but very clear, concise, and understandable by a large group of people. Right? Simple does not equal brief, simple, doesn’t equal, just quick and cheap. Okay, simple means simple. And this is What I is What I want to talk about. I know that sounds like a juxtaposition, but simple really only equals simple. And Here’s why.

The way, the way that we conceptualize words, the way that we think the way that we perceive language and words, actually is directly correlated with the way we think. So if we actually understand words, that simple is a radically different word than brief or simple is a radically different word than easy or simple is a radically different word than cheap. It helps us negotiate it helps us talk, it helps us move forward in life. And it is very interesting because the way you think, in the way that you perceive and the way that you understand language, and how people use language, because you got to understand a couple fronts, how they’re using it, how you using it, and What it actually means that directly correlates with everything we do in life.

I mean, it impacts every area of our life. It impacts every area from being marketed to from going grocery shopping, from raising kids, to having relationships with adults, there’s a conversation that’s happened the other night with a really good group of my friends. And there are two people talking and they were just on two different pages, but using the same word. And so this happens a lot in negotiation. And this happens a lot in just business and life in general. And What I found by just observing and watching What I’ve done, What others do, and What we do as people is, we will use words, but we are unwilling to actually stop and see how the other party is using that word or What the other party means by that word. And so I’m trying to get at this. And this is What I want to get at. Even though we have a standardized definition of all words, aka the dictionary. Nobody really uses that definition. They use it in terms of their context, they use it in terms of how they grew up, they use it in terms of their culture, right. They use it in terms of where they grew up at who raised them how that word was used, with other suggested meanings other than the face value because it is often very hard and this is very hard for us as people it is very hard to take things at face value.

Most of us grew up in homes. And most of us grew up in society and in different areas of society where things are not supposed to be taken at face value. We’re looking at things and double guessing and wondering What other party means. But coming back to really go wow, simple does not equal anything other than simple. It is very profound and world changing. And I know this may seem like an abstract concept to some of y’all. It did to me. As I started thinking about some of these things. It’s like why does it matter? And it really matters this because ironically, it actually makes your life simpler when everything’s taken at face value or when you stop and ask questions about What people actually mean.

Anyways guys, I’m out of time, so I’ll catch you later. Peace.