Expand your vocabulary to find the precise word for what you are seeing and feeling. The greater your vocabulary, the more likely that you’ll know and be able to summon exactly the right words to describe your experience.
We only see what we have words for. We only feel what we have words for. I’m standing in front of a hedge of shrubs, evergreens, or poto carpus, which is the name of this particular shrub. And by the way, they make a drug for leukemia patients who are going through chemotherapy from this plant. But if I don’t have the word poto carpus, I don’t see it, but I see a shrub. And the same is true for our feelings. I’m mad, happy, sad, happier, glad that’s pretty limiting. What kind of mad? Where’s it living in my body? So here’s the Nudge. Use the most precise word possible for what it is you’re seeing and feeling and expand your vocabulary. So you have more precise words for the world around you. The greater your vocabulary is for what you’re seeing and feeling, you will see more and you will feel more. I’m David Marquet. That’s your Leadership Nudge.
