#135 Your Word Reputation—Making Your Words Matter

Rachel Denning (00:00.878)
Hey my friends, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life Podcast. So excited to share this and, oh, and actually it is a request. Somebody sent me a message via Instagram and said, hey, can you do a podcast about this? And kind of explain the situation. I was like, oh man, that is relevant and needed and frustrating and irritating in ourselves and in others.

And so I wanted to just share some thoughts from my own experiences and share some great quotes and stories and really help drive this home so that we get a greater understanding. Isn't that what it's all about my friends? Isn't it? When we have truly have greater understanding, it transforms us under understanding can change the way we see ourselves and see the world, the way we live. And once we shift that paradigm,

Everything else shifts with it as well. I mean, that's really why we're here. We're all here together to try to gain a deeper understanding and I hope you make this a part of your life quest and your mission and just the way you do life to constantly be seeking greater understanding every day. It's so easy because we have so many books and so many resources, so many podcasts, so many resources on the internet. Everything's available.

It's really easy to learn something new every day that gives us greater understanding. But ironically, with all the daily additions of understanding, ignorance is spreading. It's crazy. It blows my mind. With more and more truth and knowledge available every day, ignorance continues to spread. And instead of gaining deep understanding, we often slip.

deeper into ignorance. And so it has to be an intentional effort just because it's there just because it exists and it's easily and readily available. Doesn't mean it comes into our lives or into our minds without intention. Okay, anyways, cool little side note great little principle there. But what we're gonna talk about today is this. Have you ever had someone like say they would do something maybe like get together with you or your family. And so you get all prepared and excited and you anticipate it for days or weeks.

Rachel Denning (02:20.622)
And then shortly before the appointed time, they just totally bail out with, with no significant reason. Oh, it's so irritating. And I remember years ago, this was when Rachel and I were first married and either didn't have children yet or, and, and during the years when we had small children, it happened, it happened regularly. We were just trying to get together. We were just trying to meet new people. We're trying to get together with people and they're like, yeah, let's do it. It'd be great. That's awesome. Playing this. We.

They'd either say that and never follow through, right? Oh yeah, we should do, let's get together. Let's do that. Let's make this happen. And then it never happened. Or that we would set a date and we'd say something and then shortly before, even sometimes minutes before they'd be like, yeah, we can't do it. Things changed. And it would happen, you know, some usually with the same people, you know, it became a pattern or a habit for them.

But with others too, and then, and again, we were never 100 % on this either. And, and so it would, it's just like, oh, right. That frustration of not following through on the things you say. And so I want to dive in, that's just one example, but I want to dive into this, this principle, this idea for all of us. Again, this is never for a guilt trip or anything, but just, just a lesson for all of us to learn to be better, to examine ourselves, to have greater awareness and to level up.

Let's follow through on our words. See, our words have the meaning that we give them. You know, other people, interestingly, other people are always interpreting and adding meaning to our words. And judgment, right? When we say things, especially the people around us a lot and hear us a lot, they will pass judgment on our words. You know this, you and I do it too, and others do it with us. You know, if you have somebody who constantly is saying they'll do something, but they never do it,

Then the next time they say, I'll do something. You're like, uh huh. Yep. And you might look there and you smile and say, okay. And then your head, you're like, yeah, right. They've said that before. They're not going to fall through. All right. So the, it's the classic, classic principle of the boy who cried wolf, right? He called out and so everyone ran and he laughed at him. He called out everyone ran. They laughed at him. Third time he called out in a real crisis. They're like, yeah, he's just doing it again. And it came into our, it all sheep. Let's.

Rachel Denning (04:51.694)
make our words count. For so many people, their words mean little or nothing. They say whatever they think others want to hear with little thought of making those words count. In fact, many people also say things to themselves all the time that they don't follow through on. And maybe that's a big indication or reminder for all of us.

It's what we say to ourselves is where this all begins. If I say to myself, I'm going to get up, I better get up. If I say to myself, I'm going to take a cold shower, I get in that cold shower, whether I like it or not. And I don't, I don't like it, my friends. And in winter time, yowzers, it's a lot colder and it's a lot harder. And we like to keep our room cold because it's easier to sleep. We sleep better. And so I have a cold room, ice.

cold winter water and there's a cold bathroom. Oh man, it's hard. But that's one of those beautiful things when I say, you know, I am going to take a cold shower. I take a cold shower because it's really good for you. But you do hard things. If you say you're going to get up, don't hit your snooze button 20 times. Do it. If you tell your kids you're going to play with them, play with them. You know what? And just saying that right now, reminding me, I told my son I'd shoot a rocket with him and I have not shot a rocket with him.

So as soon as I'm done recording this, I'm going to go shoot a rocket with my son. I tell my little girls, I'm going to jump on the trampoline. I go out and I jump on the trampoline with them. Even when it's inconvenient, even when I'm exhausted. And if you say, and again, I'm not a hundred percent on this. I'm not, I'm not here saying I am the example, but man, I'm trying so hard. And we've been doing well for, this was what 18 years ago. And some of this started happening with, for to me and Rachel. I'm like, we don't.

We don't like this when people don't honor their word. And so our, our reaction was, okay, let's make sure we honor our word. And we've been working on it. Your words matter more than you think. We've been conditioned and trained in our society to throw around empty words for so many people. Their words are like cotton candy, all fluff and very little substance.

Rachel Denning (07:17.485)
I hope that imagery just sticks in our minds. Our words can be like cotton candy with all fluff and no substance, or they can be solid, they can be meaningful, and it's up to us. Please carefully consider your words and their implications, and do not be afraid to say no. I think that's one of the greatest...

Struggles we're facing is this fear of saying no and so we say yes all the time endlessly saying yes when in reality we have very little intention of falling through or we're kind of What's the word kind of Incompetent in our Or just not not very good at assessing our ability to follow through right? So some people have the intention to follow through but just

don't have the skill set, the productivity, the time management, the energy management, just the ability to plan and strategize and see clearly what you can actually do. And so we say yes to far more things that we can actually follow through on. And sometimes we say yes because we want to say yes in the moment. Somehow we've been made afraid to say no. So one of my invitations, my friends, there are very few of us who don't need to say no more often.

And Rachel and I now we've got we've gotten pretty intonation about this and we say look if it's not an absolute yes, then it is a definite no. We just have to be more tenacious when when you're striving to be a high achiever and a high performer and go get it when you're trying to live in just absolutely extraordinary life and you value time like you should. You just can't say yes to that many things. You say yes only to things that absolutely matter and add value.

Otherwise you're saying no a lot more. So please be willing to say no more often. Do it kindly, do it tactfully, unless it's just, you're like, this is right in line with how I want to do life and how I want to go. And again, I'm not saying you say no to every service opportunity or every opportunity to get together, evaluate it quickly. And here's how you can evaluate quickly. Maybe this is a little tool set we got examined right here together. The way to be able to evaluate it quickly is to already decided

Rachel Denning (09:42.925)
beforehand what you value most. Like you have all of your priorities and values written somewhere, like in your philosophy journal, right? Or in this, then you're in some kind of journal, some kind of document, you've got it written down, you've thought through it, you know what really truly matters to you and what doesn't. You've made a clear list on paper, you got to do this on paper. Don't skip this, like it makes a huge difference. It might seem elementary, but do it, I promise it's amazing.

You make a list on paper of the things you want in your life and the things you do not want in your life. And you get clear about what's acceptable and what's not. And you might have like this middle zone where kind of depending on the circumstance of the day, you're like, yeah, I might allow some of these things, but you've got to have some definite nos and you got to have some yeses. So the thing, you know, your yeses are like, well, I'm always going to say yes to adventures with my kids, right? Creating Epic memories. Always going to say yes to that.

I'm going to say no almost all the time to TV or shows or silly games or just trivial entertainment. And he's just, no, no, I'm not going to do that. To what we call tribal events and tribal functions. We're going to say no to that. I got, you know, all the tribe and you know, it's just the, just people in general, like, oh, these little tribal functions, we're going to do this and have this activity and do this thing and this meeting and blah, blah, blah.

And at the end of it, it was like, what in the world was that? It like was a waste of time and there was nothing really productive or effective done or no real connections. I mean, nothing really substantial happened. Those things I say no to all the time. Meetings that don't matter. No, absolute no. Right. And, and if you're in charge of the meeting, say no to meetings that don't matter. If you have to have a meeting, in fact, okay, a little tangent here. Don't have a meeting unless you

absolutely have to. And if you do make it count, ask yourself every time, will this be worth the attendees time value your time value their time and make it worth it. And at the end of every meeting say, was that worth it? Was it worth their time being here? Was it with your time being there? Man, sometimes we have meetings that just are not worth it. All right. Anyways, a little, little exciting, fun tangent there.

Rachel Denning (12:08.493)
But just be really careful about what you commit to, what you agree to. Be tenacious about this. If you say you're going to do something, then you'd better do it. And so be careful with your words, be careful what you say yes to, and follow through. And if in extenuating circumstances you cannot follow through, boy, you better make as much room and time and room for it to let people know and let them know why.

Otherwise you're, you're establishing your reputation. You always are. You and I always, we are always establishing our reputation and we're telling people through our actions and our words and our, our fall through all that we're, we're letting people know how to measure our words. We're training them. We're training them how to measure our words. Man, this stuff is good and so important on a related note of how important our words are. So the first side is like, look, if you say you're going to do something, do it.

Otherwise say no. Just break away from the social conditioning of just constantly throwing out cotton candy words and just saying what we think other people want to hear. If you don't mean it, don't say it. Don't be rude. Don't be mean. But don't follow along. Learn how to be diplomatic and tactful and don't just say what you think others want you to say. Be honest. Be straight. Just say it. Say it nicely, but say it!

And if you, if you have no intention to do that thing, then just say no and just say it like that. No, thank you. And they're like, what? And you'll see, you'll see the reactions because it's, it's outside of the social conditioning. They'll be like, huh? Did they just say no? Is that even possible? And I think it'll be liberating to a lot of people when you just say, no, thanks. It's just beautiful. It's refreshing. It was wonderful.

So I'm in some masterminds and we lead mastermind group and I joined a new one recently. It's just a very small group of successful business owners. And one of them said, just right out of the gate, it was awesome. Just right out of the gate, she's like, hey look, I just want to put this out there right now. I am not in the least bit interested in trivial conversation. I'm way too busy, my time is way too valuable to just come and just chit chat. When we meet, let's get things done. And I...

Rachel Denning (14:36.397)
I couldn't cheer loud enough. Amen, sister. Yeah, that's how we need to do things. There's idle chit chat and wasting of time and just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like it's just cotton candy. Like we've got to get rid of that. So again, I'm not this isn't to be rude or mean. It's just to be let's give more value, more weight to our time and to our words. So the second part then is how our words affect others in.

in the way we say things and what we say to people. So the first one is again, follow through commitments. You know, if we say we're going to do something, do it. We were going to be on time, be on time. You're going to go somewhere, go like make your words matter. So here's the second part. This is about, this is about almost four years ago. We were living for a short time in Strasbourg, France, amazing place. And my daughter Kaia was reading this book.

I think the book was called Out of My Mind. And the author is brilliant. But as these are some notes I wrote down, but as I understand it, she's brilliant, but her body doesn't work and doesn't allow her to speak or communicate. So she spent many years of her life really frustrated by her inability to communicate what she was thinking and feeling.

And interestingly, and this is such a profound lesson for you and me, she lamented that she longed to be able to compliment people and to express her love to them, but couldn't while others were so quick to criticize and tear other people down. They are sadly using their marvelous gift and ability to communicate.

They're using it to say mean things. Let us remember, my friends, that our mouths, our tongues, and our words are both a privilege and a responsibility. Let us not take them for granted and let's use them for good. Let's remember what a press, a precious privilege it is to be able to speak.

Rachel Denning (17:01.197)
Let's make our words matter. In fact, I have an invitation for you, a challenge actually. I challenge you to let this one idea consume you, overwhelm you, right? Just kind of flood you and cover you. Just take this one idea and let it just fill your whole soul and mind and body that every word matters.

Rachel Denning (17:29.229)
Let that sink in. Watch your words. Use them cautiously. Use them carefully. Stop all the word vomiting. Cease the criticism. End the sarcasm. That is causing more hurt and more damage than most of us realize.

I promise my friends, if you are flippant and you treat your words with levity, your hearers are not doing so. Your words are landing and may stay for many, many years. It still surprises me. It still is astounding how many times in coaching sessions or just meeting with people, they will bring up issues.

emotional, psychological things, wounds, scars, pain, struggles, obstacles that started because of what somebody said years or even decades ago. And this includes all people from all walks of life, very successful people. When I'm coaching, like you do some, some executive coaching, right? I'm okay, let's go here. Let's hit this. What's, what's the block here? And they're just like,

I can do it. I just I'm afraid of failing. I'm like where'd this come from and it almost always links back to something someone said and they literally have been holding on to negative words for years or decades. This is not this isn't isn't a childish thing and it's not an uncommon thing. It is a very common thing among wonderful wonderful people which tells us

We have to watch our words more carefully. Even if they're said, we think they're said in sarcasm or humor, and it didn't mean anything. People, they'll attach meaning to it. Sometimes your words land. And you know this is true because you've done the same thing. Somebody said something, you've held onto that. It had a lot more meaning than even the speaker intended. Man, this stuff's powerful.

Rachel Denning (19:41.997)
Let me quote here from William George Jordan. I've got two really long, but amazing quotes. So this first one is three full paragraphs from William George Jordan and the king of the kingship of self control. Here we go. And this was written back in the day. So he says that the second most deadly instrument of destruction is what he called the dynamite gun. He says that's the second, the first is the human tongue.

The gun merely kills. The tongue kills reputations and oft times ruins characters. Each gun works alone. Each loaded tongue has a hundred accomplices. The havoc of the gun is visible at once. The full evil of the tongue lives through all the years. Even the eye of omniscience might grow tired in tracing it to its finality. The crimes of the tongue

are words of unkindness, of anger, of malice, of envy, of bitterness, of harsh criticism, gossip, lying, and scandal. Theft and murder are awful crimes, yet in a single year, the aggregate sorrow, pain, and suffering they cause in a nation is microscopic when compared with the sorrows that come from the crimes of the tongue.

Place in one of the scale pans of justice, the evils resulting from the acts of criminals, and in the other the grief and tears and suffering resulting from the crimes of respectability, and you will start back in amazement as you see the scale you thought the heavier shoot high in air. At the hands of thieves and murderers,

few of us suffer even indirectly. But from the careless tongue of a friend, the cruel tongue of an enemy, who is free? No human being can live a life so true, so fair, so pure as to be beyond the reach of malice or immune from the poisonous emanations of envy, the insidious attacks against one's reputation, the lonesome innuendos, slurs, half lies,

Rachel Denning (22:07.757)
by which jealous mediocrity seeks to ruin its superiors, are like those insect parasites that kill the heart and life of a mighty oak. So cowardly is the method, so stealthy the shooting of the poisoned thorns, so insignificant the separate acts in their seeming, that one is not on guard against them. It is easier to dodge an elephant.

than a microbe." Close quote. Oh man, that's good. William George Jordan, the kingship of self control. He wrote another one of my all time favorite books called The Majesty of Calmness. All right, this next one is a quote from Don Miguel Ruiz, who wrote The Four Agreements. And a quote here by Miss Catherine Thomas. Here we go, ready? So Don Miguel says,

Be impeccable with your word, because the word is not just a sound or a written symbol. The word is force. It is a power you have to express and communicate, to think and thereby to create the events in your life. All the magic you possess is based on your word. Your word is pure magic and misuse of your word.

black magic. Be impeccable with your word is the correct use of your energy. It means to use your energy in the direction of truth and love for yourself. If you make an agreement with yourself be impeccable with your word. Just with that intention the truth will manifest through you and clean all the emotional poison that exists within you.

Mostly we use the word to spread our personal poison, to express anger, jealousy, envy, hate. The word is pure magic, the most powerful gift we have as humans, and we use it against ourselves. We misuse the word so often that that is how we perpetuate the dream of hell." Close quote. And then Miss Thomas says, let us make the decision to be

Rachel Denning (24:33.037)
our word and that we may and that what we say we mean and that what we say we do because we said it and that's who we are close quote. Oh my friends, words matter so much and the more we make them matter the more valuable they are. Let's

Let's make our words more valuable. Let's remember that, that every word counts. So choose your words cautiously. We really have removed for the most part sarcasm and criticism and meanness from our home entirely. We just don't allow it. We don't, not even in humor, we're not tearing other people down. This is not who we want to be.

And I've seen so much damage. I felt it myself. In, well, both in the receiver of unkind words and years ago when I was, when I was, I was very sarcastic. I would tease a lot. Oh man. And then afterwards I just, I just felt terrible. And again, a lot of it was ignorance. I didn't think, you know, I didn't think it meant much because I didn't mean to have it mean much, but it did.

And you never know what other people are intending. And then when I've got to understand people more and understand human psychology, I realize, man, they really internalize a lot of this stuff. And so we have to make our words matter. So that's my invitation, my challenge. Let's remember that our words matter. And even if others around us, they're going to be, you know, treat their words with levity and they're going to just vomit vocabulary all over and they're going to hand out, you know, word.

cotton candy. It's all fluff and no substance. So be it. That's their thing. But you choose to make your words count and use them carefully and cautiously and treat them with great value and watch how it begins to change you and who you are and how you interact with others and how they interact with you. And let's use our words to always build. Build.

Rachel Denning (26:54.829)
build build to change lives, literally change lives and have a positive difference in ourselves and other people around us by doing what we say we're going to do and meaning what we say we mean and using our words as tools instead of weapons. Ah yeah, love this stuff.

Okay you guys, and share this. Will you share this please? Thanks for listening, thanks for being awesome human beings, thanks for being here. Let's share this, let's spread it. Everything I try to share in these episodes I think is something that all of us, or at least the vast majority of us can use to make our lives better and make a difference in the world. So let's share this. If you know somebody who needs to be reminded of this message, share it. Maybe take a screenshot of the episode here.

tag me on it and do hashtag, you know, starting your family life podcast or starting family life or Greg Denning or just share it. Let's just get it out there and share these messages so we can get in front of more people and we can all start living in a different level. You've, you felt the changes. Oh man, I sure have. My life's been a massive transformation. I'm still up leveling all the time. And you felt it too, as you, you know, change something in your life, you make a transition, how much

of a difference it makes in your life and what if we were all doing this consistently? What if your group, check us out, and we've done this, we've been so strategic about this. Like our group of friends and the people we work with and associate with and our tribe and our community, like it's good stuff, good words and people are cognizant of vocabulary. It is rare when we come across people that are negative or mean or rude, we're like.

It's almost shock factor like what? Where did that come from? What is this? Because we've been so deliberate and intentional about having positivity in our world and associating with friends that speak like that and use their words effectively. It's amazing. And we can create community like that. We can create friendships like that. We can live in a place where there's very little negativity. And it's very supportive and encouraging. And...

Rachel Denning (29:14.829)
The words that are being used are powerful words, not destructive words. It's incredible, so it's totally possible. And again, I've been in those other places where the words are almost endlessly negative and foul and inappropriate and tearing you down and people don't keep their words. There's a bunch of vocabulary, cotton candy. So I've experienced both. And the other side, the higher side is amazing. So let's use our words, my friends. Let's make them count. Use them for greatness.

because awesome is always an option. Reach upward.