Words

This week I was coaching some business leaders, a pastime I thoroughly recommend if you want to see rampant egos, point scoring and combative stand offs. No one likes to be criticised, but those who see themselves as captains of commerce are unlike Joan Rivers. They hate to lose face.

This week’s lot were lovely, willing to take criticism in the hope they could learn, and the chief executive reminded me that the last time we’d met I had asked her to be a bit more concise and focused when she spoke. I had recommended she look at a six word story that Ernest Hemingway had written and had often said was the best thing he’d created. The six words were “For Sale, baby shoes, never worn”.

Despite its brevity it is a complete story and the sense of loss and sadness in those few words speak chapters of hurt and longing as well as unfulfilled potential, and they also prove that windbags who speak for hours are just self absorbed.

Last week was the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War and it reminded me that the famous Gettysburg Address was a speech given by Abraham Lincoln in just two minutes, using only two hundred and sixty words, and it became one of the most famous, and long lasting legacy speeches, ever.

If you were to distill your life down to just a few words, what would they be? Would you be proud of them? Embarrassed? Feel a lack of promise fulfilled? When I once asked listeners to my radio show to sum up their life in half a dozen words I received a text saying “Started with promise, ending with disappointment”. Another wrote “Loved A Lot, Loathed Even More”. How sad is that?

As an experiment, I sat down this week to write down six words that I really dread to hear and found that they’ve changed at various stages over the years. I ignored any really serious ideas that we would all obviously hate to hear as I thought it should be personal and give a sense of “me”. So out went any mentions of health, money worries, relatives passing away, etc that we all find fills us with dread. What I had to tie down was “me”.

When I was younger things was quite innocent and simple. I shuddered when I heard the six words “Go Up And Tidy Your Bedroom” or “Your Turn For The Washing Up” as well as “It’s Friday, we’re having boiled fish”. But then I became a student and it was a bit more serious with “It’s The End Of Year Exams” or “You’ve Slept In For Your Lecture” causing me upset, but again reasonably innocent. It’s when you start to really grow up the six words you hate to hear start to get a little bit less charitable.

Late Teen and early Twenties relationships mean the half dozen words I dreaded most changed to “Tell Me That You Love Me” or “Tell Me Where This Is Going”, words that sent me screaming with fear alongside “Shall We Go On Holiday Together” or “You Want To Meet My Parents?”. See, there’s a story right there, in just six words, that can be read by some as a romantic tale full of promise, or by me as a scary signpost to a break up.

Compiling a Top Five list of six word sentences that will haunt me forever and give me the screaming heebies I had to include things like “Our Dinner Party Hosts Are Vegetarians”, “I’m Canvassing For The Green Party” and “He’s Off For A Gap Year”, followed in annoyance by “I Need Time To Find Myself”, “Your Turn To Empty The Dishwasher”, “I’m Fond Of Pan Pipe Music”, and “Sorry Mate, We Don’t Sell Chocolate”. I also have to cite the dreaded “Your Call Is Important, Please Hold”, “Let’s Throw A Royal Wedding Party”, and the very scary “And Now The Alan Titchmarsh Show”.

Then there’s the ones inflicted by my wife, things like “Incidentally, Friday Night We’re Going Out”, or the words I just know mean that I’m about to hear that hundreds of pounds worth of car damage has been done, “Just Remember That I Am OK” .

So that’s me, whatever it says about me, but what about you? Try it this week. I recommend it. Write down in six words everything that annoys you and then see what it says about the real you. It’s just half a dozen words, but I guarantee they’ll include volumes of insight.