{"id":5037,"date":"2025-03-14T14:47:12","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T14:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/uncategorized\/how-can-you-make-your-language-more-exciting\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T21:29:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T21:29:29","slug":"how-can-you-make-your-language-more-exciting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/uncategorized\/how-can-you-make-your-language-more-exciting\/","title":{"rendered":"How can you make your language more exciting?<\/a>"},"content":{"rendered":"

How can you make your language more exciting? <\/p>\n

At a coaching retreat last weekend (thanks ProjectNext Leadership!), we did a story telling activity with one crucial twist. You had to “tease” your story with three words to whet the listener’s interest. The person leading the activity demonstrated it by using the words: cornered, speed dating, and tears. And, naturally, all of us wanted to hear the story that connected those words. <\/p>\n

The story I told was about the transformation of my coaching client from being frustrated with his coworkers, to reflecting on how his anger didn’t serve him and was a reflection of his own (unspoken) expectations, to approaching work situations with greater calm by setting clearer expectations for himself and others. <\/p>\n

So the first words I came up with for the story were: frustration, reflection and calm.<\/p>\n

But then I realized those were boring words. They wouldn’t get anybody excited to hear the story. So here’s what I went with instead:
\nThis is a story about the volcano, the mirror, and the sage. <\/p>\n

Everybody who heard those words wanted to hear the story behind those words because they were more evocative. How does a volcano relate to a mirror?!<\/p>\n

Does this happen to you, where you stop your communications at the first words you think of? What would happen if you took a few minutes to think about words that might draw people in with intrigue or excitement?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How can you make your language more exciting? At a coaching retreat last weekend (thanks ProjectNext Leadership!), we did a story telling activity with one crucial twist. You had to “tease” your story with three words to whet the listener’s interest. The person leading the activity demonstrated it by using the words: cornered, speed dating,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5037"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5557,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5037\/revisions\/5557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}