It’s not what you say but how you say it. This comment was made at brunch yesterday by Bill after a comment my dad said. Brookes said that Philadelphia is home to the most murals in the USA and my Dad said “I don’t know about that.” He meant his comment in disbelief but more truthfully it would be that he actually doesn’t know anything about that because in fact The City of Philadelphia, according to Wikipedia, “has more murals than any other U.S. city.” Now this normally wouldn’t be enough info for me to make a post about it but when I came home I turned on Arrested Development and watched Gob in these two scenes:

After hearing two various ways of making a huge mistake, I decided that how something is said is perhaps more important than what is being said. To top matters off, in the book I’m reading about laws to success, it was noted that “…it is the tone in which you make a statement, more than it is the statement itself, that carries conviction or fails to convince. No mere combination of words can ever take the place of a deep belief in a statement that is expressed with burning enthusiasm.” If those signs weren’t enough to make a post to the subject than I may need a 2×4 across my face to get the hint.

The idea to take out of this post is that you have to be careful with how the words you speak are spoken. The first example with my Dad shows a funny play on words that he didn’t even mean to happen. Stumbling into a play on words is generally a humorous event. The second example of Gob is brilliant writing by the people behind Arrested Development. It’s a damn shame that this show didn’t have the hit ratings it deserved because a cult following is still behind it. The final tidbit from Napoleon Hill is where the heart of this post lies. The words of what you are saying aren’t nearly as important as the emotion behind the statement. Being passionate about something and expressing that burning desire is an art form that most people 1) Don’t have and 2) Don’t know they have or 3) Don’t know they need. The laws of success deal much with a sales approach and to put it simply, if you don’t feel strongly about what you are selling, the people who you are selling to pick up on that. This is where language and how you deliver words will separate the winners from everyone else. Language is a funny thing and I promise you I’m not a very cunning linguist, but hopefully this post provided some humor and something to think about.