Let me tell you about an issue I face on a daily basis. I’ve beaten myself up about this for most of my life. As hard as I try, I think I’ll forever feel as though I can’t think or express myself as clearly as I’d like. Sometimes my thoughts get muddled and after talking to someone, I walk away thinking I could have done a better job. That I could have organized my ideas more coherently and when it came time to verbalize them, that they’d flow from my mouth just as I intended. In reality, I rush right through most everything and rarely does anything come out as planned. It’s not that I’m horrible at my speaking, it’s just that I’m not nearly as satisfied with my communication as I’d like to be. And I want to change things. I’d like to be the way I’d like to be.
Today, I’m going to write a blog post. The post will have to do with articulation; what it is, why someone might want to become more articulate, and things a person can do to meet their goals in this respect. I’m writing this post for myself. I’ve been planning it for months and during those months, the idea of expressing this topic effectively has caused a storm in my mind. It’s actually quite unsettling because of how challenging I perceive it to be. I suppose that’s the fun in it – to see if I can do it. To see if I can actually explain this topic to you, clearly, so you understand what I’m trying to tell you. Let’s see if it works.
What is Articulation?
Let’s say someone asked you to think of random words that have no association and to yell them out as they come to mind. “walk, sand, stir, aboard, laughable, repair, disarm, system, stingy, fallacious, wild, untidy.” How do you think that would turn out? If you were standing near someone, how do you think they’d react? Let’s imagine that you approached a person, looked them in their eyes, and repeated those same words. Would the person know what they mean? Would you be telling the person anything of consequence? Probably not.
Let’s take the next step. Let’s think of a group of statements that are interesting to you that you need to tell someone. Pretend you said something like this: “I was standing in my kitchen and, oh yeah, my uncle has a boat, but yeah, when I was on the playground the other day, my teacher yelled for me, but another time, I was playing with my dog.” Would this make any sense to anyone? Again, probably not. Now let’s clean these ideas up a bit. Let’s rephrase things so they sound like this: “My mother and I spent some time talking in the kitchen a few days ago. We discussed my uncle’s boat. We also discussed my activities while playing at my grade school playground. During those activities, my teacher yelled for me and I wanted to relay her message to my mother. When my mother and I were finished talking, I went outside to play with my dog.” Better?
In the first two cases, the words that came out of your mouth were nonsense. They meant nothing to the person you were speaking to. In the first case, they meant nothing to anyone, not even you, but in the second case, while you may have known what you were trying to say, sort of, no one else would ever know. What was the problem? Why was the third example so much more clear than the first two? I’ll tell you why. The third example was articulate.
Articulate = efficient and coherent meaning.
My Quick Explanation: When something is articulate, it must mean something. As a thought or sentence, it must hold some sort of value to either the thinker or the listener. It must also be coherent, meaning it must be logical and consistent. Finally, it must be efficient. If it takes you four days to get your point across, I’m not sure anyone would necessarily call your message articulate. So if you can express a thought or idea that means something in a way that’s logical and consistent in a timely fashion, you’ve probably demonstrated articulation.
Let’s flesh this out a bit more…
What is articulation? What does being articulate mean? I’m sure you’ve heard people say things like, “That man is very articulate,” or “You should learn to articulate your thoughts better.” I’ve heard this type of sentiment thousands of times. The idea of someone being articulate has become so commonplace that I’m not sure it has much meaning anymore. Articulate has become just another word, similar to amazing and literally. Overused and then overused some more
Being articulate is the idea of being able to formulate thoughts and then communicate them clearly. It’s that simple. While the concept is simple enough, putting it into practice can be challenging. There are a few areas a person needs to touch on. For example, how exactly does someone properly formulate thoughts? Or think effectively? And how do they communicate clearly?
It’s all about being able to organize thoughts so they make sense. Then, it’s about being able to express those thoughts verbally or in writing. After all, if you think about it, speech and writing is simply a reflection of what’s going on in the brain. It’s a representation. The expressed thoughts came from somewhere, so it’s important to start with the source. Can you imagine being absolutely confused with nothing but muddled thoughts and then verbalizing what’s in your head so it makes complete sense? Of course not. It’s not possible. Below, I’ll discuss some goals of becoming more articulate and then how to go about doing it.
Remember, eloquent speakers are also eloquent thinkers.
What Are the Goals of Better Articulation?
For me, the ultimate goal of becoming more articulate is to calm the storm I mentioned above. I’m dissatisfied with how I think (disorganized) and I’d like to improve upon it. I’ve been getting away with what I do for a very long time and I’d like to change. If a person isn’t like me though, they may be after more general goals. Perhaps someone might want to appear more understanding and competent. When the mind is calm and organized, a person is less stressed and able to make better decisions. Perhaps a person would like to become more comfortable in any environment that requires them to talk to people. With a calm, focused, and organized mind comes the confidence to stand tall and explain your thoughts in a manner than convinces and persuades.
Think about when being articulate might truly matter. When might a person need mindful organization in daily life? How about when explaining difficult symptoms to a doctor? Or when explaining car problems to a mechanic? “I think it hurts here,” and “The car sort of feels weird when I turn left.” oftentimes isn’t enough. If these types of descriptions were left as is, you’re leaving things up to another person to try to figure the actual ailment out. That rarely ends well and it can cost a lot of money in the meantime. Telling the doctor where it hurts, what it sounds like, when the pain began, how hot or cold the area is, and any other symptoms you have can yield much better results. The same is true when explaining symptoms to a mechanic. At over $100 per hour, I’m sure you don’t want the mechanic to have to diagnose any longer than he has to.
Activities That Improve Articulation Skills
In this section, I’ll offer a brief overview of some of the things you can do to improve your articulation skills. In the next section, I’ll dive much more deeply into the three primary activities you need to undertake, but for now, give a good hearty ponder over what I share below. These tips are easy, quick, and effective.
- Improve your vocabulary – The very first step to thinking clearly is to have the tools to do so. Without the proper words, it’ll be quite the challenge to formulate what it takes to describe your thoughts. Please see my post on vocabulary for more information.
- Avoid filler words – Like, so, um, yeah…etc, are called filler words. These take the place of real words as well as proper pauses. Never begin a sentence with the word “so” and avoid using “like” improperly at all costs. “So, I have a presentation to show you and, like, I think it’ll be great.” These types of words are true signs of immaturity and laziness.
- Speak slowly and enunciate – Especially in the beginning, you’ll likely need to slow down. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone whiz though something as important and challenging as becoming more articulate. Give your mind the time to think through ideas and challenges and only verbalize what’ll be helpful to your purpose. Keep everything else hidden until you become skilled enough to quicken your pace.
- Control your pitch – Has your voice ever risen an octave as you got excited or frustrated while speaking or arguing? By controlling your pitch, you’re also controlling your thinking and delivery. It’s all about mindfulness and giving consideration before speaking. Focusing on your pitch will enable you to avoid traps and to use patience as a tool.
- Contemplate, think, slow down – You won’t ever get anywhere if you don’t control your thinking and contemplation. If someone asks you a question, you are under no obligation to blurt out the very first thing that comes to mind. Listen to the question in its entirety, pause, contemplate the question, and then formulate your answer in your mind. Only when you’re ready, verbalize your answer. Yes, this flies in the face of everything we know about modern society. Perhaps that needs to change.
- Debate – Debating is the ultimate challenge. It’ll force you into a structured way of thinking and it’ll confine your verbal responses in a way that’ll help you avoid many pitfalls of carelessness. If there’s one thing that’ll help you become more articulate by brute force, it’s engaging in a proper debate. Please see my post on debating for more information.
- Watch, listen, and imitate – There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel with any of this. Many before us have done a very good job of paving the way. Watch intelligent people think and speak, watch how they act and listen to what they say, and then try your best at acting like they do. Try to form good habits over the long term.
- Put in the effort – Controlling thoughts and presenting yourself in a more articulate manner can hurt the brain at times. If you don’t put in the effort, you’ll give up and fail. This type of thing takes effort, so don’t think there’s a way around that. When your brain begins to hurt, take a break, let it heal for a minute or two, and then get back to work.
- Educate yourself – If you’d like to articulate something, or say something with any amount of authority for that matter, you’ll need to educate yourself on the subject. Study and become an expert. Only then will you have enough content swirling around your mind to organize and share with the world in the best way possible.
A Story About Watching & Imitating
Here’s a quick story about watching and imitating and how it helped me with my tennis serve. My serve doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with thinking in an articulate manner, but this story does illustrate the value of watching those who are better than you at something.
Back in the mid-nineties, I was obsessed with playing tennis. I worked at a tennis club and played daily. The problem was, I had yet to gain the skills to match others who played at the club. I was young, so I knew I had a lot to learn. I was also frustrated, to say the least.
One day, while taking a break from my job of cleaning the club, I decided to sit and watch as others played their games. At the club were many “pros” who taught lessons and who played in local tournaments. The day I took my break and watched, the pros were on the courts.
To start, I merely watched as entertainment to see who was winning, but as time passed, I began taking notice of the players’ technique while serving. As I did this, it quickly became apparent that their technique differed wildly from mine. I noticed that my stance was wrong, my swing was wrong, and my follow through was wrong. Basically, I was doing everything all wrong, which is weird because I’d already taken a fair share of tennis lessons up to that point in my life.
After the players left the courts, I went down to practice my serve and found that while I was still pretty bad, I was better than I had been the day before. I incorporated some of what I had seen just moments earlier and discovered that by watching, I had almost learned more than doing. It was at that moment I realized that it didn’t matter how much I played and repeated my swings and strokes, I would still be awful. I’d be merely repeating terrible technique. What I needed more of was watching to see how the greats did it. Then, I’d absorb their technique and simply imitate them. I can’t even begin to tell you how effective this was for me. My game improved immensely.
What’s the moral of this story? As humans, we may think we already know everything, but we really know very little. Let go of what you think you already know and open your mind to new knowledge. Also, when you come across someone who is excellent at doing something, let your guard down and watch what they do, how they think, and how they succeed. And then ask them questions. I’m sure they’ll be happy to answer them.
How to Articulate Better
Boiled down as far as can be boiled, there are three things you need to do to become more articulate. Simply put, you need to read more, write more, and speak more. Obviously, each of these things contain a level of nuance that I’ll share below, but on the surface, these three activities are, as they say, where it’s at.
Read
Ask yourself if you already know everything. Go ahead. Say, “Do I know everything there is to know?” I’m going to venture a guess here and say that you probably don’t know everything. Do you think reading would help you learn more? Probably. How could reading help you learn more? Well, reading can fill your mind with ideas you never even knew existed. It can teach you new vocabulary – vocabulary you aren’t familiar with. Reading can also help you learn proper grammar, good sentence structure, and how to formulate proper paragraphs. It can also teach you how to structure and present ideas so they make sense.
Do you remember when I told you that you’ll need to follow those who are more experienced at certain things than you are? I just wrote this above. Think about what you’re doing when you’re reading. You’re basically witnessing how someone else thinks and how they present their thoughts to the world. Let’s say you’re reading something that was written by someone who’s gone to college for years and years, has written a number of very well received pieces of literature, and has experience like none other. Imagine you reading what they’ve written. Really. Imagine that. You can walk to any library right now and pick up a book that was written by an uber intelligent person and gain insight into how they think. Now consider this – that piece of literature has had to pass a series of challenges before it was released into the world. A person doesn’t simply write a book to run off and have it published. Books are generally edited by third parties. And then they’re reviewed by countless people. They pass a sort of muster. So not only is the author of a book educated and able to organize thoughts and present his or her ideas coherently, they’re also able to have their work pass a very challenging publishing process. The author’s words have been revised. Other people have improved upon the author’s ideas, structure, and presentation. It’s incredible, really. Most of us will never experience this sort of process, so it’s extraordinarily helpful to simply read what these people have written.
The idea here is to use books as leverage. Our goal is to think clearly to present coherently and efficiently. Every library in the United States offers these things called books that are insanely valuable to use towards these goals. And they’re free to use. That’s hugely helpful.
What should you read? Reading kid’s books aren’t going to cut it here. What you want to do is challenge yourself. Read both adult fiction and non-fiction. Read biographies. Classical literature. History. Business. Literary fiction. And be sure to read slightly above your level, always. Keep rising. Don’t get comfortable with what you know. The goal here is to learn what you don’t know. See what you’re not used to. Challenge yourself to read, think, and speak more eloquently. That’s the first step to becoming more articulate.
Write
Reading is one thing. Writing is quite another. If you’re ever wanted to challenge yourself intellectually, try writing. You’ll quickly find how difficult it can be for a beginner.
The true benefit of writing for articulation is comparison. When we think of something, we think it makes sense. It makes sense in our own minds, so we think it’ll make sense to everyone else. Oftentimes, when we write out our thoughts, we realize that what we once thought made sense, doesn’t make all that much sense after all. I suppose you can call this the transition stage. We transition our thoughts to paper and see if the thoughts survived the transition.
A huge benefit of writing is having the opportunity to identify exactly what our thoughts are. Imagine someone asking you what you would like out of your overall life. Thinking about the question for a moment or two might allow you to conjure a few nebulous ideas, but taking time and writing those ideas out would likely produce a list of much more clear hopes and goals.
Think about this for a moment – someone asks you a question. You think of a response and you say the first thing that comes to mind. An issue I face on a daily basis is, well, exactly what I just shared. I say the first thing that comes to mind. I jump from the thought step straight to the speaking step with very little consideration given to what I’m actually going to say. I simply verbalize the muddled thoughts my mind produced. Do you see the problem here? Without the training and discipline that writing offers, I’ve not trained my mind to clarify and organize my thoughts for a verbalization I’m happy with. Now, I know we can’t write all of our thoughts and organize them perfectly on a daily basis. That’s simply not realistic. What we can do, however, is begin writing to teach our minds how to organize things better. By thinking and then writing and then editing what we’ve written, we can train our minds to think more efficiently and coherently. Over time, our minds will come to understand the ultimate goal of articulate verbalization and will smooth the overall cognitive process. Trust me, this works. You’d be surprised at how much I’ve edited this one post. My initial ideas and thoughts were nowhere near the final product I’ve ultimately shared.
What Are the Benefits of Writing for Articulation?
Here’s a quick list of what writing can do for a person who’s looking to think more articulately.
- Writing allows us to take the time we need to organize what was once in our heads, on paper.
- It gives us the evidence we sometimes need to show us our thoughts were once muddled. If we’re not happy with what we see on paper or a computer screen, we know we’ve got work to do.
- Writing shows us whether or not our thoughts are actually any good. Sure, they may be organized and articulate, but they may not be worth the time we’ve given to thinking them.
- It allows us to reconfigure what was in our minds so it makes much more sense to the world. It allows us to reorder things so they have more meaning and are related to the topic at hand.
- Writing is an editing process of the mind. Say we’ve got ten thoughts. Six of them may be ridiculous, so after they’ve been written out, it’s simple enough to eliminate them from our list. You’d be surprised at how much we think of on a daily basis that’s simply not important and holds very little value.
The question now is, what should we write? How often? How exactly do we go about writing out our thoughts, whatever they may be? I’m actually quite partial to blogging, so I’ve made that my personal outlet. I read every night and I try to write every day. Blogging can come in the form of a very informal journal or it can be quite serious where important issues are discussed. I try to straddle the line. Nothing is too formal here on this blog, but I do try to challenge myself with a goal of making interesting topics make sense to my readers and me. It’s simply one of my hobbies.
If you’re not a public person, meaning, you don’t want your thoughts read by the world, go out and buy yourself a nice journal. Write at least one page per day and read what you’ve written a few times over. Edit what you’ve written. Make corrections. Write with purpose and try to limit the corrections you think you’ll ultimately make. Remember, the writing you engage in is meant to practice your articulation, so take it seriously.
What can you write about? Try to stick to things that are based in reality. Steer clear of writing random stories that can’t be compared to something that actually happened. After all, you’ll want to reread what you’ve written to correlate your written words with what you’ve transferred from your mind. When writing, share experiences from the past and goals for the future. Write about conversations you’ve had with friends and family. Write about arguments you’ve had with people. Debates. Heated discussions. Write about causes that matter to you. Challenges and achievements. That’s no shortage of topics to write about.
To sum this section up, I’ll tell you that there are very few activities available to us that can train our brains to make sense like writing can. It’s one of the most worthwhile activities I’ve ever engaged in. It’s so rewarding.
Speak
Articulate speech is the ultimate goal. After we’ve trained our minds to think clearly and coherently, we ask ourselves, “Does this even matter?” Perhaps it doesn’t. After all, no one will know what we’re thinking. After we’ve trained ourselves to think and then write clearly and coherently, we ask ourselves, “Who cares about what I’ve written in my journal besides me?” Perhaps no one. You may keep your thoughts private forever. When it comes time to speak though, that’s where the rubber meets the road. That’s our time to shine. All the work we’ve been putting into thinking and writing can now be expressed to the world in the most articulate of ways.
If you look back to my paragraphs above, you’ll find that much of what I suggested you do while writing was really suggestions for training the mind for speaking. We began with learning about structure and how others formulate their ideas. After that, we practiced formulating our own ideas and creating our own structures by writing our thoughts out on paper, in a computer file, or a blog. After all of the writing, editing, correcting, and learning, the time has arrived for communicating through speaking.
The final question is, how can we become better speakers? I’ll give you a few answers to this question. You may not like some of them, but these things really are the best ways to go about this. First, stop hanging out with those who are poor thinkers and speakers. What’s the old saying? You are the culmination, or average, of the five people you spend the most time with. While this may not be true 100% of the time, I can almost guarantee you that you’re not getting anywhere near your own goals if those goals are loftier than those of others around you. Don’t get dragged down by people who don’t care about their own success.
I attended the highly selective Binghamton University business school as an undergraduate student as well as a graduate student. I was a transfer student, which means that after graduating from a local community college, I was admitted to the university much more easily than I would have been, had I entered as a freshman straight out of high school. For those of you who don’t know, community colleges are fairly lenient when it comes to achieving success. Let’s just say it wasn’t too difficult for me to do well. Because of this leniency, my friends and I did just enough of what it took to score good grades. Upon entering Binghamton University, I found that not only did I face a much stiffer competitive landscape, I also faced a much more academically rigorous student body. The students I met were extraordinarily diligent and just by spending time with them, I took my classes and grades much more seriously and I doubled and tripled my production as it pertained to studying and doing well. In the most basic sense, since I was hanging out with more serious students at the university, I was swept up in their success and succeeded more myself. Their behavior was infectious.
Rule #1 – Spend Time With Successful People
The first rule for becoming a better and more articulate speaker is to spend time with the types of people who are already doing well. Who are they? Professors, CEOs, intelligent teachers, friends who do well in school, educated motivational speakers, those who know how to debate, those who win debates, those who were trained as children to think and speak well, great orators. Here’s another question: what if we don’t have access to these types of people? We all do. Turn toward the internet. Watch videos of these types of people. Look for speeches and writings from Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Socrates, Adolf Hitler, Martin Luther King Jr., James Baldwin, Mister Rogers, Barack Obama, Jordan Peterson, Russell Brand, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Alan Keyes, to name a few. Watch debates. If you’d like to learn from some of the most intelligent and most up-and-coming speakers on the planet, which videos on the Oxford Union YouTube channel. You’ll be astounded by the effort the speakers have put into their discussions.
Rule # 2 – Enhance Your Existing Relationships
The second rule for becoming a better and more articulate speaker is to stop wasting the time you spend with people you already know. If you eat dinner alone in front of the computer or television, but have a family nearby, eat dinner at the dinner table with your family and initiate educated conversation with them. Ask questions. Talk about current events. Listen, think, and respond to others in thoughtful and insightful ways. Don’t be lazy. Think before you speak. It’s all about practice. You can do the same thing with the friends you already have. Take your game up a notch. Don’t speak like an idiot. Initiate conversations that challenge you and that have depth to them. Just do better and put in more effort. You won’t get far in this world without trying.
Rule # 3 – Practice Public Speaking
The third rule for becoming a better and more articulate speaker is to do it. Join a debate club. Debate others. Find a local library and join a writing and speaking group. Take a class in speaking. Challenge yourself. Find a close friend, prepare a speech, and ask the friend to listen to you. If you don’t have a friend, do it on camera and play your speech back to yourself. Teach a class. Join a club. Speak, speak, speak. I personally teach Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu where I prepare a class once per week and present what I’ve prepared to the students. After five or so years, have I made it to the place I’d like to be? Not even close. I relish the fact that learning to speak eloquently and articulately is a life-long process. The bottom line is to get involved with something that requires you to formulate thoughts clearly and to coherently and articulately present those thoughts to someone or a group verbally. And then be judged on your presentation. The judgement is a gift because you’ll earn the feedback you’ll need for continuous improvement.
The Therapist Example
As I was writing this post, I thought of example people who have certain abilities in articulating what others can’t. I thought of quite a few types of people, whether they be hobbyists or professionals, but kept coming back to one that was just too good not to mention here. The therapist.
I’ll admit, I don’t know a lot about what therapists do, but I do have friends who’ve told me stories of their own experiences. I’ve also read a decent amount on the topic. To keep things simple, I’ll use a couples therapist for this example. See if you can imagine a visit to a therapist going something like this:
Therapist: Hi Bob and Mary. Thanks for coming in for a session. What seems to be the problem with your marriage?
Bob: I’m not sure. It seems like Mary is always mad at me. She’s never in a good mood.
Mary: That’s because you never listen to me.
Bob: Well, I try to listen, but you don’t really ever have anything to say that’s worth giving time to.
Mary: Oh that’s really nice, Bob. And I’m supposed to be in a good mood when I’m treated like that?
Therapist: Okay, stop it you two. Let’s try to keep things civil here. What I’m hearing is that Mary feels as though she’s not valued in the relationship and because of that, she gets a bit grumpy. And it sounds like Bob needs to be involved in a certain level of intellect in order for him to give his attention to the conversation. Does this sound right?
Bob: Pretty much.
Mary: Yes.
Therapist: My job is done. Good bye.
Simplistic, yes, but I think you get the idea. I’m way over generalizing here, but I think it’s safe to say that when many people go to see a counselor or therapist, it’s because they aren’t able to think clearly, or articulate, an issue they’re facing. They explain the symptoms of their issue and leave it to the professional to dig down and figure out what’s really going on. That’s articulation. The therapist is organizing the facts and articulating the issue. See? This type of thing goes on all over the place and there’s true value in it.
Michael Knowles & Jordan Peterson
My entire impetus for writing this post stemmed from a video I watched that was created by Michael Knowles. If you don’t know Michael, allow me to fill you in. He’s an American conservative political commentator, actor, author, and media host. He’s worked for The Daily Wire since 2016. He was born in 1990 and grew up in Bedford Hills, New York, which is actually quite close to where I grew up. He attended Yale University and is Italian. He’s also Roman Catholic. I think that sums it up. He’s a smart guy and he’s extremely affable. If you’d like to read up on him, you can take a look at his Wikipedia page.
Anyway, I’d like you to take a look at the video, especially the part where the girl speaks. The one who says, “Like, um, like…” and that sort of thing.
She Knows Modern Dating Culture Is Bad, but Can’t Explain Why
This clip sums up the entirety of my post. Say what you will about Michael’s political leanings, but you have to admit he knows how to explain himself fairly well. Much better than I would have been able to. In that sense, I appreciated what he said.
The next two clips feature Jordan Peterson. If you aren’t familiar with Jordan Peterson, I’ll tell you a bit about him. Jordan is a Canadian psychologist, author, and media commentator. He began to receive widespread attention in the late 2010s for his views on cultural and political issues, often described as conservative. Peterson has described himself as a classic British liberal and a traditionalist. Mr. Peterson attended the University of Albert and holds a Ph.D. from McGill University. He’s taught at Harvard and the University of Toronto and is widely considered one of the most articulate and well spoken people on the planet. You can read more about Jordan here.
Please watch this next video. In it, Jordan describes the value of writing.
Jordan Peterson – How To Outsmart Everybody Else
And in this next video, Jordan is interviewed about being articulate. I especially enjoyed this video, as did many others. Simply click through to read the comments for evidence of that.
This Is How You Become More Articulate
Three quotes in this video struck me. I’d like to share them below.
…if they want to make themselves into forces to be contended with, that there’s no surer route to that than an exceptional poetic literacy.
…and so it’s a moral endeavor in some real sense, to become articulate is to become the master of your own tongue and to become properly articulate is to make the word divine and to treat it in that manner and to decide whether or not you believe that it is the case that the divine word creates the order that’s habitable and good.
If you’re guided by the spirit of honest inquiry and every word you say is reflective of what you believe to be the truth, then the pathway that you walk on is the golden pathway to success.
I encourage you to watch the three clips in their entirety. Both Michael and Jordon make a much better case for learning to become articulate than I ever will. They’re both passionate men who are very good at what they do.
Before I end this post, I’ll leave you with one last story. I learned a lesson way back in the early 2000s when I worked as the Creative Marketing Director for a cluster of radio stations in New York. I worked at the stations for five years, and somewhere along the lines, I formed a small business that became very profitable. Around the fourth year, I walked into the boss’ office to tell him that I was going to leave my position to commit to my business full time. Since I was the only one in the entire office who knew what I actually did, my announcement came as quite the unwelcomed shock. Neither my direct manager or the general manager wanted me to leave. They called me into an office to discuss the situation.
At the beginning of the meeting, the general manager looked at me and asked, “Jay, what exactly is it that you want?” I sat there, looked back at him and thought, “You know, I haven’t the foggiest idea.” I knew what I didn’t want, which was to continue doing what I was doing, but I hadn’t given what I actually wanted much thought. It was then and there I knew I had some growing up and thinking to do. Twenty years later I’m sitting in a chair, writing a blog post about becoming more articulate, while recollecting that lesson I learned so many years ago. Thinking and learning truly is a lifelong process.
Thank you for reading.
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