June 18, 2025 • 33 mins
Join hosts Garrett and Nolan for a special "Book Club" episode of ThinkBiz.Solutions as they explore the profound impact of language on business and personal success. This insightful discussion dives deep into Dr. Jonah Berger's "Magic Words" and Liz Dean's "Switch Words".
From "Magic Words," discover:
- The power of direct, confident language (e.g., "definitely," "clearly") for better audience reception.
- When strategic hedging can surprisingly build authority.
- How the "-er" suffix (e.g., "runner") helps build identity and consistency.
- A framework for defining your business identity: "What do I do?", "What do people think I do?", and "What do I want people to think I do?".
- The timeless five-part storytelling framework and the strategic use of emotional vs. utilitarian language.
From "Switch Words," Nolan introduces powerful affirmations from the American New Thought movement:
- Master switch words like "Together" (for everything), "Divine" (for miracles), "Divine Order" (for efficiency), and "Bring" (for attracting desires).
- The importance of personal switch words that resonate uniquely with you for authentic branding.
This episode connects how these linguistic philosophies intersect, discussing the fine line between persuasion and manipulation, why businesses often sell a "miracle", and how positive emotional language primes your audience (and yourself) to focus on the good.
Tune in for an organic, insightful conversation that promises valuable learnings for enhancing your communication, branding, and overall approach to business. If you enjoy these unedited episodes, please leave a five-star review – it helps us reach more listeners!
// Thank you for listening to the show!
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Podcast is produced by Hammonds Media. For assistance with you digital marketing needs, visit https://www.hammondsmedia.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:01):
all
SPEAKER_00 (00:12):
right we are here with another episode of you
think biz podcast ladies andgentlemen welcome to the day we
started off a little low energybut now we are better energy and
uh we have uh We, ourselves, andI.
(00:45):
Welcome to a book club episode.
(01:14):
a professor named Dr.
Jonah Berger.
He is a big guy in the largelanguage model research space.
He's studied a lot when it comesto how people use words in
specific contexts and he'sliterally across all of his
(01:38):
different studies looked atmillions of examples that he
used puts together his findingson.
And so he's got some pretty cooltakeaways that we'll mention a
few notes from today.
Excellent.
And I over here have a bookcalled Switch Words by Liz Dean.
Its tagline is how to use oneword to get what you want.
And this is a book in the spanof what's called the New Thought
(02:01):
Movement in Americanspirituality.
And so if you've read NapoleonHill, Think and Grow Rich,
looked into any of NormanVincent Peale's work, all of
this is part of the American NewThought Movement of changing
your mind Love it.
I definitely think we are goingto get some That's a weird– I
(02:35):
definitely think– I know we'regoing to get some cool crossover
today when it comes to some ofthese things.
And I actually– that's a perfecttransition to one of the facts
is Dr.
Burgess talks about hedging as a– a way that we can either
(02:56):
dissuade the people we'retalking to or actually have a
positive effect.
And hedging, you know, when Isay hedging, it's words that are
could, I think, unlikely, in myopinion...
kind of, those types of words.
(03:17):
Anything that gives thathesitation or lack of confidence
inside of our language.
So what Berger's found is thatwhen we use more direct language
that does express confidence,things like definitely, clearly,
(03:39):
absolutely, we see a bigdifference in our audience's
intake of what we're trying tobe able to bring to the table.
Which, a lot of these thingsthat come from magic words, some
of it is surprising and some ofit feels like, oh yeah, that's
(04:01):
common sense.
But when you put it intopractice, the amount of
difference that it makes in ourcommunication is shocking.
So that's my first one, is whenwe Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
(04:31):
We want to be sticking to thosemore definitive and confident
statements.
Right.
Well, then there's a curiosityfor you, Garrett.
Whenever you're dealing withclients, how often do they,
shall we say, definitively statethat their problem or their
needs are one thing, but youknow they actually mean
something else?
Sure.
How often do you think thosedefinitive words actually mean
(04:53):
what they mean when someone saysthem?
So I think we maybe...
talking about two differentthings though is that one is is
how do we uh intake you knowmore confident words and the
other is how often do we meanthe the things that we say
exactly because that's what inotice all the time is there is
(05:15):
this Break, shall we say,between the confidence of
delivery versus what someonetruly means as the definition of
that confidence.
(05:47):
And you lose out in thatsituation because you weren't
using the right language.
Precisely.
And it's very difficult,especially in the industry of
spirituality or religion or whatI do on a day-to-day basis that
I've done to actually help a lotof my clients is a number of
practitioners will say, well,there's lots of different ways
to come to the same conclusion.
There are personal practicesthat you just need to feel out.
(06:10):
Where I've had to recognize thata lot of people, whenever
they're dealing with very deepspiritual problems, they want me
to tell them, I get results.
And I do.
And if I wasn't willing to statethat, then they're not actually
going to be prepped for anexperience that is meant to get
them results.
And so my curiosity then,especially with how definitively
(06:31):
we state results, We say I'mgreat at this.
This service or product isexcellent.
It then gets into something elseyou kind of mentioned in your
notes as we were discussing thisepisode of kind of persuasion
versus manipulation.
And that's where the definitionquestion that I had kind of
comes in is do we think thatjust using definitive language
(06:55):
is manipulative and that's whywe don't use it?
I I would argue that most of thetime we just aren't confident.
And in this case, I'm actuallyusing a hedging statement and
that's the most of the time.
And one of the interestingthings inside of the book was
(07:17):
that there are instances whereit's better to use hedging
language and if you go in fullyconfident in, you know, a
financial prediction onsomething or some sort of
numbers statement, and you'relike, this is the thing, and
then it goes horribly wrong andit has nothing to do with it,
(07:39):
then you are, you're coming outwith a lot of egg on your face,
as opposed to if you have somehedging statements, it can
actually build your, yourauthority.
But in this case, um, I wouldsay most of the time we as
people have some type ofimposter syndrome or we're
(08:01):
taught to be humble, whetherthat's from a religious
standpoint or just the morals ofour upbringing.
And it makes it harder to say,yes, this is what's happening.
And I agree.
and going to deliver X, youknow, going through inside of
(08:26):
our language.
Okay.
Well, and that's interestingbecause when your book starts
off with this hedging languageversus definitive language, my
book starts off with just a fewwords that Liz Dean says are
kind of the manifesting switchwords.
And those are together.
So supposedly this is the masterswitch word for everything.
We then have divine, which isfor asking for a miracle.
(08:47):
We have divine order as a phrasethat is supposed to help you do
anything efficiently andrestores order from chaos.
And then bring, which is forbringing you whatever you ask
for.
So it's almost as though my bookover here is utilizing some kind
of hedging languagedefinitively.
It's like we're going to do thistogether.
We're asking for divine order tobring us whatever it is that we
(09:10):
want.
And I think that's a degree ofsurety that...
kind of begins and prefaces aconversation either with
yourself or with clients oranything else.
Because I don't actuallyremember the last time I've
talked to a client and said,hey, we're doing this together
in the explanation of what I do.
I don't think I've actually usedthese switch words to describe
(09:31):
what I do.
Nolan, you've got to take yourown book.
I know.
I'm the exact same way, though.
And that's the beauty of, Ithink, good books is that they
give you a lot of information,but you have to go back and
just...
read them again periodically.
Cause I, same thing.
I have a lot of things from thisbook that were just cool
(09:53):
takeaways and you know, but itsounds like that first, that
first touch point is focusing onthe relationship of language and
how it connects not justconcepts, but people themselves.
Exactly.
I love that.
Well, and it's also one of theproblems a number of people have
(10:15):
whenever they're on a spiritualjourney or they're trying to
find themselves is they presumethey need to go to an ashram in
India or they presume they needto do like five grams of
mushrooms or they presume theyneed to have this grand
spiritual experience.
But all of those spiritualexperiences just encapsulate
together.
It's this grand process and aquest just to realize that, oh,
(10:35):
everything's connected.
We can do that just on alinguistic, logical process.
Before any of that questingneeds to happen.
So tell me again, what are theactual words that were the
switch words on this one?
So the supposed master switchwords in this book are together.
Together.
Divine, which is separate fromdivine order as its own phrase,
(11:00):
and then bring.
Okay.
And arguably, I think that kindof fits what I've heard termed
as the four industries, health,wealth, relationships, and
happiness.
SPEAKER_02 (11:11):
And
SPEAKER_00 (11:12):
it just seems like these four things are hitting on
what we are actually asking for.
Because I don't know if wheneverwe're doing business that we're
actually selling the product orservice.
I think we're selling a miraclethat we just so happen to be
skilled at bringing to somebodyelse.
Because someone else doesn'tknow necessarily what Hammonds
Media does.
They don't know all the codinglanguages or the tools or
(11:34):
anything else going on behindthe scenes.
But they're asking you.
to grant them a miracle over thethings that they don't
understand.
Yeah, the language there, too,about, you know, you and I, I
think we would maybe describe itdifferently.
Miracle, to me, has veryspecific meaning, but in some
(11:57):
sense, that magical feel behindwhat the output is, I think, is
that end result of People mayhave a concept of what parts or
parts of things that we do, butthey're not going to know all of
(12:18):
it.
And if they do know all of it,then they also if they're hiring
you, they don't have the time todo it.
And so there's some piece thatthey need this end, you know.
Here's point one and point two,everything in between they need
us to do.
Exactly.
And yeah, but it has to berelational.
(12:39):
So that's really interesting.
My second tidbit from the book,and I'm kind of going out of
order in the chapters, so I'mnot necessarily going linear
here.
But I really like...
a concept that Berger talksabout related to suffixes,
(13:01):
particularly ER.
Adding an ER at the end of wordscan make people more likely to
take action on those things.
Okay.
Let me elaborate.
So say that I want toincorporate running regularly in
my life.
UNKNOWN (13:22):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (13:23):
I may talk to somebody and they ask me, what
do you do on this weekend?
I say, well, I went running.
I like running.
I'm a person who, you know, I'mgetting into it.
It's a hobby.
You aren't making that a part ofwho you are, right?
But if you say, I'm a runner.
(13:45):
I love running because I'm arunner.
it turns it into an identitypiece for us.
And so when people did that inthese studies, they were far
more likely to be consistent attaking action on those things.
If you're doing somethingrelated to drinking coffee, you
(14:08):
don't just say, I like drinkingcoffee.
You say, I'm a coffee drinker,right?
So all of that, it's fascinatinghow our brain processes just two
letters at the end of a worddifferently than saying the same
thing but without it.
Exactly.
Well, and that's where, so myclients kind of have an opposite
(14:29):
problem.
They've used ER too much intheir lives.
And so generally by the timesomeone comes to me for
assistance or for guidance orclarity, they've been in ER for
too long.
And something's happened andthat identity is now gone.
And they don't know actually howto build back a new identity for
themselves.
(14:49):
Because they've generallyconfused the thing that was a
verb, an ing, with themselves asan er, a doer of the thing.
And so it then comes to me whereI have to actually work them
through distinguishing those ersas roles versus their identity,
which is them.
And so I would have to talk toGarrett as you are now a Garrett
(15:10):
role.
You were a, you were a Garrettthat is a Garrett or whatever
the verb of Garrett is.
That's who we need to startidentifying as rather than some
of these roles.
But from just a linguisticsperspective, that ER is super
powerful because when those ERsare gone, when we can't run
anymore, when we can't doaccounting, when we can't be a
(15:31):
reader because our eyesightfails, we lose a lot of our
sense of self.
And that's how powerful thatending truly is because one,
They do it more, they're moreconfident, but then as soon as
it's gone, they don't know whothey are anymore.
And I think that's why it'simportant that we don't just put
so much weight on one part ofour identity.
(15:53):
Because then, say you break bothyour legs.
Yeah, you're not a runneranymore.
You are a roller, you know, andmy, you know, that can be just
as enriching, but in differentways.
One of the happiest people I'veever seen in my life is my
grandpa.
(16:14):
And, you know, from the time Iwas, I can remember, he only had
one leg and he was in awheelchair.
He was one of the happiestpeople that I know.
You know, it takes away some ofthe things that you can do in
your life, but it opens up adifferent perspective.
And so you can't just put weightinto one part of your identity.
But if you're building a newthing, if you identify with it
(16:38):
and use that ER, it'll help yoube able to do it consistently
long term.
Well, this might actually be adecent example piece because we
were just talking about thisbefore we hit record is I asked
Garrett, what do you think?
Be completely honest.
What's the biggest problem Ihave?
And my identity piece, my ER isreally hard for me to get across
still.
(16:59):
And so how would magic wordssolve my problem as an
identifying statement that wouldallow people to do business
better with Nolan?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Because it's, yeah, that, thatcontext wasn't one that, um, he
(17:20):
talked about necessarily insideof the research, but he did give
some other instances ofidentifiers that we can chat
more about.
But I think in general, when weare constructing our business
(17:42):
identities, we have to be ableto distinguish what exactly do I
do What do people think I do?
And what do I want people tothink I do?
Well, no, that's a greattrifecta right there.
So roll through that one moretime for us.
(18:04):
What do I do?
Do I do?
What do people think I do?
What do people think I do?
And what do I want people tothink I do?
What do I want people to think Ido?
So the first one is really justyour product and services.
The second one...
Mm-hmm.
(18:40):
But yeah, kind of interestingexercise to go through.
Yeah.
Well, and I can't help but studythe history of propaganda.
I think it's really important.
Sure.
Whenever we're talking aboutwords, we're talking about these
techniques, we're talking aboutstrong definitions of things.
There's a really bad famouspropagandist that said, make the
lie simple, but tell it often
SPEAKER_02 (19:03):
and
SPEAKER_00 (19:04):
loudly.
Yes.
And so part of this always wrapsinto the issues of sales and
marketing of, well, how are wemanipulating people?
Well, part of that problem isthat we need to kind of
manipulate ourselves to be thebest version of the business
owner or the brand or themarket.
And we have to be able to sellourselves on that again and
again.
And I think what's interesting,the difference between magic
(19:26):
words and switch words over hereis switch words would just start
off the problem by saying,together we bring divine order.
That works.
That's the knowledge ofunderstanding that the more I am
entrenched in connections tomyself, to everyone else, to
clients, to people completelyoutside of my own sphere, the
(19:47):
better things get and the morewe just rise out of this chaos,
which I find interesting becausenot a lot of people just start
from that.
There's almost a lack of faithwhen people talk marketing or
they talk branding thateverything's going to be okay.
They think they have to get itperfectly the first time.
So what's kind of the magicword's take on that getting it
(20:08):
right problem?
Yeah.
Well, and I think I have acouple of different things that
could be useful here from thebook.
One is just the storytellingpiece, which you and I have come
back to storytelling in.
So many different contexts.
We've had a full episode aboutit.
We're nerds.
(20:29):
Yep, yep.
And if you haven't heard thatepisode, go back, go listen to
it.
Me and Nolan did a full episodetalking about just fun things
revolving around storytellingand its importance.
That was a five-star episode,wasn't it?
Yeah, it was.
They should leave a five-starreview.
Leave a five-star review becauseit helps us get out there and
(20:49):
helps more people find thepodcast.
But the book, the book tells...
five different characteristicsof storytelling that can be used
in a variety of differentcontexts.
We'll just think of it inbusiness context for what I'm
throwing out there.
But in taking a survey ofhundreds of different people,
(21:13):
Berger looked for specificlanguage that people use to
describe themselves and avariety of different stories.
And he found these five themesthat he went along with.
(21:34):
One was an introduction.
Second is rising action.
Third is climax, falling action,and the resolution.
So this isn't a new framework,but it kind of affirmed a
framework that we already havewithin within our society.
And that's important, too, tomake sure that what we're doing
(21:55):
is still correct even yearslater.
And as we are trying to get ourown stories correct, we need to
break down the different piecesand parts of what makes up what
we're offering.
So if we have a marketing agencythat we're trying to sell, We
(22:17):
need a way to be able to getpeople's attention, build up
what the story of their livesare and what we're helping them
solve.
When we get to a climax, it'swhat may happen to their
businesses if they don't takeaction and then start to help
(22:38):
them be able to ease that bywhat solutions that we're
offering until finally they havethis picture of success.
the resolution and the resultsthat they're going to see.
So, and that can take all kindsof different contexts.
You know, it doesn't have to betrying to do a cell.
It could be, could be anything,but that's one thing that, that
(22:59):
came to mind when you weretalking about that.
Yeah.
Well, and one of the things thatI had a little bit of a
breakthrough on getting morecomfortable with figuring out
how to present myself was I gota little smash critique over a
business card that I've beenworking on, turn it into a
little magazine, but I gave itto someone and I said, Hey, rip
this to shreds for me, you know,thinking that they're going to
(23:20):
give me some feedback on it.
They literally ripped it toshreds.
And what I found interesting wasit made me think of all these
broken tablets of ancientlanguages or archeological finds
or everything, where we have allthese dead languages that we
don't know how to translate.
And we didn't know that.
specifically Egyptian, becausewe didn't have anything that was
(23:40):
self-referential.
We didn't have what was said inone language and the next to it
in another language and the nextto it in another language.
But it's the same meaning that'strying to be expressed across
all the words, shall we say.
What I noticed about myself isthat how I was describing things
wasn't self-referential.
I wasn't able to have on onepage the repetitive desire to
(24:01):
say, and this is the main thingthat we focus on.
This is what we care aboutregardless of any aspect of my
business that's going on.
And so in my book, switch wordsover here, it really talks about
finding your own personal switchwords.
So if you're a Harry Potter fan,then you'd put Quidditch as a
personal switch word.
If you are, you know, afisherman, then you need to put
(24:22):
rod real different things thatactually speak to yourself and
who you are, because a lot oftimes they don't know that
across that five step storystructure, that they're still
present.
They're not suddenly notexisting anymore.
And so I think a lot of goodmarketing and branding and just
figuring out the right words touse for an individual come from
(24:44):
making sure that we know theindividual's words to be able to
repeat that to them.
And through this difficult partof the process, you still exist.
And as we're resolving things,you still exist.
And so there's thisunderstanding of, sure, there
might be some objective magicwords that are going to be best
for everyone and all things atall points in time.
(25:04):
But our own personal magic wordsare really important to have
nailed down as kind of theguidepost, making sure that our
meaning is being gotten across.
And I know that a lot of peopletalking about marketing and
branding, they feel lost.
They feel like they no longerare the thing that's being
marketed or branded or what theywanted for themselves or their
company isn't what's happeninganymore.
(25:25):
So what would then magic wordsspeak to as far as how a person
makes sure there's more of theirown magic words through the
objective part of storytellingand marketing and branding
themselves?
Yeah.
Well, first off, I think that'sinteresting.
It's figuring out when we'retelling stories to other people
(25:48):
in marketing, we're not the herothemselves.
of those stories.
You know, we are the, just tosteal from, you know, Donald
Miller's story brand framework,you know, in that we are the
guide.
We're helping other peopleachieve what they're setting out
(26:08):
to do in their stories.
But it's so often that we get socaught up inside of that, that
we forget, one, we are a part ofthose stories.
And two, there's a differentperspective in the story where
we're we are the main characterand we have to understand the
narrative for all the differentstories that make up our
(26:29):
businesses and our solutions,our audiences.
And so I think what you weresaying makes, you know, it's
important to keep in mind thatwe can't forget who we are
inside of the stories and thedifferent parts that make up us.
I really like A couple ofdifferent things.
(26:52):
And I'll say I misspoke earlieron the survey wasn't directly
applicable to the storytellingframework.
I'm going through.
I have notes here.
All right.
But listen, people.
I'm not perfect.
You're not perfect.
(27:12):
Don't you judge me.
Very definitive.
How dare you.
It had to do with positive andnegative language and how that
can affect people's perceptions.
So in serving hundreds ofpeople, the words, quote, best,
(27:37):
unquote, what is that?
What does this note mean?
Anyway, they were talkingabout...
you know, things using wordslike beautiful or, you know,
exciting, things that we wouldput positive meaning towards as
opposed to using words like dumbor repulsive.
(27:57):
And whenever they finished thosesurveys, they figured out that
the emotional language wasdifferent really useful in a
couple of different contexts.
So in a context where you'retrying to sell a sports car, you
(28:20):
are going to use much moreemotional language to succeed.
You're trying to be able to makepeople feel like they are the
person who would want a sportscar and the wind in their hair
and you are envied by yourneighbors.
(28:42):
I don't know.
But then if you were trying tosell something that was, you
know, very...
practical like a toolkit.
You would want to use moreutilitarian types of language to
be able to describe itsfunctionality and its benefits
(29:04):
to what it's going to help youachieve.
And so positive emotionallanguage can heavily affect how
we view some things, but it'snot always going to be...
You know, the right storytellingtactics.
So that was really interesting.
Emotional language versusutilitarian language.
(29:25):
Right.
Well, and it's part of theproblem that a lot of people, if
they've ever read The Secret orthey've read a lot of the power
of positive thinking type stuff,oftentimes they'll throw all of
this positivity when what theyreally need is analysis.
Their problem is not a feel.
problem their problem is anumbers problem it's a math
problem and it's reallyunpopular to say that oh we've
(29:47):
got to do some math first wheninstead a lot of people they
just want to feel good butwhat's really fun about people
that do actually have apositivity problem they have an
emotional issue is getting themto understand that regardless of
how we think anything else worksbasically positive affirmations
are using this positive languagecreates a bias in us or anybody
(30:08):
that views it to look for morepositive things.
And so whenever you come out aproblem and you're just talking
about the competition and sayinghow bad they are, well, that
creates a negative bias to haveanybody that's listening to you
only pick out the negativethings that you say and talk
about or might be bad about yourproduct or service.
So that emotional positive biasis really important to make sure
(30:30):
that we are telling peopleemotionally what we want them to
pay attention to.
So in political speeches,they'll either want to use
emotional language that evokesanger or it evokes fear or it
evokes one thing or another.
They do this in legalargumentation all the time.
There's a really good bookcalled Reptile that talks about
the legal usage of fear andfear-based language in jury
(30:53):
trials and in getting yourargument across.
But we can do this in business.
And so that's why there's such aFocus on this power of positive
thinking because that emotionallanguage, whenever it's not a
math problem we're dealing with,we're just wanting to make sure
people are primed to see andlook at the good things.
I love it.
(31:13):
I could talk about these thingswith you for a very long time.
And, you know, for me, it'sgreat conversations.
But unfortunately, we have cometo the end.
We have come together to gaindivine order in our magic words.
It's been great being able totalk about these two books.
(31:36):
And if you like these styles ofepisodes, let us know on the
podcast.
We really don't do podcasts.
much of any editing on these,which probably is very apparent
to you all.
But we do it because we want itto be super organic and just
conversations.
And so let us know how you feelabout that.
(31:57):
Or if you want a more curatedconversation, cut-up type of
episode.
We are experimenting right now,and man, we just love all of our
listeners who are tuning in, andwe want to make this podcast as
good as it can be for you all.
We've got to make sure to havemore fun together.
That's right.
But as always, Garrett, I hatefun.
(32:21):
Again, super definitiveheuristic there for you.
But as always, ladies andgentlemen, we've got to stay
sharp and think biz.
UNKNOWN (32:30):
do
all
SPEAKER_00 (00:12):
right we are here with another episode of you
think biz podcast ladies andgentlemen welcome to the day we
started off a little low energybut now we are better energy and
uh we have uh We, ourselves, andI.
(00:45):
Welcome to a book club episode.
(01:14):
a professor named Dr.
Jonah Berger.
He is a big guy in the largelanguage model research space.
He's studied a lot when it comesto how people use words in
specific contexts and he'sliterally across all of his
(01:38):
different studies looked atmillions of examples that he
used puts together his findingson.
And so he's got some pretty cooltakeaways that we'll mention a
few notes from today.
Excellent.
And I over here have a bookcalled Switch Words by Liz Dean.
Its tagline is how to use oneword to get what you want.
And this is a book in the spanof what's called the New Thought
(02:01):
Movement in Americanspirituality.
And so if you've read NapoleonHill, Think and Grow Rich,
looked into any of NormanVincent Peale's work, all of
this is part of the American NewThought Movement of changing
your mind Love it.
I definitely think we are goingto get some That's a weird– I
(02:35):
definitely think– I know we'regoing to get some cool crossover
today when it comes to some ofthese things.
And I actually– that's a perfecttransition to one of the facts
is Dr.
Burgess talks about hedging as a– a way that we can either
(02:56):
dissuade the people we'retalking to or actually have a
positive effect.
And hedging, you know, when Isay hedging, it's words that are
could, I think, unlikely, in myopinion...
kind of, those types of words.
(03:17):
Anything that gives thathesitation or lack of confidence
inside of our language.
So what Berger's found is thatwhen we use more direct language
that does express confidence,things like definitely, clearly,
(03:39):
absolutely, we see a bigdifference in our audience's
intake of what we're trying tobe able to bring to the table.
Which, a lot of these thingsthat come from magic words, some
of it is surprising and some ofit feels like, oh yeah, that's
(04:01):
common sense.
But when you put it intopractice, the amount of
difference that it makes in ourcommunication is shocking.
So that's my first one, is whenwe Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
(04:31):
We want to be sticking to thosemore definitive and confident
statements.
Right.
Well, then there's a curiosityfor you, Garrett.
Whenever you're dealing withclients, how often do they,
shall we say, definitively statethat their problem or their
needs are one thing, but youknow they actually mean
something else?
Sure.
How often do you think thosedefinitive words actually mean
(04:53):
what they mean when someone saysthem?
So I think we maybe...
talking about two differentthings though is that one is is
how do we uh intake you knowmore confident words and the
other is how often do we meanthe the things that we say
exactly because that's what inotice all the time is there is
(05:15):
this Break, shall we say,between the confidence of
delivery versus what someonetruly means as the definition of
that confidence.
(05:47):
And you lose out in thatsituation because you weren't
using the right language.
Precisely.
And it's very difficult,especially in the industry of
spirituality or religion or whatI do on a day-to-day basis that
I've done to actually help a lotof my clients is a number of
practitioners will say, well,there's lots of different ways
to come to the same conclusion.
There are personal practicesthat you just need to feel out.
(06:10):
Where I've had to recognize thata lot of people, whenever
they're dealing with very deepspiritual problems, they want me
to tell them, I get results.
And I do.
And if I wasn't willing to statethat, then they're not actually
going to be prepped for anexperience that is meant to get
them results.
And so my curiosity then,especially with how definitively
(06:31):
we state results, We say I'mgreat at this.
This service or product isexcellent.
It then gets into something elseyou kind of mentioned in your
notes as we were discussing thisepisode of kind of persuasion
versus manipulation.
And that's where the definitionquestion that I had kind of
comes in is do we think thatjust using definitive language
(06:55):
is manipulative and that's whywe don't use it?
I I would argue that most of thetime we just aren't confident.
And in this case, I'm actuallyusing a hedging statement and
that's the most of the time.
And one of the interestingthings inside of the book was
(07:17):
that there are instances whereit's better to use hedging
language and if you go in fullyconfident in, you know, a
financial prediction onsomething or some sort of
numbers statement, and you'relike, this is the thing, and
then it goes horribly wrong andit has nothing to do with it,
(07:39):
then you are, you're coming outwith a lot of egg on your face,
as opposed to if you have somehedging statements, it can
actually build your, yourauthority.
But in this case, um, I wouldsay most of the time we as
people have some type ofimposter syndrome or we're
(08:01):
taught to be humble, whetherthat's from a religious
standpoint or just the morals ofour upbringing.
And it makes it harder to say,yes, this is what's happening.
And I agree.
and going to deliver X, youknow, going through inside of
(08:26):
our language.
Okay.
Well, and that's interestingbecause when your book starts
off with this hedging languageversus definitive language, my
book starts off with just a fewwords that Liz Dean says are
kind of the manifesting switchwords.
And those are together.
So supposedly this is the masterswitch word for everything.
We then have divine, which isfor asking for a miracle.
(08:47):
We have divine order as a phrasethat is supposed to help you do
anything efficiently andrestores order from chaos.
And then bring, which is forbringing you whatever you ask
for.
So it's almost as though my bookover here is utilizing some kind
of hedging languagedefinitively.
It's like we're going to do thistogether.
We're asking for divine order tobring us whatever it is that we
(09:10):
want.
And I think that's a degree ofsurety that...
kind of begins and prefaces aconversation either with
yourself or with clients oranything else.
Because I don't actuallyremember the last time I've
talked to a client and said,hey, we're doing this together
in the explanation of what I do.
I don't think I've actually usedthese switch words to describe
(09:31):
what I do.
Nolan, you've got to take yourown book.
I know.
I'm the exact same way, though.
And that's the beauty of, Ithink, good books is that they
give you a lot of information,but you have to go back and
just...
read them again periodically.
Cause I, same thing.
I have a lot of things from thisbook that were just cool
(09:53):
takeaways and you know, but itsounds like that first, that
first touch point is focusing onthe relationship of language and
how it connects not justconcepts, but people themselves.
Exactly.
I love that.
Well, and it's also one of theproblems a number of people have
(10:15):
whenever they're on a spiritualjourney or they're trying to
find themselves is they presumethey need to go to an ashram in
India or they presume they needto do like five grams of
mushrooms or they presume theyneed to have this grand
spiritual experience.
But all of those spiritualexperiences just encapsulate
together.
It's this grand process and aquest just to realize that, oh,
(10:35):
everything's connected.
We can do that just on alinguistic, logical process.
Before any of that questingneeds to happen.
So tell me again, what are theactual words that were the
switch words on this one?
So the supposed master switchwords in this book are together.
Together.
Divine, which is separate fromdivine order as its own phrase,
(11:00):
and then bring.
Okay.
And arguably, I think that kindof fits what I've heard termed
as the four industries, health,wealth, relationships, and
happiness.
SPEAKER_02 (11:11):
And
SPEAKER_00 (11:12):
it just seems like these four things are hitting on
what we are actually asking for.
Because I don't know if wheneverwe're doing business that we're
actually selling the product orservice.
I think we're selling a miraclethat we just so happen to be
skilled at bringing to somebodyelse.
Because someone else doesn'tknow necessarily what Hammonds
Media does.
They don't know all the codinglanguages or the tools or
(11:34):
anything else going on behindthe scenes.
But they're asking you.
to grant them a miracle over thethings that they don't
understand.
Yeah, the language there, too,about, you know, you and I, I
think we would maybe describe itdifferently.
Miracle, to me, has veryspecific meaning, but in some
(11:57):
sense, that magical feel behindwhat the output is, I think, is
that end result of People mayhave a concept of what parts or
parts of things that we do, butthey're not going to know all of
(12:18):
it.
And if they do know all of it,then they also if they're hiring
you, they don't have the time todo it.
And so there's some piece thatthey need this end, you know.
Here's point one and point two,everything in between they need
us to do.
Exactly.
And yeah, but it has to berelational.
(12:39):
So that's really interesting.
My second tidbit from the book,and I'm kind of going out of
order in the chapters, so I'mnot necessarily going linear
here.
But I really like...
a concept that Berger talksabout related to suffixes,
(13:01):
particularly ER.
Adding an ER at the end of wordscan make people more likely to
take action on those things.
Okay.
Let me elaborate.
So say that I want toincorporate running regularly in
my life.
UNKNOWN (13:22):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (13:23):
I may talk to somebody and they ask me, what
do you do on this weekend?
I say, well, I went running.
I like running.
I'm a person who, you know, I'mgetting into it.
It's a hobby.
You aren't making that a part ofwho you are, right?
But if you say, I'm a runner.
(13:45):
I love running because I'm arunner.
it turns it into an identitypiece for us.
And so when people did that inthese studies, they were far
more likely to be consistent attaking action on those things.
If you're doing somethingrelated to drinking coffee, you
(14:08):
don't just say, I like drinkingcoffee.
You say, I'm a coffee drinker,right?
So all of that, it's fascinatinghow our brain processes just two
letters at the end of a worddifferently than saying the same
thing but without it.
Exactly.
Well, and that's where, so myclients kind of have an opposite
(14:29):
problem.
They've used ER too much intheir lives.
And so generally by the timesomeone comes to me for
assistance or for guidance orclarity, they've been in ER for
too long.
And something's happened andthat identity is now gone.
And they don't know actually howto build back a new identity for
themselves.
(14:49):
Because they've generallyconfused the thing that was a
verb, an ing, with themselves asan er, a doer of the thing.
And so it then comes to me whereI have to actually work them
through distinguishing those ersas roles versus their identity,
which is them.
And so I would have to talk toGarrett as you are now a Garrett
(15:10):
role.
You were a, you were a Garrettthat is a Garrett or whatever
the verb of Garrett is.
That's who we need to startidentifying as rather than some
of these roles.
But from just a linguisticsperspective, that ER is super
powerful because when those ERsare gone, when we can't run
anymore, when we can't doaccounting, when we can't be a
(15:31):
reader because our eyesightfails, we lose a lot of our
sense of self.
And that's how powerful thatending truly is because one,
They do it more, they're moreconfident, but then as soon as
it's gone, they don't know whothey are anymore.
And I think that's why it'simportant that we don't just put
so much weight on one part ofour identity.
(15:53):
Because then, say you break bothyour legs.
Yeah, you're not a runneranymore.
You are a roller, you know, andmy, you know, that can be just
as enriching, but in differentways.
One of the happiest people I'veever seen in my life is my
grandpa.
(16:14):
And, you know, from the time Iwas, I can remember, he only had
one leg and he was in awheelchair.
He was one of the happiestpeople that I know.
You know, it takes away some ofthe things that you can do in
your life, but it opens up adifferent perspective.
And so you can't just put weightinto one part of your identity.
But if you're building a newthing, if you identify with it
(16:38):
and use that ER, it'll help yoube able to do it consistently
long term.
Well, this might actually be adecent example piece because we
were just talking about thisbefore we hit record is I asked
Garrett, what do you think?
Be completely honest.
What's the biggest problem Ihave?
And my identity piece, my ER isreally hard for me to get across
still.
(16:59):
And so how would magic wordssolve my problem as an
identifying statement that wouldallow people to do business
better with Nolan?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Because it's, yeah, that, thatcontext wasn't one that, um, he
(17:20):
talked about necessarily insideof the research, but he did give
some other instances ofidentifiers that we can chat
more about.
But I think in general, when weare constructing our business
(17:42):
identities, we have to be ableto distinguish what exactly do I
do What do people think I do?
And what do I want people tothink I do?
Well, no, that's a greattrifecta right there.
So roll through that one moretime for us.
(18:04):
What do I do?
Do I do?
What do people think I do?
What do people think I do?
And what do I want people tothink I do?
What do I want people to think Ido?
So the first one is really justyour product and services.
The second one...
Mm-hmm.
(18:40):
But yeah, kind of interestingexercise to go through.
Yeah.
Well, and I can't help but studythe history of propaganda.
I think it's really important.
Sure.
Whenever we're talking aboutwords, we're talking about these
techniques, we're talking aboutstrong definitions of things.
There's a really bad famouspropagandist that said, make the
lie simple, but tell it often
SPEAKER_02 (19:03):
and
SPEAKER_00 (19:04):
loudly.
Yes.
And so part of this always wrapsinto the issues of sales and
marketing of, well, how are wemanipulating people?
Well, part of that problem isthat we need to kind of
manipulate ourselves to be thebest version of the business
owner or the brand or themarket.
And we have to be able to sellourselves on that again and
again.
And I think what's interesting,the difference between magic
(19:26):
words and switch words over hereis switch words would just start
off the problem by saying,together we bring divine order.
That works.
That's the knowledge ofunderstanding that the more I am
entrenched in connections tomyself, to everyone else, to
clients, to people completelyoutside of my own sphere, the
(19:47):
better things get and the morewe just rise out of this chaos,
which I find interesting becausenot a lot of people just start
from that.
There's almost a lack of faithwhen people talk marketing or
they talk branding thateverything's going to be okay.
They think they have to get itperfectly the first time.
So what's kind of the magicword's take on that getting it
(20:08):
right problem?
Yeah.
Well, and I think I have acouple of different things that
could be useful here from thebook.
One is just the storytellingpiece, which you and I have come
back to storytelling in.
So many different contexts.
We've had a full episode aboutit.
We're nerds.
(20:29):
Yep, yep.
And if you haven't heard thatepisode, go back, go listen to
it.
Me and Nolan did a full episodetalking about just fun things
revolving around storytellingand its importance.
That was a five-star episode,wasn't it?
Yeah, it was.
They should leave a five-starreview.
Leave a five-star review becauseit helps us get out there and
(20:49):
helps more people find thepodcast.
But the book, the book tells...
five different characteristicsof storytelling that can be used
in a variety of differentcontexts.
We'll just think of it inbusiness context for what I'm
throwing out there.
But in taking a survey ofhundreds of different people,
(21:13):
Berger looked for specificlanguage that people use to
describe themselves and avariety of different stories.
And he found these five themesthat he went along with.
(21:34):
One was an introduction.
Second is rising action.
Third is climax, falling action,and the resolution.
So this isn't a new framework,but it kind of affirmed a
framework that we already havewithin within our society.
And that's important, too, tomake sure that what we're doing
(21:55):
is still correct even yearslater.
And as we are trying to get ourown stories correct, we need to
break down the different piecesand parts of what makes up what
we're offering.
So if we have a marketing agencythat we're trying to sell, We
(22:17):
need a way to be able to getpeople's attention, build up
what the story of their livesare and what we're helping them
solve.
When we get to a climax, it'swhat may happen to their
businesses if they don't takeaction and then start to help
(22:38):
them be able to ease that bywhat solutions that we're
offering until finally they havethis picture of success.
the resolution and the resultsthat they're going to see.
So, and that can take all kindsof different contexts.
You know, it doesn't have to betrying to do a cell.
It could be, could be anything,but that's one thing that, that
(22:59):
came to mind when you weretalking about that.
Yeah.
Well, and one of the things thatI had a little bit of a
breakthrough on getting morecomfortable with figuring out
how to present myself was I gota little smash critique over a
business card that I've beenworking on, turn it into a
little magazine, but I gave itto someone and I said, Hey, rip
this to shreds for me, you know,thinking that they're going to
(23:20):
give me some feedback on it.
They literally ripped it toshreds.
And what I found interesting wasit made me think of all these
broken tablets of ancientlanguages or archeological finds
or everything, where we have allthese dead languages that we
don't know how to translate.
And we didn't know that.
specifically Egyptian, becausewe didn't have anything that was
(23:40):
self-referential.
We didn't have what was said inone language and the next to it
in another language and the nextto it in another language.
But it's the same meaning that'strying to be expressed across
all the words, shall we say.
What I noticed about myself isthat how I was describing things
wasn't self-referential.
I wasn't able to have on onepage the repetitive desire to
(24:01):
say, and this is the main thingthat we focus on.
This is what we care aboutregardless of any aspect of my
business that's going on.
And so in my book, switch wordsover here, it really talks about
finding your own personal switchwords.
So if you're a Harry Potter fan,then you'd put Quidditch as a
personal switch word.
If you are, you know, afisherman, then you need to put
(24:22):
rod real different things thatactually speak to yourself and
who you are, because a lot oftimes they don't know that
across that five step storystructure, that they're still
present.
They're not suddenly notexisting anymore.
And so I think a lot of goodmarketing and branding and just
figuring out the right words touse for an individual come from
(24:44):
making sure that we know theindividual's words to be able to
repeat that to them.
And through this difficult partof the process, you still exist.
And as we're resolving things,you still exist.
And so there's thisunderstanding of, sure, there
might be some objective magicwords that are going to be best
for everyone and all things atall points in time.
(25:04):
But our own personal magic wordsare really important to have
nailed down as kind of theguidepost, making sure that our
meaning is being gotten across.
And I know that a lot of peopletalking about marketing and
branding, they feel lost.
They feel like they no longerare the thing that's being
marketed or branded or what theywanted for themselves or their
company isn't what's happeninganymore.
(25:25):
So what would then magic wordsspeak to as far as how a person
makes sure there's more of theirown magic words through the
objective part of storytellingand marketing and branding
themselves?
Yeah.
Well, first off, I think that'sinteresting.
It's figuring out when we'retelling stories to other people
(25:48):
in marketing, we're not the herothemselves.
of those stories.
You know, we are the, just tosteal from, you know, Donald
Miller's story brand framework,you know, in that we are the
guide.
We're helping other peopleachieve what they're setting out
(26:08):
to do in their stories.
But it's so often that we get socaught up inside of that, that
we forget, one, we are a part ofthose stories.
And two, there's a differentperspective in the story where
we're we are the main characterand we have to understand the
narrative for all the differentstories that make up our
(26:29):
businesses and our solutions,our audiences.
And so I think what you weresaying makes, you know, it's
important to keep in mind thatwe can't forget who we are
inside of the stories and thedifferent parts that make up us.
I really like A couple ofdifferent things.
(26:52):
And I'll say I misspoke earlieron the survey wasn't directly
applicable to the storytellingframework.
I'm going through.
I have notes here.
All right.
But listen, people.
I'm not perfect.
You're not perfect.
(27:12):
Don't you judge me.
Very definitive.
How dare you.
It had to do with positive andnegative language and how that
can affect people's perceptions.
So in serving hundreds ofpeople, the words, quote, best,
(27:37):
unquote, what is that?
What does this note mean?
Anyway, they were talkingabout...
you know, things using wordslike beautiful or, you know,
exciting, things that we wouldput positive meaning towards as
opposed to using words like dumbor repulsive.
(27:57):
And whenever they finished thosesurveys, they figured out that
the emotional language wasdifferent really useful in a
couple of different contexts.
So in a context where you'retrying to sell a sports car, you
(28:20):
are going to use much moreemotional language to succeed.
You're trying to be able to makepeople feel like they are the
person who would want a sportscar and the wind in their hair
and you are envied by yourneighbors.
(28:42):
I don't know.
But then if you were trying tosell something that was, you
know, very...
practical like a toolkit.
You would want to use moreutilitarian types of language to
be able to describe itsfunctionality and its benefits
(29:04):
to what it's going to help youachieve.
And so positive emotionallanguage can heavily affect how
we view some things, but it'snot always going to be...
You know, the right storytellingtactics.
So that was really interesting.
Emotional language versusutilitarian language.
(29:25):
Right.
Well, and it's part of theproblem that a lot of people, if
they've ever read The Secret orthey've read a lot of the power
of positive thinking type stuff,oftentimes they'll throw all of
this positivity when what theyreally need is analysis.
Their problem is not a feel.
problem their problem is anumbers problem it's a math
problem and it's reallyunpopular to say that oh we've
(29:47):
got to do some math first wheninstead a lot of people they
just want to feel good butwhat's really fun about people
that do actually have apositivity problem they have an
emotional issue is getting themto understand that regardless of
how we think anything else worksbasically positive affirmations
are using this positive languagecreates a bias in us or anybody
(30:08):
that views it to look for morepositive things.
And so whenever you come out aproblem and you're just talking
about the competition and sayinghow bad they are, well, that
creates a negative bias to haveanybody that's listening to you
only pick out the negativethings that you say and talk
about or might be bad about yourproduct or service.
So that emotional positive biasis really important to make sure
(30:30):
that we are telling peopleemotionally what we want them to
pay attention to.
So in political speeches,they'll either want to use
emotional language that evokesanger or it evokes fear or it
evokes one thing or another.
They do this in legalargumentation all the time.
There's a really good bookcalled Reptile that talks about
the legal usage of fear andfear-based language in jury
(30:53):
trials and in getting yourargument across.
But we can do this in business.
And so that's why there's such aFocus on this power of positive
thinking because that emotionallanguage, whenever it's not a
math problem we're dealing with,we're just wanting to make sure
people are primed to see andlook at the good things.
I love it.
(31:13):
I could talk about these thingswith you for a very long time.
And, you know, for me, it'sgreat conversations.
But unfortunately, we have cometo the end.
We have come together to gaindivine order in our magic words.
It's been great being able totalk about these two books.
(31:36):
And if you like these styles ofepisodes, let us know on the
podcast.
We really don't do podcasts.
much of any editing on these,which probably is very apparent
to you all.
But we do it because we want itto be super organic and just
conversations.
And so let us know how you feelabout that.
(31:57):
Or if you want a more curatedconversation, cut-up type of
episode.
We are experimenting right now,and man, we just love all of our
listeners who are tuning in, andwe want to make this podcast as
good as it can be for you all.
We've got to make sure to havemore fun together.
That's right.
But as always, Garrett, I hatefun.
(32:21):
Again, super definitiveheuristic there for you.
But as always, ladies andgentlemen, we've got to stay
sharp and think biz.
UNKNOWN (32:30):
do
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