Word of caution

Are words powerful? Are they powerful enough to kill people? If you are not sure, you have not read today's headlines. Words of rumor killed almost 1000 people in stampede in Iraq. Such a sad incident!

Same thing happened couple of years ago. Some preacher convinced people that he can lead them to heaven and people believed him to that extend that they all took poison and died. Even few months back when heavy rains struck Mumbai, rumors of Tsunami killed few dozens.

If words are so powerful, can we use them for obtaining positive results? Can we use them to build lives? Can we change lives with words?

I firmly believe in the power of “Spoken Word’. There something very interesting that I heard couple of years ago from my hero, Kumar Sivaramkrishnan – a millionaire, who became so by mastering the art of spoken word. He once talked about the powerful way of programming brain with spoken words. I was amazed at the power of this, and ever since became fan of this ideology :-)

Let me try to explain.

Our belief system lies in our brain. When we are born, the brain is clean, without any beliefs (clean slate!). As we grow older, we develop our belief systems (through our senses?). Let's say we have a belief that we are poor at public speaking. We believe we are not good at talking to gatherings. We were not born with this belief, did we? So, our clean mind picked it up along the way we grew up. Probably some bad experiences collaborated to form this belief.

Now, we want to change that. How do we do it? Let’s imagine this situation. We somehow get ourselves in front of audience – to speak. Then subconsciously we ask our brain, what our experience is likely going to be. What does the brain do? As David Schwartz talks about it in his “Magic of Thinking Big”, brain is like a “bank-teller”. When asked for information, it looks in to our “past” account, and digs past experiences. And what do you have in your past? Bad experiences related to speaking in public. Probably some insult, and humiliation too. So, the brain comes back and reminds you how you failed when you tried to participate in elocution competition in your college, when you tried giving a presentation to your colleagues, or when you tried to address a customer gathering blah blah blah.

Guess what’s going to happen now! Exactly. You are going to fail again.

Let’s consider this variation in the earlier situation. Instead of asking the “teller” (brain) what your “account balance” (past experiences) is, you “deposit” your “words” that form your “account balance”: you strongly convey the message that you are going to do great this time. How do you do that? By speaking. If possible, speaking aloud. You say, “This is going to be a great talk. I am going to enjoy it. All the audience is going to like my talk. I am a master at public speaking”.

Let’s see what happens when you say these things aloud (to yourself).

When you say it aloud, who is going to hear it first? Yourself. So, your ears take the message to your brain. What does brain do? It tries to deposit the message. And there will be a conflict, for sure. Because, it does not LOGICALLY match with your previous experiences, your subconscious probably refuges to register it.

Then what do you do? You say it again and again and again until the mind is forced to take it. You will face some initial hiccups, but with practice, you will overcome the fear of public speaking. What did you do? You are essentially “programming” your brain with your words!! (I can draw a parallel between this, and the ancient Hindu philosophy of “Tathastu Devata” – the Gods who supposedly grant your wishes instantly! We were never allowed to say bad words/wishes while we were kids. We were told all those wishes are instantly granted by Tathastu Devata, so better speak and ask for good ones!!)

If you expand, I can see that the same applies to so many other things in life – achieving your dreams and goals, having positive changes in the way you live, and improving the quality of life altogether etcetera. I heard many, many, many real life examples of the power of spoken word. To conclude, I believe in the following. This is no jumbling of words; this is something I personally learnt from one of my billionaire associates.

“Speak what you want. Don't speak what you already have that you don't want. Speak what you want, even if you don't have it, as if you already have it”

I practice it very religiously. You try!