Word power

I had lunch with the Author of the Squiggly Line on Friday – Steve Hopkins. Steve is a thinker who actually spends his life doing stuff which is valuable to you and me, less so him. His current gig being working for the Future Summit, which is part of the Australian Davos connection.

Words matter, they matter a lot more than we think, they matter a lot more than money, and matter a lot more than anything. Words are the most powerful thing we’ve developed as humans.

Together we had some great conversation and I decided to write down some of the words which really resonated. Then write a bit about them in the context of that conversation. So here the words:

Verbal Veneer – We discussed the same boring language we here from media organizations, company CEO’s and politicians. The type of language which focuses on saying many words, which have no definable meaning, or worse, meaning for which we can come back to someone and say… ‘But you said this…”. example of such language. ‘We are current;y assessing the scenario and it’s impact of the constituents and will engage in due course.’ What frog shit.

Agitators – People who are prepared to question, annoy, and challenge for the sake of good. Luck for us Steve is focused on getting as many agitators to the Future Summit. People like Cameron Reilly. We need more agitators.

Cog – Steve was saying that his previous role made him feel like he was just a cog in the system. He couldn’t go through life being a cog. He wanted to create, change and challenge things. This is not the job of a cog.

Mega trends – When discussing some of the big trends out there, we discussed what makes them so. we decided that it’s not about popularity and population involvement or media noise, more so, what impact these trends have on the plight of the Human species, this is what creates the real distinction between mega trends and fads.

Autonomy & Freedom – What is freedom? The dictionary has 19 meanings for this noun. But all of these come down to one important factor: The ability to decide. The ability to decide and act in a manner which suits oneself. Decision making autonomy in a physical and mental sense. The ability to decide what to do and what to think. Decide how to spend our minutes. This is real freedom, and such autonomy is what creates happiness.