The Power of Your Words

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On a recent cool morning before the kids were awake, I took a hot cup of coffee onto our back porch where the birds were starting to chirp.

I’ve been thinking about the power of words lately. How what we say impacts us and others, for better or worse, whether we’re aware or not.

I flipped open my Bible to dig into this topic.

Ephesians 4 says, “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.”

Proverbs 21 says, “Whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from troubles.”

James compares our tongue to the rudder of a ship – it may be small, but it steers our direction.

But it was another simple verse that drove it home for me, and it’s one I think we all can learn from.

Here’s Proverbs 18:21:

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”

Said another way: our words build up or break down.

They build up or break down ourselves, our spouses, our children, our teammates, our colleagues, our customers, our friends, our neighbors, our community members.

We see this principle – the power of words – play out in all areas of life.

When Satya Nadella took over Microsoft in 2014, he used a three-word phrase – “learn-it-all” – to shift the culture.

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, is famous for his “Day 1” mantra, which he first wrote to Amazon shareholders in 1997. Those words permeate how Amazon still operates.

In sports, U.S. Olympic Hockey coach Herb Brooks’ 1980 speech to his squad of underdogs inspired one of the greatest upsets in history as the Americans defeated the vaunted Soviet Union. 

“Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world,” Brooks reportedly said, which became immortalized with the film Miracle.

One of the reasons I love ultra running is because it provides countless opportunities to speak life or speak death. As your words go, so will your race.

Here’s the point:

It’s easy to think our words don’t matter, but they do. They have more power on us and others than we even realize.

All of this has me reflecting on some questions, which I encourage you to do as well:

• How do I speak to myself?

• How do I speak to my spouse?

• How do I speak to my children?

• How do I speak at work?

• How do I speak about my team or boss?

• When things don’t go my way, what comes out of my mouth?

• When I make a mistake, what voice takes over in my head?

• What percentage of my words in a day build others up?

• What percentage break others down, even if unintended?

• On a daily basis, do my words reflect who I want to be?

There’s power in your words, y’all.

And you have the power to decide what kind of power that will be.

A Couple Good Things

1. David Senra, host of the Founders podcast, launched a new podcast and his first conversation is with Daniel Ek, founder of Spotify. Great conversation for anyone who loves business or entrepreneurship. Listen here: Apple | Spotify

2. I enjoyed this blog post from my friend Peter Kang, an entrepreneur and investor, on investing in personal stories as an asset class. All of us have interesting stories to tell, and we should all spend the time to package them and pass them on.

Thanks for reading.

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Have a great week, y’all.

Teddy is the author of The Process. Reach out on LinkedIn or X, or reply to this email.