Sunday, February 23, 2014

One-track minds: exactly, absolutely, always


















Do your speeches include statements like the following:

Everyone needs to try this immediately.

Filler words like um are absolutely useless, and should be completely eliminated.

Everybody needs to hear this man’s story.

Without exception, you should never start your speech by telling a joke.

Everybody should absolutely always eat breakfast each morning.


If they do, then it’s probably time to consider whether you really can justify being that dogmatic and universal. Should you tell a pregnant woman with morning sickness to eat breakfast?

When I wake up very late at night, I sometimes amuse myself by listening to the Coast to Coast AM radio show hosted by George Noory. George is very fond of saying both exactly and absolutely. He has an endless parade of wacko guests with startling books about UFOs, demons, Bigfoot, pyramids, stargates, and near death experiences.

This post was inspired by Shari Alexander’s December 16th blog post on Dangerous Advice, but very similar sentiments about communication also were expressed by Tony Gentilcore in a November 2012 blog post on Everybody, Never, & Always which included:

“Don’t be an a-hole and think you know it all or that your way is the only way.  Unless your name is Gandalf, get over yourself…"

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