Your Greatest Strength Lies in Your Words

What do you think is the most.

Powerful thing you possess? Some people might say it's money. Others might say it's power, prestige or status. Still others might say it's authority by having a position where they can tell.

Other people what to do.

Some might believe it's owning a business and being able to boss people around. Others might say it's strength of your body and how strong you are and how much weight you could lift or how fast you could run. That's what we're going to talk about on this podcast.

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A Rome author and world renowned public speaker, as he shares stories involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good, spirited, positive and fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rohm.

Hi, I'm Dr. Robert Rohm and I.

Hope that you will really listen because what I'm about to share with you took me a lifetime to learn. I'm still learning it. I work on this one thing every day of my life and believe me.

It is not easy.

As a matter of fact, when you find out what it is, you're going to nod your head up and down in agreement with, yeah, I think you're right. I believe the most powerful thing that you possess, the strongest thing you possess, the thing that you possess that makes you who you are above everything else.

Are your words. The way you talk, the way you say things to other people. Let me give you a few examples. I'm going somewhere with this. Just bear with me because everybody agrees with me on this topic. Everybody says, wow, yeah, this is really true. My words are very, very powerful. But I see very few people practice the ability to use words correctly. And the great thing about this is whether you're a multimillionaire or whether you're broke, this does not cost anything for you to do. Learning how to use words correctly is, I believe, the single most important thing that you'll ever learn how to do. And sometimes we do it real well for a day or two and then we forget. That's why at 75 years old, I could look back and say, if I could live my whole life over again and know just one thing that I should do every day of my life.

Other than brush my teeth, wash my.

Face, take a shower and get dressed.

And, and have, and say my prayers and try to be a good, good person. All of those are great sounding events.

And, and experiences, but they all pale in comparison to one thing. What comes out of your mouth?

How do you talk to other people? What do you say? Proverbs 18:21 says, Life and death are in the power of your words.

Let me give you a few examples and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Suppose someone said to you, what?

What is wrong with you?

Do you have any brains at all in your head? You see how hurtful that would be? What if someone said, wow, I am.

Really grateful to get to be your friend. Hanging out with you is awesome.

You always say things that really are encouraging. I need to be more like you. See, just an example. Like that shows you the difference between words of death or words of life. How about this? I am so proud of you, man. You did such a great job. I just said it was awesome. See how good that makes you feel? How about this? Well, I'm ashamed of you. You are such a loser. That was horrible. Now listen carefully what I'm about to say. I do not live in the world where I think everything is. Is wonderful and roses and perfume, and we all lived happily ever after. But even when you need to share something with another person to correct them or to point out something to them that needs to be changed, you can do it in a helpful manner. Many times you've heard me say things like this. I was so. It's just. I just can't get over the power of how words change everything. I was on the phone with someone yesterday, and I was talking to them, and I ordered a part for my computer four weeks ago. I could hardly believe it's taken this long. They said I'd have it a couple of days. Well, it got lost. It ended up getting delivered to Lebanon, Tennessee. Now, how that could happen from Griffin, Georgia, I have no idea. So in the conversation, I said, do you have my address?

Please tell me. They gave me my address. I said, yes, that is the correct address. And I said, do you have my phone number? They gave me my phone number. I said, do you have the. I said, do you have any idea how this guy lost? No. We're sorry. We don't know how it happened. I wanted to say, what's wrong with all of y'? All? How do y' all stay in business? I mean, there are hundreds of companies that can ship packages every day, but y' all don't seem to be able to know how to do that. See, my mind is after my behind, and it's ready to say something mean, hateful, and nasty at just about every opportunity. But that's what this podcast is about. Becoming wiser works two ways. Number one, you know what to say. And number two, you know what not to say. And I think I have worked harder at knowing what not to say, keeping my mouth shut, not saying something when I probably could say something and I would be right about it and I would deserve to say what I had said because I was so right. But I have learned that that's not always helpful. It's rarely helpful, it's probably never helpful. Let me share with you three ideas that I have, may have shared these before that I've learned to play little games with myself. The first game I say to myself is just this once, let it go. Just this once, don't say anything. Just this once, you can say something next time, you can say something tomorrow, you can say something every day for the rest of your life. But just this time, give them a get out of jail free card. Just don't say anything. Boy, that's hard because I have a big mouth and I have something to say about everything. But I'll say to myself, just let it go. Give them a get out of jail free card this one time, you can say something next time. This time, let it go. Second thing I say to myself is, if you were not here right now, would you say anything? Now that's kind of odd. If I were not there, I wouldn't.

Even know about it.

So of course I wouldn't say anything. If I were not standing there and had the opportunity to say something, then of course I would say something. But I say to myself, if you were not here and you didn't know about this, would you say anything? Well, no, I guess I wouldn't because I wouldn't even know about it. Again, I'm telling you what I have found that works for me. And the third thing, and this is the best one of all, I say to myself, for a million dollars cash tax free in a briefcase at 5 o' clock this afternoon, could you not say anything this one time? Who think about it. You get ready to smart off to your mom or your dad or your husband or your wife or somebody at the grocery store that didn't pack your bag correctly. I mean you, you just ready to let them have it. I mean you, you and you are right, somebody did you wrong and you're going to say something they you didn't get the grade you deserve. You didn't just somebody treat mistreated you and you are ready to rip them up to shreds with your words. And I walk up to you and I say, hey, if you could let this go and not say anything, I'll give you a Million dollars cash, tax free, in a briefcase, today at 5:00'.

Clock.

Boy, would that change anything.

You would look at me and say, yeah, that changed everything. I could learn how to control my tongue for that. Well, I got news for you. It's worth well over $1 million. You said, what are you talking about? When you learn how to speak correctly and say things to people that encourage them, that's what life really is all about. Learning to be a blessing. Learning to be an encouragement. Learning to be a help. It's so easy to say something quick, mean, hateful and nasty. And it's so hard to either say nothing at all or squeeze the lemons into lemonade and say something nice. You know, I'm married to the sweetest girl in the world, but she's not perfect. And neither am I. I tell her all the time, boy, I got the good end of this deal in our marriage. Me marrying her was a whole lot better off. She didn't get a good a deal as I did. I got her. But she got me. Now, I have learned by being married to her that some. I'm in a hurry. You can hear that in my voice almost every. I have two speeds, fast and full blast. My wife tends to move a little bit slower. And there's something inside of me that wants to say, hurry up or giddy up or let's go faster or we could have finished that and half the time. Why are you taking so long to do this? Do you know what I've discovered that does no good? And besides that, who died and made me God to oversee her? I'm not in charge of her. The thing that I've learned is she takes her time.

And I tend to go fast. Isn't there any wonder that we. Sometimes I need to slow down and sometimes she needs to go a little faster. And maybe it's making dinner or maybe it's walking. I've noticed this. I walk fast. I'm always walking like there's an alligator chasing me and trying to catch up and bite me. And I've learned my wife cannot walk as fast as I can. I'm six foot three. I take a pretty good stride when I walk. One night we were walking through the airport and I lost her. I turned around and looked. I couldn't find her. I thought, where did she go? Finally, a little while. She walked up and she looked at me and said, I'm so sorry, I just can't keep up with you. And I thought, wow, this so this is pitiful. What in the world what kind of person walks off so fast he leaves his wife at the airport back, you know, in the crowd somewhere is so funny. I felt like I heard a little voice in my heart just speak to me and say, aren't you Dr. Robert Roan, the guy that tells everybody how to get along with each other? Aren't you that guy that teaches all about personality, information, outgoing, reserve, task, and people? Why don't you practice what you teach everybody? It sure would come in handy. Yep. I'm giving you a little bit behind the curtain peek at what goes on in my own mind. I wish I could say I have mastered this. I never make any mistakes and everything I do is perfect. That's the purpose of this podcast. I hope you're listening. I've already said it two or three times. This podcast is about, stop talking about the power of your words and start practicing the power of your words. So I want. So I want to give you an assignment for. Watch this. Not a year, not a month, not a week, just for a day, 24 hours. Because you can do that. I want you to either not say anything at all, or if you do say something, let it be something good. Let it be words like, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. That was very nice of you. Wow, that was kind. I really appreciate what you said or what you did. And if you have to say something that's mean, nasty, or hateful to your mother, your brother, your dog, your cat, learn to keep your mouth shut just for 24 hours. I'm reminded of the story Zig Ziglar used to tell of a man who was on his way to work and a police officer pulled him over for speeding and gave him a ticket. It really made the man mad. So the man got to his office. He looked at the lady at the front desk who answered all the phones. He said, hold my calls. I don't want to talk to anybody. Kind of hurt her feelings. He walked in to his office where his secretary was. He said, I already told the lady of the switchboard not to bother me, and I don't want you to bother me either. I've got a lot to do today. And he walked in the office and slammed his door. Well, that just set his secretary into a really bad place. And she just was upset all day long. And she got home that afternoon and her son was laying on the floor watching tv. And she said, what are you doing laying on the floor watching tv? Why haven't you gotten your homework? Go to your room. You're sorry and lazy. And no good. And he walked to his room. And when he got to his room, he saw this cat. His cat was sitting on the bed. And he threw his shoe at the cat and said, get out of here. The cat ran out of the room. Zig used to say, wouldn't it be nice? Wouldn't it had been better, Wouldn't it had been a better plan if that man had just skipped the receptionist and his secretary and the boy and gone over to the house and threw his shoe at the cat and kept everybody else out of the loop? Well, I think you see where that's called, you know, who's kicking your cat. Well, the truth of the matter is.

All of us let other people either upset us, take us off, make us mad, or do something that causes us to react when the truth of the matter is, you don't have to be that way. You could say that situation taught me a good lesson. I learned from it. I'm going to be a better person. I'm going to be wiser. So that's our podcast for this week. I know you're sitting there thinking, oh, this will be an easy one. Listen carefully. Let me give you the assignment one more time. For the next 24 hours, don't let anything come out of your mouth unless there's something good. If you have to say something that's.

Hateful or mean or nasty or correct.

Another person, then do it in a loving, kind way. You might be able to say, could I make a suggestion? Or could I share a thought and start with, you know, I'm not perfect myself, but I've learned something that has helped me. I don't want to get too deep in the weeds on this because you are going to very quickly, very quickly find out. This is easier said than done. Very quickly, you're going to discover, wow, I better be careful and watch every one of my words just like they're on a ticker tape coming across the screen. Watching my words, I do this. Listen carefully. I don't do it perfectly, but every day of my life, I say, God, please help me to only let things come out of my mouth that are going to encourage others and bless others. Help me to be a good person and help me to watch my words. If you had to ask me at 75 years old, what's the most important thing I possess?

It's the power of my words.

I'm still working on it. I'm a whole lot better than I once was, but I still have some work to do. What about you? Do you have some work to do. The assignment starts right now. 24 hours. Good luck and and God bless you.

I'm Dr. Robert Rome.

I hope this has been helpful. I look forward to sharing another podcast with you real soon.

For more information about this podcast, please visit www.becomingwiserpodcast.com.