This is an all ears English podcast episode 23 98 how to choose your words for connection with Marci Axelrod Welcome to the all ears English podcast Downloaded more than 200 million times.
We believe in connection not perfection with your American host Lindsay McMahon and today's featured guest coming to you from Denver Colorado And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish .com forward slash subscribe.
Did you know that certain words can dramatically increase our level of connection more than others?
Today, our guest Marci Axelrod challenges us to think beyond the mechanics of English and into understanding the impact and implication of our word choices.
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Hello, Marcy. Welcome to All Ears English.
How are you today? I am terrific, Lindsay.
Thanks so much for having me.
Yes. Absolutely. I am glad you're here, and we love having guests on the show.
So, I'm going to take a minute and introduce you to our audience.
So, listeners, today I have Marcy Axelrod on the show, who is a best -selling author and award -winning author, TV contributor and two times a TEDx speaker and a management consultant.
Her latest book, "'How We Choose to Show Up'" is a number one Amazon bestseller and was recently awarded the Hayakawa Book Prize.
Marcy has been interviewed in Forbes, Psychology Today and the Marketing Journal, among other top media publications.
Marcy, welcome again to the show.
Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm glad you're here.
And I'm not surprised that this material is becoming popular.
You know, the material that you're working on has become popular because we are trying to be a more conscious culture, broadly speaking.
Wouldn't you agree we're kind of coming to a moment of being more conscious of our word choices?
Oh, absolutely. Mm -hmm.
So, Marcy, we are in a moment where a lot of people are choosing their words differently.
And I love that. And I love that.
you've got this research that you've been doing and this thinking you've been doing on this topic.
So, Marcy, here's the key question for today.
What are two key ways that we can bring people together, become closer to people, more connected by choosing different English words?
Yes. So, Lindsay, I love that you said the word can because I think there's a huge difference in bringing someone close to you by using the word do.
Let me give you a quick example.
how can we do it? That really is asking, how is it possible?
How is it permitted?
This really seeds our agency.
It takes away our power.
And the moment we say, how do we do this?
Now we're together, and really importantly, Lindsay, we're on the same side of the table.
So now we become a team with how do we do this versus how can we?
Interesting. Just to recap, just to make sure I'm fully understanding.
You're saying that when we choose how can we do this, any goal, anything we want to achieve, it puts us further from our goal?
Does it separate us from what we're trying to achieve?
It makes it more objective and less human.
Is that what you mean?
It talks about our ability being can we or can't we.
Is it something that's possible?
In doing that, it puts into question whether it can be done which is so different than just here we are as a team capable, how do we do that?
Yeah. So, it kind of lines up our old systems in our mind around success and failure maybe.
Things we learned in school that can you do it or can you not do it.
Instead how do we do this sort of implies, yes, it will happen and we're just making slight changes to connect better.
Is that right? That's exactly right.
It makes us capable and it gives us agency.
It gives us power. And really importantly it puts us in the doing so now we're in the process, we're in the flow, we've already got it going.
Yeah, I love that. And so I mean that is one of the ways we do this, right?
To build connection is by choosing, maybe looking at choosing instead of how can we, we ask how do we, right?
And then we are on the right path.
Are there any other example scenarios or situations where we might choose do instead of can?
Marcy, anything you can think of?
Everyday scenarios, at work, at a party, where does this show up?
You know, it really shows up anywhere we're trying to achieve something, right, with a team.
How do we get this done?
When you are parenting a child, let's say a child wants an extra cookie, that's very much of a can thing.
But when you truly ask, you know, how do we make good choices to be a healthy person, we bring in something that's meaningful, that brings people together, that puts us on the same side of the of the table, that is where Doo really does us a great service far more than can.
I love this. And I love this for our listeners to be thinking on this level.
A lot of our listeners have learned English their entire lives, and we've studied grammar, and we've memorized rules.
And now it's the perfect time to make these strategic choices and to know what they actually mean and how they impact our level of connection, so good.
Okay, so we've gotten a hint so far.
Our first tip was using how do we do something instead of how can we do it?
Set it up as something that we'll inevitably be able to do and we were in the process of getting there.
What would be your second tip, Marcy?
Yeah, so my second tip is one that I feel is really powerful to connect people, which is doing something within four others as opposed to two others.
When you're at work, for example, are you showing up to the meeting where you know John's going to be there and Jane's going to be there?
or are you showing up to the people or to the purpose – or I'm sorry, with the people, for the people and maybe within for the broader purpose of what's going on.
Mm -hmm. I like it. That's interesting.
So the idea of maybe instead of saying showing up to a meeting or showing up at a meeting, which is what we might typically say, instead, showing up for someone's presentation at meeting.
So it's – you're implying that you're there to support someone or collaborate with them in our choice of prepositions here?
Yes. It is much more of a human to human relational way of being and way of thinking to be with and for as opposed to being two.
Two is a this, while four really intertwines.
I guess crucially the word here is care, it shows care, Lindsay.
To shift with and to show up for.
What would be another context where this would make sense and it would actually truly impact the connection moment?
Is there another example sentence or context?
Let's think about dinner.
Are you showing up to the dinner?
Is it to the meal? Or are you showing up within a meaningful experience with the person, with the nutrition, with the food, with the environment?
Yeah. It does make it feel, I'm going to show up to dinner at eight pm.
It feels more of a scheduled thing, a black and white thing.
Yeah, I think as opposed to, I'm showing up for dinner.
It implies a bit more connection.
There's something happening here with these people.
Is that what you're saying?
Yeah. It brings meaning.
It brings significance.
It brings care. When you think in these words, your energy will show up differently because it'll show up consistent with the greater fulfillment, the greater impact of that event or being with and for that person.
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Interesting. I'm curious, Marcy, how did you get into this line of study, this area of interest?
Was there a moment, or yeah, tell us a little bit more about… because this is definitely going to be different for our listeners, a different way of looking at language, and we're going to help our listeners realize we have choices here in the words we choose.
I mean, this is my life's work.
This is 300 pages about it.
Yeah. The starting point, when I was six, I lost the ability to speak.
I started to stutter.
At that point, I became this endless and avid disciple of how are others showing up?
How does language serve us?
Hm. Yeah, interesting.
Okay, so it was that moment in life where you had to become very conscious of each word you were choosing at that time and the effect of each word. Every word had to be the absolute most precise, best choice because I wasn't going to get many out and it was going to be this unbelievably painful experience.
Not just for me, but for everybody around.
Interesting. Yeah. Words became diamonds.
Hmm. Very inspiring experience, right?
I can't imagine anything more important than something like that to change the way we think.
I love it. So, Marcy, do you have any final pieces of advice on how how we do this?
Right. How do we do this?
How do we build? Like I made that correction, love it.
How do we do this? How do we build connection through language broadly?
Anything you'd like to leave our listeners with today?
Well, definitely switch to with and for instead of to.
But essentially I think a natural switch will take place when you elicit your own circuits for care within yourself.
Because language it lives within us and outside of us.
It lives all around and to a certain extent, how we flow through the world is a language.
So what I would say is feel within yourself that care and hopefully naturally the within for and the doing as opposed to canning will show up with and for you.
I love that approach, it's, you know, it's not forcing ourselves to replace this word with that word and oh no, I did it wrong and now we're berating ourselves.
No, that's not what we're looking for.
It's almost like it starts with – and tell me a little bit more about the listening, the care.
Are there certain practices?
I mean, for me meditation comes to mind, right?
That's one thing. Are there practices we can do on a daily basis to make sure our language starts to permeate with more care in a sense?
Absolutely. So one of the number one things that you can do is to recognize as you kind of get things done in this like just show up mode, that you are impacting the world at every moment.
And everyone who's with you, and I mean a stranger walking by, feels the energy with which you show up and is 45 % more likely to repeat what you do, what you say, and how you do it.
So, know your impact.
And if you want to show care, reset yourself, and just a few deep breaths will go really far.
Activating the parasympathetic nervous system, telling our nervous system, we're not in any danger, we're not running from the tiger quote unquote.
Where did that quote come from?
Was that from your research?
The 45, that stat, the 45 %?
Nicholas Christakis, Professor at Yale now, background at Harvard. He's the one who did this research and showed how our behavior flows through society.
Actually, three people did.
Okay. Can you say that again one more time, because I feel like it's very profound and it is essentially what we're saying today.
A stranger is what?
As I pass a stranger in the streets of New York City, which I know you live in New York, right?
yes, they are 45 % more likely to think, feel and act the way that you do.
Wow. That is so profound.
Can I go a second level deep?
The person now goes to work and the colleague next to them who they have a short chat with is 25 % more likely to think, feel and act the way that you do and then they go home to their daughter.
So that stranger's colleague's daughter is 10 % more likely to think, feel and act the way that you did.
So, know your impact, it's a big part of the truth about how humans are designed to show up, were designed to interweave and to impact each other.
Wow, that is so profound and in American culture at least, we live in a culture that is obsessed with productivity, to -do lists, getting things done, kinda plowing through our days.
So in a sense, what we're talking about here is really swimming upstream and I think it comes down to practices of deep breathing.
If we feel stressed, what do we do in that moment?
You know, call a friend if we feel stressed, instead of going back to that to -do list and banging it out, right?
That s the key that starts there and then we get to the language changes.
Isn t that right, Marcy?
I love it. Yeah. That s exactly right.
When you truly show up for yourself instead of that get it done mode which I called just showing up.
When you are able to be in your – in your calm self and bring on line your care circuits in the right hemisphere of your brain, that is when people will interact with you the way that you are showing up to them.
Their word choice will change.
Fascinating. Your word choice will change and then you're using more connected language.
Mm -hmm. I am excited for some of our listeners to put this into action by starting with the practices the relaxation practices dropping into You know Being connected with the earth and then that extends out to our language choices So hopefully we'll hear from our listeners when they've tried some of these shifts and changes Mercy where can our listeners find you online to learn more sure the website choose to show up com Okay, so can you go ahead and spell that for us?
Sure choose to show up, so it's C -H -O -O -S -E -T -O S -H -O -W -U -P dot com.
Excellent. All right, Marcy, thank you for being on the show today and challenging us to think in a different way.
I love it. I love it.
Excellent. And we hope to have you back again on the show sometime soon.
All right. That would be wonderful.
Thank you, Lindsay.
Thank you. Take care.
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