With the precision offered by the English language with 500,000 words available to describe something it is interesting to see how often we are casual with words when we could be more precise and by so doing we have the risk of misrepresenting what we mean or intend to convey. With a little bit of effort we can use the “right words” and be able to convey our thoughts such that others total “get it” and little explanation is required.

The example of this happened over the past few days and is the inspiration for this post. It goes something like this….. yes, many people can conclude that something is broken, it is an easy thing to say. But if you take this assessment (broken being the operative word) to be true then you need to go back to the fundamental assumptions of why (that broken thing) could or would not work. You are forced to worry about the “what” and the “how” to fix it and then left to validate and affirm a new premise so that you can rebuild to a position that has integrity.

Conversely, when we talk about something being “obsolete” we are not worried about the “what it does” but rather the “how” it does it. This can, in many instances, make for more productive discourse and drives us to create new solutions for how to do it. The advantage is that you are not caught challenging the fundamentals of what you are doing, rather you are looking at the approach, the process, or the technology that needs to be rebuilt to be relevant for the time. The net is that it is a more productive conversation and a better path forward.

So, as you think about improving your performance in Life, Learning and Fitness, think long and hard about whether you are fixing something that is broken or obsolete. Your answer will dictate a lot of how you improve and we might be surprised that obsolete is more common than broken and thus much more readily fixed.

Loving life with plans to become modern again.

Ciao

Joe

Daniele Zanni via Compfight cc