One of my favourite definitions I’ve learned to date is ‘language creates the fabric of our reality’.
Language is the substance of our everyday interactions that weave and bind our cultures into being. And today, the egoic language of fighting and war is embedded in our everyday business conversations.
‘She smashed it’, ‘You killed it’ or ‘We made a killing’ is the language that frequently accompanies success. There are dozens of other examples and we all do it.
Business schools still (mis)teach The Art of War as the predominant metaphor to describe how to conduct business. And the more we describe business using the language of war, the more it becomes so.
So I wonder, in our current opportunity to pause and think, what impact would changes in our choice of language make to our business relationships and outcomes?
In a recent episode of the On Being podcast, MacArthur Scholar Ocean Vuong noted that ‘we often tell our students that the future is in your hands. But I think the future is actually in your mouth. You have to articulate the world you want to live in first.’
So, as we continue in this opportunity to pause and think, what language will you now choose to use to articulate the world you want to live in?