Talk is cheap...

Words, words, words. When you think about it, they’re what our days are filed with. From hazy, city sun rise, to lazy, late night starlight, we are surrounded by words, words, words.

Written words, real words, spoken words…soft words, strong words, barked words and marked words...whispered words, wise words, secret (and sacred) words, hateful words and happy words...throwaway words, provocative words, magical words and memorable words….words from people at work, strangers on the bus or just folks on the street. Everyone’s talking. All the time.

Some of these words are wonderful and insightful and inspirational and captivating! My high school teacher was a great man - and not only for putting up with the shit he had to on account of us pesky kids! On one of the days he wasn’t dealing with some mischievous and meddlesome little miscreant, he was generous enough to share some words with us.

He said “some people have something to say, others have to say something…”

These are an example of ‘wise words’. And they landed like a hammer blow in my mind. This was my moment of revelatory realisation that those people who said the most, weren't necessarily the people I needed to be listening to.

Obviously, in the 12 years since I’ve come to realise that for myself, and I've seen it proven time and time again...but I just think that every school should have someone like my teacher - Mr. Simon Ford, if you're asking - to give the kids of today and the teachers of tomorrow a heads up early on about those shysters of conversation, who shout and commandeer as they flatter to deceive...

So in lieu of the man himself, it's only fair to pass on his learnings and lessons with a dash of my own musings...

-          Think about what you say…don’t be someone who speaks just to fill a silence, be someone who considers every cog of the conversation…don’t waste a single word

-          Turn the volume down - if you need to be loud, then what you’re saying probably isn’t worth it…people will listen if what you’re saying is worth saying

-          Step out of the spotlight - if you need to be the centre of attention all the time, ask yourself why you’re not comfortable letting other people hold the crowd…?

-          Don’t use ten words when five will do; if you’re making a point, don’t confuse the matter. End of.

-          Use your ears – half of a conversation is about listening, so pin ‘em back, and take in what’s being said

So folks, today’s lesson, is people who have something to say are rare, and the things they have to say can surprise you. So listen up for when they do speak up…and in the meantime, avoid the grossly garrulous, the terribly taciturn, the violently verbose and the lavishly loquacious – I realise the irony here – and instead share a coffee with someone who thinks more than they speak, and find out what magic lies behind their wordy restraint…

Just a thought…

And here are some of those things that are worth saying, by some guys who had something to say…

-          Buddha – “Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace”

-          Henry David Thoreau – “Be not simply good – be good for something”

-          Yann Martel – “Work, work, work – but what mark do we leave? What point do we make? People who are too beholden with work become like erasers; as they move forward they leave no trace of themselves”

-          A.J Muste (A reporter interviewing a man who stood in front of the White House with a candle night after night protesting the Vietnam War, one rainy night asked, “Mr. Muste, do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night with a candle?” Muste replied, “Oh, I don’t do it to change the country, I do it so the country won’t change me”

-          Mark Twain – “All generalisations are false. Including this one”

-          Woodrow Wilson – “We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers”

-          Albert Einstein – “Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man value of value”