This post from Seth Godin kind of blew me away today. I’d encourage you to check out his site directly (and subscribe), but here’s what he did. He took two sets of words, as follows:
a, after, and, as, die, eternal, first, gets, gun, have, in, is, job, life, me, mouth, my, pushing, saying, step, that, the, to, Tyler, waiter, you.
a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.
Look at them. Do you recognize them at all?
They’re in alphabetical order, not sequential. Make a thought.
The first is the opening of Fight Club. The second is Green Eggs and Ham (props to you if you got either or both). The trick isn’t just knowing the words, it’s knowing what to do best with them. How do you use them to communicate something:
- Lasting
- Provocative
- Interesting
- Useful
- Funny
- In a way that makes sense
We all have certain tools. Some of us have some tools that others of us don’t have. It’s not what you have though, it’s how you use it. Stop learning for a minute. Take some time to figure out how to use what you have even better (yes, I know that’s a form of learning, but you get the point). There’s always something new coming out, something new to learn. Take some time to concentrate though on doing what you know even better. If you optimize your strengths, it goes a lot further than “new.”
