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odellanderson

Words Create Worlds



When I was about eight years old, my brother and I, and two of my cousins, spent the summer in Florida with our grandmother, and we had a good time. And there was one particular day I remembered when we were outside playing in the backyard for what seemed like several hours, at least long enough to where it got into early evening, maybe around five o'clock or six-ish.


And my grandmother came to the door and called us inside, asked us to go get washed up, wash our hands for dinner. And we come running in from the backyard through the kitchen patio door, the kitchen, and I'm sort of scampering and trotting to the bathroom. And I remember saying these words, I said, "Man, I'm starving." My grandmother heard this and she proceeded to stop me in my tracks, sit me down in a chair in the living room.


And then she explained me how it's inaccurate to say that I'm starving. She proceeded to tell me that there are certainly children in the world or others in the world who are indeed starving. And that I am blessed to be living in America where the chances of starvation are probably slim, that I'll probably never meet a time in my life when I am starving. And that's it's simply inaccurate for me to say that and that instead if I want to express how hungry I am, I could simply say, Hey, I'm very hungry. But to say, I'm starving would be totally inaccurate.


And that moment has never escaped me. And sometimes I tell people, have you heard my starving story? And I'll tell that story because what it birthed in that moment is this need for verbal accuracy. This need for verbal authenticity and being very specific with what I say and how I say it. And it's caused me to listen to people in a certain way, listen to the words that they use and how they choose to use those words. And it's been interesting.


My wife is entirely frustrated by it. She'll say something and I'll respond in a certain way.

She's like, "You know what I mean." And I'm like, "Well, I know what you said. I heard what you said. So I'm responding to what you said. But if you mean something different, you may have to say something different."


But it's inspired something. A thought that one of the changes and one of the shifts that you might have to make as you plan for your second half success is examining the words that you are using to create the world that you want to move into. Because I believe words, words indeed do create worlds. Our diction determines our destiny, our verbiage determines our voyage.


But our words are powerful. I think our words are indicative of a few things.

And if there was ever any doubt that your words create your world, you don't have to go too far. You can look at Genesis, Chapter 1, and very early on, there's a series of verses that start with, '"And God said." Seven times God said something in order for something to be created. He said something and then it happened. His words created a world.


And that's all well and good for God. He's the almighty, but what about us? How do your words, how do our words create our worlds? One thing that I encountered was this idea around our words and how they are part of the creative process. And one of the interesting things is in a book I read called conversations with God. There was a particular section in the book that described the impact that our words can have on our experience of the world and what our actual results are.


As an illustration of what it was trying to explain... let's take, for example... It would not surprise me if many of you in the listening audience have the thoughts "I want more money." Okay. Or you have the thought of, "I want more success in the second half of life." And if those are thoughts, those are statements that we've said either in our head or out or of our mouth, then we can neither success or more money. If those are the thoughts. Now, why is that true?


Our words are statements and commands that sort of dictate the kind of experience that we want to create. That a thought or word that is expressed and expressed and expressed and expressed and expressed becomes just that it becomes expressed. "Ex" meaning "out" and press meaning to force, push or squeeze.


Andrew Carnegie said it this way. He said, "Any idea that is held in the mind that is either feared or revered will begin at once to clothe itself in the most convenient and appropriate physical forms available." So when you take the words "I" and add "want more money" to it and you repeatedly and consistently say this, or think this over a long period of time, what is the actual experience that you are creating?


What experience are you expressing? What experience is being manifested? What's being forced out, pushed out, squeezed out? What experience is clothing itself into inappropriate and convenient physical form? Well, the experience you're creating is the experience of WANTING more money. If you say, "I want more money", then what is returned is the experience of wanting more money. Not HAVING money. You're getting the experience of WANTING more money. And what ends up being manifested are situations, circumstances, and experiences where you are wanting more money.


The same thing can be said for wanting success. So, "I" plus "want" gives you the experience of wanting. "I" plus the word "desire" gives you the experience of desiring. "I" plus need gives you the experience "needing."


Even Jesus said, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours." Now he didn't say believe that you want it, believe that you need it, believe that you desired it. He said, "...believe that you have received it." So words create worlds.


So then what's the alternative. You can't have what you want is what we're understanding here. So if we were to flip the words that we used earlier, instead of saying, "I want more money", you might go with "I have money coming to me". Instead of "I want success" becomes "success is on its way." So change the verbiage from wanting to having. Change the verbiage from wanting to choosing, and then you'll find that your actions and your experiences and circumstances will over time, begin to be in alignment with this new set of words that you've chosen.


So when God spoke things happened immediately, okay? Because he's in a timeless realm. We're time-bound here. So the words we think and say don't immediately create our reality. They don't immediately manifest the circumstances or immediately come to fruition. And similarly, as you're shifting how you talk, as you're shifting how you think to create the success that you want in the second half, recognize it will take some time. This'll take some monitoring of how you do certain things. It'll take some monitoring of how you phrase certain things. It may cause you to listen to certain things differently because now you are more in tune with the words that we use in the words that we say.


Words are powerful. There probably isn't anything that's been created that didn't have some words behind it. Even the sound of my voice coming through whatever medium you're listening to it through, you know, it's manifested itself in either technology or physical products that are allowing us to do this. But somewhere, in terms of how it got made, words were on a page or words came out of someone's mouth at some point in time. So words are behind a lot of the things that are going on here. And it's important to recognize that words are also going to be behind the things that we want to manifest and create to be in alignment with the goals that God has for us.


So take all that into account, begin to monitor and module your words. And recognizing that words create worlds. Diction determines your destiny. Your verbiage directs your voyage. Your lexicon will leave a legacy. That's enough alliteration for you right now. Hope you enjoy that. Take care everyone and much to your success.


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