The Power of Words: My recent talk to a group of financial planners…

The Power of Words: My recent talk to a group of financial planners…

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I did a talk last week for the Ottawa chapter of Advocis, the Financial Advisors Association of Canada. It seems they meet every few months and do some chapter business and have guest speakers. And I even had a lovely dinner at Caffé Mio Italian Bistro!

I chatted about the power of words in a few different aspects:

  1. Awareness in your words
  2. How we communicate
  3. Non-verbal communication
  4. Choice of words
  5. Inner talk

I gave some examples in each section so people could relate and also hopefully not fall asleep. I wasn’t sure what to expect since financial advisors is not my typical crowd even if Finance was my major in university but I was pleasantly surprised.

I started off talking about swearing and what my high school drama teacher told me; That swearing was a lazy way to express yourself. I got a few nods. Then I got into some communication theory and non-verbal communication before talking about the choice of words people have every day.

It’s funny that a lot of countries in the Commonwealth speak English but basically use different words. This was driven home when I lived in England and Scotland. Very different English…

I closed it off with a chat about inner talk and how it differentiates a lot of athletes (think Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf) and everyday people. I asked them what their thoughts and words were like when things got tough. Everyone can think about puppy dogs and unicorns during the good times but what happens when you hit a rough patch? To me, that’s what separates the successful people from the rest.

I especially enjoyed the conversations after with folks coming up to me and saying they enjoyed the talk and they could really relate to it. This was nothing earth-shattering or new but some good messages from what I could gather with some of my experiences behind the words to provide a different angle on things.

Thank you for being a great audience!

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I’m looking forward to doing another workshop in Ottawa in a few weeks and one in Petawawa as well. As the weather gets better, it seems people are just realizing maybe this year their running could use a bit of help. Hooray for me!

And this is on top of my first workshop in London, ON on my way back from North Carolina. Pretty exciting stuff!

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