Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
One of the things that you have trouble with politicians, particularly in Washington, is when you get mad at them and you can't touch them; you can't punch them; you can't yell at them.
My father was a dentist, and I always thought that he was one of the 10. It's an interesting way to personalize and humanize, which is one of the most important aspects of communication.
Ideology and communication more often than not run into each other rather than complement each other. Principle and communication work together. Ideology and communication often work apart.
It has to be simple, but then you deliver them a principle: The simple truth is, as a matter of principle, we cannot spend more than we take in. Something - that changes the tone of the debate.
There are words that work, that are meant to explain and educate on policies that work, on products that work, on services that work. I'm not going to ever try to sell a lemon. I don't do that.
It applies even more to politicians because they are living, breathing embodiments of the language that they use. And it's why how you start the conversation, and how you end it, matters so much.
In fact, in more cases than not, when we are rational, we're actually unhappy. Emotion is good; passion is good. Being into what we're into, provided that it's a healthy pursuit, it's a good thing.
What the people now respond - and the goal of those ads is to merely get the name of the medication into the minds of the consumers so that they will ask their doctor about it. That's the whole goal.
The Old Spice ads - women love it. The guys find it annoying. It always causes a great conversation. And it makes it more fun. You know, we've been testing those visuals to see what attracts attention.
Words can sometimes be used to confuse, but it's up to the practitioners of the study of language to apply them for good and not for evil. It is just like fire; fire can heat your house or burn it down.
I don't understand why people whose entire lives or their corporate success depends on communication, and yet they are led on occasion by CEOs who cannot talk their way out of a paper bag and don't care to.
"Which side are you on" asks a question. That's one of the most powerful, persuasive ways to make a case, to say something, to advertise something or to communicate it. Don't make a statement. Ask a question.
George W. Bush - who I'm sure that a lot of people, when I say this, will not be happy about it - but Bush had a determination, and had a very clearly defined set of principles. You knew exactly where he stood.
The most successful people in American life are those that have had horrific failures and have come back, done it again and again until they got it right, whether it's Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or Warren Buffet.
The language of America changed with the election of Bill Clinton, because with all due respect to my friends on the Republican side, Bill Clinton is the best communicator of the last 50 years. He felt your pain.
There are people still in the Republican Party that I believe practice the communication of anger, of disappointment, of regret, of pain, of sorrow, of suffering. That's not what the American people want to hear.
There's a lot of money with a lot of big law firms that have a tremendous amount at stake by getting the right language to convince the right jury that my client is either innocent or that the opposition is guilty.
"Win" is about the specific use of specific words to connect you to your employer or employees, politicians to voters - and frankly, to help people win debates, have discussions, and improve the level of communication.
Nothing's going to stop you or deter you or cause you to give up. Pursuit, because nobody actually expects it to happen. They want you to be continuous in your efforts. And perfection because there's just nothing better.
The adjectives that are in the book ["Win"] - passion, persuasion, persistence, perfection, prioritization, being people-centered - none of them are as important as principles. Without principles, the language will fail.
Nobody wants to hear about process. They want to hear about results. They want to be inspired. They want to aspire to something. And so often in our communication, we will explain why - sorry, we will explain how but not why.
If you just heard 90 percent of dentists recommend something, it's too statistical. Nine out of 10 says: Well, it's just virtually everyone. It leads you to think of that joke about the one dentist. But so much of communication.
I tell this joke about Barack Obama is the best communicator of our generation: The guy reads a teleprompter better than any Hollywood actor. John McCain, his opponent - Stevie Wonder reads a teleprompter better than John McCain.
There's a problem with political polling in that you have so much pressure to do what your client wants you to do and say what your client wants you to say. I've never felt that pressure. I am independent of the political parties.
The Tucson speech [of Barack Obama] was brilliant, and I'm so angry at Republicans for jumping on him because you have to give credit. Part of being successful is to give credit to people who you may not disagree with when they do well.
Richard Nixon's career certainly ended in failure but someone who won an election with 60 percent of the vote, won 49 out of 50 states, that makes his -up to that point - incredibly successful. The idea of winning 49 states, incredible.
When you're selling a product or service, you don't have - it doesn't have to be absolutely perfect, although I've provided language that is. When you're a politician, one wrong word changes the entire - changes the meaning of something.
There are certain aspects, and there are - there are 15 attributes of winners and winning slogans. "Which side are you on" sounds divisive, that you're on one side or the other, at a time when we actually want universality. We want unanimity.
[Barack] Obama has a grasp of language and the presentation of language, particularly in times of crisis. And he did this over the race issue. He did this early on in his administration, when the country was polarized. That was unprecedented.
So often corporate America, business America, are the worst communicators, because all they understand are facts, and they cannot tell a story. They know how to explain their quarterly results, but they don't know how to explain what they mean.
The eureka moment is two reasons why the output-based standard should be adopted: common sense and accountability. Input-based standards don't encourage energy diversity; they don't create any incentives; they don't produce solar, hydro, nuclear.
The ability to connect and communicate is one of the most powerful, and you cannot find anyone who has been truly successful in life that doesn't have that ability because you've got to motivate, and you've got to -frankly, you have to influence.
When I wrote "Win," it only took about eight months, but eight months of sheer pain and suffering because every phrase that's in there - and there are about 130 specific linguistic recommendations - I had to test every one to make sure that it worked.
Eighty percent of our life is emotion, and only 20 percent is intellect. I am much more interested in how you feel than how you think. I can change how you think, but how you feel is something deeper and stronger, and it's something that's inside you.
There are about 50 or 60 recommendations [in "Win"] for how to communicate, not just the words themselves. All of them had to be tested. And in this short amount of time, it's just very time-consuming and very stressful to ensure that you get it right.
When I started in this business, everybody said the Democrats were the better communicators because they sounded like social workers, and Republicans were awful because they sounded like morticians. In some cases. they actually dressed like morticians.
With all due respect to UPS - it's a fine company - nobody cares about logistics. They care about that package arriving at their home, at their office, when it is supposed to and in the condition it's supposed to. FedEx is a much better communicator than UPS.
When you say: The simple truth is this, and then you pause, and then you finish the sentence, people stop, and they think specifically about what you're saying. And it's, in essence, trying to boil it down to something that's very understandable and meaningful.
Apple has a passion to deliver the most amazing, innovative - and, in fact, I got criticized because in "Win," there are at least 10 references to what Steve Jobs has done, and Apple's done, in that my editor said it's too much. But Apple is a passionate company.
People want to be inspired. They want to aspire to something. ... You can have the best product, the best service, the best argument in a debate. But without the effective words you still lose. In the end you need good principles and good language if you are to succeed.
FedEx is another company that's passionate. When it absolutely, positively has to get there is such a great, aspirational phrase. And FedEx used it for almost a decade to communicate the passion of delivering a package. The more passionate you are, the more successful you are.
Bill Clinton was effective because he had that personal relationship, that this was a guy who had tremendous curiosity, which is another one of the key attributes. And he had the ability - his mind was - his mind and his heart were very well-connected. And so he genuinely empathized.
I would not have used the phrase "I'm selling you" because even though that's exactly what you're doing, when you tell people you're doing it - or worse yet, when you tell people "I'm not here to sell you anything," they automatically assume that that's exactly what you are here to do.
Believe in better, which is a corporate phrase rather than a political phrase. We don't want more. We're not looking for quantity. We're looking for quality. Believe in better suggests intergenerational change. It suggests product innovation. It suggests something better for the future.
The perfect opening is the word imagine, because imagine allows you to communicate in the eyes and the vision of the listener rather than yours. And the best illustration of that is "1984." Room 101 in "1984" - everyone's read it, and we all have our own imagination of what that looks like.
This book [ "Win"] is based on the interviews with three dozen Fortune 400 - or Forbes 400, the richest people, and a couple dozen of the top CEOs.I wanted to know what language they use to be successful, and I wanted to know the attributes that could then be applied to the average individual.
Anything that causes you to doubt, to raise either objections or just concerns about it - and they always put the information right at the bottom of the screen so you can't really read it - every time you see a company do that, the ad becomes less effective. The communication becomes less effective.
Winners know what makes people tick by effectively tapping into our fears and aspirations. By listening very carefully and then repeating almost word-for-word exactly what they've heard, winners know how to articulate compelling needs—and products to satisfy those needs—that people didn't even know they wanted.
It's something that people who read my materials have asked me in the past. If you don't have principles - the last chapter of the book ["Win"] is all about winning with principles. It's all about applying words to good things, good people, good efforts. Without that inherent accuracy, then even the best words will still fail.
There are people who will be wanting to apply "Win" to their own, personal life. If you remember only one thing, and I'm going to do it right here, right now because I just happened to come to it, that phrase - if you remember only one thing - there are 125 specific language recommendations in "Win" that can make a difference in your day-to-day lives.