Welcome Professionals…
…I just came back from a convention this week. One of the speakers said: “I wouldn’t say that it isn’t wise not to invest these days…” Extremly odd sentence, don’t you think?
Interestingly, I realize that many people – including myself – use denial expressions quite often. We tend to state upfront what we do not mean or what we do not want or what we do not believe is true. I do not know why. Maybe because we feel more strongly about things that we do not want than about the things we really do want.
What I do know is that this way of communication is extremely harmful to our message that we want to bring across. We want to convince people, persuade them, drive them to actions. By stating the opposite, we leave the wrong impression.
The brain is not able not to think of something. “Do not think of a pink elephant!” This is a famous example. Of course, everybody pictures this pink elephant instantly. The same happens to the denial expressions. Statements like “this offer is not expensive”, “this project will not last forever”, “I am not a beginner” etc. leave the listener with the imaginations of “expensive”, “forever”, and “beginner”. This counteracts our real meaning.
So, say what you want! Try this exercise right now. It is not as easy as you may think.
Let me know how it works,
Malte
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