This Is How You Become More Articulate — Transcript

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1. 0:00you once said the most dangerous person
2. 0:03is one who is
3. 0:06articulate what would you recommend to a
4. 0:08one who wants to learn to speak in a
5. 0:10more articulate
6. 0:18manner well articulate is an interesting
7. 0:21word e because if your joints are
8. 0:24articulated and that means you can do
9. 0:26things with them because they're
10. 0:28articulated right they're not one
11. 0:30solid vague Mass they're
12. 0:34differentiated and someone who's
13. 0:36graceful is
14. 0:38articulated and compelling because
15. 0:40they're articulated
16. 0:43and speech is a form of articulation in
17. 0:46that manner because the act of speech
18. 0:49itself is extremely complicated it's a
19. 0:52very complicated motor activity right
20. 0:54it's very complicated action to dance
21. 0:57with your tongue let's say
22. 1:00and it is definitely the case that there
23. 1:03is no more exceptional form
24. 1:08of the capacity to be dangerous than to
25. 1:11be articulate and one of the things that
26. 1:13really shocks me part of the reason that
27. 1:16my son and I and our co-workers
28. 1:19developed this essay app is that young
29. 1:21men in particular are never taught this
30. 1:24it's like well why learn to why be
31. 1:28literate well do you do you want to be
32. 1:31do you want to be competent and
33. 1:33dangerous or do you want to be vague and
34. 1:35useless cuz those are your options and I
35. 1:38don't care what your job is it doesn't
36. 1:41matter what you end up doing know if
37. 1:43you're a plumber of great respect for
38. 1:46plumbers by the way and you're
39. 1:48articulate you can negotiate with your
40. 1:49clients you can introduce your
41. 1:51co-workers you can you can make a case
42. 1:54for your
43. 1:55employees you can you can advertise your
44. 1:58services
45. 2:00you can think through your problems
46. 2:02you're you're firing on all
47. 2:06cylinders there you know our whole
48. 2:08culture is based on the idea of the
49. 2:10supremacy of the word our whole culture
50. 2:13is based on the idea that it is the word
51. 2:15itself that extracts habitable order
52. 2:17from chaos and
53. 2:19possibility and the reason our culture
54. 2:22is predicated on
55. 2:24that is because it's a deep truth and to
56. 2:27the degree that our culture actually
57. 2:29embodies that it
58. 2:31works so it's a great thing to be
59. 2:35articulate and it would be so lovely if
60. 2:40our Educators were wise enough to
61. 2:43communicate this appropriately to young
62. 2:47men who are striving forward and to let
63. 2:50them know in no uncertain terms that if
64. 2:52they want to make themselves into forces
65. 2:55to be contended with that there's no
66. 3:00sure root to that than an exceptional
67. 3:03poetic literacy now it's not like young
68. 3:06people don't have an intuition of this
69. 3:08there are reasons they admire rap
70. 3:10musicians for example who are often
71. 3:13extraordinarily articulate in their
72. 3:15performance and their capacity for
73. 3:18spontaneous poetic utterance and
74. 3:22certainly the greatest people I've met
75. 3:25including great warriors you might say
76. 3:28are great in no small part because
77. 3:30they're are ticket it I know a uh former
78. 3:34special services Special Operations
79. 3:38Soldier Joo willink some of you might
80. 3:41know about Joo um he's got a pretty
81. 3:44decent online following and you know
82. 3:46he's about 4 feet wide and about 3 feet
83. 3:49thick and he's one tough son of a
84. 3:51I'll tell you you don't want to mess
85. 3:53with him and he knows perfectly well and
86. 3:56is very capable of articulating the fact
87. 4:01that his success as a eminent Warrior is
88. 4:06in no l no small part dependent on his
89. 4:09ability to
90. 4:10communicate because he could communicate
91. 4:13well he could listen to The
92. 4:15Men Who were under his command because
93. 4:18he was articulate he could explain to
94. 4:20his superiors the situation on the
95. 4:22ground because he was articulate he
96. 4:24could make a case that the men under his
97. 4:28command who were deserving would be
98. 4:30promoted because he could think in an
99. 4:32articulate manner he could plan
100. 4:34strategically and not lose
101. 4:39battles okay so that's the case for
102. 4:41being articulate and what's the
103. 4:43alternative you want to be inarticulate
104. 4:45you want to say ah and like and M and
105. 4:48pause and stumble and and and be unable
106. 4:52to formulate a strategy be unable to
107. 4:56elucidate a vision be unable to compel
108. 5:00and convince other people to entice them
109. 5:02with with your with your articulated
110. 5:06vision of what might be you want the
111. 5:09opposite of that that's why would you
112. 5:12want that you would you you would you
113. 5:15would choose awkwardness over Grace
114. 5:19that's it's
115. 5:21Preposterous it's it's beyond foolish
116. 5:25and I cannot understand for the life of
117. 5:27me why this case isn't made in
118. 5:29compelling manner particularly to young
119. 5:31men and I know it's not being
120. 5:33articulated to young men because they're
121. 5:35dropping out of the educational realm in
122. 5:39droves and it's unbelievably sad so how
123. 5:45do you become
124. 5:46articulate
125. 5:49well by paying attention to what you
126. 5:53say that's a good start and what do I
127. 5:56mean by
128. 5:58that I mean pay
129. 6:01attention to what you
130. 6:03say
131. 6:07so you can you can you can think of this
132. 6:10as an
133. 6:12analogy
134. 6:14so imagine that you're trying to walk
135. 6:16across a swamp and the swamp is murky
136. 6:20but you know there's a path you know
137. 6:22there's a a path of stone under the
138. 6:25water but it twists and moves and if you
139. 6:29stay on the path you won't drown the
140. 6:30crocodiles in the swamp won't devour you
141. 6:33and as you walk forward you can feel
142. 6:36with your with your next step where the
143. 6:39stone might be and then you feel it's
144. 6:42solid then you take that step and then
145. 6:44you do the same thing with your foot
146. 6:46again you search and and you find out
147. 6:49what's solid and you step on it and you
148. 6:51move forward in that manner that's what
149. 6:54you do with your words it's the same
150. 6:57thing you feel and you you
151. 7:01feel is this the right word h is it is
152. 7:07the fact that I'm uttering it putting me
153. 7:10together and making me intact and
154. 7:13stronger or is it tearing me apart and
155. 7:16making me dissolute and weak and and you
156. 7:18can learn to do that I learned this in
157. 7:22part from Reading Carl Rogers who's a
158. 7:23great clinician and Rogers believed that
159. 7:30the integration of language and action
160. 7:32was a necessary precondition for
161. 7:34operation as an effective clinician that
162. 7:37you had
163. 7:39to align what you said with who you were
164. 7:43and that one of the things that your
165. 7:46clients would be evaluating you for was
166. 7:50that capability and you might say that
167. 7:54someone with that
168. 7:56capability manifest themselves as
169. 7:58genuine and
170. 8:00trustworthy and and more than that I
171. 8:03would say also as compelling and
172. 8:05interesting although that can be gamed
173. 8:08but the entire
174. 8:11combination that emerges out
175. 8:14of the domain of articulate
176. 8:17communication can't be gamed
177. 8:20it's not not
178. 8:23easily you feel your way I noticed 40
179. 8:27years ago when I started thinking these
180. 8:29things through
181. 8:31that much of what I said actually made
182. 8:34me feel weak I didn't know why exactly
183. 8:36but sometimes some of the things I said
184. 8:39didn't have that effect they they
185. 8:42weren't accompanied by a sense of Shame
186. 8:44let's say they weren't accompanied with
187. 8:47a sense of vulnerability they were solid
188. 8:50and at the beginning that was probably
189. 8:51only about 5% of what I said the rest of
190. 8:54it was instrumental you know it was
191. 8:56language I was using to get my way in
192. 8:58the manner that Tammy described when she
193. 9:01introduced me tonight there was an
194. 9:03arrogance in my use of language that had
195. 9:05to do with the desire to attain proximal
196. 9:07victories right to appear smart let's
197. 9:10say to win an argument something like
198. 9:12that a very different idea than merely
199. 9:14feeling my way along to see what word
200. 9:17was appropriate for what moment but you
201. 9:20can learn to do that and you can listen
202. 9:22to yourself and you can stop humming and
203. 9:25ha and using like and you know and
204. 9:28fillers
205. 9:30and you can take the time necessary to
206. 9:33craft your words carefully and you
207. 9:36can practice merely saying what you
208. 9:40believe to be
209. 9:42true and you can read and you can read
210. 9:46great writers and you can write and you
211. 9:49can write about what you think about the
212. 9:51problems that obsess
213. 9:54you and you can become articulate as a
214. 9:57consequence and there'll be nothing
215. 9:58about that that is the adventure of your
216. 10:01life and so it's a moral Endeavor in
217. 10:04some real sense right to become
218. 10:06articulate is to become the master of
219. 10:08your own
220. 10:09tongue
221. 10:11and to become properly articulate is
222. 10:19to is to make the word
223. 10:22divine and to treat it in that manner
224. 10:25and to decide whether or not you believe
225. 10:27that it is the case that
226. 10:29the Divine word creates the order that's
227. 10:32habitable and good and if you do believe
228. 10:35that well if you don't believe that then
229. 10:38what do you believe and if you do
230. 10:40believe that
231. 10:41well go all
232. 10:44in see what happens see what happens if
233. 10:47you become articulate
234. 10:54[Applause]
235. 11:05I I'll I'll give you one more small
236. 11:07example Tammy touched on this in the
237. 11:09introduction too she said she'd learned
238. 11:11to
239. 11:13pause you can pause it's it's a
240. 11:16prayerful pause in some
241. 11:21sense when you're in a discussion with
242. 11:23someone you can ask yourself they might
243. 11:26present you with a question or a
244. 11:27conundrum or a proposition and instead
245. 11:30of responding with what you know to be
246. 11:32right so to speak you could just ask
247. 11:35yourself what do I actually think about
248. 11:37that but it has to be a real question it
249. 11:40has to be the kind of question that
250. 11:41you'd pose to someone you didn't know it
251. 11:44has to be a question predicated on the
252. 11:46idea that you might not know who you are
253. 11:49and that you could ask and so someone
254. 11:51will present you with a question you
255. 11:53think
256. 11:55okay what do I think about that but but
257. 11:59you have to want to know the answer and
258. 12:00then the answer will make itself known
259. 12:03cuz that's how thought works and then
260. 12:05you can just communicate that
261. 12:07answer and and if you do that you'll be
262. 12:10interesting right away you'll be
263. 12:12interesting to the person that you're
264. 12:14talking to and if they do that to you
265. 12:16they'll be interesting too and then if
266. 12:18you both do that you'll have an
267. 12:19interesting conversation and if you have
268. 12:21an interesting conversation you'll both
269. 12:23grow as a consequence and that's
270. 12:25actually the pathway to
271. 12:27growth and you just wait you can wait
272. 12:30you can open yourself up to the
273. 12:32possibility that what needs to be said
274. 12:35will make itself manifest if that's what
275. 12:40you are striving for if that's what
276. 12:43you're asking for and then you can
277. 12:45merely communicate that you have to
278. 12:47abandon instrumentality to do that so
279. 12:50one of the reasons Joe Rogan is so
280. 12:52successful by the
281. 12:54way is that that's what Joe does he just
282. 12:58asks questions
283. 12:59he he doesn't he isn't trying to get
284. 13:01something from his guests he's not
285. 13:03trying to become more famous he doesn't
286. 13:06need any more money there's no
287. 13:08instrumental utilization of language in
288. 13:10his discourse he's
289. 13:12just a humble lunkad you know in the
290. 13:16most profound sense who would like to
291. 13:18know more than he knows and who asks all
292. 13:22the stupid questions he can think up and
293. 13:25it turns out that he's actually very
294. 13:27very smart and and very well educated
295. 13:30now from after talking to hundreds and
296. 13:33hundreds of people and listening and so
297. 13:35the stupid questions he asks aren't
298. 13:36stupid and there are questions that are
299. 13:38shared by virtually everyone who's
300. 13:40listening and he takes his listeners
301. 13:43Along on this process of exploratory
302. 13:46Endeavor and it's the pathway to
303. 13:49success and that the same thing can be
304. 13:51true of your life the pathway to success
305. 13:55is is much it's a
306. 14:03if you're Guided by the spirit of honest
307. 14:05inquiry and every word you say is
308. 14:08reflective of what you believe to be the
309. 14:10truth then the pathway that you walk on
310. 14:13is a golden Pathway to
311. 14:15success and and I I know that I know
312. 14:19that to be true