Originally published 2013-12-13.
This 2-minute short film illustrates the power of words to radically change your message and your effect upon the world.
This 2-minute short film illustrates the power of words to radically change your message and your effect upon the world.Words can create love or hate, tears or smiles, harmony or chaos, war or peace. Discover the power of transforming your own words.
“The syntactical nature of reality, the real secret of magic, is that the world is made of words. And if you know the words that the world is made of, you can make of it whatever you wish.” -Terence McKenna
“Words have the power to both destroy, and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.” -Buddha
The same need, a different invitation
The film asks viewers to notice how a change in wording can change the way a message is received. Consider what the revised words invite the audience to imagine, rather than assuming that stronger emotion automatically makes communication better. A message can become more vivid while still needing to be accurate, respectful and clear about what is being requested. Persuasion carries responsibility as well as creative possibility.
Try a careful rewrite
Take a message you often use and identify its essential meaning. Write another version that gives the reader a clearer picture without exaggerating the facts or telling them what they must feel. Compare the two: which is easier to understand, and what changed? This exercise keeps the film's central insight useful in everyday communication. Words can influence an encounter, even though they cannot by themselves remove every material obstacle behind it.
About the film
The film, The Power of Words, was uploaded to YouTube on 23 February 2010. A blind man sits at the foot of a flight of steps with a sign reading “I’m blind, please help.” A woman stops, gives him no money but rewrites his sign, and passers-by begin to fill his cup with coins. When she returns, he recognises her by touching her shoes, and she tells him what she wrote: “Today is a beautiful day, and I can’t see it.” The video’s description credits it as a homage to Historia de un letrero by Alonso Alvarez Barreda, with music by Giles Lamb, and links it to the book Change Your Words, Change Your World.
Sources: YouTube, 23 February 2010: The Power of Words DesignRush, 22 October 2017: The Power of Words
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