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When I hear the phrase, “You’ve come a long way, baby” I think of the Virginia Slims ad campaign. I like the celebration of women’s emancipation. However, I find the use of smoking as a platform to promote women’s emancipation as ironic. But I digress.

We have all come a long way. If you have been keeping records, compare your current photo with one from five or ten years ago. Compare your writing today with the writing from even a couple of years ago. Compare how you deal with tough situations today versus how you used to deal with them early in your career.

Keep a journal so you can track your progress. Keep your documents in an archive so you can fish them out. Not all memories will be pleasant, but you will perhaps be surprised by how bad you were compared to today, and how much better you are today. More important, you may be even more surprised to see how good you were at the time.

You will thus learn to view yourself as an evolving being. You will understand the importance of being open so you can adapt and learn. You will hopefully, be more gentle with yourself when you see a mistake.

Yes, you have indeed come a long way. Women and men alike.

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In the corporate world, simple communication is better than eloquent communication. Actually, simple is better when you need to be clear, so it is relevant in a variety of communication situations even outside the corporate world.

You want to avoid being poetic in your communications. Poetry has great value in entertainment because it is open to multiple interpretations and is designed stoke emotions. If you are sad or heartbroken, you will feel deep empathy with the poet who has written about sadness. Taken to the extreme, using this style in the workplace results in flowery writing and speech.

Bad habits can creep into your communication if you watch too much crime shows and court room battles on TV. Meaning, drama and suspense is good for entertainment, bad for communication in work situations where you want to get things done.

Your audience will react with mild annoyance, or with outright impatience. If you are guilt, this can be a hard habit to break. Perhaps this is how you think. Perhaps you need writing lessons. Perhaps you need to get a job where you don’t have to deal with business critical situations.

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Category Archives: External links

#227 How far you’ve come

#225 Poetry in the workplace