Good morning and welcome to the Increase Your Impact podcast. I'm Justin Sua, episode 2045, and today we are talking about the power of words.

Now, this comes from Steve J. Martin. He says this, quote, in 1974, an American psychologist named Elizabeth Loftus became famous for her studies into the power of words.

In one experiment, she showed people

a short film of a road traffic accident before asking them to guess how fast the cars are

traveling. Some were asked, what speed do you think the car was going when it bumped into the

vehicle in front? For others, the word bumped was replaced with collided, hit, or smashed.

People estimated the car to be traveling much faster when the words hit or smashed were used,

despite the video being the exact same every time. This is no trivial matter. Speed is important

when it comes to assessing damages.

Judges typically award higher damages to victims and convict culprits for longer, close quote.

I love this study because it goes on to the power to talk about the power of words.

How fast was a car going when it bumped, when it tapped,

versus when it collided, hit or smashed the car in front of it, it affected the judge's

perception. It affected everyone's perception on how fast the car was going, even though the car was going

the same speed. I think the same holds true to those of us who are coaches or leaders or parents.

The words we use, the words we use are very important.

I remember my dad when he coached me when I was younger.

He would never allow us kids to say two of the most dangerous curse words on the baseball field.

And the two words were hot and cold.

He had this belief that when things were hot, when the weather was really hot or really cold,

it affected you mentally, which affected you physically.

I'm too hot to play or I'm too cold to play.

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