The World Of Fluff

How precise is your language? You may not be getting what you want because you're addicted to Fluff.

Grasshopper Notes are the writings from America's Best Known Hypnotherapist John Morgan. His podcasts contain his most responded to essays and blog posts from the past two decades. 

Find the written versions of these podcasts on John's podcasting site: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1628038

"The Grasshopper" is the part of you that whispers pearls of wisdom that  seem to pop into your mind from out of the blue. John's essays and blog posts are his interpretations of these "Nips of Nectar." Others have labeled his writings as timeless wisdom. 

Most of the John's writings revolve around self improvement and self help. They address topics like:

• Mindfulness
• Peace of mind
• Creativity
• How to stay in the present moment
• Spirituality
• Behavior improvement

And stories that transform you to a wider sense of awareness that presents more options. And isn't that what we all want, more options? 

John uploads these podcasts on a regular basis. So check back often to hear these podcasts heard around the world. Who wants to be the next person to change? 

Make sure to order a copy of John's new book: WISDOM OF THE GRASSHOPPER – 21 Days to Creativity. These mini-meditations take you inside where all your creative resources live. And you'll come out not only refreshed but recommitted to creating your future. 

It's only $16.95 and available at BLURB.COM at the link below. https://www.blurb.com/b/10239673-wisd...

Also, download John's FREE book INTER RUPTION: The Magic Key To Lasting Change. It's available at John's website  https://GrasshopperNotes.com

Transcript

The World Of Fluff

We live in a world of fluff: non-specific communication that leads us to infertile fields that don’t produce any harvests.

Nowhere is fluff more prevalent than in customer service. The amount of non-usable information offered is staggering.

Let’s pretend you ask, “When will my package be delivered?” The fluff answer is “Soon.” I don’t know about you, but my daily planner doesn’t have a date called “Soon.”

Rather than this becoming a rant against customer service, I'm making a plea for you and me to clean up our language so that we can have more fertile, productive exchanges.

How much fluff are you using? If you’re having trouble communicating what you want, your requests are filled with fluff. If you accept fluff as an answer, you may as well say, “Please consider me as stupid as what you just said.”

I detest staff meetings, always have, always will. There’s no bigger amount of fluff generated than at a meeting run by a purveyor of fluff. Here's actual verbiage from a meeting I attended many years ago:

Fluffer: We really need to get going on this.

Staff Member: I hear you; we’ve got to get the ball rolling.

Fluffer: We’ve dropped this ball in the past and I don’t want it to happen again.

Another Staff Member: It can’t happen again.

Fluffer: I’m glad we’re all agreed.

That was all that was said. I’m sure you can imagine that this same topic resurfaced at many meetings in the future with no resolution.

Let’s look at the fluff words. “Get going” and “this” are fluff words with no specific direction. “Get the ball rolling” = more fluff. What does that mean? “I don’t want ‘it’ to happen again.” What is “It”? What does “Agreed” mean?

Let’s do a quick un-fluffy rewrite:

“Our budgeting deadline is October 20th. Today is September 30th. We have 20 days to get our budget submitted. Here’s what I want each of you to do by 5 p.m. on Friday.” (Give specific instructions as to what you want each person to do by 5 p.m. on Friday).

I've mentioned it many times that one of my favorite quotes is from Werner Erhard: “The reason life doesn’t work is because people don’t keep their agreements.” As spot-on as I think that observation is, I believe it would be more complete if people knew specifically what they were agreeing to.

That takes fluff monitoring.

I'm not a fan of hinting. Hinting is filled with all sorts of fluff. So if you’re a hinter, you're a lousy communicator and will get less of what you want.

Fluff contains no direction.

Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. I think “shooting the breeze” with a friend is a fun thing to do and most often those exchanges are filled with enough fluff to make sandwiches for the entire neighborhood. No harm, no foul – just two friends enjoying a “Fluffernutter.”

When it’s important to you to have a common understanding of what’s being communicated, that’s when fluff monitoring and fluff challenging are essential.

When you hear a fluff word like “Soon,” and it’s important to you to know when soon is, respond by asking, “I'm curious, when specifically is soon?” If you pretend you know when soon is, you'll be disappointed when your version of soon doesn’t arrive and you’ll have to wait for a later date.

I’m not going to give you my entire dictionary of fluff. You can easily come up with your own. Just pay attention to the non-specific language you and others use. More importantly, notice that fluff rarely, if ever, delivers what you want.

It’s springtime here in the northern hemisphere, a perfect time for us to clean up our fluff.

All the best,

John