Audio Tidbits

I have made what may be one of the world’s seventeen greatest discoveries. It is this: “Always keep it short and to the point.” You may disagree, citing Robert Southey who said, “It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn,” or Shakespeare who promised in Hamlet, “Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.”

Of course you are not questioning my point, just my assertion that I personally made the discovery. Naturally, I know that Baltasar Gracián said that “Good things, when short, are twice as good.,” in The Art of Worldly Wisdom; and Thomas Jefferson said, “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”

These great minds along with many others counsel us to be concise and not impose on the patience of anyone when we can avoid it. They have mostly intended their advice for the written word. For example, Lord Sandwich advised, “If any man will draw up his case, and put his name at the foot of the first page, I will give him an immediate reply. Where he compels me to turn over

the sheet, he must wait my leisure.”

Or even more expansively and intending his point for every-day conversation, Mozart reported this, “My great-grandfather used to say to his wife, my great-grandmother, who in turn told her daughter, my grandmother, who repeated it to her daughter, my

mother, who used to remind her daughter, my own sister, that to talk well and eloquently was a very great art, but that an equally great one was to know

the right moment to stop.”

Dennis Roth made the same point but even briefer, “If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought;” and David Belasco was even more pithy, “If you can't write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don't have a clear idea.” The point is whether writing or talking, don’t be who Rabelais was talking about when he said, “He replies nothing but monosyllables. I believe he would make three bites of a cherry.” William Strunk Jr.cut to the chace for us, “A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.” Just omit whatever is not necessarily necessary.

That brings me back to my great discovery. Yes, I am still saying that it is my discovery, even though others have argued for brevity and conciseness long before I ever had a useful thought. Here is the discovery part of my discovery.

Whenever anyone starts to argue with whatever you have said or done, always keep it short and to the point. You will be tempted to reciprocate with a counter-argument, further explanation or justification, but there is seldom any point to the effort. Winning arguments is most always a futile hope. Instead, calmly wait until the other person has stopped pressing their argument – and they will stop sooner or later. At that point, simply say, “Thanks for sharing your perspective.” If the other person picks back up with arguing, wait and repeat.

You may not think this is one of the seventeen greatest discoveries ever, but don’t reject it until you’ve tried it.

Now you know so there you go.

I have made what may be one of the world’s seventeen greatest discoveries. It is this: “Always keep it short and to the point.” You may disagree, citing Robert Southey who said, “It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn,” or Shakespeare who promised in Hamlet, “Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.”

Of course you are not questioning my point, just my assertion that I personally made the discovery. Naturally, I know that Baltasar Gracián said that “Good things, when short, are twice as good.,” in The Art of Worldly Wisdom; and Thomas Jefferson said, “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”

These great minds along with many others counsel us to be concise and not impose on the patience of anyone when we can avoid it. They have mostly intended their advice for the written word. For example, Lord Sandwich advised, “If any man will draw up his case, and put his name at the foot of the first page, I will give him an immediate reply. Where he compels me to turn over

the sheet, he must wait my leisure.”

Or even more expansively and intending his point for every-day conversation, Mozart reported this, “My great-grandfather used to say to his wife, my great-grandmother, who in turn told her daughter, my grandmother, who repeated it to her daughter, my

mother, who used to remind her daughter, my own sister, that to talk well and eloquently was a very great art, but that an equally great one was to know

the right moment to stop.”

Dennis Roth made the same point but even briefer, “If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought;” and David Belasco was even more pithy, “If you can't write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don't have a clear idea.” The point is whether writing or talking, don’t be who Rabelais was talking about when he said, “He replies nothing but monosyllables. I believe he would make three bites of a cherry.” William Strunk Jr.cut to the chace for us, “A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.” Just omit whatever is not necessarily necessary.

That brings me back to my great discovery. Yes, I am still saying that it is my discovery, even though others have argued for brevity and conciseness long before I ever had a useful thought. Here is the discovery part of my discovery.

Whenever anyone starts to argue with whatever you have said or done, always keep it short and to the point. You will be tempted to reciprocate with a counter-argument, further explanation or justification, but there is seldom any point to the effort. Winning arguments is most always a futile hope. Instead, calmly wait until the other person has stopped pressing their argument – and they will stop sooner or later. At that point, simply say, “Thanks for sharing your perspective.” If the other person picks back up with arguing, wait and repeat.

You may not think this is one of the seventeen greatest discoveries ever, but don’t reject it until you’ve tried it.

Now you know so there you go.

"We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done." Although Longfellow's pronouncement has superficial plausibility, it's merely an example of polar logic. One pole is what you feel capable of doing and the other is what you have already done. The judgment reduces to can and did. You judge yourself based on "can" and others judge you based on "did." The reality is that such judgments rarely reduce to either can or did, for you or for others who judge you.

Look first at "can." If this is a judgment you make about yourself, is it reasonable to make it without considering "did?" Relying exclusively on what you think you can do, without considering what you have done, places no value on prior experience. It also acknowledges an inability to learn. Alternatively, if you consider did to the exclusion of can, your behavior is simply repetitive; and you will need to take Albert Einstein's observation to heart, "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Look next at "did." If others are expecting change, improvement, innovation, or new approaches and strategies, you aren't the person they need. They can only expect you to do again what you did before. Unless "can" is considered, nothing new or different ever happens. The conclusion is that can and did aren't separable. They are the head and tail of the coin of progress.

How then should one approach success? What is the best strategy for blending did and can? Arthur Schopenhauer pointed out, "a man can do as he will, but not will as he will." The message is that you can't simply "will" things to happen. You have a wide range of options for doing but no magical powers. Alexander Graham Bell said, "The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion … It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider - and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation - persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it, who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree."

The basis for judgment is now clearer. You and those who judge you focus on both did and can. Success is a blending of the two sides of the coin; and if your goal is to get a thumbs-up from you and from others, you need to get high marks on this short quiz. – Good luck!

1. Are you carefully advancing, step by step?

2. Is your mind becoming wider and wider?

3. Are you persevering in what you know to be practical?

4. Are you concentrating on succeeding?

Sure, it's simply a variation on the old story, "Nothing succeeds like success."

Now you know so there you go.

"We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done." Although Longfellow's pronouncement has superficial plausibility, it's merely an example of polar logic. One pole is what you feel capable of doing and the other is what you have already done. The judgment reduces to can and did. You judge yourself based on "can" and others judge you based on "did." The reality is that such judgments rarely reduce to either can or did, for you or for others who judge you.

Look first at "can." If this is a judgment you make about yourself, is it reasonable to make it without considering "did?" Relying exclusively on what you think you can do, without considering what you have done, places no value on prior experience. It also acknowledges an inability to learn. Alternatively, if you consider did to the exclusion of can, your behavior is simply repetitive; and you will need to take Albert Einstein's observation to heart, "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Look next at "did." If others are expecting change, improvement, innovation, or new approaches and strategies, you aren't the person they need. They can only expect you to do again what you did before. Unless "can" is considered, nothing new or different ever happens. The conclusion is that can and did aren't separable. They are the head and tail of the coin of progress.

How then should one approach success? What is the best strategy for blending did and can? Arthur Schopenhauer pointed out, "a man can do as he will, but not will as he will." The message is that you can't simply "will" things to happen. You have a wide range of options for doing but no magical powers. Alexander Graham Bell said, "The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion … It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider - and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation - persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it, who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree."

The basis for judgment is now clearer. You and those who judge you focus on both did and can. Success is a blending of the two sides of the coin; and if your goal is to get a thumbs-up from you and from others, you need to get high marks on this short quiz. – Good luck!

1. Are you carefully advancing, step by step?

2. Is your mind becoming wider and wider?

3. Are you persevering in what you know to be practical?

4. Are you concentrating on succeeding?

Sure, it's simply a variation on the old story, "Nothing succeeds like success."

Now you know so there you go.

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." -- Aristotle

The idea that excellence is a product of training isn't surprising. Athletes, musicians, and those who achieve preeminence in other areas requiring superior personal performance are well-aware of the necessity and value of continuous training. The point that may not be as obvious is that training and habituation are prerequisites for areas of excellence beyond developing physical skills and individual talents. They are necessary for emotional excellence, moral excellence, interpersonal excellence, as well as intellectual excellence. The point that may be even less obvious is that Aristotle also said that training and habituation are prerequisite to virtue. People have the capacity to be virtuous but become virtuous people only through training and habitually acting rightly. One becomes virtuous by acting virtuously.

How does one act virtuously? Cicero advised, "It is our special duty, that if anyone needs our help, we should give him such help to the utmost of our power." Confucius said, "To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue… gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness." Although how one practices "gravity" is less than obvious, the other four requirements need no explanation. John Wesley was even clearer when he said, "Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can." Now that leaves little room for doubt or negotiation.

The message has not changed over the millennia. Dante said, "He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it." Gandhi said, "We must be the change we wish to see in the world." Is virtue the path to personal joy and fulfillment? Probably not. George Bernard Shaw said, "Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness." Why? As George Eliot put it, "Our deeds determine us as much as we determine our deeds." Remember Aristotle's message, "We are what we repeatedly do." The choice is to habitually act rightly or to act wrongly. At that level, it's not much of a choice. The key is remembering that acting virtuously is an essential part of one's ongoing excellence training.

Now you know so there you go.

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." -- Aristotle

The idea that excellence is a product of training isn't surprising. Athletes, musicians, and those who achieve preeminence in other areas requiring superior personal performance are well-aware of the necessity and value of continuous training. The point that may not be as obvious is that training and habituation are prerequisites for areas of excellence beyond developing physical skills and individual talents. They are necessary for emotional excellence, moral excellence, interpersonal excellence, as well as intellectual excellence. The point that may be even less obvious is that Aristotle also said that training and habituation are prerequisite to virtue. People have the capacity to be virtuous but become virtuous people only through training and habitually acting rightly. One becomes virtuous by acting virtuously.

How does one act virtuously? Cicero advised, "It is our special duty, that if anyone needs our help, we should give him such help to the utmost of our power." Confucius said, "To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue… gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness." Although how one practices "gravity" is less than obvious, the other four requirements need no explanation. John Wesley was even clearer when he said, "Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can." Now that leaves little room for doubt or negotiation.

The message has not changed over the millennia. Dante said, "He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it." Gandhi said, "We must be the change we wish to see in the world." Is virtue the path to personal joy and fulfillment? Probably not. George Bernard Shaw said, "Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness." Why? As George Eliot put it, "Our deeds determine us as much as we determine our deeds." Remember Aristotle's message, "We are what we repeatedly do." The choice is to habitually act rightly or to act wrongly. At that level, it's not much of a choice. The key is remembering that acting virtuously is an essential part of one's ongoing excellence training.

Now you know so there you go.

Hello and welcome to Audio Tidbits.

I am the newest member of the podcasting team and am excited to have this opportunity to talk with you today.

As the new guy on the team, it's not easy to know exactly how to behave and what to share with you as my first chance at podcasting. I suspect you have been in the position of being the new kid in town. If you were like me today, you weren't quite sure how things work at your new gig and are anxious to get off to a good start. To say the least, it's a little awkward. Even so, I am taking a very big silent breath and hoping for the best. Here I go.

I thought I'd share with you as my first podcast some thoughts about being helpful and helping others. I know, maybe I'm just hoping that you are patient and help me get off to that good start we all hope for when starting something new.

Edward Everett Hale said, "Look up and not down. Look forward and not back. Look out and not in, and lend a hand."

You are seldom too busy or stressed to lend a hand, pitch in, to help others succeed. This does not mean that you let others intrude on your personal space or time. Rather, it means that you are usually able and willing to assist, help when there is an immediate need, do what you can for others, deal with what needs dealt with.

I sure hope I got that one right and you really are someone who wants to be helpful when you can. At the same time, I trust that I haven't intruded on your personal space or time. Well sure,I know that I intruded but hope that you're pleased that you pressed play and shared a little of your valuable time with me. I sure appreciate getting to spend this time with you.

Thanks and I hope we get to share some time together again real soon.

Hello and welcome to Audio Tidbits.

I am the newest member of the podcasting team and am excited to have this opportunity to talk with you today.

As the new guy on the team, it's not easy to know exactly how to behave and what to share with you as my first chance at podcasting. I suspect you have been in the position of being the new kid in town. If you were like me today, you weren't quite sure how things work at your new gig and are anxious to get off to a good start. To say the least, it's a little awkward. Even so, I am taking a very big silent breath and hoping for the best. Here I go.

I thought I'd share with you as my first podcast some thoughts about being helpful and helping others. I know, maybe I'm just hoping that you are patient and help me get off to that good start we all hope for when starting something new.

Edward Everett Hale said, "Look up and not down. Look forward and not back. Look out and not in, and lend a hand."

You are seldom too busy or stressed to lend a hand, pitch in, to help others succeed. This does not mean that you let others intrude on your personal space or time. Rather, it means that you are usually able and willing to assist, help when there is an immediate need, do what you can for others, deal with what needs dealt with.

I sure hope I got that one right and you really are someone who wants to be helpful when you can. At the same time, I trust that I haven't intruded on your personal space or time. Well sure,I know that I intruded but hope that you're pleased that you pressed play and shared a little of your valuable time with me. I sure appreciate getting to spend this time with you.

Thanks and I hope we get to share some time together again real soon.

Samuel Johnson told us that the chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken; and John Dryden added that ill habits gather by unseen degrees — As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

The truth of it is that Arnold Bennett got it right when he said that habits are the very dickens to change. Abigail Van Buren was also on point when she added that a bad habit never disappears miraculously. It's an undo-it-yourself project. Of course Mark Twain was also there, egar to join in, "Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time."

Naturally, St. Augustine had a wise caution for us, "Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.;" and as we would expect, Mark Twain inserted his take here on putting too much stock in saints and wisdom, "To have nothing the matter with you and no habits is pretty tame, pretty colorless. It is just the way a saint feels, I reckon; it is at least the way he looks. I never could stand a saint."

"Habit is a man's sole comfort. We dislike doing without even unpleasant things to which we have become accustomed," according to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. We already knew that habbits are sticky and not easily abandoned so aren't surprised that Georg Christoph Lichtenberg added that habit might be described as a kind of moral friction — as something not allowing easy passage to the mind, but rather so binding it to things that to work loose from them is difficult. A Spanish Proverb puts it like this, "Habits are at first cobwebs, then cables;" and Horace Mann like this, "Habit is a cable; we weave a thread each day, and at last we cannot break it."

As much as there is to say on the side of giving up our bad habbits, Eng's Principle advises that "The easier it is to do, the harder it is to change;" and bad habbits are definitly hard to change. At least mine are and I suspect yours are too, so we don't want to stop short, without reminding ourselves that habbits are not without virtue. Frank Crane said that habits are safer than rules; you don't have to watch them. And you don't have to keep them, either. They keep you. Well that may not be quite the virtue we had in mind so let's leave it with this from William James, "Habit is thus the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor."

Now you know so there you go.

Samuel Johnson told us that the chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken; and John Dryden added that ill habits gather by unseen degrees — As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

The truth of it is that Arnold Bennett got it right when he said that habits are the very dickens to change. Abigail Van Buren was also on point when she added that a bad habit never disappears miraculously. It's an undo-it-yourself project. Of course Mark Twain was also there, egar to join in, "Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time."

Naturally, St. Augustine had a wise caution for us, "Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.;" and as we would expect, Mark Twain inserted his take here on putting too much stock in saints and wisdom, "To have nothing the matter with you and no habits is pretty tame, pretty colorless. It is just the way a saint feels, I reckon; it is at least the way he looks. I never could stand a saint."

"Habit is a man's sole comfort. We dislike doing without even unpleasant things to which we have become accustomed," according to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. We already knew that habbits are sticky and not easily abandoned so aren't surprised that Georg Christoph Lichtenberg added that habit might be described as a kind of moral friction — as something not allowing easy passage to the mind, but rather so binding it to things that to work loose from them is difficult. A Spanish Proverb puts it like this, "Habits are at first cobwebs, then cables;" and Horace Mann like this, "Habit is a cable; we weave a thread each day, and at last we cannot break it."

As much as there is to say on the side of giving up our bad habbits, Eng's Principle advises that "The easier it is to do, the harder it is to change;" and bad habbits are definitly hard to change. At least mine are and I suspect yours are too, so we don't want to stop short, without reminding ourselves that habbits are not without virtue. Frank Crane said that habits are safer than rules; you don't have to watch them. And you don't have to keep them, either. They keep you. Well that may not be quite the virtue we had in mind so let's leave it with this from William James, "Habit is thus the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor."

Now you know so there you go.