Jarring Jargon
I should have blogged four days ago, but this is the eternal struggle of a (temporarily) solopreneur – working IN your business while working ON your business. This past week has been more in than on, thus no blog post this past week despite a plethora of topics awaiting my fingers to do the dance across the keyboard. But that’s my fail. Because once a week, no matter what is going on, is doable. It’s a matter of making the time, which means some sort of schedule and I tend to be allergic to schedules, or at least in denial that I am on one and need a better one. It’s the anti-authority in me. Schedules are dictating my time and telling me what to do, and that makes my very cells quake in annoyance. I know a schedule can be the bodyguard of your time – allowing the things that help the current mission, delaying or rejecting the rest. But it’s the rest that have all the fun distractions, of course, and your schedule knows that needs to be kept in check. Still, sometimes you have to buck the schedule and I thought I’d do that today with a little annoying jargon.
Podcasts are a glorious thing. I listen to them almost daily – inspirational ones, business ones, fun ones like my beloved Supernatural: The Crossroads and the now concluded, but hopefully not gone forever, Girl on Guy (Aisha Tyler can hold some interesting conversations, y’all). It’s the entrepreneurial ones that get the most of my time these days and, consequently, I visit a lot of websites and tour a lot of social media pages. As a result, there are some words that I am now sick of hearing, even though I agree with the general principles. I just don’t want to hear these particular words quite so often anymore, which means defining things for myself. This list currently includes:
Authenticity – I used to love this word. Now I’ll just be myself until this word retires.
Shiny object syndrome – It’s cute, but overplayed, which is why I’m cool with fun distractions until I think of something better.
Tribe – ugh. Conjuring images of ancestors, I already had a word – village – which I have been using since circa 1999 when our puzzles were born.
Passion – So hard to hate on this word when this is my thing, along with purpose, but I’ll just do what I love and adore for now and encourage others to do the same.
Crushing – I hope it’s not male bashing, but you just know some man first said this. Then again, I’ve been known to kill things, so I guess I’m just as violent.
Hacks – Stop it. This is stupid. Can’t we all just simplify and make [fill in your issue here] easier?
Ah-ha moment – Forgive me, Oprah. Wait. DID she coin this? I’ll be sticking with my epiphanies because I’ve always loved the word.
Add value – It’s true. I like to do this, yet this word also makes me think “valu,” which makes me think “cheap.” The goal is to simply partner with my clients and help however I can. Period.
There’s surely more annoying words I could add to the list if I thought hard enough, but these are the gems currently making my ears bleed. If you’ve got some terms you’d like to strangle , bring ‘em and let's murder them together! How much more can my ears bleed, anyway?
