The 3 Words Political Candidates Must Avoid
On a political campaign you’re going to spend a lot of time talking about yourself and your plans.
It is unavoidable since you are the candidate and these are your plans, but this does come with serious political perils.
In individual conversations, when making speeches to a groups, and in your campaign’s materials and advertisements you must be on hyper vigilant guard against three dangerous words.
“I” “me” and “mine.”
If these three words come out of your mouth or are used in your campaign materials too often, they can harm your candidacy and could cost you the election.
The overuse of I, me, and mine will make you look self-absorbed and conceited.
In other words, you’ll come off as a politician, not as a leader.
Voters don’t like politicians. Never have and never will.
Even if you’ve never ran or held office before, if you say “I” “me” or “mine” too much you’ll be sending subliminal messages to your voters that, “Hey I’m a politician.”
Believe it or not, people who talk to much about themselves by using these three first person pronouns, are actually broadcasting weakness.
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal:
People who use the pronoun “I” often tend to be less powerful, more self-reflective, and more insecure.
“It does not reflect narcissism, like many people think,” said James W. Pennebaker, a psychology professor at the University of Texas who studies language and social behavior.
In fact people, people of lower status tend to use “I” more, Pennebaker found.
People of higher social status tend to use “we” more often, Pennebaker said.
For political candidates, this means the frequent use of “I” along with “me” and “mine” is subconsciously lowering your value.
You’re not coming off as a leader, not just to the voters, but also to yourself.
But if that’s the case, why do they keep electing them?
Because the best candidates, even those who have spent three decades in elected office, know how to not sound like a politician.
They do this by making simple, subtle changes to the language they use.
Here’s how they do it and so can you:
Change the pronouns you use on your campaign from the first person singular to the first person plural.
Replace any uses of “I” “me” and “mine” in your speeches with “we” “us” and “ours” as much as possible.
Whereas I, me, and mine are the words of a politician, we us and ours are the words of a leader.
And if you want a great example of the political power of using the third person plural, consider this powerfully enduring statement:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
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- The Power of your Campaign Having a Plan
- The Candidate’s Role in Messaging
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