There are many occasions when Joel and I sit over one line and change it multiple times, until we feel it really sits right. This is partly to improve our metrics for click rate and others. It is also to simply create an emotion. The one key question we ask ourselves is:

“How does this make you feel?”

The question might sound very obvious. And yet, it’s a very different question to say for example “Which message do you want to send?” or “What is the content of this announcement?” By always focusing on “How will this make someone feel” whenever you write even a single line, we immediately improved the amount of responses we got from our users.

Recently we explored how much sleep do we really need to work productively. Let’s do the same with language and dig in to how our brain works and expose some of the most persuasive words in English.


Recently, a lot of the long standing paradigms in how our brain processes language were overthrown. New and cutting edge studies that produced quite startling and different results. The one study I found most interesting is UCL’s findings on how we can separate words from intonation. Whenever we listen to words, this is what happens:


So our brain uses two different areas to identify the mood and then the actual meaning of the words. On second thought, what still doesn’t quite make sense is why we can even distinguish “language” so distinctly from any other sounds.


“Speech was singled out for special treatment near the primary auditory cortex.”

In short, our brains can magically single out language from any other sounds and port it to the right “department” in our brain to give it meaning.




You’ve probably heard the above many times before. It’s one of the longest standing study results that has become a synonym for how language works. Only in recent years have people explored again what the contents of that study were.

The study which dates back to 1967 had a very different purpose and wasn’t at all about defining how we process language:

“The fact is Professor Mehrabian’s research had nothing to do with giving speeches, because it was based on the information that could be conveyed in a single word.”

Here is what actually happened that triggered the above result:

“Subjects were asked to listen to a recording of a woman’s voice saying the word “maybe” three different ways to convey liking, neutrality, and disliking. They were also shown photos of the woman’s face conveying the same three emotions. They were then asked to guess the emotions heard in the recorded voice, seen in the photos, and both together. The result? The subjects correctly identified the emotions 50 percent more often from the photos than from the voice.”

The truth, so famous author Philip Yaffe argues, is that the actual words “must dominate by a wide margin.”



Newberg explains his reasoning for why the Mona Lisa’s content smile turned into one of the most well known paintings around the world:


Another element for how we can process language is the number of words there are for us to process. Of course we know this as somewhat obvious and yet it’s always a great reminder:




Something I struggle the most with is to stop using adjectives. They are, in fact one of the worst elements of speech and even make a listener or reader lose trust.

Writer Kim Peres explains:


Reading this,hit me like a rock and couldn’t make it any more clear I think. Peres goes on to explain that “too much unnecessary text induces skipping”, which shows how detrimental adjectives can be.

What we easily forget on a very high level is that using fewer words builds trust. So any words that don’t convey meaning can erode our readers’ and listeners’ interest. I think this is one of the most important elements I want to keep reminding myself of.


First is the skill of asking questions: “What would you do?”

When I read this, I realized, I totally suck at it. Journalist-turned-entrepreneur Evan Ratliff put it like this: “Aall that’s really saved me (so far) from madness is being able to formulate questions that deliver useful answers.”

He points out that any questions that start with “who,” “what,” “where,” “when,” “how,” or “why” are likely to get great responses. To be avoided are “would,” “should,” “is,” “are,” and “do you think”, as they can limit how people respond to you a lot. To give an example:

Good: “What would you do?”
Bad: “Would you do X?”


Second, remove “is” from your vocabulary.

Alfred Korzybski, the creator of General Semantics was firmly convinced that the ‘to be’ verbs like “I am, he is, they are, we are” promoted insanity. Why? Quite simply because things can’t be exactly equal to something else. Douglas Cartwright explains further:

“This X = Y creates all kinds of mental anguish and it doesn’t need to because we never can reduce ourselves to single concepts. You believe yourself to have more complexity than that, don’t you? Yet unconsciously accepting this languaging constrains us to believe we operate as nothing more or less than the idea we identified ourselves with.”

Read the following list of examples and you’ll see immediately how different the outcome of the statements is:

  • He is an idiot vs. He acted like an idiot in my eyes
  • She is depressed vs. She looks depressed to me
  • I am a failure vs. I think I’ve failed at this task
  • I am convinced that vs. It appears to me that

In a terrific article Gregory Ciotti researched the top words in English. His list is not suprising and yet the research behind it, is extremely powerful.

“You”—or your name is something that’s so easy to be forgotten and yet so important for great communication:

“Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” —Dale Carnegie

“Free”—Gregory explains Ariely’s principle of loss aversion. All of us naturally go for the lowest hanging fruit and free triggers exactly that:

“Because” —Because is probably as dangerous as it is useful. Creating a causal relationship is incredibly persuasive: “Even giving weak reasons have been shown to be more persuasive than giving no reason at all.”

“Instantly” —If we can trigger something immediately, our brain jumps on it like a shark, says Greg: “Words like “instant,” “immediately,” or even”fast” are triggers for flipping the switch on that mid-brain activity.”

Check out the full post from Greg here.

Quick last fact: Make three positive comments for every negative statement, and for every negative argument give 3 positive ones.

That last tip, which surprised me a little. comes from Andrew Newberg. His research suggests that negative arguments have a very detrimental effect to our brain. We need to pay particular attention to not let them take over and working agains them with this 3-to-1 ratio:


I love exploring how we can improve our language for better conversations and better lives. What have you found to work best when talking/writing to others?

Source: FastCompany




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