2. How to Use This Book

If you have a presentation or a speech to give, there are BASIC rules of the road for every presentation. The following are the fundamental rules for any presentation in addition to including power verbs. You can find different rules in other sources about how to use verbs in your sentences. These rules are a summary of 35 years of personal experience and research:

• Know to whom you are speaking. You have to know who is listening to you. Who are the people and what are their education levels, work histories, social statuses, and cultural backgrounds?

• Prepare, prepare, and prepare. What you say and how you say it are both important elements. As a coach, mentor, leader, manager, or executive, your position gives you power, prestige, and elevated authority. People look up to you.

• People read body language and especially nonverbal cues before they hear your words. They begin to interpret the meaning of what you are saying before you are finished, so your nonverbal clues and language should connect with the thoughts and ideas you want to get expressed.

• Select a tone, style, pitch, rate, and time that are appropriate.

• From the following chapters, carefully select powerful verbs that add punch to your sentences.

Power verbs are arranged alphabetically. You have to put the rest of your sentences together using good grammar, style, syntax, and tense but the power, the muscle, the clout, the sway of your sentences and phrases come from your power verbs.

The more than 600 power verbs in this book are listed in chapters showing the top 100 power verbs in 6 different and useful categories for everyday life and they include:

3. Business, brokering, banking, bargaining, and occasionally betting the farm

4. Challenging situations, difficult moments, calumny, comebacks, or when you just want to get in the last word

5. Mind games, mental panache, mastermind monkey business, meeting MENSAs, or just showing off

6. Presenters, professors, preachers, poets, playwrights, and pundits searing for savior faire

7. Schooling, sagacity, shrewdness, and other times to be sharp and serious

8. Schmoozing, socializing, shindigs, getting sentimental, or using your networking to work the room

In each category, the power verbs are listed in straight alphabetical order and in most cases, the power verbs have examples of the specific word in actual use. These examples include the power verb used in sentences, famous speeches, quotations, and in newspaper and magazine articles. Some power verbs have a list of words that collocate or have a tendency to be grouped or chunked with those power verbs.

• Consequences: n. The phenomenon that follows and is caused by some previous phenomenon.

• Impact: n. A forceful consequence causes listeners to assume they will see and feel a measurable difference. No longer good enough to speak about potential solutions or best effort, people want results.

• Impact: v. To have an effect upon; causes listeners to assume they will see and feel a measurable difference. No longer good enough to speak about potential solutions, or best effort, people want results.

• Diplomacy: n. Subtle, skillful, peaceful, nondramatic solution to problems. People are tired of drama, anxiety, and tension; they want leadership in diplomacy.

• Dialogue: n. Dialogue is the discussion of diplomatic issues.

• Reliability: n. The quality of being dependable in a way that is expected or better.

• Mission: n. An authentic and genuine purpose.

• Commitment: n. Dedication to what one promised.

In addition to these aids, where possible and appropriate, examples of using the power verb in more vivid language phrasing and form are included. These include:

• Alliteration: The repetition of the consonant sound of close or adjoining words. An example of alliteration is:

“Step forward, Tin Man. You dare to come to me for a heart, do you? You clinking, clanking, clattering collection of caliginous junk... And you, Scarecrow, have the effrontery to ask for a brain! You billowing bale of bovine fodder!”

—Delivered by Frank “Wizard of Oz” Morgan (from the movie The Wizard of Oz)

• Antithesis: The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas frequently in parallel structure. Examples include:

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

—John Kennedy

“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.”

—T. E. Lawrence

• Metaphor: An implicit comparison between things that are essentially different, yet have something in common. It is different from the simile because the metaphor does not contain words such as “like” or “as.” Examples of metaphors include:

The same sun warms rich and poor.

Great managers manage by chess; good managers manage by checkers.

Life is a journey; travel it well.

Life is a zoo in a jungle.

• Parallelism: A pair or series of related words, phrases, or sentences. An example of parallelism is:

“We defeated communism. We defeated fascism. We defeated them on the field of battle, and we defeated them on the field of ideas.”

—Colin Powell

• Repetition: Repeating the same word or set of words at the beginning or end of successive sentences, phrases, or clauses. Repetition usually results in parallelism and builds a strong cadence in the speaker’s delivery. Examples of repetition are:

“We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.”

—George W. Bush

“The ever important murmur, dramatize it, dramatize it!”

—Henry James, American expatriate writer 1843–1916.

• Similes: An explicit comparison between things that are essentially different yet have something in common and always includes word such as “like” or “as.” Examples of similes include

Busy as a bee

Hungry as a tiger

Light as a feather

It is important to note that overuse of similes creates clichés and diminishes the vivid impression you are trying to create.

Following are some power verb examples from the book.

“My parents’’ generation’s benchmark was simple: Fat equals bad.”

—Arabella Weir, British comedian, actress, and writer (1957–)

“A Chinese animation studio is already using an early commercial version of the software to increase the quality of its television productions, and Zhou is collaborating with the Frankfurtbased gaming studio Crytek, maker of the popular Crysis series of games, which are often used to benchmark the graphics performance of PCs to improve the realism of its products.”

—Anonymous. “The Next Generation of Technology: 35 Innovators Under 35,” Technology Review, September and October, 2011.

“This benchmarking process realigns the job positions with the most-up-to-date strategic business initiatives.”

—Hayashi, Shawn Kent. Conversations for Creating Star Performers, McGraw Hill: NY, 2012: p. 19.

“After brainstorming and formalizing our instincts, we commissioned a consulting firm to provide us with competitor benchmarketing. Our instincts confirmed, we clearly saw the way forward. We would reinforce our Burberry heritage, our Britishness, by emphasizing and growing our core luxury products, innovating them, and keeping them at the heart of everything we do.”

—Angele Ahrendts. “Turning an Aging British Icon into a Global Luxury Brand: How I Did It,” Harvard Business Review, January and February, 2013: p. 41.

(1) “The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency.”

—Vladimir Lenin, Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist (1870–1924)

(1) In the early days of fire insurance, the insurance companies also ran fire houses and would sometimes show up at a fire, and if the burning home wasn’t a policy holder, the fire brigade would try to sell a policy. If the policy couldn’t be sold, in many instances, the fire brigade would absquatulate, leaving the building to burn.

The lists of power verbs in the following chapters are displayed in alphabetical order. The list includes the power verbs, several synonyms, abbreviated definitions, examples of the power verbs used in sentences and quotes, and for many power verbs, words that the verbs collocates with.

In the list of power verbs, the verbs are listed in the present tense.

Now, go search for the power verbs that will pump up your verbal communications!