Once, while still working as a broker, the office manager asked if I would present some subject suitable for the office in our next weekly meeting. I said, sure, but didn’t know what I should present. Finally, I decided to talk about the subject of paradigm which seemed appropriate. We as financial advisors had to always watching for sudden big and permanent changes in the markets.

In preparation, I begin by looking up the dictionary, just to be sure of my personal understanding and not get blindsided if there was more there than I knew. My former background in pharmaceuticals made me feel safe about paregoric. My main target for my office group was paradigm where I spent most of my time.

But paradiddle was a new word and one I had never heard before nor knew anything about. Do you know what it means? No, don’t look it up first. Probably only musicians would be familiar with the term. It is the word describing a certain pattern of alternating drumbeats. As a twist and to capture my audience’s attention, I offered a reward of $5 if anyone in the group knew the meaning and could give a reasonably accurate definition. The winner was a West Point graduate who knew!

Much later when I was visiting with Ken my brother-in-law. He was an executive with I.B.M. and I knew he was familiar with paradigm. But I was surprised he also knew the meaning of paradiddle. I asked him how he had ever met such a word. He said he was going out for football in high school and got hurt and could no longer play. He said he switched over to band and was head drum major the last two years in high school!

Have you ever wanted to have a bigger vocabulary? Well, read, read, read, also start doing cross word puzzles, at first, they are hard, but eventually you will begin to recognize patterns and remember key words. I cannot emphasize that you
should look up words you don’t know, and they will begin to be a part of your normal lexicon. You are missing a treasure house of interesting words if you don’t use Bing or Google when you run across something you don’t recognize whether a word, concept, or idea! It will help broaden your mind and vocabulary. You do not have to igo to college to educate yourself. You do not have to go to college to expand your vocabulary and increase your feeling of accomplishment and self-worth! Just Sayin…RJS

Once, while still working as a broker, the office manager asked if I would present some subject suitable for the office in our next weekly meeting. I said, sure, but didn’t know what I should present. Finally, I decided to talk about the subject of paradigm which seemed appropriate. We as financial advisors had to always watching for sudden big and permanent changes in the markets.

In preparation, I begin by looking up the dictionary, just to be sure of my personal understanding and not get blindsided if there was more there than I knew. My former background in pharmaceuticals made me feel safe about paregoric. My main target for my office group was paradigm where I spent most of my time.

But paradiddle was a new word and one I had never heard before nor knew anything about. Do you know what it means? No, don’t look it up first. Probably only musicians would be familiar with the term. It is the word describing a certain pattern of alternating drumbeats. As a twist and to capture my audience’s attention, I offered a reward of $5 if anyone in the group knew the meaning and could give a reasonably accurate definition. The winner was a West Point graduate who knew!

Much later when I was visiting with Ken my brother-in-law. He was an executive with I.B.M. and I knew he was familiar with paradigm. But I was surprised he also knew the meaning of paradiddle. I asked him how he had ever met such a word. He said he was going out for football in high school and got hurt and could no longer play. He said he switched over to band and was head drum major the last two years in high school!

Have you ever wanted to have a bigger vocabulary? Well, read, read, read, also start doing cross word puzzles, at first, they are hard, but eventually you will begin to recognize patterns and remember key words. I cannot emphasize that you
should look up words you don’t know, and they will begin to be a part of your normal lexicon. You are missing a treasure house of interesting words if you don’t use Bing or Google when you run across something you don’t recognize whether a word, concept, or idea! It will help broaden your mind and vocabulary. You do not have to go to college to educate yourself. You do not have to go to college to expand your vocabulary and increase your feeling of accomplishment and self-worth! Just Sayin…RJS