Punctuation: a Lost Form of Speech Freedom

            Imagine a time in history when writing existed with only four basic punctuation marks such as the comma, the colon, the semicolon, and lastly the period. Now imagine yourself driving down a street where you as the driver decelerate from a fifty-five mile per hour zone (comma,) down to a forty-five mph zone (semicolon;), a thirty-five mph zone (colon:), and then you finally come to a screeching halt at a stop sign (period-long pause). That’s how our forbearer’s utilized punctuation as it was meant to be used. This worked to emphasize their direct thoughts and emotional expressions through the use of controlled rhythmic pauses.

            But what happened? How did we come to a day in time where our personal expressions of pauses from our own thoughts and emotional expressions become considered ungrammatical? Sounds a bit unfriendly to the freedoms of speech we praise so dearly, don’t you think? Quite so!

            If everyone today is subordinate in using the same structured grammatically correct use of punctuation, how can we have individuality, freedom of expression, and the freedom to express our direct thoughts and emotions as individuals? We all sound ridiculously the same as if we were released from the same grammatically correct institution.

            What document was it where we signed a pledge to follow a single reference of punctuation in our writing? Oh yeah-that’s right: we never did! Do yourself a great justice and take a gander in any modern punctuation reference book. You will find that there are much more punctuation tools at your discretion. Each provides a unique quality to the reader when traversing your sentences. Don’t be shy, use them as often as you need to, especially in order to best represent your thoughts and emotions. If you don’t want to use them, don’t. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with providing a breathless view of the mountains the rivers the trees shrubs critters and endless skies all in one emotional breath. That’s an expression. Your expression! It’s also ok to-pause, at, intervals, whenever, you, decide, your, audience, should, pause, and, reflect, on, what, you’re, saying. Well, maybe that’s going to the extreme; but I hope: you get my drift!

            Today we have dashes, italics, boldfacing, underlining, apostrophe, quotation marks, question marks, brackets, ellipsis, slash’s, and emoticons to reflect what we have to say and to assist in representing us exactly the way we need to be heard.

There are no real “Rules” in punctuation, except for the ones you’ve been told to follow. In fact: the rules are of your own design, and of your own needs. Don’t just hand your words to your readers in the same institutionalized manner as everyone else, be different, reflect your difference in the use of your preferred punctuation accents.

For more information regarding human behaviors, writing better, or to start your personalized public relations campaign today

Contact:

Outstory

Public Relations and Marketing Group
Advice That’s Precise

outstoryprgroup.com
shawn@outstoryprgroup.com
704-904-0682

Aspiring to Higher Needs, Personalities, and Behaviors

         How many times have you heard, or perhaps made, comments such as the following:

            “When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.”

            “When someone shows you who they are, believe them; the first time.”

            “There is nothing more beautiful than seeing a person being themselves.”

 “Live authentically. Why would you continue to compromise something that's beautiful to create something that is fake?”

“When you are living the best version of yourself, you inspire others to live the best          versions of themselves.”

“Nothing can be more hurtful to your heart than betraying yourself.”

“Take care not to listen to anyone who tells you what you can and can't be in life.”

“I will never be Ms., Mr., or Mrs. Perfect'.”

“I don’t care what anyone thinks about me, I’m myself.”

“Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.”

Such comments indicate a real desire to understand oneself and others around us, and we believe that understanding ourselves will somehow allow us to begin understanding others around us better. What a mistake this would be.

Unfortunately, understanding ourselves may be as difficult of a task as trying to actually be ourselves. People do not start life knowing exactly who they are. Our personalities are as flexible as our next desired emotional needs may be. We actually change personalities regularly through a series of learning processes that involve our inner trial-by-error senses.  Those senses develop over a period-of-time by observing and analyzing our experiences, and our desired experiences. Which ultimately results in changes to our behaviors, emotions, and personalities on a continuous basis.

Not all personality changes are created through direct intentions of our design. Most come unnoticed and occur rather automatically through our subconscious learning process. We tend to be creatures of habit whether we realize the habits or not. The things that occur around us, and especially on a repetitive basis, become natural occurrences within our minds. This repetitive observance or experience becomes a part of us. Our minds adapt to them, and our behaviors, emotions, and personalities synch with these repetitive things to become reality. Whether we realize it or not, we become one with whatever we are exposed to. 

All people possess characteristic traits that distinguish their behaviors, emotions, and personalities. But are they unique to us? Are we capable of having completely unique qualities that are solely our own? Probably not. Our personalities can only be developed through the learned processes of: “automatic unconscious repetitive learning (AURL),” and/or the selective process of “aspiring to higher needs (AHN).”

Aspiring to higher needs, as mildly described above, consists of choosing selective qualities for-the-purpose of becoming better individuals. Throughout life, we change in ways that familiarize and accommodate our friends, our family, our immediate needs, and our desired needs. Our personalities shift to provide ourselves with the qualities that are admirable to others, and by others.

Other people, including ourselves, seek out the admirable and superior human qualities of being: acknowledged, competent, confident, focused, forgiving, free willed, important, in control, independent, kind, knowledgeable, optimistic, productive, proud, reassured, respected, understandable, valued and worthy. We call these emotional needs the “Aspiring Emotional Needs.” They are simply what people aspire to become. Again, this happens automatically and subconsciously, and/or through direct changes to our current personalities. If you perform a reverse research on each word, you will find that the list contains the most extreme characteristics of what people fear becoming.

Imagine for a moment a time when you were fully engaged in the admiration of another person's qualities. This could have happened while watching your favorite T.V. show or movie. Or, quite possibly reading your favorite book containing your favorite character. How did your personality change when you closed your book or turned off your television? Did you or anyone else notice changes in your personality? It is an amazing and natural process where we adopt other people’s qualities into our own. This is a phenomenon known as style mimicking. The great work of American social psychologist, James W. Pennebaker, expanded the world's knowledge of such happenings. We found that with Dr. Pennebaker’s research and combined with our own emotional behavior research, something interesting appeared.

As we have shown above, the “aspiring emotional needs theory,” has provided us with a new level of understanding concerning how people are always in a flux of improvement. This improvement quest reveals that people are always searching to improve on their personal qualities. We have also learned that the qualities we possess today, may not entirely be of our own design. Our minds have been searching and adopting higher qualities from others since birth. Some adopted by choice, others automatically and uncontrollably. So when people say, “that you must be yourself,” being yourself must be a mystery. Realistically thinking, we are all products of external experiences, environments, and of the people, we have admired in life.

How can this knowledge help us in our public relations, advertising, and marketing endeavors? Simple really, if we know the qualities people are always in constant search for, we can provide those qualities for them through our work. Do you remember the Mr. Clean man? Mr. Clean is a brand name and mascot fully owned by Procter & Gamble, used as an all-purpose cleaner. Mr. Clean was a bulky, confident, proud and respected figure. Although an imaginative figure, Mr. Clean was extremely effective in the sense that people young and old admired him. How about the Marlboro Man? The Marlboro Man was a figure used in tobacco advertising campaigns for Marlboro cigarettes. The Marlboro Man was first conceived by Leo Burnett in 1954. The images featured the ruggedness of men as portrayed in a variety of roles. Most people during that time were drawn towards this figure and the Marlboro brand. It was a powerful statement and a statement that provided people with an aspiration, an admiration for being better. Not that tobacco is cool by any means, but it established a powerful image in the minds of people who sought admirable qualities. Which we have learned, is sought out by all people, in all stages of their lives, and continuously throughout life.

Understanding exactly how people grow and expand into new personalities will greatly enhance public relations, advertising, and marketing efforts. Realizing that people do indeed seek certain superior personality qualities, will also greatly enhance efforts and desires. Maslow and McClelland were both correct concerning people’s hierarchy of needs; however, the need for people to become admirable, to attain to more superior qualities of “being a better person,” may have been understated.

For more information regarding Human Behaviors, or to start your public relations campaign

Contact:

Outstory

Public Relations and Marketing Group

Advice That’s Precise

outstoryprgroup.com

shawn@outstoryprgroup.com

704-904-0682

The Emotional Ascension Model

The Human Emotions - More than you Thought

            The human emotion is the most powerful stimulus the universe has ever known. A single emotion has the power to not only influence self but can also influence powerfully others and everything else in and around our environments. It is through the power of emotions that has guided the human race to do all things that have been done, and will be done. No other force within the universe is as powerful as the human emotion, or at least until we finally meet our match with a face-to-face encounter with invading extraterrestrials that have the power to read minds and control thoughts. Unlikely as that may be, we must continue our forward focus in understanding this tremendous power.

            What’s to be done with this knowledge of emotions? Well, throughout history we’ve used our emotions to inform, to persuade, to request, to develop new ideas, to change the world, and we will continue using emotions to change everything around us until all things end.

            A lot of people have tried to figure out human emotions, a lot of people have failed, and very few have actually come up with credible insights.

            Below you will find Outstory Public Relations contribution to this emotional struggle. We have constructed a very useful emotional model that describes the 7-major emotions as never witnessed before. This model is extremely important because before this idea surfaced, people had basically thought of human emotions as consisting only of 7-major emotions. Academia itself still teaches incorrectly by labeling a person’s complex emotions as simply being that of either angry, sad, surprised, disgusted, in fear, in contempt, or of joy. We have found this way of thinking about the complexities of human emotions to be absurdly inaccurate, especially considering the many variables to a single true emotion.

            During one of our complex human emotional studies in 2012, we found that the 7-major emotions were actually impossible to achieve without first involving other important micro and ancillary-emotions, before truly ascending to and settling on one of the 7-major emotions, but then it didn’t just stop there. More interestingly, we found that once a stimulus event occurs in any of the major emotional groups, a person will naturally ascend through a series of ancillary-emotions before apex-xing and holding or pausing at a certain emotional level.

            How exactly does the human mind control and restrain itself while ascending through these emotions without going through the roof, well, we're not exactly sure about that, yet? But, we do know that while at the apex, the human mind will level off and pause to exhibit one of the emotions more predominately than the others. How long do people stay at these apex levels is determined by other internal and external stimulus events. Ascending through the ancillary-emotions can be either a slow process taking micro-seconds, minutes, days, or weeks, but then again, it could occur instantaneously, or last forever.

           The personal experience or self-recognition of the emotions experienced while ascending to higher levels may never actually become known to a person, or witnessed by others. The human mind has the power to apex anywhere, to hold and pause at, or to move on in any direction very rapidly without notice. 

           

How is this information helpful?

            This information is helpful because it allows us to understand exactly where people’s true emotions appear; it also gives us a realistic view of how they got there, and where they can go to next. To understand what a person will feel and experience before they experience it themselves is truly powerful knowledge. Simply knowing where we can successfully guide human emotions, from one to another, or conveniently to our desires, presents us with an incredible tool.

            Understanding emotions are extremely helpful in public relations, communications, writing, marketing, and the behavioral sciences.  If we had the desire to do so, we could formulate an article or some other written works that could precisely introduce certain stimuli and then progress a person’s emotions from the least to most extreme in any emotional group to accurately show by example how a person ascends the emotions. We could also use this model to pre-determine an audience’s emotional state, and then traverse their current emotions through an emotional path leading to our desired emotion.

            Every emotion listed in this model has been given a main word that signifies and represents the meaning attached to each emotion. It’s important to note that each main word also has equivalent matching words. Those equivalent words carry great similarities to the main words and when used have the potential to apply additional adequate meaning. This resemblance of word meaning allows us endless opportunities in writing, to traverse people’s emotions toward our desires.

How to read the “Emotional Ascension Model:”

           Starting from the stimuli (bottom green), emotions will progress upward to its most extreme level, the apex point, either halt, or pause and then begin to descend back down through the same ancillary-emotions until new stimulus has occured to veer off. Centered, are the 7-major emotions of anger, disgust, fear, surprise, sadness, contempt, and joy. All emotions begin at the stimuli and progress through ancillary-emotions until the emotional sense apex’s, halts, or pauses. Emotions have the power to fluctuate across other emotions. You will notice that the ancillary-emotion of shock exists in disgust, fear, and surprise. They exist at different levels and within different emotion groups. A person can experience all three series of emotional groups together, simultaneously, or singularly. However, a person can never experience the emotion of rage without first experiencing each-and-every ancillary-emotion listed below it, this also applies to every other emotional group. Depending on the strength of the emotion, a person can ascend gradually, sometimes noticeably, or instantaneously without notice. The human mind and body are so well adapted to emotions that most ascending emotions (ancillary-emotions) will never be realized without great care and insight to do so. 

         People often toss emotional labeling around without much thought, and most will say that a person is either angry, sad, or happy. But take a closer look at where those emotions actually appear. People must experience many other emotions before actually leveling off at one. Also, make it a practice for you to never misrepresent a person’s true emotion. To say that a person was in rage is really a serious emotional condition. Rage is the highest level of the emotional group found within anger. It almost always results in severe mental damage, death, or bodily harm to the person experiencing it, or others. Be sure to represent emotions as they are, not as you think they are, this will help you tremendously in all things you do when working with other people’s emotions, and of your own.

For more information regarding human emotions, behavior, or to start your PR campaign

Contact:

Outstory Public Relations

    Advice That’s Precise

Phone: 704-904-0682

Email: shawn@outstoryprgroup.com

Website: outstoryprgroup.com

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First-Impressions are Important in Writing too

Let’s face reality for a moment. Let us realize that unless we are writing material for one of the very well-known mega-corporations like Coca-Cola, Amazon, Google, or Walmart, our writings will probably not be as recognized and accepted.

How do we overcome such difficult realism? 

The first thing we must understand is exactly how first impressions work. I say first impressions because technically we are strangers to our audiences. The chances of them knowing us, feeling comfortable with us and our material are far less than what they have known. The mega-corporations are people’s lighthouses, it is their reference points to all things, it’s simply what they know and what they can compare other things with.

If we consider writing to be a diffusion of communication among strangers, we can grasp the reality that first-impressions truly mean everything. I do not mean that the writer does not know his/her audience, in fact, the reader will know just about everything about his/her intended audience. Instead, what I mean here is that writing whether its design is to provide information, tell a story, to promote a business idea or product, or to persuade people toward certain points of view, all require a certain understanding and level of relationship fundamentals. Relationships, through our most basic understanding of them, must contain certain levels of trust and transparency, especially when considering maintaining productive relationship progress.

Just like in any face-to-face encounter, writer to reader encounter requires first-impression understanding. Not just an understanding, but also the ability to transfer into writing the thoughts and ideas of making the best first impression.

No matter how many books I read, I always stumble around during the first few sentences or paragraphs until my internal filter has settled and recognized the pattern of the writer. All writers have unique personality’s, tones, rhythms, and emotional signatures to be found in their words, as they would be found during a face-to-face verbal/nonverbal encounter.

It is the skill and the unique understanding of the writer who can provide his/her audience with the transforming verbal and nonverbal cues of clear, and effective writing, so that all intended audiences can relate.

Let us now look at the stages of first-impressions so that we can understand how we can better break-the-ice when we write as strangers, to strangers.

There exist 8-stages during the first-impression encounter. All are important.

1.       The Filter: The filter is a natural process whereby people scan their environment searching for reassurance (comfort). In writing, this is equal to a reader’s glance at the writer’s headline and/or first few sentences. This is the initial point where first impressions are formed. The mind will attempt to automatically establish

reassurance by evaluating the consistency of emotional impressions while comparing with senses and experiences.

2.       Initial Approachability Recognition: This is the natural process of determining and perceiving approachability, or the act of commitment. The mind will establish an initial impression of the basic emotions. The mind will continue to establish reassurance by evaluating the consistency of the emotional impressions while comparing with senses and experiences.

3      .Recognized Approachability: At this point, the mind has determined the need, want or desire to commit to the encounter.

4     Recognized Encounter: This is the point when the commitment of the encounter has occurred.

5       The Medium: This is the point when the reader has comfortably recognized and accepted the pattern of the writer. Understanding and relationship patterns strengthen and begin.

6  .    Imprint Evaluation: Once the reader has acknowledged and accepted a comfortable status by recognizing the pattern of the writer, the reader will begin the process of judgment. It is at this point where positive and negative orientation is assessed, interpreted, judged, and imprinted on the mind as an emotion.

7   .   Conclusion: The end or closure of an event or process. Here, the reader has completed downloading and interpreting the writer’s unique personality, tone, rhythm, and emotional signature patterns. The reader now understands what’s being said and asked of them, and stores this content into their mind.

8       The After Thought: The final stage or process of closure, and further reassurance. This is the point of no return, where the emotional imprint has been stored into the mind as a memory and can be retrieved for use at-a-later time.

Once the encounter has been imprinted on the mind as an emotion, there it will stay until retrieved for later reference. Ensuring that the right emotion will be imprinted on the mind, comes from the ability of the writer to do so. A writer who does not understand how to successfully make first impressions may inadvertently provide an avenue of negative emotional imprinting. To ensure readers receive the right emotional imprint, understanding the 8-stages of first-impressions is a great start.

For more information regarding consumer behavior or to start your public relations campaign

Contact:

Outstory Public Relations

    Advice That’s Precise

Phone: 704-904-0682

Email: shawn@outstoryprgroup.com

Website: outstoryprgroup.com

Facebook: Public Relations Writing-Hosted by Outstory PR

                    Public Relations Case Study

                    Outstory Public Relations