Are you using the word "linerita" daily?

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Probably not yet. But I hope to convince you, to inspire you to make it a part of your everyday active vocabulary. I invite you to latch onto this word so that becomes a word that you wonder how you were ever able to do without it.

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Tools that we take for granted

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You and I would be hamstrung in successfully negotiating our daily modern life without clocks and timers. We could not reliably make and keep appointments or show up on time for work or school. We would not know how long to cook the rice or the turkey. We could not rely on when we would wake up. We could miss our favorite TV program. 

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Some of us manage to mess up with these things anyway even though the clocks and timers, and don't forget Alexa and Siri, are there as tools if we choose to use them.

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Clocks and timers are invaluable tools that we take for granted that, at earlier times in history, we did without.

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Words as tools

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Words are a more fundamental tool. 

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When Helen Keller grasped the word/distinction "water," she entered into a world of new tools that we all take for granted. Each word that we use (and uses us), to the extent that its distinction is clear enough, provides an easier and essential access to effective thinking within ourselves and effective communication with others.

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This is quite obvious when a word distinguishes clearly an object in the external world. 

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The tools of "cut," "red," "wire," and "now"

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When an electrician instructs her assistant to cut the red wire now (instead of the green one), the word tools "cut," "red," "wire," and "now" are essential in both of them being able to think, talk, and listen accurately enough in order to get the desired result they both want.

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Word tools that are more encompassing and affect bigger swaths of our lives

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The essentiality of effective and needed word tools increases exponentially when using word tools that affect our thinking and communication abilities for bigger and longer-term life issues and choices.

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The word tool "healthy"

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For example, the distinction "healthy" is helpful in our being able to think and communicate so as to create and guide choices that are more likely to support a future for ourselves and others that our Nexts will be happier with.

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Other distinctions like "persistence" we've made a mess of because, not only do we apply it when it would best to quit, but we also blame ourselves and others when we or they lack "persistence."  See The problem with words.

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Problems caused by shoddy words; problems caused by missing words

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Since we are not accustomed to thinking of words as tools, we are not likely to notice when they are shoddy, when their use or how we use them is more likely to make things worse than better. 

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If important words/distinctions are missing, especially ones that we don't even know are missing, this also can limit severely what we can do, especially when those words are critical to making better life choices.

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Three missing words

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Maybe it's just one missing word, since the second and third are natural extensions of the first.

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• Linerita

• Linerita flop

• Linerita success

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Linerita

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A linerita is derived from the words "life needed risky target." It's a target or result we've decided to go for. It's risky. Maybe it has a 1% chance of success or a 99% chance of success or we may not even have a good sense of what chance there may be. Nevertheless, in the big picture, we've decided to go for it, factoring our assessment of the risk into our decision. We'd prefer a success, but we'll be fine with a failure also.

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In general, most of us would be better off if we set up more lineritas in our life.

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The word linerita can be a noun, adjective, adverb, or verb.

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Linerita flop

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A linerita flop is simply a linerita that you took on that didn't get the primary result you were going for. You may have gotten other desirable results, but not the primary one. 

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I suggest we use "linerita flop" instead of "linerita failure" because the word "failure" still has such a negative connotation for most of us that it might diminish the very positive meaning of a linerita flop. Think and speak the word "flop" with tongue in cheek. 

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Linerita success

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A linerita success is a linerita that you took on that achieved the target you were going for.

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A simple example

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My friend and I are visiting in a new city. We're looking for a place to enjoy lunch together. We glance at the menu of the restaurant we just found. It looks pretty good, probably passable. However, I see another restaurant across the street. I say to my friend, "Let's check out that one over there. If it's not better than this one, we'll eat at this one." I just set a linerita with my friend. It could be better to save the time and eat at the restaurant we already found. Or we could end up being happy that we didn't settle for the one we already knew about because the one across the street was better. If we ended up coming back to the first restaurant, that would mean we had a linerita flop. If we preferred the new restaurant, then we had a linerita success.

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"What's the big deal?!"

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"Why do we need a new word like this?" you may be thinking.

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We have stories about the importance of lineritas and linerita flops. For example, Edison's story of finding all the different ways to make a functional lightbulb that didn't work. In each of the occasions that he was testing a new way, that was a linerita. On each occasion, it was a linerita flop. Until on the last occasion, it was a linerita success.

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Jeff Bezos and Amazon

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When Jeff Bezos started Amazon in 1994, in borrowing money from his parents, he told them he estimated that, even given his best efforts, the likely success was only 30%, which meant that the likely failure was 70%. From what I know, even though he obviously would have preferred to have it be successful, he would have been okay with his choice to take that risk even if it turned out to be a linerita flop. He took on, with many others joining him, in starting a new venture or company, a linerita. It turned out to be a linerita success. But many similar ventures have been linerita flops.

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Setting up regular lineritas in my business

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Every time I schedule a gift-coaching session with a prospective client, it's a linerita. I've got enough track record to know that, on average, about 80% of the time each of these lineritas will result in a linerita flop, with only 20% turning into linerita successes with me getting a new client.

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Whenever I coach someone through their gift-coaching session, there's rarely any difference in my pleasure and satisfaction in doing one that becomes a linerita flop compared to one that turns out to be a linerita success. 

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Viva la lineritas! 

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Lineritas, linerita flops, and linerita successes are and should be an everyday celebrated part of our lives. Most of us, in fact, would do well to increase the rate of discovering opportunities for and setting up more lineritas.

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Lineritas, linerita flops, and linerita successes have always been with us

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We just haven't had a good name for them and recognized how they are a necessary part of living a vital life. And, as such, we haven't been proactively taking them on.

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All marriages are lineritas, regardless of how much we might try to deny that fact. When are you counting on someone to keep an appointment, that's a linerita. Regardless of how secure you might feel in your job, whether you can keep it is still a linerita. Even things that you think are fully in your control, like promising a friend that you'll be punctual with your future appointments, is a linerita.

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Lineritas, appropriately chosen, are good guys!

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By training and cultural default, we have made risk and fear the bad guys. Instead, they are vital and essential parts of being alive. Fearing fear and trying to avoid risk can be very risky.

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You are already using Undoing fear to make friends with your fear. Start using and celebrating the new linerita words as an integral part of creating the living your life as a work of art.

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Creating a new word revolution

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Let's create a word and meme revolution, not only for your own life, but for the life of others. 

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Adopt and use the linerita words in your everyday life. When someone asks you what they mean, reply with, "These are new words that I just learned that are so useful, even though they haven't been picked up by the dictionaries yet. Let me explain..."

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