Foundational Fridays -- Tamed Tongue

Old Testament prophets and kings, New Testament disciples and apostles, ancient philosophers like Socrates, and any number of other historical and well-known leaders and figures have shared thoughts about the importance of taming our tongues.

It is not true that the tongue is the strongest muscle in the human body. According to Scientific American (among other sources), the best contender for that title is actually the masseter, which is the main muscle in our jaw.

But interestingly enough, the tongue is not connected to any of our bones, acting as a lever as just about every other muscle does. Of course, the heart is another one not directly connected to bones to help with physical movement or motion. Very much like the heart, the tongue really never tires.

Despite its small size compared to most other muscles, the tongue does have the ability to be the one that causes the most harm to others. I'm not a violent person and have only been in a couple of fistfights back when I was a kid.

One of those fights, was a fabricated fight a friend and I engaged in deliberately as young teens because to that point in our lives, neither of us had been in such a fracas. We beat the snot out of one another for just a few minutes because we thought that was a good way to prepare for a "real" fight should anyone ever strike either of us in anger. Yeah, that was stupid, silly logic.

Following a physical engagement, we may have bumps, bruises, maybe some blood. Generally speaking, we heal from those rather quickly. An attack from our mouths, using a terrible tongue, can inflict terrific pain from which the verbal victim may not soon, if ever, recover.

As Zeno shares in the picture above, stumbling with our feet may inflict a scrape on us. Perhaps a little embarrassment where anyone seeing us can demand our "cool points" (another childhood memory), but that fumble is fast fading.

Making mistakes with our tongue can go in many different directions. It can be hurtful as we already explored, or it can be fantastically foolish, like ardently arguing for no redeeming reason. Or lying to someone, which hurts us as much as the other person. Or confidently communicating something about which we aren't well educated or experienced.

Earlier this week, I was on a coaching call where we were discussing how to create and curate our credibility with teammates, particularly when in leadership roles. A talented tongue is key to others trusting in us. Here, I don't mean slick speech or soothing sounds lacking integrity, intelligence, or insights. I mean carefully considering what we say, and how we say it.

Another connected comment we've all likely heard is, the reason we have two ears, and one mouth (and tongue) is because we are supposed to listen twice as much as we speak. In so doing, we have time to be more discerning and deliberate when we speak. Naturally, we cannot be 100 percent guaranteed not to stick our proverbial foot in our mouth or be mistake free. We can, like every other muscle, exercise to be more effective when we do engage the tongue.