📘 During his formative years as an educator, many of the author's colleagues encouraged him to write a collection of the phrases and comments he used over the years in interaction with colleagues and students. Initially, he had planned a memoir of just a few pages; however, the more he wrote, the more apparent interest in the work became. He has had the pleasure of serving students as an educator in North Carolina and Virginia public school systems; and in those academic settings, he learned that words can be more effective and render extraordinary results when used in a constructive manner. While coaching, he had the good fortune of creating motivational statements that have inspired young athletes to perform at their highest level. It was during his last adventure as a private-school principal that he discovered the most opportunities to utilize on-the-spot expressions to diffuse an altercation or to inspire a student in need of motivation in the classroom. In sharing these thoughts, he is not trying to impose these expressions on the readers or to get them to think the way he has thought; he offers them in hopes that readers may take a careful look at what they do and say to others and the impacts of those actions and words.