You Are What You Speak

Jen Coken
7 min readMar 24, 2021

You Are What You Speak

language-words.jpg
language-words.jpg

Have you ever heard the saying, “You are what you eat?” It basically means if you eat healthily, you are healthy. And, vice versa. (Apparently, it dates back to 1826 when a French lawyer wrote ‘Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you what you are.’ The phrase continued to evolve until the 1930s when a nutritionist coined the exact phrase.)

This phrase (you are what you eat) is basically the entire premise of the beliefs work I do with high-performing women. The same principles apply. In fact, I’m known for saying, “You are what you speak.”

You know how I came to learn that? The hard way (read: life experience.) It took other people pointing out the way I was speaking about myself for me to even be able to hear it and then catch myself doing it. Perfect example, there was a day I was standing in front of the mirror smoothing out my hips and my then husband caught me and asked me what I was doing.

I whined about wishing my thighs and hips were smaller. You know his reply? “Quit talking smack about my best friend, Jen.” One sentence and my perspective completely shifted. He was right.

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