Design Your Language with Kip & Lora Brown

I had a student once who fell asleep in my class every single day.

Not just head-on-desk asleep—full-on Goodnight Moon mode.

At first, I thought it was all his fault. I blamed, berated and bickered as he kept sawing logs. 

Until, I realized… His language development depended on me.

He came up with the strange idea to literally kneel down when he got tired. Some could say he worshiped me.

over the next few classes,It became a reminder that I was putting him to sleep.

Which made me aware of when I was being boring!

The language I was using with him and the class wasn’t engaging enough. Language is much more than just the words we use.  “It involves every layer of communication—physical, verbal, and nonverbal.”

When I started creating meaningful experiences that were based on storytelling,  activities, and physical engagement strategies he stopped dozing off.

That’s the power of language being approached by more than just words. 

 

Language is not just communicating with others, but it's communicate with yourself.

Design Duo for  Life

Kip helped launch the iPhone which has impacted millions of lives,but used to spend over 200 nights a year away from home on average. He was leaving Lora to describe herself as a “married single mother.” He shares how “Life hides the game clock”, and when Lora was diagnosed with brain cancer, the glitz of corporate life lost its sparkle.  His priorities radically shifted and their business became first to survive then thrive by designing their life together. They now mentor leaders to design their life, development &  language.

 

"When you design your language with intention, you don't just describe your life--you design it"-Kip & Lora Brown 

 

There are 3 key guideposts to design your language. 

 

Guidepost #1 What you say to yourself is infinitely more important than what anyone else can say to you.

 

 

The way we craft our language matters. 

Especially what is communicated out of our mouths to others and what is kept inside our head.

 

For Kip, “Worry is the highest form of consciousness”—it’s like pleading for problems to persist or praying for them to come true. Your brain doesn’t want to make you a liar. Every word you speak—positive or negative—is like sending it to the filing cabinet in your mind to pull out evidence that proves you right. So when you worry, your brain faithfully gathers proof and arranges the pieces of your life to make that worry a reality.

 

Quick tip: Instead of focusing on what you don’t want, just focus on what you do. Kip said, try NOT to think of the color blue. Guess what it isn’t possible for us to NOT think of blue because of needing to process that association. But if you rephrase it and have people think about Red Only, can you see how that will get the result you want, while moving forward?

 

Worry keeps your mind hyper-focused on worst-case scenarios, rehearsing failure instead of creating solutions, is actively creating chaos in the mind instead of calm.

 

Creative leadership language flips that script.

 

 It’s about crafting possibilities with your words, replacing 

 

[I can’t] with [How could I]

[The deadline can’t be met]… with [This is what we CAN do.]

 

This isn’t just a  shift  to optimism—it’s faith in motion.

 

It’s speaking in a way that opens doors instead of closes them. It opens your mind to opportunities to think of solutions instead of closing them off. 

 

When you lead with that kind of language, you don’t just change conversations—you change outcomes.

Lora had a choice of how to use her language when she was diagnosed with cancer and had a tumor the size of an orange in her head. 

Picture this,  Lora was married but felt like a frazzled single parent racing all her kids to activities everywhere. While perpetually feeling grubby, lethargic like her energy tank was depleted. Daily dragging herself like a zombie, she wasn’t depressed but her doctors prescribed her anti-depressants. 

She refused to take them but also refused to admit that there was something seriously wrong with how she was feeling. 

One diagnosis claimed she had Parkinson's. 

“Isn’t that an old person's disease? I’m a young mom,” she thought, ”that couldn’t be it”.

 She then got a scan that confirmed her worst nightmares were true. It was a brain tumor, camping in her cranium. A squatter who had no rights to be there. Harsh reality set in,  I might not survive this.

The doctor scheduled a surgery for 15 days from the moment she found out. This emergency surgery was like a hail mary pass, with a prayer.

She had to decide how to respond in her language, because the realist in her knew in 15 days it all could be over.

 “I might be dead, but I might get a miracle and stay alive.”  Her worry tried to say, “Mayday! Mayday! T-minus 15! We’re  going down!” but Lora turned down the volume on that negative language in her head.

She could have thrown a pity party—aka a “Plom” (Poor Little Old Me) party—inviting everyone she met to join with, “Hi, I’m Lora,  lucky we met today because I have a brain tumor and I could be dead in 15 days… How’s your day going?

Yes it is true that sometimes, as Lora says, “life will life you”. It is essential to design language for the situation you face, and define your language rather than just describe what happens to you.

Miraculously, she avoided worry by instead focusing on gratitude.  What optimism she could muster, she chose her words wisely.  Sometimes she found it easier not to say anything at all. Kind of like Thumper’s motto, “ If you can’t say somethin’ nice, don’t say nothin’ at all”

She attended a real estate national conference and chose not to bring it up in conversation.  Not all pain is worth passing on. 

Later on, people asked,” Why didn’t you tell us?”  Her response,

“It was easier to not say something than worry others.”

Because she guarded her tongue, and came out the other side of recovery. That scar on the side of her head is something she can playfully share now. 

She chose to speak to herself in healing terms instead of harmful hopelessness. The way she spoke to herself helped her heal from the inside out. The people she listened to and associated with also helped her heal. 

What does this mean to you? You probably will not have a brain tumor, like Lora did. I sure hope you don’t! 

Ever heard, It’s all in your head? — for Lora, it literally was,  A brain tumor threatened her life, but for many of us, the real battle is with the language we carry inside our heads. The way we talk to ourselves, especially about ourselves, can hold us back far more than anything anyone else might say. Positively design that inner language, to manifest what you want in life and  you change the lens through which you see your world.

It could be a tumor, but more often the cancerous growth in our head is negativity. Low-frequency language, hurtful words that hush hope, smash self worth whisper worry. 

Since we design our language anyway, why not choose things we want instead of things we don’t?

Guidepost #2 Leadership language is focused on ideas Not on People or events.

 

Ever notice  gossip groups gab gregariously about other guys, gals or groups but rarely about useful ideas?

 

On the other hand, mastermind groups like The Final Percent have shown me that the most meaningful conversations in my life tend to focus on ideas.

 

"To be wronged is nothing, unless you continue to remember it"- Confucius 

 

Kip in his corporate days,  helped launch minimum viable software products for some of the biggest companies in the country like AT&T, Apple and various others. 

 

When noticed as he presented across the nations, everyone company felt like they had a unique challenge, some variation of:

“But you don’t know our problem, we’re Unique” 

 

The funny point about this is, everyone’s challenge was the exact same in the process. He said, 

 

“Communication—or more specifically, the language people are using—breaks down every time…People have their own definition of words.”

 

Communication—or more specifically, the language people are using—breaks down every time. There’s a gap from idea to deliverable that almost guarantees a breakdown in language. The key is to understand that meaning and bridge that gap by discovering what words mean to them, not just to us. 

The key is not letting the gap stay a gap. Understand the idea they’re trying to communicate, then build off the frame of reference they’ve chosen so you can negotiate that meaning.”

 

Describe vs. Design

Describing your life is Passive. It’s  simply reporting what’s happening—facts, events, and circumstances—like a sports commentator calling the game from the sidelines. You’re present, but you’re not influencing the outcome.

Designing your life is Active & intentional. It’s choosing the language, framing, and meaning that shape the story as it unfolds. You’re not just narrating—you’re authoring the plot, deciding the direction, and influencing the ending. Describing explains. Designing creates.

 

Guidepost #3 Pattern recognition, replication & iteration 

Just like when you’re learning your first words in a new language, you need to recognize patterns and be able to reproduce them before you can use and create your own iterations. Patterns are especially important when it comes to designing your language—not just recognizing them, but rehearsing them until you can confidently and consistently repeat them. Only then can you iterate, personalize, and truly make them your own.I

The thing about iteration is that it’s rooted in experimentation—you’re tweaking or modifying something to make it better.

But here’s the catch: if you try to fix what’s not really broken—often because you haven’t practiced enough to replicate the original pattern—you’re more likely to break what already works.

For example, as a kid, my parents called me “Baby Destructo.” Why? Let me illustrate: played with toys a bit, differently. I'd take toys like Ninja Turtle action figures and swap their arms, heads, and legs to make them cooler. Almost like a plastic surgeon who used ChatGPT to pass medical school, little by little I "upgraded" my action figures.

Leonardo 2.0  became Leave-Under-the-Door.

Raphael 2.0? More like “Rat Fail

Michelangelo 2.0  became  Mike-a-no-go 

Donatello 2.0 quickly became Don-NOT-Resuscitate-o.

 

The problem? They usually ended up in pieces, beyond repair. The iterations became broken.

 

Recognize patterns or else!

It was the biggest presentation of his life. Kip was presenting the startup sequence for the iPhone. The boardroom had a massive round wooden table, and big-name executives busily filing in— Tim Cook was there, and other top level executives of a little fruit company in California you would all know.

Almost like synchronized swimmers, every single executive popped open a white or silver MacBook in front of them—uniform, polished, it was like the table was suddenly white washed.

Kip started to unzip his bag… and to his horror, The Jaws theme played in his head. What lurked in the shadows of his case? A black IBM ThinkPad. If discovered, It could easily devour this deal.

Panic set in. 

How did I miss this!?!

At that moment, it felt more like a Didn’t ThinkPad. In that sea of silver, it would have stuck out like a black sheep at a Genius Bar. A baa baa Bad idea to let anyone see it 

He had been called to Apple headquarters—1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA and brought their Biggest competitor’s computer to do the pitch.

What was I thinking!?!

He zipped shut the dangerous deal killing monster in its cage not to escape. Then with quick thinking whiteboarded the concepts for everyone.

It went beautifully, but then he realized he still needed to demonstrate the software, so he bought himself some time by postponing it until the next morning."

Back in his hotel room, he frantically called corporate

“I’m not demonstrating our software tomorrow on anything but a Mac! I don’t care what it takes—get me one ASAP. I’ll stay up all night if needed, but this isn’t a negotiation; it has to happen! ”

By a tiny miracle, the team produced one to his hotel  by 4:30 AM that next morning. The final demo was at 8 AM. Kip completed the rebuild on the Apple software and saved the iPhone deal.

Kip even snuck in a jab at Microsoft by having the Demonstration username “Zoonrocks@microsoft.com” on a profile made for Bill Gates. 

Luckily recognizing that pattern in time saved their deal with Apple, but what patterns are you missing that could kill your next opportunity?

There are language patterns for your success that are just as important to recognize as that sea of silver Macs.

Patterns in language help us anticipate, infer and understand so that we can confidently communicate. 

The adjustments needed are rarely drastic, but recognition of and sufficient repetitions will give you the groundwork to iterate or create your own patterns. 

What this means for you is awareness of patterns can break down barriers, build confidence and connect deeper. It can help you avoid awkward situations because you didn’t anticipate the environment. 

How do you recognize those patterns before it becomes an issue?

Mentors. Read Books. Listen to Podcasts. Patterns are all around us. Find people who have done what you want and model and mimic them. Seek to understand their model and patterns of language, speaking and communication and it will begin to rub off on you.

Mentors raise your awareness of frameworks, and keep you accountable to rehearse them until you can consistently replicate them.

As you do build familiarity, that familiarity builds confidence.

As confidence rises you can get to the point where you are unconsciously able to replicate the patterns and then it is possible to iterate or create your own patterns.

The biggest caution is don’t try to iterate before you can replicate.

Otherwise, that’s like speaking a new language with such an unintelligible accent that nobody recognizes the words, let alone the ideas you’re trying to convey. It comes out as poorly formed verbal vomit. 

Altered actions get altered results, just like modified language creates pigeon language. Seek to clarity first or your message and language will become clouded by confusion. 

Understanding the language of success comes with the pattern recognition needed to make a difference in your choices. 

So in summary, I encourage you to watch your words—they create your world.

Watch your thoughts, because as Matthew 12:34 says,

“For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Fill your head and heart with the language of success, so you can recognize the patterns of success, speak them fluently, and craft your own world with the words you choose to weave.