Growing up with well-educated parents and an older sister with her Master’s Degree in English Language and Literature, I was left with little wiggle room as a child to use poor grammar. When I would inadvertently slip, I would be corrected in a matter of moments—excuse me, seconds! While it may have been irritating for a 10-year-old, I am eternally grateful as an adult that the grammar police kept me in line.

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Review and reread your work before you hit send, post, or publish. Thankfully, many of the social media channels allow you to edit what you have created after they have been posted. However, there will be times when what you send out will be un-retractable. In some cases, they are there forever. So choose your words wisely!

Even with my focused intention to be eloquent and reflect perfect grammar, syntax, and punctuation in my writing, I still flub up occasionally. Thank heavens for spell check, auto-correct, and the brilliance of my amazing editor Elizabeth Dixon. None of us is perfect, but our editing needs to be as thorough as possible if we hope to make a great impression.

Having a second set of eyes to review what you do is an effective practice. Sometimes you will be so close to your own work that your blinders will cause you to miss tiny details which can create huge errors, and reflect poorly on your intelligence and expertise.

As a professional speaker and author, excellent grammar is crucial in my profession. Without the proper use of words and language, I would lose credibility and respect.

Your grammar is crucial to your image, brand, and reputation. It reflects upon your level of intelligence, education, experience, upbringing, and native geography. Poor grammar can totally bomb a job interview, make someone delete your email request, cause people to judge you behind your back, or dismiss you as being a poor communicator. It is all preventable!

Rather than using these pages for a boring English lesson, I will simply encourage you to become keenly aware and pay close attention to your articulation and grammar.

The wonderful world of human relationships is a rich mixture of backgrounds, perceptions, habits, preferences, behaviors, and motivators. These differences can create barriers to communication and connection, creating a lack of understanding or clarity. Just as we each have our own genetic DNA that makes us unique, we also have personality traits that do the same.