The Richly or Poorly Show
Show Transcript
shdawson-20261013.mp3
Episode 10/13/2026
10/13/2026
Hello! Welcome to The Richly or Poorly Show!
My name is Dr. Stephen Dawson, and I am your show host.
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The show's motto is unmistakable: RICHLY IS GOODLY!
Please consider how you define the term good as we journey through life together in your pursuit of defining the term richly in your life.
Last week, I shared how to accomplish Acquisition of the first skill of The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success. I shared the recommended resources and the process for using the Reed & Kellogg System. I hope you have been able to either add the free Reed & Kellogg book to your Amazon Kindle account, or you have taken action to acquire the book from another source. I also encouraged you to have some type of celebration within the next 24 hours. You have received one-fifth, 20%, of the information about The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success. This is a huge milestone in your life. I doubt you will ever forget this empowerment you have received to live your life more richly. I expect you will look back on that day in the years to come with great joy. How do I know this is The Truth? Simple. I repeated my 1983 experience with you in 2026. Rest assured, I would have told you something else were it not for the magnitude of the impact the Reed & Kellogg System brought to me 43 years ago. I hope you enjoyed your celebration!
The five identified skills are presented in order of priority. They build on each other. They also help each skill operate more effectively in your life and the life of anyone else who chooses to learn them.
The five skills are presented in order of their usage. Here is what I mean by that statement. One must have skills one and two not necessarily mastered to do skill three, but one does need to have a good handle on skills one and two to be able to succeed with skill three.
Learning The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success has a structured approach to it, supported by decades of firsthand experience and academic learning, combined with research covering thousands of years to support the construction of the learning methodology that results in possessing The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success.
I structure the presentation of The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success by three separate presentations for each of the five skills. The first presentation is Discovery. I frame the events and circumstances that lead to identifying each of the skills as necessary for success. The second presentation is Relevance. I frame how all of the events and circumstances that lead to identifying each of the skills as necessary for success matter to you. The final presentation is Acquisition. I spell out in detail how you, as a person seeking to live your life more richly, can acquire each of the five skills with less pain than it took for me to acquire each of them, based on decades of research on my part to both design and build a learning path for you as a member of my intended show audience.
I see that The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success are becoming rare in the lives of many folks over the past two decades. Rare, as in not practiced without noticeable errors. Rare, as in answers erroneous enough to matter. Matter, as in hurting other people. Causing harm to another person by way of laziness is a heinous action.
The results of going backward in intelligence are well-proven in both academia and public knowledge. Going backward in intelligence includes the assured outcomes of failed families, failed governments, and failed countries, all preceded by much heartache from the combination of petty actions and senseless arguments. It is impossible for me to believe anyone in their right mind would want these outcomes in their life.
Today, we continue The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success by way of the second skill. I will present the Discovery section.
The second skill of The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success is Writing. Writing is the skill you have been doing the longest of the five. It also takes the longest of the five to produce the messaging you want to accomplish.
I began this series by answering the only two questions that matter in communication: SO WHAT? -and- WHAT NOW?
A good presenter can answer these two questions about the material they present to their intended audience by way of a single sentence for each question. Here are my answers for you, as a member of my intended show audience.
SO WHAT?
The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success form one of the dominant means for you to live your life more richly from the year 2026 forward.
WHAT NOW?
I suggest you hear what I have to say to you in this series of episodes.
Writing is the assembly of the parts of speech for a specific language to communicate your total message to your receiver in accordance with the grammar rules of the specific language. What is a receiver? It is the person to whom you are sending your message, in this case, by your writing in a specific language.
Consider the many forms of writing. There are technical manuals, legal documents, governmental laws, advertisements, imaginary stories, sports reports, and dozens of other forms of writing. Each form of writing has a distinct structure. Determine what form of writing you want to accomplish, learn the final form the writing needs to exist in, learn the rules to compose each section of the writing, and then write the sentences to structure your specific form of writing.
We each began writing before we began speaking. We could not form words at the time, only sounds. What we could do was pick up something and mess with it. Mess with it, in almost every way imaginable. We eventually would find a pencil, a pen, or a marker, perhaps even a paintbrush, and wiggle it around. We began to develop the motor skills in our hands, wrists, and arms to write letters, numbers, and symbols.
We had thoughts in our minds of what we were seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, and feeling. We had thoughts of reality and fantasy in our minds, with little to no ability to distinguish one from another. We were excited about all that was around us, wondering what else was out there in this thing called life. Neither fear nor fatigue was a burden to slow our pursuit of discovery.
Eventually, someone taught us to write letters, then write our name. We then moved on to writing symbols for circles, squares, and whatnot. We began to use color to take our writing to another level in expression. We drew pictures of characters, animals, objects, and even thoughts we could not define but experienced in our mind as a form of abstract expression.
I loved writing as a child. I did not love to write words in the form of sentences. I wrote words when I was forced to write words. I did not like to write words because I did not have a process to write words that were sensible for others to read. I understood from early childhood the purpose of a dictionary, a newspaper, an encyclopedia, and even the writing on the back of a box of breakfast cereal. What I did not have was the interest, the patience, or the means to expend the resources of time and effort to satisfy anyone who demanded of me that I produce writing to satisfy their requirements without first defining to me what in the world they call successful in my writing efforts based on their demands of me. Both fear and fatigue were becoming problematic as obstacles to my learning journey.
Time went on, and different school teachers would have us write different types of assignments. There was the book report. Read some parts of a book, and write some words to answer some questions about the book text. There was creative writing I shared during the June 16th, 2026, episode. It was a story about my first creative writing assignment. That story is a huge laugh and has a direct connection to the second skill of The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success. I urge you to go and listen to that episode now, if you have not heard it, to better understand what I present to you today. Then, there was the notation of science topics, math topics, and history topics, all with their specific writing requirements that present the minimum necessary information for each topic when work is accomplished. Ultimately, all assignments drove toward the what do I want to do in life, what do I want to be in life questions that would be answered with no boundaries other than to sit, put a bunch of words on a piece of paper, and receive an excellent grade for simply writing whatever came out of my mind and onto a piece of paper. The assignments were not worthless, but they measured nothing of tangible value in terms of developing the skill of writing. No one can answer the question of what they want to be in life. The pursuit of answering this question occurs with each breath we take until we take our last breath.
I moved on from high school and worked different jobs, all at the lower skill level, while I was attending college. The jobs had some form of messaging involved to do the work. They were simple, short messages that needed to be conveyed either verbally or in writing, based on the work. There was little to no comprehensive message constructed. These experiences all occurred when computers were becoming mainstream. So, people were in between listening to people and reading computer screens every few seconds. The attention span of the person using a computer, with whom I and the rest of humanity were messaging, was only a few seconds, at best. It was called the era of information explosion. Add to the equation cable television channels bringing us broadcasts in real time from around the world for the first time in history. The ability to message with anyone about almost anything was nearly impossible, based strictly on the fact that there was so much to take in and enjoy.
So, I went deep into computers to avoid the trauma of the drama from humanity losing focus and spiraling out of control. There was a huge economic recession that resulted from this human behavior, from 1990 to 1994, almost five years in total, one of the longest economic recessions in history. It was painful to work, attend college, and then do things like socialize with friends when some free time was found to use, based on the many directions humanity was running to chase the concept of success.
I graduated college in 1994 and was ready for the next thing to do in life. I had two job offers. The first one I passed on due to the likelihood that it would not last. That proved to be the case, so no loss of opportunity there. The second one I accepted, and it ended two days later. The work was on a government contract that ended suddenly, and no one was hired as planned. So, I went into professional sales.
Sales as a profession at the time was all about mailing envelopes. It was ridiculous. A salesperson would be provided a list of names. The salesperson would contact each person on the list by mail using form letters written by someone other than the person doing the mailing, who was called the salesperson. A percentage of the total list who were mailed purchased. There was no sales effort performed. It was not for me. What I did was go into sales for a piano company. I was sent to a school of the company that employed me to learn how to sell a piano. I thought I would be speaking. I was wrong. We were required to write out sales presentations by selecting options from pre-written material to form the overall sales presentation message. It was a wonderful learning experience. The only tool a salesperson has is words. So, the tools are used with great precision. I then moved on to other sales roles in other industries for other companies, ultimately back to jobs with computers, where I finally worked to help salespeople with the technical side of the sales presentation, and then started my own company in 2001 for my full-time work. I also had my own company from 1991 to 1994, while in college. That work was part-time for me, but I learned many lessons that prepared me for my 2001 company launch.
Today, we as humanity are bombarded with words that are shaped into many forms of messaging by way of writing. The era of information explosion went on to become the age of information overload. I doubt it will ever end. The best we can do to process the many forms of writing that come to us is to use as many forms of automation as we can employ to help us both categorize and prioritize the writings we receive so we can read them as we can pace ourselves to consume the materials without scan-reading them, where nothing is understood.
The dictionary is the ultimate writing resource. If we read the dictionary from cover to cover, then we have, in theory, read every book that either ever has been or ever will be written. This logic is untrue. What we do not have is context for the words. So, they have little to no meaning for us when we read them. It is impossible for a human to memorize the dictionary, so it is a matter of how much knowledge we can retain at the time.
If the writing you accomplish is for you alone, then you have 100% success in reaching your intended audience. Otherwise, your writing is for those other than you. Your effectiveness in reaching your intended audience will most likely never reach 100%. So, it is a matter of how close to 100% you can achieve in your messaging. Meaning, you are experiencing misunderstandings in your messaging by some of your intended audience not understanding your message.
The receiver who has no interest in what I have written for them does not mean my writing is poor quality. It means that I have not located my intended audience. If my intended audience has no interest in reading what I have written, then it is a matter of motivation. The best form of motivation for interest in reading what I have written is for the receiver to be experiencing some significant form of pain, where what I have written will help alleviate their pain. Otherwise, it is best to part ways. The same conditions hold true for both you and the rest of humanity.
I took a course in my second year of college called Introduction to Speech Communication. The same professor who taught acting courses taught it. The course was a degree requirement. I learned so much in that course that I still have the course notes today. The ability to message another person either verbally or in writing is precious to me. The most important thing I learned in the course is this: Communication occurs when the receiver sends back 100% of what the sender is sending. Consider yourself the sender and whoever you are trying to communicate with as the receiver. How much of your message do you want them to understand? How much of your message do they want to understand? Then, consider the complexity of trying to communicate with them by not using either verbal or written communication, but only by nonverbal actions apart from either verbal or written. These considerations should help frame for you the challenge, the need, and the beauty of interpersonal communication.
Now, I am presenting a bit to you about speech communication as I present to you about writing. I do this intentionally to illustrate to you how forming your message is unique to your receiver, your intended audience. Remember, the attention span of almost everyone today is not hours and hours. It is less than a minute, more like about 15 seconds, before their mind starts to wander and they reach for their smartphone to play around for personal or professional reasons.
I recall my employer sent me in 1998 to a one-day writing course. The course taught how to write messages within a business context. My employer meant well, but there was no intention to have me learn how to write differently. What was happening was that my writing was upsetting some coworkers. The coworkers complained to our employer, and the employer took action to appease the employees. The coworkers were upset because their poor work quality was being exposed outside of our department based on my work connecting with their work. I went on and continued to write as I had before attending the course. No one complained to me about my writing performance. Clearly, my being sent to a writing course was more about internal politics than learning to write in a particular manner.
I bring to you good news now that should bring you much gladness: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS BAD WRITING. What each writing effort has is its satisfaction of Grammar, based on the language used to accomplish the writing, and the effectiveness of the message formed in the writing. The first item is non-negotiable. We covered the background and usage of Grammar in the past three episodes. The second item means only the intended audience of your writing considers your writing good, successful, helpful, and meaningful. This intended audience part is where you have almost as much room to work as you can imagine for your writing. There are, literally, endless ways to form your message to accomplish the intent of your messaging effort. I am not talking about a writing style. A writing style is a topic we will cover in the third skill of The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success. A hint: The third skill is not about writing, but it is about using your writing.
I knew I needed to learn Writing. I knew I wanted to learn Writing. I had to accept the fact that the public school system did not succeed in teaching me Writing. I figured I could either cry and complain about not knowing Writing or go and learn Writing. I chose to find a way to learn Writing. It took me until 2005 before I had a solid grasp of writing, just over a decade after I graduated college. Meaning, I learned skills in college but struggled to apply those skills to my work life because skill application was not taught in my college courses. I was glad to have the skills, but learning to apply them in college would have been more effective for me.
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So, coming to a close here, writing is a joyful action for most people. It is a way to express a part of ourselves to others with whom we want to further our specific type of relationship with them. The reason could be either personal or professional, but it is a reason that resonates within us to express ourselves for a desired result. The ability to write is more than grammar. It is the ability to either inform, entertain, or persuade one or more people to accomplish a specific, predetermined outcome. This outcome changes people for the better. Better, as is in helping them to live their life more richly. Do you know a more important reason to send a message?
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Next week, I will continue to address the skill of Writing by explaining the Relevance of writing to you in the year 2026 and how you, I, and the rest of humanity are heading rapidly into artificial intelligence doing the act of writing. I expect you will be surprised next week by what you hear from me about how to overcome the power of artificial intelligence by furthering your agenda to live your life more richly through leveraging The Five Academic Skills Necessary for Success in your life to interface with artificial intelligence and robotics in ways that are as simple as they are timeless. They are simple and timeless because they are based on Wisdom.
Well, that's it for today.
RICHLY IS GOODLY!
Thank you for joining me for this episode of The Richly or Poorly Show!
I have enjoyed presenting to you today.
Until the next episode, I hope you will be safe and join me next week.
Until then.
© 2026 SH Dawson. All rights reserved.