This short film about Ezra Caldwell has got me thinking on so many layers. I highly encourage you to watch it: The Bike Maker
Be sure to watch it until the end.
PS: I would love to hear what the biggest takeaway was for you. If you’re open to it, just hit reply to this message.
The art of communicating is less about making yourself heard and understood than about making your audience feel heard and understood.
The distinction of great communicators is that they don’t just reach our ears and smarts; they touch our hearts.
PowerPoint is an excellent tool to turn great ideas into confusing presentations.
Sure, it can be used to turn a great story into a great presentation. But mostly it does the opposite.
We’ve all seen it happen a little too often.
In PowerPoint, it’s easy to prioritize fluff over substance,
and cram slides with detail just because the space is there.
It’s easy to focus on aesthetics – fonts, colors, images, animations – while neglecting the foundational work of crafting a compelling, relevant story.
PowerPoint as a tool doesn’t particularly care for clarity or relevance, nor does it encourage that.
Essentially, PowerPoint is about filling slides, not telling stories.
It helps to keep that in mind when using the tool. The more we allow it to pull our attention away from the story we want to tell and direct it to filling slides, the more we risk wasting time on creating flashy but empty presentations.
Audiences don’t care nearly as much about fancy slides as you might think; they crave clear and engaging stories. If that’s with a beautifully designed slide … great, we’ll take it.
But if it’s fancy slides with a lame story, we’ll pass. (Let alone ugly slides!)
Don’t let PowerPoint lead your process. Start with clarity, understand your audience, and build your story first. Then, use PowerPoint to amplify your message in ways that words alone can’t.
That’s how you transform a well-thought-out narrative into a powerful presentation.
Resist the urge to start with slides.
Start with the story.
Yesterday, my friend Shane Cradock asked “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”
It’s a powerful question and I’d like to dig a little deeper on it.
It helps to set aside our fears for the moment and think about the things that can be done if only there was no fear, no obstacles, no setbacks …
Now, if we look a little closer at the list of things that come up as an answer, it turns out that there’s an interesting subset of answers that stands out.
The ones that also answer this question:
“What would you do even if you knew you would fail?”
These are the things that we wholeheartedly want to do; things that are driven by our values and beliefs; things that deeply matter to us and that we believe carry the potential of making such a difference that it’s worth the hassle even if we wouldn’t succeed; things we would never compromise.
It’s the sweet spot in the set of answers that Shane has encouraged.
They might not have surfaced without the first question.
But now that they’re there, why not go for it?
You’re handed a megaphone. You can say whatever you want.
What do you choose to say?
Everyone around you will hear it.
But that, of course, is no guarantee that they will listen.
The only thing that’s certain is that they will hear it.
What do you think will make them listen?
What do you think will make them pause?
What will make them come closer?
Or pass your message along?
This, essentially, is public speaking.
Only that you’re handed a microphone in place of a megaphone.
What do you choose to say?
Great communication tends to be simple.
Not trivial, not simplistic, but profoundly simple.
Trivial messages take us nowhere.
Simplistic ones take us to the wrong places.
Profoundly simple ones light the path to unexpected places.
Both, trivial and simplistic, try to remove or replace the complexity. They pretend that things would be simpler than they actually are (which in the best case is mostly harmless, but in the worst case could be dangerous). They cut the conversation short and offer conclusions without the hassle of having to think it through.
Profoundly simple means something different.
It does not replace the complexity.
It makes it accessible.
It doesn’t aim to end the discussion but to spark the curiosity that allows the conversation to start and go deeper.
Can you tell your story in a profoundly simple way?
One of the most powerful questions to ask in order to speak with clarity is “Can you see it?”.
Because when you can see it, it means that you can describe what you see.
And when you describe it, this gives me a chance to see it, too.
If we stop our thinking short of seeing, this is what might happen: We speak about our ideas, “thinking” they are clear, only to discover that the words we use are not really clear to others.
(And, if we’re being totally honest, sometimes not even to ourselves.)
For example:
The truth is that people see different things when they hear these words. Being specific about what you see, helps to align their vision with yours.
The magic happens when “what you see” and “what I see” merge to form a “we see”.
Which allows the conversation to focus on the questions that matter to make happen what “we see”.
So, can you make me see what you see?
Average communicators deliver information, good ones spark our interest, great ones redefine what’s possible for us.
All of them do it using words.
But what a difference the words they use make.
Contrary to what some storytelling coaches want you to believe, in the end there’s only one thing you need to understand about storytelling.
And it’s this question: “What happens next?”
I mean, of course, you can say a lot more about storytelling. The hero’s journey does work. “Show, don’t tell!” is useful advice. As is the three-act-structure and many other techniques …
But in the end, all of that is optional.
Because the only thing that matters is whether your audience is curious to learn more. If you nail that, it doesn’t matter whether it’s through the hero’s journey or some other fancy framework.
Storytelling really isn’t a mystical art locked behind gates of complexity. At its core, it’s simple, straightforward, and something anyone can absolutely do.
Just tap into your audience’s curiosity!
That’s it.
If your audience wants to know more, you’ve nailed it. Even if you’ve never heard of the hero’s journey or any other storytelling formula … when your story makes people sit up and wonder what’s next, you’re telling a great story.
“What happens next?” is the only questions you need to ask for that. The better you understand your audience’s needs, their desires, their questions, the easier it will become to find a compelling answer to that question.
If it’s using the hero’s journey, that’s totally fine (it means you’re using it right). But if you’ve never heard of it, don’t worry! The more important information is to know your audience.
So, what is your audience dying to know?
Trust can thrive when people say what they mean and mean what they say. Easy, isn’t it? Well, not quite …
Here’s the bit where everything can still fall apart:
Clarity!
Or lack thereof.
Saying what you mean doesn’t guarantee that the others get what you mean. But the equation only works if it’s clear to both sides what is meant.
Keep that in mind the next time you’re frustrated when someone didn’t do what they seemed to have promised.
Did they really promise what you thought they’d promised?
Or how about you? If you asked the others, what did they really understand?
But what do you do when there’s that subtle feeling that maybe, just maybe, they didn’t catch your point?
Why not just cut through the guesswork and ask them? Straight up.
It’s not rocket science, but it’s often missed: making sure you’re on the same page.
That’s key: If in doubt, ask!
