the world rewards the people who are best at communicating ideas not the people with the best ideas david perrell who else have the best ideas but feel like they're not the best at communicating them i have these tricks that i learned in law and management consulting that will definitely help you organize your thoughts when you speak remember what you actually want to say and really get the point across in a very effective and eye capturing way leaving an impression on your audience so let's get to them number one is finding a quote that expresses your idea votes are concise they're impactful and they get straight to the point when you use quotes to open you skip all of that rambling at the beginning where you're trying to find how do i start talking about this topic you don't need to do any of that you just give them the quote and then move on to the point right how many people have sat there listening to people talk for way too long and lost your interest or how many people have talked for way too long and saw the soul of people's eyes just disappearing so start with a quote i did this with this video as well you're still watching so this is a good sign let's move on to the second function of quotes quotes establish your credibility we are taught to be judgmental right we're always looking for faults in other people's arguments whatever it is that they're saying do we agree do we not agree it's quite difficult to start an open conversation when the other side is very defensive so by starting with a quote from someone that they know that they trust then you've already aligned yourself to start from a very positive position where the other person is willing and open to listen to what you have to say this is what we do in law this is what we do in management consulting we always invite experts so you don't have to believe me you can believe whoever it is that has expertise in this field this is what i do in my other video how to articulate your thoughts i use steve jobs i use aristotle people very credible with important things to say and i use them to get my point across when you've already established credibility through others then the rest of your talk gets so much easier the third function of quote is that it anchors your point you prime the audience with what it is that you want to talk about help them be open to the idea and then for yourself it's kind of like a guidepost for you of where do i go next right you can transition from the quote to your main point and help you remember the link so once people are hooked then you want to just get to the point and we move on to trick number two which is to use intentional visuals this is not any visuals this is visual intended to show at least one of the two things one change and two contrast let me show you with two examples this is just aside projects trying to visualize mental models in a very simple way so that even kids can understand and you know hopefully they'll be curious enough to find out how to think better and make better decisions so this one is about speed and velocity one of the most fundamental mental models and i want to show the difference between speed and velocity and also what happens when you change right the contrast and the change we see that speed is about covering distance whereas velocity has direction without using words i can immediately show someone if you are currently thinking about speed you see that you're not really going anywhere then you might want to change and think about things in a velocity velocity perspective of thinking with direction showing change in contrast is so crucial because you give context to your point right think about every time that you've made a decision every time that something made you think okay i need to act it's because it's saying that you need to change something and or it's because something compared to something else is better or worse right so that's the change as well as the contrast so why do we want to put these points in visual form there are two reasons for this the first one is that our brains process visuals so much faster it's literally at the blink of an eye 15 13 to 15 milliseconds whereas for words it takes us about 200 milliseconds so we need to use so many more words to get the same point across over longer time periods whereas having a visual will get the point across immediately and whatever it is that you say will be so much easier for the audience to understand that's point number one and point number two more importantly is that these visuals actually help you recall because they're so impactful easy to process not only do your audience remember it you remember it too so even if your talk is just casual you don't need to put anything up on the powerpoint or whatever it is that you're doing that's fine these visuals will actually help you remember what you want to say and get the point of the change and the contrast across because you actually remember them instead of trying to remember bullet points of things that you need to say let me know in the comments if you currently visualize in this way now you've anchored your talk you've established credibility and you have a very easy transition from the beginning to the main chunk of your presentation with just one quote right and then you have little recall images to help you get your point across in a very effective way that works with how we think how we make decisions which is showing change and giving the context of contrast so now people are going long and they're buying your argument right you it's really easy to organize your thoughts you want to make sure that at the end you end very strong and this is where so many people drop the ball and do not do that make sure you end with an action item and here you don't want to end with just any action item this is where a lot of people make the mistake of not thinking about their audience right humans we are energy preserving creatures we don't want to use excess energy for no reason we want to survive and we want to thrive so we want to make sure that the action item we give someone at the end is very simple and i'll share just in a moment how this helps you establish your credibility long term as well so first you want to make it simple let's use the example of let's say climate change right this very difficult issue to resolve with just one simple action step let's say that you think um climate change can only be combated if people vote for the right leaders who are committed to this idea i'm just making this up let's say that's what you think it's a very high barrier action step for people to take right you have to get out there you have to see which leaders are interested in you have to go vote right that's not the action step you want to leave people with because they won't do it instead you want to leave them with something super simple like um bring your own bag to the grocery store why because humans have consistency bias that is if we made a previous commitment to something we feel attention every time we don't do it we feel attention every time we're not acting to our previous commitments so let's say you do um grocery bring your own bag to the grocery store as your action step every time that person goes to the grocery store which is pretty pretty frequently they will be reminded or at least there's a chance of them remembering your talk remembering how important combating climate change is right so in that sense over time after your talk is finished you give them just something enough for them to commit themselves and feel that consistency bias to act towards that then once there are other things let's say in the news that they're talking about ice melting you know polar bears not having ice to stand on to get fish that they need to sustain themselves then they'll be reminded okay i've already committed to doing my part in helping combat climate change it's not a one person effort and maybe then i should go out there and vote right so in this sense we want to create that consistency bias but make it easy enough for people to do so that they don't feel overwhelmed then just say okay i can do it that's the end of it and all of the planning and the organizing you've done you've lost them at the end right so make sure it's something very simple for them to do and just like that you got your point across and has stayed with people over time and that's really what it's about is organizing your thoughts in an effective way so that you don't end up trying to memorize everything and get really nervous and have your mind go blank just use the quotes the visuals and the action step at the end to help you organize whatever it is that you want to say if you found this helpful please give it a thumbs up it will really help with the algorithm and subscribe if you haven't already i have this other video on how to articulate your thoughts uh if you're interested and ready to now make it even more impactful like steve job does and i will see you in the next one bye