Who, what, where. Concise and vibrant. (Relevance Tool 2 of 3)

Miss last week’s post on making relevance a metric? Catch it here.

Now to Relevance Tool #2.

Concise and vibrant. 

Be concise. I define concise as focused, brief, and incisive. The key operations for arriving at concise: sift + subtract. 

Concise, make no mistake, is the opposite of winging it.

Just ask Mark Twain: “[For] a two-hour presentation, I am ready today,” he quipped. "[For] a five-minute speech, [I’ll need] two weeks to prepare.”

Concise compels, because you don’t get lost in a thicket of words. But concise needs its companion: vibrant.

Your route to the corner of Concise + Vibrant? 

Pair concise with the “who, what, where” of story.

Here’s two examples to illustrate how:
"Love the egg you’re in.” This recent post from the writer Danielle Laporte examined how "incubation periods are tricky—not glamorous”.

It’s a beautiful essay on the nature of creative + professional development, one that argues for celebrating the space, privacy and simplicity of your pre-dream-having-arrived state. 

While professional growth is an abstract concept, she portrays it via story.

Who (Character): You. 
Where (Setting) : Inside of an egg. 
What (Motivation): Impatient desire to hatch. 

She lets us see the quest, and that’s significant. “You can’t be what you can’t see,” as Marian Wright Edelman put it.

When we can truly draw something in our mind’s eye (and that’s what story allows us to do), it’s transformative: we get perspective and can understand our situation in new ways. 

This is how Laporte’s visual “story” brings both a new lightness (and depth) to a fraught topic--feeling stuck or stagnant. 

Example #2.
“Holding two truths at once.” This example comes from my own work. It’s a story-based reframe I use with clients to pinpoint the “heart of the matter” when an idea (or the expression of an idea) feels abstract or muddled.

Who (Character): You. 
Where (Setting): Isolated room, that could be anywhere.
What (Motivation/Goal): Trying to carry/balance two unwieldy boxes.

In fact, I used it last week in a conversation with a client who was trying to express or capture the origin story of his business, that he first started when he was very young. For him, the two boxes were labeled:

Box 1: “It’s hard to overcome doubt others may have in you.”
Box 2: “I wasn’t even sure I trusted myself.” 

I’m still amazed how this exercise can provide clarity and nuance, by tapping into a truth (that’s resisting the effort to be expressed in words.)

The “holding two truths” scenario pares things to the essential, and places you as the main character in a story so you can grasp hold of what’s really going on. 

Story connects. 
What is more: seeing yourself as a character in a story let’s you ask, "what (outcome) are you rooting for?”

And this last question is the point. “What are you rooting for?” It's the key question, because it’s connected to something-desired-that-hasn't-yet-been voiced. 

Nail this, and you will be relevant, and valued for it.

So remember concise + vibrant, via story.

Your turn.
Play with concise “who, what, where” story-scenarios that allow you (and or your audience) to draw a situation in the mind’s eye. 
Either, I’m holding these two truths at once: [A] and [B]. 
Or, one of your own making.

Of course, share with me here. I read every one.

ps: For a novel, practical approach to drawing an idea to understand it (even if you “can’t draw”), check out Dan Roam’s new book, Draw to Win. He underscores the importance of leading with "who, what, where," even in pictures.