How to Articulate Your Thoughts Effectively
You have an idea you’re really excited about. A new business idea. A realization. The dots have finally connected so you tell someone about it.
Their reaction was not what you expected. They seem confused. The idea makes a lot of sense in your head, so why don't they get it? What's missing?!
If this happens in your life, watch this video to ask yourself these four very simple questions to break down your ideas and communicate them effectively.
A Misconception
Before getting to the four questions, we need to remove a common misconception: Only when our idea is good enough, should we then communicate it. Think first, communicate second.
In reality, it's the other way around: our idea becomes clear when we articulate it.
We need to release brain capacity by putting ideas down on paper first. Visually seeing our thoughts helps us make connections and draw out the real insights.
Great writers have been doing this for centuries:
"I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see, and what it means." - Joan Didion
"I write to find out what I think." - Stephen King
So if you ever feel the frustration of, "I just can't sort through this idea" it's normal. You're thinking too hard!
Put the idea on paper. See it in front of you. Release the memory space from your brain so you actually have capacity to think through the problem on a deeper level.
With that in mind, let’s get to the first question we should ask ourselves in order to articulate our thoughts effectively.
The 4 Questions
- What do I want people to do?
- What do I want people to know about me?
- What do I want people to feel?
- What do I want people to know?
#1 The Goal
We want to structure our idea with a goal in mind.
Start by asking yourself the question, “What do I want people to do once they've heard my idea?"
This is something that we usually miss. We don't actually think about the other person when we’re sharing our ideas. It's more about satisfying our need to share our brilliance.
But effective communication is a two-way street. The audience needs to understand what the idea means for them. How this idea can affect their lives.
To maximize your effectiveness, you need to know how your idea impacts others, and what you want people to do with your idea.
Example: The goal of this article is for you to articulate your thoughts effectively.
With the goal in mind, I want to make the techniques as actionable as possible, knowing most people are too lazy to take action, I condensed the process down to just 4 questions - easy to remember, there’s no course you need to take or books you need to read - so, you’re more likely to try it.
I also added misconceptions so that you remove what's blocking you from actually taking action. You see why they're blocking you, so you're more open to trying asking yourself the 4 questions.
With the goals defined, the next three steps are a lot easier. I'll reference Aristotle here in his logos pathos, and ethos in rhetoric – basically effective speaking, effective writing, or just effective communication.
Aristotle's Rhetoric
#2 Ethos: Speaking to the credibility and trust
The question that's useful to ask here is "What do I want my audience to know about me?”
Why ethos?
Frame the mind of your audience so they are open to what you want to say. What should I tell the audience so they understand why I’m talking about this in the first place? Who are you to be talking about this topic?
You can draw on your experience, your expertise, your values, your why. You're sharing these ethos snippets so people are open to hearing what you’re about to say.
I'll use Steve Jobs’ first iPhone presentation as an example. See here [link] for the transcript, or watch the YouTube video [link to video with timestamp bookmark].
For Steve Jobs, he is establishing Apple's credibility, building that trust with his audience, by saying that Apple is revolutionary. He repeats this again and again, because he knows that that's what his audience is after.
Notice that he's not saying Apple has X years in producing great electronics or X years in producing very durable products or effective products. He is focusing on the word "revolutionary."
You don't have to build your credibility with boring numbers and humble brag. Things like “I've been in this field for 50 years, and that's why you should listen to me.” Instead, he's focusing on things that actually draw interest from his audience and for his audience: people who think differently. They are interested in things that are revolutionary.
They're not interested in the best in class. They're not interested in the leader of the industry. They are interested in a different perspective. In things that change the world and turn it upside down. That's why Steve Jobs uses the word revolutionary and he continues to hone in on this idea.
When you ask yourself the question of “What do I want people to know about me?”, link it back to the goal, the action you want people to do. Then think about what can your audience know about you in order to be open and receptive to your idea?
Comment below and let us know, do titles make you feel like you can trust someone’s idea?
#3 Logos: Speaking to logic and reason
This is one where most of us are very familiar with. This is what schools teach us. You need the facts and figures, the statistics, the examples that illustrate the point.
You need to walk people through the process in order for people to understand what you're saying. But there's actually more than meets the eye with logos.
The question you actually want to ask here is “What do I want people to know?”
Not, “What do I know?” and regurgitate everything. That’s the start of a boring presentation. It’s really hard to concentrate because hearing a dribble of facts without knowing how everything connect together is like wandering in the woods without knowing where you’re going.
So come back to “What do I want people to know, in order for them to take that action?” Always connect it back to that goal.
We'll see how Steve Jobs does this in a moment. But first, let’s introduce the third element: pathos.
#4 Pathos: Appealing to emotions
The way to think about pathos is linking it to logos.
The question to ask is: “How do I want people to feel?”
This is usually what is missing if people don’t get your point. Your audience might understand the facts and the figures, but they don't know how they're supposed to feel about it. “What does this mean to me?" They haven't seen the connection between these numbers, these facts.
The reason to inject pathos come from the instinctive way we process information. Information overload happens daily, so our brain needs to be able to sort things into useful and not useful.
We judge usefulness with “Does this help me survive and thrive?” It’s an instinctive feeling of “I want to live and I want to live comfortably and happily.”
This is why the stereotype of the established scholar sharing their fancy research is a bore to everyone else. People don't understand those things because they don't know actually know how does what you found actually make sense in my world? What am I supposed to make me feel? Is it going to help me survive? Is it going to help me thrive? What is the connection here?
With that in mind, let's check out how Steve Jobs connected logos with pathos. See here [link] for the transcript, or watch the YouTube video [link to video with timestamp bookmark].
Notice how Steve Jobs doesn't mention every single thing that is great about the iPhone compared to all of the other competitors out there. There are many benefits, but he picks and chooses the one that's going to make an impact and is going to emotionally connect with you. He summarizes all of those things together with just “smart and easy to use.”
How does that make you feel? It feels like it's not intimidating, right? It doesn't look like a Blackberry with all of those little buttons - that just looks very complicated. The iPhone is easy to use, it's smart, and it leapfrogs everything that's on the market and you're using something that's five years ahead of all of the other things that exist out there. You like to think differently. You like the feeling of using something that is futuristic, cool, with a touch screen and no weird keypads. You feel different in a good way. You feel special, like you’re “in” with the new tech world.
That is how Steve Jobs gets you to buy the product, which is the goal of his whole presentation. Listing a few things that's going to demonstrate the point, connecting it with the emotional aspect of how easy, cool and streamlined it is, how it's going to make me feel special and ahead of the game - “five years ahead of the game.”
It's a similar approach as he used when he introduced the iPod. It's not that it had five gigs of memory. What does that mean? It means that you'll have a thousand songs in your pocket. Now that is powerful. I can feel having all the songs that I love, more songs I could ever dream of, just in my pocket. Not in a funny CD Walkman thing.
That's how you combine logos and pathos. The two have to be connected. You have to help your audience make sense of what you’re saying logically and emotionally. Together, they bring your audience towards your goal. In Steve Jobs’ case, it was buying the iPhone.
With these four questions in mind, I want to end with another misconception that holds people back.
The idea that to articulate effectively, you need to be smart. You need to have a big vocabulary. You need to have a lot of practice and public speaking in order to articulate your thoughts properly.
That is simply not true.
George Orwell said it himself "Language is an instrument to express thoughts, not to conceal or to prevent thoughts." Using big words may sound fancy, but it actually conceals your thoughts. They are not directing attention to the idea.
Instead, Orwell’s rules of writing is to be simple, to be concise and make the words as short as possible. Use examples that are engaging, that translates into something that people will understand.
TL;DR: action items
Ask yourself the four questions.
- What do I want people to do?
- What do I want people to know about me?
- What do I want people to know about the topic?
- What do I want people to feel?
Then put your thoughts through these, by writing them down, seeing the connections, and you will be able to articulate your thoughts clearly and effectively.
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