Steve Woodruff / The Clarity King. Author. Speaker. Coach

Stop wasting words and start making impact.

Meet Steve Woodruff, the “King of Clarity”, who’s spent 40+ years turning noise into memorable, referable communication.

In this episode, he reveals how clarity fuels success, why vague messaging kills referrals, and how YOU can create “memory darts” that stick in people’s heads and drive business forward.

If you want to be unforgettable — you need clarity. This conversation will show you how.

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Guest Bio
Steve Woodruff, widely regarded as “The King of Clarity,” brings over 40 years of experience in business, training, and communication. After early career detours in astronomy, psychology, and medical sales, Steve found his true calling: helping people and companies express their value clearly and memorably. Through his books Clarity Wins and The Point, workshops, and consulting, Steve equips individuals and organizations with tools to become referable, aligned, and impactful communicators. His signature concept, “Memory Darts,” has revolutionized how professionals craft compelling introductions and messages that stick.

Link: https://www.stevewoodruff.com

Send us a text

Paul Povolni, the founder of Voppa Creative, has been a creative leader for over 30 years, with clients around the world. He’s led teams in creating award-winning branding and design as well as equipping his clients to lead with Clarity, Creativity and Culture.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
I'm Steve Woodruff, and you're listening to the
HeadSmack Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 (00:04):
You are listening to

SPEAKER_01 (00:05):
conversations with

SPEAKER_00 (00:06):
misfits, mavericks, and trailblazers.
Hey, welcome to the HeadSmackPodcast.
My name is Paul Povolny, and Iam excited to have another
misfit with me.
I have Steve Woodruff with me,and he has over 40 years of
business training and hasuncovered the secrets to clear
communication for everyone.
That's why he is known as theClarity King.

(00:27):
How you doing, man?
Good to have you on.
Paul, it's great to be here.
Thanks for having me.
I'm looking forward to thisconversation.
I love the topic of clarity.
I have the cup for it.
I have the t-shirt as well,clarity through action.
And so clarity is one of thosewords that whenever I see it, my
ears perk up.
And so I'm going to really lookforward to this conversation and

(00:50):
looking forward to what we'regoing to talk about.
So let me start off this episodeby just hearing a little bit
about your backstory.
I love origin stories.
I'm into superheroes and stuff.
And so I want to kind of hear alittle bit about your
background, kind of where yougot your start.
You've been in this for over 40years.

(01:11):
And so I'm sure there's quite abit of story in just business.
But how did you get into whatyou were doing even before that
40 years started?

SPEAKER_01 (01:19):
Well, Paul, like most of us, whatever I said in
my high school yearbookdefinitely did not end up being
exactly where I was going.
So my earliest aspiration, Iwanted to be an astronaut.
I loved science fiction.
I read that stuff like crazy.
But I didn't have good eyes.
And back in those days, you hadto have 20-20 vision to go into

(01:39):
the Air Force, be a pilot, be anastronaut.
So second place, astronomer.
I wanted to be an astronomer.
You

SPEAKER_00 (01:46):
could have done that a few weeks ago, though.

SPEAKER_01 (01:48):
Yeah.
Well, you know, I lovedastronomy.
I had my own telescope.
I was totally into it.
I got a scholarship to go toVanderbilt University.
They had a great astronomyprogram.
And so I went with all thosehigh hopes, and then I ran into
calculus and physics.
And that was the end of my dreamof being an astronomer.

(02:14):
It turns out I love all theobservational and some of the
more esoteric aspects, but Ijust hate formulas.
I hate math.
I hate all that stuff.
And that's 99% of being anastronomer.
So I had to shift to psychology.
And for a while after college, Ithought I was going to go into

(02:34):
the ministry.
I studied for two and a halfyears for that.
And I developed more and more ofa fascination with words, with
the impact of words and ideas.
And this started very young forme.
I didn't really know whatmarketing was, what sales.
I didn't know any of that stuff.
I just knew I loved ideas andAnd once I entered into the

(02:57):
business world and started insales, I began to understand how
important ideas and words wereto promoting whatever it is that
you're doing.
And so that started me on my40-year journey of using words

(03:17):
in emails and books andpresentations in every form.
to try to impart information,convince, and it's become
probably nothing short of anobsession and a mission for me
that you've got to be clear.

(03:38):
If we can't break through thenoise and be clear, we can't
succeed in any endeavor.
Clear communications is crucialfor every single endeavor, every
role, every company, everyperson, except one person.
That is Brother Thomas, who ison an island under a vow of

(04:01):
silence, and he is not allowedto communicate with any human
beings.
He doesn't need

SPEAKER_00 (04:06):
clarity.
Everybody else does.
He's off.
He's off.
So where did this love for wordscome from?
Is it something attached to yourparents?
Was it something attached to abook you read?
Where do you feel that love forwords came from?

SPEAKER_01 (04:20):
You know...
I just started reading a lotwhen I was young and I was good
at processing words.
And then my first, thisincredible memory that was way
back there about how I firstbegan to get an interest in what
later I understood was marketingwas I was watching a TV

(04:43):
commercial and it was for amoving company.
I don't remember the name of thecompany, but I know they had a
jingle at the end.
And I said, boy, that's a lousyjingle.
That's really bad.
Yeah.
And I came up with new words forit.
And, you know, it's just one ofthose little isolated things.
But it showed that there wassomething in my DNA real early

(05:04):
about how important a messagewas.
And as I grew older and as Iwent to school and then as I
entered into the business world,later on, maybe decades later, I
look back on that incident andsaid, oh, wow.
You were a marketer right fromthe get-go.
You just didn't

SPEAKER_00 (05:21):
know it.
You got distracted with space.
Yeah, I got distracted

SPEAKER_01 (05:25):
with living and growing up.
But there's always been thisfascination with brands and with
marketing and with messages.
And I still, to this day,absolutely love being immersed
in analyzing how words work.

SPEAKER_00 (05:44):
Yeah.
Now, what was your first job?
So after you studied psychologyand all of that stuff, what was
your first job that you did thatactually got to use some of your
passions?

SPEAKER_01 (05:55):
It was in a medical device company.
We were selling verysophisticated medical device
equipment in radiation oncology,radiation medicine.
And the ironic thing about thisis that one of our chief
audiences for this equipment wasmedical physicists.

(06:16):
And it turns out that I couldlearn this stuff if I could get
my hands on it and see it.
It was the theoretical that hadthrown me off.
So I learned, you know,electronics and aspects of
physics.
And about eight years into thisjob, somebody said to me, Are
you a physicist?

(06:37):
And, oh, I laughed within.
I never forgot that because itwas like at least a little
vindication of the thing thathad beaten me in my freshman
year in college.
I had at least made some form ofrecovery.

SPEAKER_00 (06:50):
Yeah, yeah.
And so that led to what?
What was the next step fromthat?
When did you start pursuing thenext thing?

SPEAKER_01 (06:59):
So that was a 10-year journey.
And that was a small company.
So I got to wear a lot of hats.
I did sales.
I just started doing marketingbecause there was no one else to
do marketing.
I got into branding.
And Every bit of that, I justloved it.
And then the internet showed up.
And early on, I saw ademonstration in the very early

(07:21):
days of web browsers and theinternet, and I was absolutely
awestruck.
The fact that you could justdesign something and push it up
and it would be available to thewhole world.
blew my mind.
So I then took a job with asoftware company that was
developing applications mostlyfor pharmaceutical companies,

(07:44):
but it was online learning,online branding, and it gave me
a chance to scratch that itch ofinternet and software stuff.
And so that's where I startedgetting much more serious into
things like user design,interface design, information
design, all of which are part ofeffective communication, as well

(08:07):
as doing consulting and projectmanagement and all these
functional areas where clearcommunication is mission
critical.
And I just had to learn it bydoing it over and over.
So that was another 10-yearspan.
And then I had a decision tomake.
Was I going to work for someoneelse or was I going to follow my
own passion and my own visionand launch my own consultancy?

(08:32):
And with five young boys undermy roof and probably too much
idealism and not enough commonsense, I launched out about 20
years ago on my own and haven'tlooked back.
No, I have looked back once ortwice.
Every entrepreneur orsolopreneur will have to admit
that they've looked back a fewtimes.

(08:54):
But I built my company, my role,my job around me.
what I believed was mostimportant.
And that led me eventually towriting a book and writing
another book and workshops anddoing clarity stuff

SPEAKER_00 (09:10):
full-time.
Yeah.
So you're considered the king ofclarity.
What does clarity mean?

SPEAKER_01 (09:17):
So I look at clarity in two primary dimensions.
One is clarity about yourpurpose, your value, and your
direction.
And this is both individuals andcompanies.
You've got to have a clear senseof where you're going.
And this is a big problem.
Many people do not have clarityand many companies don't have

(09:40):
clarity.
They basically say, we'll doanything.
Jack of all trades.
I'll take that.
I'll do this.
Without a clear North Star orcompass.
I think that is one of the mostcrucial things.
And that's one of the mostimportant things I do is working
one-on-one with individuals andworking with companies to help
them get clear on who they are.

(10:02):
The second piece is, okay, giventhat, how do we make the message
clear?
How do we express it clearly?
How do we use words effectivelyto sell, to market, to brand?
And although these two thingsare separate, When it comes to
actual implementation, youreally want both together.

SPEAKER_00 (10:24):
So if a company is asking itself, well, we do need
clarity, what are some of thefirst steps that you do or take
them through to get them to thatpoint of clarity?
I know you mentioned you haveyour books, you have your
workshops and things.
What are some of the things thatyou start doing with them to get
them to that point?

SPEAKER_01 (10:42):
Well, the first thing is stories.
I ask a lot of questions and Iharvest the stories out of the
company or the key people in acompany or an individual that is
looking to either launch theirown business or in career
transition.
Same process.
I want to know the stories.
And I'm very curious.
And I ask in a sort of a freeform, but deliberate way.

(11:05):
I ask the questions that willbring to the surface the What is
the unique value of this personor this company?
What are your greatest successstories?
How did you get there?
How have people reacted to thisas opposed to that?
And typically within one or twohours, I can come up with the

(11:25):
prototype value proposition thatsays, this is who you are.
This is your thing.
And for some people, that is anabsolute epiphany.
The information has been intheir heads all along.
But no one drew it out andsystematized it.
And that's the unique gift Ihave.
For some reason, my mind isconstructed in such a way that I

(11:50):
can, not for myself, because Iget myself all confused, but for
anybody else, I can help sortthrough all the bits and pieces
and say, this is really what'sgoing on.
And now how are we going to sayit?
And it's one of the mostrewarding moments.
things you can possibly do tohelp someone essentially get a

(12:11):
mirror and put it in front ofthem and say, here's who you

SPEAKER_00 (12:13):
are.
Yeah.
So what are some of the biggesthurdles?
Because some people have neverthought about those things that
you just said, share thosequestions that hopefully
somebody's written down andthey're going to be examining
themselves.
But when you approach them withthose questions, they're going
to hit roadblocks.
They're going to hit things thatthey wrestle with.
What have you found that theywrestle with most?

(12:35):
The...
biggest

SPEAKER_01 (12:37):
river to cross is you don't want to have a wide
open net for any opportunity.
People don't want to bepigeonholed.
They want to keep an open mind,so to speak.
And I say, absolutely not.
You need to be pigeonholedbecause nobody can know when

(12:58):
they need to come to you andnobody can refer you unless you
are accurately pigeonholed inthe minds of others.
And that's why clarity of wordsis so important because if I can
plant in your mind in 15 to 30seconds who I am and what I do
in a memorable way, you canrefer me.

(13:20):
And everybody knows that themost powerful driver of new
business is referrals.
But most people do not have astrategy for becoming memorable
so that they can be accuratelyreferable.
My first book called ClarityWins, it has a subtitle, Get

(13:40):
Heard, Get Referred.
The idea is to establish yourbrand in such a clear and
focused way that you can haveyour message spread by others
because they get it

SPEAKER_00 (13:55):
and

SPEAKER_01 (13:55):
remember it.

SPEAKER_00 (13:56):
Yeah, wow.
That alone is a head smack forsomebody.
A pretty powerful way to putthat about the idea of niching
or getting super clear on whoyou are and who you help so
people can refer you.
And so is there tools that youuse?
Because for some people that'sthe biggest, like you mentioned,

(14:17):
that's your first thing that youhave to deal with or that's the
pushback or the biggest river tocross.
What tools do you use or what doyou use to help them to niche?
Because it is hard to say, youknow, for somebody that feels
they can do multiple things,they've got multiple passions,
they've got multiple skills,they want to help everybody.

(14:37):
What are some of those tools youuse to build that bridge that
they have to cross?

SPEAKER_01 (14:42):
Two of those tools are behind me over my shoulder.
Those are my two stuffed birds.

SPEAKER_00 (14:47):
The penguin and the pigeon.

SPEAKER_01 (14:48):
Yeah.
Justin is the penguin and Nicheis the pigeon.
So I say, look, You've seen allthose science shows where you've
got a whole bunch of penguins onthe ice floor.
They all look the same.
They all sound the same.
No differentiation.
They're all the same.
You are just another digitalagency, just another trainer,

(15:13):
just another whatever, untilyou're not.
You're just another penguin outthere amidst all the noise and
all the other companies thatNobody knows who you are until
you can express your value.
As Seth Godin put it in hisawesome book, Purple Cow, you
can drive by fields of cows andnone of them are remarkable, but

(15:33):
you go past a purple cow, you'regoing to talk about it.
And so we all have to become apurple cow.
And if you are a generalist, ifyou do lots of things, you're
just another commodity.
And so what you want to do isfind your pigeonhole and say,

(15:54):
this is exactly what makes meunique.
So I was talking to somebodyjust this week who is looking to
get better defined in theircareer, get their value better
known within the company.
And as we went through thestories, and that's a big part
of what I do, it became obviousto me that though she has one
job title, she's actuallyfulfilling five different job

(16:18):
roles in this company.
She's so omnicompetent.
And so we decided that who sheis, is an indispensable unicorn
of that company.
Yeah.
Now you use a title like that.
I'm an indispensable unicorn.
You are now going to compelpeople to say, tell me more.

(16:38):
What do you mean?
And now you can express yourvalue.
So one of the most importantthings I do with people is how
do you get to a 15 secondintroduction?
that's not telling and it's notselling.
It's compelling.
Yeah.
It's drawing people out and theywant to draw you out.
Yeah.
So tell me about the pigeon.

(17:00):
Well, the pigeon is thepigeonhole.
So the very people that want tobe commodities are the ones that
say, I don't want to bepigeonholed.
Yeah.
And I say, no, you do want to bepigeonholed.
You want to be as narrow andniched as you can because I
Nobody can remember you for fivethings.
They're not going to refer youfor five things.
Everybody has like one pixel intheir mind for you.

(17:22):
So you better occupy the rightpixel.
You got to love

SPEAKER_00 (17:27):
your

SPEAKER_01 (17:27):
pigeonhole, not resist it.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (17:30):
And I think we're like that as humans is we like
to summarize.
That's why we come up withnicknames.
We shorten nicknames.
People's names, you know,instead of McDonald's, it's
McD's, you know, instead of, youknow, we are prone to shorten
things to remember them better.
And so we automatically startcategorizing that's that person

(17:53):
and he's a, or that's thatperson and she's a.
And so I think you're absolutelyright in that is that, you know,
if, if.
they're unable to do that easilyfor you, then you've become too
broad in what you're doing, andthat's going to hurt you in the
long run.
Now, with people battling that,what are some of the fears

(18:16):
around allowing themselves toniche or to pigeonhole
themselves?
What are some of the fears thatyou deal with?

SPEAKER_01 (18:25):
The main fear is that people are afraid of
turning down revenue.
As if all revenue is equal.
Got to have revenue.
And there's a certain point,especially when you're starting
out for the first year or two,you can't necessarily afford to
turn down everything.
But what you want to do is youwant to start taking aim at a

(18:46):
very specific niche as soon asyou can.
Because it turns out the richesare in the niches.
The riches aren't in theeverything.
The riches are there.
So you've got to find that nichethat's underserved, where you've
got a unique value, and then youown it.
So, uh, some years ago, uh, afriend of mine, Chris Brogan

(19:06):
wrote on my Facebook page on mybirthday, he said, happy
birthday to the king of clarity.
And I said, Ooh, that's real.
I mean, that's ballsy, but Ilike it because it's a perfect,
what I call a memory dart.
It's a perfect memory dart.
You might forget 20 things Isay, but nobody forgets the king

(19:28):
of clarity.
And so I just took that and ranwith it.
And part of effective brandingfor a company and an individual
is that shorthand, shortcutpicture that you put in
somebody's mind.
And our job is to put thatpicture.
It's not their job to figure usout.

(19:48):
It's our job to say, here's mypigeonhole.

SPEAKER_00 (19:51):
Yeah.
I love that.
And so are there any other fearsfor other people that you have
to work with them or get overwhen it comes to them wanting to
have that niche or thatpigeonhole?
You mentioned the financial isone of them.
Are there any other things that?

SPEAKER_01 (20:07):
One of the ones that comes up a lot is people are
afraid of bragging.
And they're afraid of beingviewed as bragging.
Wow.
And I get it.
I understand that.
And there's a nobility to that.
But the fact is that personalbranding is just simply
expressing who you are.

(20:28):
It's not obnoxious bragging.
It's bringing forth, in simpleterms, the value that we have.
And I have found that I have tohelp people overcome this
feeling of...
Yeah.
Right.

(21:12):
This is my superpower.
And sometimes you kind of haveto push people a little bit to
own it.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 (21:19):
yeah, yeah.
I love that.
Those are those two great, greatpoints.
And so when it comes to theniching or the pigeonholing,
what are the different types ofniches?
I would imagine one would be Iam a specialist and that's my
niche or I serve a certaingroup.

(21:39):
Right.
Right.
Are there any other niches or isthere any other ways you can
define those?
So

SPEAKER_01 (21:45):
there are lots of layers of niches.
So I talk about vertical niches,which is, you know, I'm an
expert in the auto industry orI'm an expert in insurance or in
medical device, whatever.
You want to define that.
There are also what I callhorizontal niches that transcend

(22:08):
certain industry domains like anhr specialist or a writer or
that kind of thing then you wantto narrow it down to i work with
this specific type of personthis demographic this title they
have a particular type of feltneed that i can meet and so you

(22:30):
just keep moving down the layersUntil you can say, as my editor,
Josh Bernoff, who worked with meon both of my books, he is both
an author and an editor and aSherpa for new authors.
But he works on business books.
He's not just a general editor.

(22:52):
He helps people write or hehelps Ghost write business
books.
That's his niche.
And he's great at it.
And he's just said that that'swhere I'm going to be.
Well, that's way better than ifhis LinkedIn profile just says,
editor.
Yeah, yeah.
What does that mean?

UNKNOWN (23:10):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (23:11):
And so a lot of companies use generic fluff
language like solutions andservices and systems, and they
don't tell you exactly what theydo, who they do it for, and what
the pain is that they're fixing.
And so they're forgettable.

SPEAKER_00 (23:26):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
Wow.
I love that.
And so, uh, yeah, I, I think, Ithink somebody is going to need
to rewind and listen to how you,uh, how you define that.
Cause I think it's so, so goodin, you know, it's not just, you
know, I'm, I'm a particularskilled person at whatever at
branding or whatever, but alsoniching down as who, who do I

(23:47):
specialize for, um, and gettingas, as narrow as possible.
Now you started talking aboutsomething there that, um, that I
want to also elaborate on is thememory darts.
You're not a fan of the elevatorpitch.
You like the term memory dart.
So talk about that for a littlebit.
What is that?
A memory dart,

SPEAKER_01 (24:08):
the term memory dart is a memory dart.
It's a graphical, vivid snippetthat creates a picture in
somebody's head and enlightensquickly.
And the best communicatorsthroughout all of history have
used memory darts.
Parables, stories, statistics,all of these great little

(24:33):
shortcuts are what I call memorydarts.
And the most important memorydart we can have is our
introductory memory dart.
How do we answer the question,Paul, what do you do?
Well, if you don't give me agood, clear answer in about 15,
20 seconds, I'm tuning you outbecause you're just another

(24:53):
whatever, podcaster.
Right, right, right.
But it turns out that memorydarts aren't just introductory.
Memory darts are everything youwould use in a sales pitch, in a
presentation.
You want to wrap your conceptsinto colorful, short,
provocative concepts.

(25:13):
language that stick.
And so I believe that actuallywe all have to learn to speak in
memory darts.
And if you look at ancientliterature, if you look at the
Bible, it's full of memorydarts, absolutely packed with
summaries and word pictures andanalogies and all of these

(25:35):
things.
They've all existed for a longtime.
I just systematized it in thebooks and called it memory
darts.
But these are not unique.
They're not rocket science.
They're just effective use ofwords to turn the light on.

SPEAKER_00 (25:49):
Yeah.
And the great thing is, too, isjust making up phrases that can
own a concept, right?
Kind of like the purple cow thatyou already referenced by Seth
Godin.
Other people have said similarthings about standing out or
differentiation or whatever, buthe came up with the purple cow.

(26:12):
And we've been using it forever.
We try and explaindifferentiation.
We try and do all these things,but then we say purple cow, and
it's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I get

SPEAKER_01 (26:25):
it.
Part of this is the shortcutprocess of you want to try, if
you can, to hook something intopeople's minds that they already
have.
So if I said, you know what,Paul is the Mercedes of
podcasters.
Okay.
Well, everybody knows what aMercedes is.
High end, top quality, whatever,whatever, whatever.

(26:46):
So what I've done is I'veshortcut and stolen an image in
their mind and attached it toyou.
Well, turns out That's beingbrain friendly.
That's what the human brainwants.
It wants shortcuts all the time.
So I don't want another whitepaper of jargon.
Just give me an analogy.

(27:07):
And it turns out that's whatparents have always done.
Teachers have always done.
Preachers have always done.
That's how it works.

SPEAKER_00 (27:15):
Yeah.
Well, and I think companies alsodo that, not only with words,
but they also do it with visualsand with colors.
If you see something fromTiffany's, you know it's from
Tiffany's because they have avery particular packaging.
If you see Gucci, if you seedifferent brands, they have
these visual things thatimmediately say luxury.

(27:36):
This is me.
This is my company.
This is who we are and whatwe're about.
And so I love that idea ofmemory dial.
And memory darts itself is a

SPEAKER_01 (27:51):
memory dart.
Delicious.
Yeah.
And then somebody created avisual memory dart.
They had a picture of it, andthen they stacked up how much

(28:12):
sugar was in that thing.
Oh, wow.
Now, I could have read andprobably heard how much was in
it.
It didn't hit me.
When I saw that, I said, I amnot having another one of those.

SPEAKER_02 (28:26):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (28:26):
It got in me and turned the light on.
Right.
Now, the information was outthere, but it was packaged in a
way that that rang the bell andmoved me.
It touched my emotions.
And that's what you want to do.
You don't want to just shareinformation.
You've got to touch

SPEAKER_00 (28:45):
emotions.
Right.
Yeah, I'm going to be thinkingabout memory dots for a while
because it's such a powerful wayto share the concept of, you
know, doing something to standout.
I mean, even with speaking, youknow, as a speaker, if you got
up on stage or if you're doing apresentation or whatever, you
know, you can get up there andjust kind of start, hey,

(29:06):
everybody, you know, we're goingto be talking about blah, blah,
blah, blah.
But if you can attach somethinginteresting to stand out, to
differentiate, to get in theirhead a statement, a phrase,
Yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (29:46):
I mean, that is masterful.
And it absolutely went viral.
Now, he could have gone into atechnical description of MP3
files.
No.
We know what a song is.
We know what a pocket is.
We know what a little device is.
And all of a sudden I want that.
I want to have a thousand songsin my pocket.

(30:07):
Oh, it's absolutely brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 (30:09):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't want to carry this bigbinder around with CDs in it
every time I want to travel orgo anywhere.
So it immediately answered somany things of, you know, what
does it do and what problem doesit solve?
And all, yeah, it was, it was anabsolutely brilliant way to kind
of stick in people's heads withmarketing.

(30:29):
And And so, you know, as we'retalking about communication, you
know, there is, you know, youhad mentioned that there's a
basic science to communicationthat provides clues to effective
communication design.
Talk about that for a littlebit.

SPEAKER_01 (30:45):
Well, I've used the term already brain-friendly.
And what I practice and what Ihave, I think, pretty
effectively demonstrated, andit's pretty self-evident in the
book, is the human brain is avery busy place.
It's processing something in thevicinity of 11 million bits of
information per second from allfive senses.

(31:07):
11 million bits of information.
Now you and I, staring at eachother on the screen here, this
is a 60-bit information flow.
We're able to focus on 60 bits.
That means that the brain isfiltering out 11 million bits so
that we can focus.

(31:28):
How does that magic happen?
And that is because of a littleneurobiological marvel called
the reticular activating system.
And one of its jobs is to filterout everything but what's most
important right now.
And so if we're going to getpeople's attention, we have to

(31:48):
know what does the RAS, thereticular activating system,
want?
Turns out we know what it wants.
It wants immediate personalrelevance.
It wants to know what'simportant, what's most
interesting, what's new rightnow.
Everything else goes away.
So if I introduce myself, if Iget up to present and I don't

(32:12):
get the RAS on my side by beingimmediately relevant, showing
why something is so important,why you need to listen, I lose
you.
Every one of our communicationshas to be front-loaded.
With relevance.
In other words, to take saleslanguage and use it in a broader

(32:34):
sense, the RAS wants to know theWIIFM, the what's in it for me.
Everything is what's in it forme.
So I've got to appeal to yourinterest so that you will go,
ah, this is worth the 60 bits.
I'll ignore everything else.
And people think communicationis information dumping.

(32:57):
No.
It's the shortcuts through theRAS

SPEAKER_00 (33:01):
that

SPEAKER_01 (33:01):
win.

SPEAKER_00 (33:02):
And what are some of those shortcuts?
I know we've talked about thememory darts.
We've talked about severalthings, having a niche, having a
way you talk about yourself.
What are some other tools tobreak through some of those
what's in it for me things thatmight block from you getting
through?

SPEAKER_01 (33:20):
So one of the things that works really well is
something that is surprising.
So you start with somethingsurprising.
Whenever I tell people the brainis processing 11 million bits
and then it's a 60-bit flow forfocus, that's That's shocking.
It's absolutely shocking.
And that makes you go, whoa,tell me more about that.
Or when I share the statisticsabout how many emails we get,

(33:43):
how many ads we see per day, howmany times we pick up our phone,
shocking numbers.
And so shock is one thing.
Stakes, high stakes.
If I know something is a highrisk, high benefit, I pay
attention.
If it's not, I won't.
So you have to spell out thestakes.

(34:03):
And one of the ways I do that isI tell people, look, you've got
a few seconds, a moment ofopportunity to open up a
communication well.
If you don't, you lose.
You might have invested$25million into your offering.
If you don't secure attention inthe first few seconds, it

(34:24):
doesn't matter.
That's what's at stake.
That's why you can't treatcommunication as a nice to have.
You've got to pay attention.
So those kind of things, thosekind of things that jar and that
hook are what enable us to winthe RAS battle.

SPEAKER_00 (34:47):
Wow.
As people try and figure outwhat those words are for
themselves, do you have a way totake them through that?
Because clarity is the bestthing.
Clarity is the amazing thing.
Clarity is what we all strivefor, but we sometimes have a

(35:10):
hard time finding that clarityof what is it that I do.
I know we've shared quite a bitalready.
Are there any other things thatyou'd like to share about
helping them get to clarity?
One of the most

SPEAKER_01 (35:23):
important perspectives came from a piece
of artwork that Hugh McLeod, whogoes under the name Gaping Void,
he makes these reallyinteresting little drawings.
And some years ago, he put oneout, and it was just
fascinating.
It said, you can't read thelabel of the jar you're in.
And I looked at that and I said,holy crap.

(35:43):
Now, that was a memory dart.
And I bought that piece of art.
It's actually right behind me.
And I have used that phrase.
Nobody knows where it came from.
I don't know who originally.
People think I came up with it.
No, I've just promoted it likecrazy.
Because as soon as people hearit, it sticks.
It's a universal truth.
We have trouble seeing ourselvesobjectively.

(36:07):
In fact, we can't.
We're all subjective.
So we need others to help us seethe label of the jar we're in.
And one of the things I dobesides teaching and writing
about the principles of clarityis I serve as a consultant to
help people gain clarity.

(36:27):
And this is very much a sort ofa, I mean, you've got to think
of it like a doctor.
You're dealing with anindividual.
You've got symptoms.
You've got specifics.
There are general rules, butThis individual has this
background, these stories, thesestrengths, this life situation.
So there's no magic wand.
You have to kind of work itthrough.

(36:47):
And part of being in multipleroles in business in 40 years is
you begin to gain a businessperspective, a practical
perspective that AI can'treplicate, where you can talk to
somebody and say, I couldenvision what you're doing
applied over here in this way.
And they've never thought ofthat because they're just in

(37:11):
their little jar.

SPEAKER_00 (37:13):
Yeah.
Well, and I think that is thething.
Sometimes we try and get clarityourselves, but having an outside
perspective, see the obvioussometimes.
I heard somebody once recentlymention about therapists is they
ask good questions that get usto– say the things that we

(37:34):
already know.
And I think that happens with alot of businesses and even with
coaching and things like that issometimes it's finding somebody
that can ask the good questionsthat can get you to where you
need to go.

SPEAKER_01 (37:47):
One of the analogies I use, and I used to actually
literally bring a box of M&Ms tothe clarity sessions with people
and I'd spill out the box ofM&Ms and I'd say, this is what's
in your head right now.
What we're going to do is we'regoing to start putting it in
order.
We're going to arrange theyellows and the greens and the
oranges.
My job is to just get you todump out all the M&Ms and then

(38:09):
we're going to figure out how todo it.
And yeah, we can't do itourselves.
I need help.
I have guys in my mastermindthat help me because I get
myself all wrapped around theaxle.
I'm stupid when it comes to myown stuff.
And I need outside input.
I need outside affirmation,encouragement, creative
thinking.

(38:29):
I can't read the label of thejar I'm in, even if I can read
somebody else's pretty well.

SPEAKER_00 (38:35):
Yeah, that's so good.
You know, and with one of thethings that I've recently leaned
into, and like I mentioned, Ihave it on my cup, clarity
through action, you know,because for me, it's Sometimes
you get clarity just by in thedoing, you know, in in, you
know, I don't know what I'm goodat.
I don't know what I should do.

(38:55):
And sometimes it's just thematter of Peter stepping out of
the boat and figuring out thatthe water holds, you know.
And so so do you deal with thatwith with people as well?
And how do you work with themwhen it comes to that?

SPEAKER_01 (39:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
I have a story from long agowhen I was in my 20s before I
became a clarity consultant.
And I had a friend of mine, Iwas young married, I'd been
married for a few years, and hewas dating this gal and trying
to figure out, you know, shouldI do this?
And I said, Dave, you know,you're only going to get about

(39:31):
to 85% certainty before you justsimply have to act and step out
in faith.
Yeah.
And I forgot about it.
And then decades later, hereminded me of that.
But I used the same 85% rule,which is quite arbitrary, by the
way, but it's handy for me.
When I launched my business, Imapped out what I thought I was

(39:51):
going to do.
And I just thought, okay, Ithink this is right.
But the marketplace and theaction I take and the steps I
take will clear up the rest.
You can't get 100% purebillboarded, this is it, Steve,
clarity.
You take action and let claritydevelop.

(40:13):
So I am a big fan of having aclear picture and a clear
direction, but it's not 100%ever.
You just have to say, I'm prettysure this is right.
Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 (40:24):
Right, right.
Well, and I think for, and youkind of mentioned it there as
well, is that the market willtell you.
And, you know, sometimes I'vehad people tell me, what do you
think of this idea?
What do you think of this idea?
You know, it's kind of outthere.
It's kind of different.
It's, you know, I want to trythis.
I want to try that.
And it's like, well.
You know, some stuff is hard toget data on until you actually

(40:46):
put it out there.
And then you let the data tellyou.
Yes.
Let the market tell you.
Let the response tell you.
And it's like, you know, I'm agreat singer.
Well, go sing.
You know, I'm a great whatever.
Then go do that.
Let's find out.
Let's find out.
And so there is that claritythrough action that sometimes

(41:07):
you just need to put it outthere and, you know, some of
that clarity will come.
Because you've actually testedit in the marketplace.
You've tested it as far as yourcapabilities, as far as does the
market actually want that orneed that?

SPEAKER_01 (41:22):
Well, I had to learn that the hard way.
So when I first started out, Ihad all these ideals about
clarity.
And it turns out you can't sellclarity.
Nobody knows how to buy clarity.
What is clarity?
It's not a tangible.
And so I would talk aboutclarity.
I would offer consulting toreach clarity.
People would get sort of howimportant it was, but they

(41:46):
didn't know what it meant to buyit because it wasn't within the
known universe of how they buythings.
So after some years offrustration in the marketplace I
have been in, biopharmatraining, one of the things that
money is thrown at is workshops.
And I was always into more ofthe electronic digital stuff.

(42:07):
And so I sort of poo-pooedworkshops.
But then I realized people arespending millions and millions
of dollars on workshops becausethey know what that is.
They have it in the budget.
I need to take clarity andpackage it into workshops.
on leadership clarity, emailclarity, personal branding.

(42:28):
And then all of a sudden theycould buy it.
So part of clarity and part ofreacting to the marketplace is
you've got to be able to givesomething tangible that people
can understand, even if you'rein a sort of a unique thing.
Because if you try to go toofar, they can't relate to it.
So I had to learn that one thehard way.
And I've talked to lots ofpeople that, look, you've got to

(42:50):
have an offering that's packagedin a way people can grasp it.
You have to have a formula.
You have to have an acronym.
You have to have a way of sayingit that someone says, oh, I can
buy that.
And yeah,

SPEAKER_00 (43:05):
it took a while to figure that one out.
So how do you sell clarity now?
You said you had a formula, youhad an acronym.
How do you sell clarity now?

SPEAKER_01 (43:13):
So most of my revenue is still doing corporate
workshops and I can do corporateworkshops on clear
communications for literally anygroup any role, everybody needs
clear communications.
And I was on this obsessive huntafter my first book.
I had this idea that maybe therewas a formula for clear

(43:36):
communication that coveredeverything.
not just selling, not justmarketing, not just email.
And I was on this quest foryears to hammer this thing out.
I had it halfway hammered outwith my first book.
And then sometime during thepandemic, I kept working that
thing like a dog with a bone andI figured it out.
And so my second book called ThePoint is an actual formula on

(44:01):
clear communications with thefour rules of and eight shortcut
tools.
That's it.
So what I do with that formulais I package workshops and say,
okay, if you want to work withyour executive leadership or
your emerging leaders or yoursales people or whatever, we can
do a series of lunch and learns.
We can do a full day workshop.

(44:21):
We can do a practical this.
We can do a team this.
And I take the principles andpractices and just simply adapt
them to any situation that'sneeded.
So that's the corporate side.
And then on the individual sideor the smaller micro business
side, I do anywhere from two tofour to eight hour sessions of

(44:42):
really brand consulting.
Let's deep dive into who andwhat you are and get your
messaging straight and figureout how you're going to say it
on LinkedIn, how you're going tointroduce yourself, how you're
going to sell this, how you'regoing to put a backdrop in a
exhibit hall that makes sense.
All that branding stuff, which Ilove.
So there's kind of two pieces toit, working with smaller

(45:06):
individual groups and then I cando the other in very large
groups or small teams.
And then I've recentlyintroduced a whole new thing,
which I call a pre-note.
So one of the things I've seenafter 40 years of being in
conferences is that a lot ofpeople struggle attendees to

(45:27):
introduce themselves.
They don't have a good elevatorpitch.
They hate elevator pitches.
In fact, most people do.
They have a very generic way ofintroducing themselves.
I'm the associate director oftraining for blah, blah, blah,
blah.
Right, right.
And So when I would do personalbranding workshops, I'd help

(45:48):
people in groups to come up withways of sharing stories that
showed who they were.
It turns out I can get people ina conference in 30 minutes in a
pre-note session early on todevelop three quick shareable
stories that they actuallydevelop with each other right
there.
that they can then use to sharethroughout the conference, their

(46:10):
origin and evolution story,which we've mentioned before,
the top success story, and thecoulda, woulda, shoulda story,
astronaut.
And everybody has those stories.
And when you can tell peoplethose little stories, it creates
immediate bonds with others.
And I can walk through in anyconference this session in as

(46:32):
little as 30 minutes and helpspark that.
way better network among theattendees just by people
developing their memory dartsright there, live.

SPEAKER_00 (46:42):
Right.
Well, and it makes you morememorable when you're at an
event, when you're in a meeting,if you've got those interesting
stories, those interestingthings about you that make you
stand out from everybody thatsays, you know, I'm Bob and I
sell real estate.
You know, whatever, that bysharing some of those stories,
it creates a way for them tosay, yeah, there was a guy that

(47:05):
said this about themselves, Iremember them.

SPEAKER_01 (47:07):
Well, one of the most fun ones I did recently was
with one of my own sons.
So I have five sons.
They're all grown up now.
But the youngest had graduatedcollege and he had done a degree
in aerospace, basically indrones, you know, using drones.
And he's a very goodphotographer.

(47:27):
So Turns out there's a companyor a type of company that goes
and does photographicdocumentation of buildings and
construction in process.
They go like every week and takeall this archive of information,
some of it's with drones.
So he and I were on the phoneone day and he, uh, he was
driving, I was driving and hesaid, dad, you know, you keep

(47:49):
talking about these memorydarts.
Well, you know, my, my job titleis documentation specialist.
I said, that's ridiculous.
So I said, okay, let's, let'swork on that.
And you look at what he's doing.
And I said, Seth, here's how youintroduce yourself.
I get paid to fly drones andtake pictures and you're got to

(48:14):
ask, what do you mean by that?
I mean, that's intriguing.
Documentation specialist, notintriguing.
I get paid to fly drones, that'sintriguing.
And so after we hung up 10minutes later, he gets pulled
over by a policeman because oneof his brake lights was out.
And he decided, well, I'll giveit a try.
The cop asked what he was doingand who he was.

(48:35):
And he said, I get paid to flydrones and started this
conversation.
And he just got off with awarning.
Now, I don't know, maybe hewould have just got off with a
warning without it, but heimmediately saw the power of
using a memory dart to introduceyourself and to create a bond
instead of just

SPEAKER_00 (48:53):
throwing out a generic title.

UNKNOWN (48:54):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (48:55):
Wow.
Wow.
And so I do want to talk aboutyour second book as well.
And you'd kind of referenced it.
It's called The Point.
And you'd mentioned there werefour things, four rules that you
use.
Do you mind sharing those?

SPEAKER_01 (49:09):
Sure.
It's real simple.
The four rules for crafting anddesigning a good communication,
whatever that communication is,is number one, you have to have
a point.

UNKNOWN (49:22):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (49:22):
A lot of people communicating don't have an
actual point.
Then, secondly, you've got toget to the point.
You've got to quickly, becauseof the RAS, you've got to
quickly show the relevance andwhere you're going.
You've got to let me know what'sin it for me and why I should
tune in.
So, you know, a lot of peoplekeep saying, get to the point,

(49:44):
but there's a step before you'vegot to actually have a point,
get to the point.
The third is getting the pointacross, which means that the
brain has a common operatingsystem, but we all have
different stuff in our heads.
And I can't assume that the wayI use a word, the definition I
have, the meaning I have, is thesame between you and me.

(50:05):
We might be talking right pastone another.
So that means I've got todefine, I've got to illustrate,
I've got to explain to make sureI'm getting the point across.
And that's where memory dartscome in, is I'm using memory
darts to say, and what I mean bythis is he's the Mercedes of
podcasters.

(50:26):
And then the final thing,especially in business, is the
goal of the communication is toget on the same page.
We want to summarize, geteverybody on the same page.
Otherwise, why are wecommunicating unless we have a
destination?
And if we don't document it in asummary, it never happened.
Yeah.
Anywhere from an email to a bookto a podcast to whatever, those

(50:50):
four steps are important.
what you have to do to designeffective communication.
And that's being brain friendly.
And then under each of those, Ihave some tactics and specific
ways that you can learn how tohave a point, how to get to it,
how to stratify and design yourinformation so that it's brain
friendly.

(51:10):
And so the second book is that.
And then the other part of it,the eight shortcuts are The
memory dart formats, which aresnippets and stories and
side-by-sides and symboliclanguage, they all start with S.
Again, things that have beencommonly used for many
generations, all I did wassystematize it and make it all
S's.
But there's nothing in this bookthat is unique except the fact

(51:34):
that I systematized it andturned it into a formula.
These have been the principlesthat any great communicator has
used all along to maybe callingit something else.
But with those four rules andthose eight tools, anybody can
be great at email, atpresenting, at interviewing, at
leading, at whatever, becausethe human brain is the human

(51:57):
brain.
It works a certain way, andinformation needs to be packaged
in a way that works.

SPEAKER_00 (52:04):
Wow.
And so for the fourth point youmentioned, summarize, is that to
capture the people that mighthave got distracted, tuned out,
ADHD, you know, whatever it is,is you, you basically bring them
back to all, all the previousthree things, right?

SPEAKER_01 (52:22):
Yeah.
We have to assume thatinformation, we have to assume
that communication isn't goingto work.
We have to assume the endlesscapacity for miscommunication,
misunderstanding, forgetting,selective remembering, all of
that.
And, uh, The reason whysummaries are great, little
bullet points, little summaries,little action items, is because

(52:43):
whatever the bulk of informationthat has been shared before,
that's not brain-friendly, thatbulk.
The summary is.
So after a meeting, the summarybefore the meeting is the
agenda.
Here's where we're going.
Here's the point.
The summary after is, here's theroadmap.
And the human brain needssummaries.

(53:06):
We just do.
We cannot hold in our heads ahuge pile of 60,000 concepts.
Summarize it for me.

SPEAKER_00 (53:15):
Right.
Well, and it's basically like...
Here's what I heard.
When you're sending a summary tosomebody, here's what I heard.
Is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 (53:23):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (53:24):
And when you're speaking, it's in case you tuned
me out, in case your mind wentsomewhere else, or in case you
misunderstood or misheard, orlike you mentioned, sometimes we
have filters that we hear thingsthrough.
Here's what I want to make surethat you've got all the main
points, right?

SPEAKER_01 (53:40):
Yeah.
The classic, you've probablyheard this before, I think
people talk about it inreference to teaching, is tell
them what you're going to tellthem.
Tell them and then tell themwhat you told them.
It's the same principle.
We need repetition and we needways of piling the information
on and condensing and distillingso that we can walk away with

(54:04):
it.

SPEAKER_00 (54:04):
Man, so, so good.
So many head smacks along theway.
And I do encourage you to checkout his books, both The Point as
well as Clarity Wins.
And so tell me a little bit moreabout how people can get a hold
of you.
Who do you help?
How do you help them?
Who do you not help?

(54:24):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (54:25):
So the interesting thing I've discovered about who
I can help is I can literallyhelp anybody if they have some
humility.
about them.
You've got to be ready to havesomeone else look at the jar and
speak into your life.
So if somebody wants tounderstand who they are, where
they're going, and how to sayit, really the principles are

(54:46):
universal.
And it's not even just business.
It also applies to every otherpart of life.
Everything I've written in thesebooks can be applied to
teaching, to preaching, toparenting.
So all the same, it's just humaninteraction.
And so I work with a wholevariety of different people and
it's just, It's all the same.

(55:07):
I don't need domain expertise tohelp people formulate nice
packages of words.
So stevewoodruff.com is mywebsite and that has a lot of
information on the differentofferings.
A lot of what I put out is onLinkedIn.
I use LinkedIn most because alot of what I've done has been
more business focused.
So I have a LinkedIn newslettercalled Clarity Blend and that's

(55:31):
where It's easiest to find me,as well as in a couple of local
coffee shops here in Franklinwhere I meet people all the time
and we do clarity sessions.
And, of course, many of them areZoom, and I'm working with
people all over the place.
But there's nothing quite likeface-to-face in a coffee shop.

SPEAKER_00 (55:47):
Yeah.
Now, I know you offer like a90-minute session for folks as
well.
What do they come out of thatsession with when it comes to a
clarity session?

SPEAKER_01 (55:59):
Yeah, so a 90-minute clarity session.
which I price very reasonably,between$500 and$800, is they
come out with, usually dependingon what their goal is, A
headline introduction of a hook,a very effective hook that they
can use to introduce themselvesand to put in their headline on

(56:22):
LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is another area whereif you just have a generic
headline under your photo,you're forgettable.
You want to put something reallygood there.
So we work on that.
We work on the quickest summaryof what your offerings or what
your value is.
And then we work on successstories and origin stories.

(56:45):
And so it's those combination ofearly memory darts, introductory
memory darts that we work on.
And then if somebody wants to golonger and deeper, we can go
into their websites, into theirpitch decks, into all how it
works out.
But the initial core is let'sfigure out the value proposition

(57:08):
and let's figure out at leastthe most distilled, quick way to
get that across.
And then after that, we can goas deep as you want to go.

SPEAKER_00 (57:17):
That's awesome.
I do encourage you to check outstevewoodruff.com to contact
Steve.
So Steve, as we wrap this up,what's a question or a head
smack that you wish I'd askedyou about, but I didn't ask you
and you'd like to share?

SPEAKER_01 (57:35):
The question or the head smack would be this.
No matter how experienced or howsuccessful people are, you'd be
shocked at how often they needsomebody to just simply affirm
what they're really good at andwhat they're all about.

(57:58):
It's amazing still to me thatpeople can be incredible human
beings and not know what makesthem tick and why they're
awesome.
And one of the most valuable andliberating things we can do for
each other is reading thatlabel, whether it's in business,

(58:19):
yes, but it's one of the mostimportant parts of parenting and
helping to identify in yourchildren what makes them awesome
and in your friends and peoplein your church.
And it turns out that just abouteverybody except the worst
possible narcissist andsociopath needs intelligent,

(58:40):
insightful affirmation.
We all do.
And we should always assume thatone of the best things we can do
for somebody is say, you'reawesome at this.
And here's why.
Not just blowing smoke.
Here's the specific thing thatmakes you amazing.
You can absolutely makesomeone's year with a two-minute

(59:01):
interaction like

SPEAKER_00 (59:02):
that.
Wow.
So good.
Great way to wrap this up.
I can't believe it's alreadybeen an hour.
This has been an awesomeconversation, Steve.
Thank you so much for coming on.
I do encourage you to check himout on LinkedIn.
Check him out on his website,stevewoodruff.com.
Reach out to him if you needclarity, if you just need
somebody to look from theoutside of the jar to help you

(59:24):
figure it out and get someclarity in your life.
Because clarity really is thekey to everything.
I think it was Craig or a And Idon't know whether he originally
said it, but he said, when youknow who you are, you know what
to do.
And I think that's such a, youknow, when we have our identity,
when we know who we are, we knowwhat to do and what not to do as

(59:49):
well.
You know, we know the thingsthat this doesn't align with who
I am and therefore I should notdo it, but it all comes down to
clarity.
And so I do encourage you tocheck out his books as well.
You said that you had a thirdbook coming up?
I'm thinking about

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:03):
it.
So I've got the prototype ideain my head is the elevator pitch
is dead.
It's time for the memory dartrevolution.
And it's not a bunch of newstuff.
It's actually taking a lot ofwhat I've developed in the first
two books and packaging it atthe introduction level.

(01:00:24):
conundrum that we all have andtry to impart immediate tools to
people to allow themselves tointroduce themselves.
And so you have to have a badguy when you have something
you're offering.
And my bad guy is the elevatorpitch, the contrast.
And the good guy is the memorydart.
And of all the things that I'vewritten in the book, it seems

(01:00:47):
like the memory dart concept isthe one that lands.
Just as you said, take action,put it out there.
I did not expect memory dart tobe the thing that landed as hard
as it is, but that's what itdoes.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:01):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you just put it out thereand you just see what happens.
And that happened.
And if it didn't happen, thenyou'd come up with something
else and keep putting it outthere.
Well, Steve, thank you so muchfor being on.
This has been amazing.
Really appreciate

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:16):
your time, Paul.
It's been great getting to talkto you.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:21):
All right, and

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:22):
we're done.
Man, that was so good.
That was fun.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:25):
That was so good.
I enjoyed that.

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:28):
Yeah, that was great.
I love doing podcasts, and onceyou start getting in the groove,
it's effortless.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love recording them.
I don't enjoy being on them asmuch.
I haven't been on a ton of them,but I really enjoy having these
conversations with people andjust talking to them and just
hearing their stories andhearing what they have to share
and stuff.
And so, yeah, I love this partof it.

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:56):
You brought up actually one of the really
interesting head smacks that Ididn't explicitly mention, which
is that when you have clarityabout yes, you have far more
clarity about what you can sayno to.
And this is where a lot of theconfusion is.
People don't know what to say noto because they haven't
decisively said yes to theirpigeonhole.

(01:02:17):
It turns out you make people'slives way simpler.
when they have clarity.
Because then you can immediatelysay, nope, that's not my
wheelhouse.
I don't do that.
That's not my domain.
And it really changes things.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:33):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's not who I am.
That's not what I want to alignwith.
That's not what I'm about.
That's not what my vision is.
Yeah, absolutely.
I love that.
Yeah, I need somebody to look atmy label as well sometimes.
Because I think no matter how...
how good you are at certainthings, sometimes you're kind of

(01:02:53):
blind to your own things.
Like they say, the cobbler'skids have no shoes, you know,
and we sometimes miss our ownthings.
And so with me, I've kind ofwrestled with it as well as just
trying to figure it out.
Because you're a human beinglike the rest of us.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I love this podcastingthing, but, you know, I also do
brand strategy and design andAnd so people have asked me,

(01:03:17):
well, so how does the podcastalign with your brand strategy
and design?
It's like, well, it does in awhole lot.
But it's just something I lovedoing.
I wanted to have theseconversations with folks from
different disciplines.
And so I'm still trying tofigure it out myself.
But this has been very helpful.
And I'll be checking out yourbooks and following along your

(01:03:39):
story on LinkedIn as well andfollowing along with what you
do.
And I'm glad we connected.
Yeah, me too.
Well, by the way, HeadSmack is agreat

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:45):
memory doctor.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:47):
Thank you.
Well, actually, what it is, is,you know, as a young creative,
you know, I would get calledinto these meetings and they
were brainstorming meetings.
And so they were like, well,let's bring the creative guy in
to have these brainstormingmeetings.
And so we'd get into thesemeetings and everybody would
kind of sit there and just playon their ideas.
you know, blackberries or, youknow, they'd fiddle around or

(01:04:09):
they'd bring gadgets, you know,clay and hats and, you know,
let's, all right, let'sbrainstorm.
And they'd have a sheet of paperand it's like, okay.
And they just kind of standthere not knowing how to think
creatively.
And so it kind of started me onthis journey of, you know, can
people that are not creativethink creatively?
And so I started likeresearching and reading books
and stuff and found someframeworks that I liked.

(01:04:31):
And so I modified those and cameup with the acronym HEADSMACK.
And it's kind of a nine catalystwords that help people think
creatively, that kind of promptsthis creative thinking.
Kind of like we had mentioned inthe chat about asking the right
questions.
Sometimes a coach or a therapistis a good one, is the one that

(01:04:52):
asks the good questions thatpulls it out of you.
And so these nine words kind ofpull that out of you to help you
come up with creative ideas.
ideas and solve problems in acreative way.
And so that became HeadSmack.
And it's kind of like that ahamoment, you know, that, oh my
goodness, that's so obvious.
You know, why didn't I think ofthat?
And so that's kind of where thatcame from.

(01:05:13):
But I've kind of been sitting onit for a while because once
again, it's a It's such aseparate thing from designing
logos and websites and whatever.
It's creative thinking andgetting people unstuck.
That's a separate thing.
But then when it came time to dothe podcast, I thought, well,
maybe I can do a podcast that isabout creative thinking and
creative people.

(01:05:34):
And I thought, well, how manyguests can I get on for that?
That seems like such a nichething.
And then I was driving home fromSt.
Louis and I was just reallywrestling with, God, help me
with, I want to do a podcast.
I want to call a head smack, butI don't want to just be about
interviewing creative people orcreatives.

(01:05:54):
And I started a separate thingcalled Kingdom Misfits for
creatives that kind of feel outof place in the church and in
the kingdom of God and kind ofsometimes are the outsiders or
the weirdos.
And so I like the word misfits.
And so in that drive home fromSt.
Louis, my wife and I were justdriving quietly in the car.
She was reading.
I was just driving.

(01:06:16):
And it was conversations withmisfits.
When that came to me, I'm like,that's what I want to do.
I just want to talk to uniquepeople from all kinds of
different disciplines that haveachieved all kinds of different
things, that have differentspecialties, and just have these
conversations.
I don't want it to be aninterview.
I don't want it to be politicalor overly controversial.

(01:06:37):
I just want to have theseconversations with people with
great ideas.
And when I brought those twotogether, it's like, yeah, I
want these aha moments forpeople to listen to the podcast.
You know, I've often said, youknow, one idea well executed can
change everything.
And that's the head smack islike, oh, wow, if you just took
something that Steve said todayand you took that and executed

(01:07:00):
on it, it could changeeverything.
It'd be that aha head smackmoment for you that could
literally change your life, yourbusiness, your whatever, your
ministry, whatever it might be.
And so that's kind of where thatcame about.
That's the story.
Because I

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:13):
didn't even know it was an acronym for the creative
thing.
I just looked at it as as just agreat analogy, one everybody can
relate to.
Oh, man.
Either I wish I'd thought ofthat or the epiphany, the aha.
Yeah, exactly.
Everybody has that.
So one of the things I do when Iencourage people and I help them

(01:07:36):
create an origin evolutionstory, the second piece of that,
I have four parts to it.
I started here.
Then this happened.
The change, the thing that gotyou in that direction, that
direction for me, physics andcalculus.
Now I'm doing this and here'swhere I'm going.

(01:07:57):
So using that simple four phraseformat, you come up with an
origin evolution story.
But the interesting thing is thethen this happened or the head
smack, the thing that's like,and you can build off of that
into a tremendous interview andstory

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:15):
because we all have them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, and that's why I startedthe podcast off with the origin
story.
And I always drill down, like,what was the catalyst that got
you from that to that?
Like, where did that happen?
And some people had never even,some of the people I've
interviewed had never thoughtabout that, you know?
Yeah.

(01:08:38):
Do you know what?
My parents, they told me to godo a lemonade stand or whatever.
And so they think back to thesepivotal moments that kind of
changed the whole trajectory oftheir lives.
But yeah, I love that.
And which book is that in, thatdiscussion in?
Is that one in any of thosebooks?

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:59):
I'm not sure it is.
That's more on the pre-note andthe personal branding part.
It's probably in theresomewhere.
Yeah, I love it.
I've had several.
One of them was the book NowDiscover Your Strengths.
That was life-changing for me.
It was, don't keep focusing onyour weaknesses, identify your

(01:09:20):
strength.
Completely changed.
Purple Cow was another headsmack for me.
And so there were just a few ofthose along the way.
And then Susan Cain's book,Quiet, about introverts and why
it was okay, not only okay, butit was fine to be an introvert.
Those three things were allmajor pivots in my thinking and

(01:09:42):
my ability to accept who I amand view the world in a
different way and not to bealways thinking bad things.
Right, right.
So those head smacks were hugefor me.

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:56):
Yeah, yeah.
And I think as we look back inour lives, we all have those.
We all have those moments where,and we don't think about it, but
it's like, you know what, thatbook or that movie or that
presentation or that speech orthat sermon or whatever really
was the catalyst that changedthe trajectory to my life.

(01:10:16):
And sometimes it's evennegative.
It was that person...
said this about me and eversince then I've never been
comfortable with this or I'venever wanted to do this or I've
always avoided this.
But we don't often identifythose or recognize those and
then deal with them because wejust don't know they exist until

(01:10:37):
we think about it.
Yep.
Well,

SPEAKER_01 (01:10:40):
Paul, this has been awesome.
Thank you

SPEAKER_00 (01:10:42):
so much for having me.
I've been recording this wholetime.
Let me just stop

SPEAKER_01 (01:10:47):
the recording.

UNKNOWN (01:10:47):
We could...