Change

I admit it: the whole point of this week’s post, and indeed of the video it’s ultimately about, can be summed up in that one simple solution: Summary + Specifics = Stronger Messages

I wanted to start this year with a look back at the newsletters and posts you found most interesting and useful last year.

I thought I’d end the year with a practical tool you could use as you turn your Red Thread Storylines™ into longer forms of content (think: white papers, blog posts, talks, etc.).

Sometimes you have everything you need in your message or content—it’s just not in the right order.

A grad student recently posted this question on Reddit: “Any tips on structuring/presenting talks on your research? I struggle to know where to start.” Fun fact: that’s the whole reason I came up with the Red Thread® in the first place. I hate staring at blank page or screen!

A few weeks back I talked about how to summarize your idea in both 30 and 60 seconds. This time? It’s all about how to summarize yourself in 30 or 60 seconds or in the word-count equivalent (150ish words or fewer). One of the places you need to do that? Social bios.

One of my favorite examples of a powerful message is the DeBeers diamond tagline, “a diamond is forever.” There’s a reason “a diamond is forever” was and is so powerful: it sounds like a proverb.

It’s the last in my mini-series about how to build your own Red Threads for your own messages and content. Last up, something I’ve talked a bit about before: how to summarize your Red Thread® in 30 seconds or less.

If you’ve been following along in this “how-to” series, you’ve now found all the pieces of your Red Thread. That means it’s time to put all the pieces together. It’s time to build the Storyline of your idea.

Your message is a signal. And that’s probably why it’s not always clear. See, when you have to choose words to capture your idea, you have to choose meaning, as well. You can’t break the two apart.