How to Be Recognizable We covered the origin of the Red Thread in Episode 3 with the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, but there’s another story that comes from Goethe.
Editing
What is the Shape of Your Story? – EP048
The Three Story Shapes Kurt Vonnegut had this idea that stories have shapes. Here’s how it would work: if you could map a story with the horizontal axis representing time and the vertical axis representing our characters’ fortunes, you could see how it’s structured over time.
My Best Piece of Writing Advice – EP047
Start with the Goal and Skip the Rest Here’s the best piece of writing advice that I’ve ever received: after you finish your first draft, go back and delete the first paragraph.
Building Your DIS-Confirmation Bias – EP046
Disprove Your Position to Strengthen Your Argument Most people reach a point in their life where they do things a certain way. The problem with that is that we all have confirmation bias: we tend to only seek out and remember information that confirms what we already believe to be true.
The Counterintuitive Secret to Creating Change – EP045
How the Red Thread Uses Cognitive Dissonance One of the toughest questions for any message maker is simple but big: how do you get someone to actually do something different? How do you create change?
Why the Path to a Better Brand Starts with the Red Thread – EP044
Before You Rebrand, Find Your Red Thread In all the years that I’ve done branding and messaging strategy, the one thing that has always been true is that no one is ever happy with the result of a branding or rebranding exercise.
Why Jargon Is So Dangerous – EP043
Jargon’s Many Meanings We all have jargon that’s useful in our industry or company, but we also need to make sure that our message is clear.
How to Create Your Own Memorable Quotes – EP038
Finding the Proverb in Your Message We can all agree that some messages are more memorable than others but, for some of these messages, an even stickier phrasing has replaced the original.
How to Make the Most of Who You Already Are – EP037
Are You a Fox or a Hedgehog? There are many times when we’re trying to figuring out how to position who we are and what we do (our Red Threads) for a particular situation: switching jobs, or expanding our business into a new industry.
“Internalize, Don’t Memorize” – EP032
Focus on the Meaning of Your Message We want to make our message memorable, but how do we make it memorable to us? When we focus on memorizing things word-for-word, we often forget the meaning behind those words.