message 340

Brian Cain made me laugh.

You’ve reached Talking with Dr Terrie – 180 seconds to a better you message number 340 snd I’m Dr Terrie Wurzbacher

Brian’s message Wednesday morning was that you should explain things so a 5 year old could understand it. That made me laugh since 4 year olds understand a heck of a lot more than I do.

But it got me to thinking about communication. That message and a package I received from Amazon. I was looking for lights to hang in my van for when I go on trips for some of my races like I will over Christmas and new years.

I opened the package and wondered how the heck you were supposed to connect them. There were wires sticking out but no connection and no power source. I went back to the site and after scrutinizing the pictures and the description I realized that I was supposed to intuit that you had to have some electrical knowledge to use these things.

In the past I would have thought I was stupid for making this mistake. But today I just shook my head and mumbled. “Lesson learned”.

But is it a lesson learned?

I searched for how to read and understand Amazon reviews. There are articles and videos on the subject and of course forums like Reddit.

Don’t worry this isn’t a message on how to read reviews but it is a message on how to choose your method or methods of communication.

Disclaimer. I am not an expert on any of this.

I have had discussions (that’s a code word we use for when talking with someone almost but not quite ended up as an argument) with a friend about reading vs watching videos. He’s not a reader for various legitimate reasons but he also maintains videos are faster.

I, on the other hand, prefer reading. But there is definitely a place for videos. I can read through something much more quickly than sitting listening to people talk about themselves and why they are doing this video and who’s the sponsor and “oh yeah you wanted to know how to do something?”

But many people get that dopamine hit simply from the visual aspect of watching something on a screen. I maintain that they also get a sense of control because they push that fancy button that says “play” – why does it have to be fancy? It does one thing. But these people can control that person on the screen. They can start and stop them talking and they can pause it to coincide with their attention span. They can skip ahead of stuff when they are bored. You can’t do that in a real conversation even though you can in a book.

When I was growing up we conveyed messages via the written word and the spoken word. Presenters had to hone their tone and inflection and all the other skills associated with projecting their voices. Dr Gilbert talks about that when he explains how to tell a story. We were always glued to the radio. I listened to every single Yankees game on the radio. And you have to be good to put that visual in someone’s head.

Learning the art of the Written word was just as important. Newspaper headlines had one chance to catch attention. They couldn’t rely on the dramatic effects of video. They had to create their own drama in readers minds.

We had movies and later we had tv.

I believe that tv and YouTube and tik tok has made people lazy. Those media only serve to feed the bright shiny object syndrome afflicting so many people

The point is that to get a message across, you have to cater to all forms of communication or you will
Miss people. But if you start by using the written word to convey what you are seeing in your mind, you’ll be able to bring those internal visualizations out of your head and to the masses. Your message will be vivid and that’s what will sway people.

Go to YouTube and listen to Earl Nightingale, Napoleon hill. Zig ziglar and any of the other old masters. If you can talk like them, any modalities you choose will be successful.