165: MMM - On Editing Your Talk (without sacrificing depth)

Hey everybody, and welcome to This Moved Me, a podcast about creating talks that move the world. With me, your host, Sally Koering Zimney. Together with some fabulous guests, we will have a casual conversation about the art of public speaking, because a good talk can move the world, and it'll be fun. Yeah, I would think making alien cows meaningful. That's not a small task. I love your giggle. Wow. Oh my gosh, so waiting for everybody to figure out the alphabet. Hey movers, it's Sally Koering Zimney, and we are back for another mini Moved Me here on This Moved Me. And I know I've been talking about how John Booker is going to be on the show, and he was going to be on the show today, but I have been taken by some ideas recently that I wanted to share with you. And so John Booker is coming, he's coming down the pipeline hopefully next week. And if you don't know about John Booker, if you don't understand why I'm so excited about this, let me just say that He was just named, like, one of the top 10 experts in the world on VR, like virtual reality. I was like, "What? That is so cool!" We didn't even talk about that. I didn't even know that that was part of his thing. What I know and what I think he's the top 10 in the world at has everything to do with story and narrative and myth and the way that we understand ourselves and our lives, which of course plays such a huge role into who we are as creators and creatives and speakers and leaders. So I'm really excited for that show. Again, I think I'm gonna share with you next week. So, but come back to me on that one. Hopefully you'll see that there next week. But for today, I want to share with you an idea that I have been digging into a lot and talking a lot with my speakers about, and that is how we edit. And I started this process really sharing a mantra that I used to share with my speakers all the time, which is to cut the fat, just like get rid of all of the extra stuff that you don't need, right? And just giving permission to my speakers to be really brutal in how they approach that and, and be picky and disciplined in their editing approach because editing is really about discipline and it is really about honing your point of view. So that is for sure part of what I want to talk about today, but as I was writing about it and thinking about what I wanted to share with you today, what I realized is that editing is not just about cutting out, it's also about digging deeper. And the process of editing is not just we start with everything and then cut from there. There's also a process of creating new that gets layered on top of it, which makes it complicated. And so I want to talk about that balance and that tension that happens between the layering on and the cutting out. Okay, so here are some quotes that have informed my thinking here today. Here's the first one. By some dude named Alan Perlis. Hey, Alan! I don't know who you are, but I like this quote. He said, "Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it." Whew! That's so true. That is true to the process. Okay, Charles Bukowski said, "An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way." Yes, Charles, but how? How do we get there? Okay, Albert Einstein said, "If you can't explain it to a 6-year-old, you don't understand it yourself." And I would add the word "yet." Haha, yet. We just haven't dug deep enough yet. So Charles Mingus, I've used this quote before, I love it. "Making the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated simple awesomely simple, that's creativity. So it's a creative process. All right, a woman named Natalie Babbitt— love your name, Natalie— oh, it's from Tuck Everlasting. I wonder if it was a quote from a character. I don't know, but Natalie said, "Like all magnificent things, it's very simple." And Claire Booth Luce said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." So in all of these, you hear this tension, this tension between the simple and the complex, right? Getting through the complexity to find the simple, that there is depth in the clear, concise, simple approach. Whoo! Okay, that's what we're dealing with here. So let's just imagine for ourselves that you have what I would call like a hefty first draft. Okay, there's everything and the kitchen sink is in there. You know somewhere in here is your talk, but you're not quite sure how to approach getting through that. Okay, and you know you want to get clear and you want to get concise, right? We don't want it to be longer than it needs to be by— at all, right? And at the same time, you want to be saying something new, right? So you're finding the simple and still saying something new and true. Whoo! That is a challenge, right? And that is what the editing process is all about. It is not just about cutting out the stuff you don't like or that you decide you don't need. It is a process of digging deeper and getting clearer on what you actually truly really mean, right? And our first drafts just don't get there. They can't, and that is okay, right? Most of the time our first drafts are like skimming the cream off the top of your fancy coffee, maybe my fancy coffee, because I've been started drinking coffee lately, you guys. As long as I put sweet things in it. I can handle it. And so you skim the top of that fancy coffee off, and it's so satisfying, and it's sugary good, and it makes it delicious, but it's not where the punch comes from. It's not like the caffeinated oomph in that moment. And it's kind of like when I gave my TEDx talk. The process of editing that puppy, oh my gosh, it was brutal. I can't— if you looked back on my drafts, it was like V7, V8, V9, V10, right? And each one of those was like a stamp in time of what I was looking to emphasize in that moment, or based on a conversation I'd had with somebody. Every time I sat down to write, or that I talked it out loud, or that I explained it to somebody, it would shift a little bit. And so I was really living that tension of adding and clarifying, cutting out, add, cut, clarify. And so Finding clarity along with just meeting the expectations of time was really, really challenging. So how can we get there? How do we get ourselves to a next better draft, right? The next draft of clarity and clarification. How do we cut out the fat and dig deeper into the truth of what we're really trying to say and get to something real. Okay, so I want to offer you just a few tips for how you can approach your hefty first draft to get it a little deeper and to get it more simple. Okay, so here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna, one, find a filter, all right, and find your filter for this particular talk. So the filter for most of us should be all about audience, right? What do they need and how can you meet that need in this particular moment? So if you have in your mind who this audience is, it will help you take a comb through that version of your talk and decide what fits that filter and what doesn't. Okay, so we have talked about this a little bit on my creative process series that I did with Andy, my husband Andy. This is a while ago, but there's tons of good stuff in there. I'll link to that episode so that you can go listen to it and find it. We talk about filter and how we use filter to really amplify our creativity. And it's not that what doesn't fit your filter you should throw out, all right? Because a lot of times to give people permission to cut and to edit and to be really brutal editors, I'll say just put it in what I call a LADA file, an L-A-D-A file, which I got from grad school. Hey, Margot, if you're listening, I still keep a LADA file, and it just helps you give yourself that permission and allow yourself to make some of those cuts. So when you put on the eyes of your filter and get really disciplined about what it is that you want to say to these people right now, That should help you, like, let, let those pieces bubble up that you know, okay, I'm not going to use that, that's not fitting in this filter right now, and you pull those things out. Okay, so that's the first step that you can use to help cut and edit. Then as you're evolving your draft, then what might be helpful is for you to shift your paragraph writing into statement writing, okay? Because when we write in paragraphs, we tend to shift into like essay mode and we use more words than we need. And so the process of getting clearer is, how do I take this 10-word phrase or this sentence that's in 2 or 3 sentences and how can I say it more simply? What is the simplest form of this statement, right? So, and there is strength. The stronger, the shorter it can get that still holds up to the deepest truth of it. It's like it gets taller and stronger, okay? So the, what we want to do is move away from talking around something and talking more straight at it. Like, get right at it, directly at it. And it takes some layers to do that, and I think shifting from a paragraph writer to a statement writer can really help you get at that truth in a powerful way, right? Because you really realize, what don't I need? What do I lose? It helps you get to the very essence of what you're saying. What is the most succinct way that you can say what you're saying. If you can say it in a statement, you're getting closer to it rather than in a paragraph, right? Because you don't need a lot of things that we use a lot in paragraphs, okay? You're gonna find your filter, you're gonna shift to statements rather than paragraphs, right? And just see how that affects what you find. And then the third thing that you're gonna do is you're gonna keep asking yourself So what? Okay, that question, so what, right, will help you keep digging deeper, kind of peel the onion away. And I did a whole show on asking so what, so I will link to that so you guys can dig into that a little bit more. But, but I think it's a really helpful, powerful question to be asking when you've got something there and you kind of, you know, there's more to it, and but you're not quite sure how to articulate it, right? Ask yourself that in the process of your writing and see what comes up. Okay, you're gonna have to then go back, right, and filter, but for now, so what? And then the fourth thing that I want you to do is to kill your darlings. Okay, to be a brutal editor. Typically what I say to people is, you know you're getting somewhere when it really hurts, when it hurts to cut something out. Those are your darlings, and they might have a purpose. It's just not in this talk right now. So put that in the later file, save it for another time, and know it will serve its purpose at another time. It's just not right now, and that's okay. It's okay to kill some of your darlings in service to a clear and true and new message. Because when we can get to the simplicity of clear, true, new, and real, then, then we are really making some content magic there. And the only way to do that is to kill some of your darlings, because it forces you as a leader and a thought leader and somebody who wants to have an impact, it forces you to stand by what you're saying. It forces you to make some choices about what is most important about what you want to say in this moment. It forces you to, uh, to get really strong in that and to not fuddy-duddy fussy fuss around about it. You know, like, get clear. Okay? And so it is a disciplined practice. And when you're killing off a darling and it's hurting, that's when you know you are making a statement about who you are and what you believe and what you want to say in this moment. It's a leadership moment. Okay, so don't be afraid of those. Lean into those. Make those choices because it will strengthen your content in a really powerful way. So Winston Churchill, you've probably I heard this quote. In fact, there's a lot of debate about who actually said this, but I like— it sounds like Winston Churchill to me. He said, "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." And that, I think, is the challenge that is in front of us as speakers and as leaders when we want to develop strong content that is not one moment longer than it needs to be, that saying something true and new and clear, well, whoo, that is the challenge to take the time to make it shorter, right? It's a lot easier to, you know, puke on the page. Don't puke on the page, but you know what I mean, like just let it all out there, right? This is hard. It's a process, and we have to stretch it both ways. Add in new deeper thinking and then filter it all back out. Woo! All right, so find your filter, think and write in statements, ask yourself, "So what? Am I there yet? Is there more to dig into here?" And don't be afraid to kill your darlings because it will make you a stronger speaker and a stronger leader. Dare I say it? I'm gonna. I'm saying it. Alright, thanks team. And you guys, if you have not yet been over to thismovedme.com, I've got some great little freebies for you to download. One of them is a presentation prep checklist. If you have not checked that out, I would love for you to go download that because it can be a really handy-dandy tool for you in terms of walking through the process. This can be such an isolating experience. This process of writing a new talk and getting it out into the world and finding your feet. So let me walk with you on that in this little checklist. It's kind of like having me over your little shoulder reminding you of every little step, and I'd love for you to have that because I'm cheering you on. This is a big deal, what you're out there doing, right? You don't have to do it alone. I'm here for you. Okay, check soon. Hey movers, it's Sally Koering Zimney, and it's time for another mini Moved Me here on this Moved Me This moved me. Wren wren wren wren. Gross.