Tamsen Webster explains why messages that work on paper fall apart when you speak them. She contrasts how we process dialogue versus monologue, then shows how rehearsing out loud and getting feedback fixes the problem.
Have you ever had that experience where there's something that you need to say, to present? So you've written it down and maybe you've gone over it a few times in your head and it sounds really great until you actually say it out loud. Well, what's going on there is a very important thing to know if you're trying to make your messages better, and it's exactly what we're going to talk about this week on Find the Red Thread. I'm Tamsen Webster of TamsenWebster.com. So what does happen to those beautiful words that just break down when you say them out loud? Well, you said them out loud, and that was the problem. But it makes sense, actually, if you think about where language and our ability to process information really comes from. It comes from our ability to hear and take in information from other people. We weren't born knowing words. We learned by hearing other people speak to us and point things out, and we got more and more information that way. We got the benefit of two perspectives of the person giving us this information and our own internal processing and assimilation of that information. That kind of processing is something called dialogic processing. Two perspectives, dialogic. And the thing is, is that we also have monologic, and that's just that kind of observation that happens all the time as we're moving through our day. Oh, there's a tree, there's a cat, there's a dog, here's the thing that's going, oh, I've got this thing recording. All of those things are just monologic. But the really important thing to understand here is that if we only get that one perspective, we lose the real ability to understand how all the pieces fit together best. It's the same thing that could happen, say, if you lost the sight in one eye. You lose that additional depth perception that helps you understand how everything fits together. Same thing can happen if we only ever have monologic processing of what it is that we're trying to say. We want that additional perspective, that we want that outside perspective. More importantly, we want our brain to hear it as outside perspective so we can process it and understand how it best fits together. Now, hopefully the what to do with this is pretty clear. It's Say it out loud. Say it out loud well before you intend to say something out loud to somebody else. But you know what? Do this even with things that you're writing, because even then you'll get that benefit of that extra perspective of your brain hearing you say it as if it were another person saying it, and you're going to get that additional depth of understanding. The best, best possible world, of course, is for you to say something out loud to somebody else, and then you actually get that response. How are they thinking about it? How are they feeling about it? What questions does it raise in their minds? That's gonna make your message even stronger. So don't let those beautiful words break when you say them out loud. Just say them out loud first as a practice, as a rehearsal, until you find the best way to say them overall. That's this week's episode of Find the Red Thread. Thanks so much for joining me. I'm Tamsen Webster of TamsenWebster.com. If you like this episode, please do me a favor, would you, and leave a review on iTunes or just share it with a friend so that we can get more new listeners thinking about the Red Thread and how to make their ideas big enough to move the world.
