Why you can’t articulate like you think

I read these six books on speaking articulately and I want to share three astonishing secrets and three resources with you that have allowed me to finally solve my problem of being unable to articulate my thoughts the first secret is to share more connotation connotation refers to the multitude of experiences emotions associations memories meaning and images that are packed behind our words let's visualize this if someone speaks about war that idea a of war is the representation of many feelings passing through their mind they may have seen war read about war watched War films and know

that people associate war with tragedy and death the combination of all these various elements creates the language of the Mind what psycholinguist Steven Pinker called mental Lees speaking is our attempt of translating mental Lees into the low bandwidth mechanism that is the spoken word our listener receives those words and unfolds them into the experiences associations emotions memories and images that that word has for them think of this process like a musical composer experiencing emotion and channeling that emotion into writing Sheep music an Orchestra conductor can read the Sheep music and guide the orchestra and transforming

those static notes on page into a lively powerful performance of Beethoven Symphony Number Five the emotions that we experience listening to this live music cannot possibly be represented by Simple black and white notation on paper frustration with articulation occurs when we expect our connotation to be fully represented by our words and transplanted somehow in our listener's mind which is frankly an impossible ask translating our 4D thoughts into what really our 1D world words requires compromise which often results in that familiar sensation of not being able to express ourselves satisfactory these books make it very clear

that language simply does not give us the full capacity to thoroughly Express what we're thinking feeling fearing wanting in a given moment but we can't get close this invites the question how can we communicate more connotation so that one our words better capture what it is that's on our mind and two our listener can unfold our words into something that closely resembles what we experience two actions have helped me accomplish this the first is to avoid Blue Sky language imagine I've painted a stunning landscape and I've invited you to view my artwork I explain to

you that I painted the trees green because most trees are green and I painted this the sky blue because well blue is the color of the sky you'd probably find those statements rather odd why well they're unnecessary because you and I both share a fundamental understanding of the colors of nature this blue sky language simply doesn't highlight the dynamic colors and details that are unique to my art the same is true with our words our tendency is to explain the obvious this often brushes over the connotation that makes our thought feel rich and real here's

a list of the common Blue Sky words and phrases that we unconsciously default to that lead to our sentences feeling lethargic and lifeless instead ask yourself this question if I had to defend this thought as being my thought what details would I highlight that most people wouldn't know about these details descriptions access more of the connotation that surrounds your thought in your mind and leads to great greater satisfaction with your speech the second action is to use emotional bridging this technique is a brilliant one and involves forging a connection with your listener through shared emotional

experiences for example say I had a troubling day and I told you I'm frustrated behind that sentence is packed the weight of my entire day as frustrating and troubling as it is but unfortunately you unpack that through your own connotation which doesn't preserve the emotion and intensity that I tried to stitch into that sentence what I could say instead is think of a recent time when you felt frustrated recall that overwhelming sensation that's what I'm experiencing right now what's happening is you're establishing common ground with how you feel by inviting your listener to identify their

parallel experience this helps you better pack your thoughts into words and AIDS your listener in unpacking those words more accurately so we understand that connotation helps us better articulate our thoughts but how can we retrieve the right words because frustration often also occurs when we have a clear thought but lack the verbal arithmetic to solve it with words it's only after we turn out muddled sentences do we realize there's a discrepancy between what's in our mind and what our mouth produced people often bewail why can't I simply speak like I write well what does writing

afford US that speaking does not one the ability to revise our sentences and two additional time to think what if we could find a way to introduce those qualities into our speech I tripped over a technique recently from Teddy Roosevelt called whisper drafting Roosevelt was aware that his first attempt at collapsing thoughts into words would be a complete wash out but he didn't want to populate the air with vagueness so he would part his mouth slightly front teeth together and he would say his sentence out loud under his breath barely breathing the words you likely

can't hear that but you're moving your tongue without moving your lips to others this appeared to be a pause but to Roosevelt it was his first attempt at formulating a rough draft of his sentence without speaking a out think of it as coloring in a tree on a canvas you can theorize what shades of green might enhance your painting but it's only after you've put paint on the canvas that it becomes obvious that it was or was not the right choice of color whisper drafting is a brilliant technique I've used it often and it allows

you to color in your thoughts before committing to speaking those words aloud this solves the revision challenge how about supplying ourselves with more time to think well we we can't make up more time or can we we've all been told to pause before that's not what I'm suggesting but what if we ask for more time could it be as simple as saying give me a moment to think about that or let me process that for a moment what Elite communicators realize is that coughing up an answer immediately is often a self-imposed burden a form of

intellectual sabotage whereby you sacrifice Clarity for a Swift Delivery when we're asked a question it often is comparable to a calm pool of water being disrupted by a stone the Ripples and waves need to settle down before a calm clear answer can be produced that takes time which you can request by using any of these phrases that I've collected this resource will be linked below the final secret I want to introduce you to is cognitive priming it's no secret that many of us battle daily with finding the kernel of our thought particularly if we've never

before attempted to translate it into words frustration overtakes us not because we're not saying what we're thinking but because what we're saying is shrouded in bubble wrap cardboard wrapped in duct tape packed in a crate and buried in a shipping container under a pile of potatoes putting our thoughts into words can often feel like blindly slinging darts at a dart board we eventually hit a bullseye but at the cost of too many attempts how can we train our mouth to be more accurate so that each of our sentences contributes to building out our thought before

we answer that I want to pose a question to you what is the difference between speaking to yourself in the mirror and dialoguing with someone in a conversation well alone you can say anything you want to yourself but with another there are social boundaries that govern your speech and shape it to be more considerate delicate or intentional in other words you're accountable for your words with another person there's another layer of accountability that we can introduce that will help you be even more selective with your speaking introducing cognitive priming I want you to listen very

carefully I'm going to choose every word with Precision I realize you're not going to understand what I'm going to say and I know that by me saying that you're going to want to prove me wrong and understand it even more that's cognitive priming it's a preamble that informs your listener that you are bringing an incredible amount of effort and calculation with selecting your words this achieves two things very well one assuming you're speaking with a single person it breaks the stale automated back and forth of the conversation and galvanizes the attention so you're both in

this heightened state of trying to achieve a shared understanding of what's been communicated the second thing it accomplishes well is putting you in a position where you're now more accountable for what you have to say you've communicated that you are about to speak with calculation your mind now becomes more careful with how you shape your words typically this is accompanied by a slower calmer way of speaking to help you with cognitive priming I've assembled below a list of the top cognitive priming lines that I found used in speeches and interviews finally I wanted to let

you know that I've been in a dark closet for several weeks now building software that I believe will help people compose articulate sentences and structure their speech like History's Greatest articulators I'll be releasing this very soon if you're interested in speaking brilliantly and beautifully please check the weight list below and as always thanks for watching