Weekly: Don’t be clever, be clear (5 lessons)

Happy Sunday fellow wayfinder!

We often get stuck when we try to write in a way that sounds clever but isn't necessarily clear. Technical industries (like blockchain) and even academia are notorious for this type of writing.

Ever tried reading university papers?

So condensing complex topics into simpler language is much more desirable. Especially as you expose your work to a wider audience. Clearer is often better than clever.

You can see this sentiment echoed by many other great writers on the web:

The reason for this is straightforward. If you try too hard to sound smart, you risk losing audiences' attention, interest, and sometimes even respect.

As entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk has been saying for years, we live in an attention economy. You want to ensure you capture the right type of attention so you can provide further value.

If you can't capture attention, your message and value fall on deaf ears. 

Despite how you may feel about Donald Trump, his speech style has been studied by linguists and psychologists over the years, revealing the following:

And it is these speech styles that I covered over the last month from traditional Samoan rhetoric, to classical Greek, and even to the statecraft writings of India's "Machiavelli," Chanakya. 

But what does writing have to do with blockchain or business?

If I’m operating a One-Person Business (OPB) in the blockchain space, why do I talk so much about writing?

Well, that’s because I’ve learned that good writing is good storytelling. And good storytelling is good marketing.

Just because I'm in a highly technical field like blockchain, doesn't mean I can't benefit from a simpler communication style. In fact, the opposite is true. 

Marketing is what turned a highly technical field like cryptography (initially through Bitcoin) into a cultural phenomenon that took the world by storm. It is what helped attract the liquidity required for cryptocurrencies to gain legitimacy.

So when you get clearer with your writing, you get clearer with your messaging. And when you get clearer with your messaging, you make it easier for people to hear what you have to say.

Below are 5 lessons from the month of October, which helped me get clearer with my writing in general, instead of trying to sound more clever:

5 lessons in clarity over cleverness

1 - Choose one thing

Since I’ve been focused on improving my writing skills with this newsletter, I’ve noticed that words flow smoother when I choose one topic and stick with it. There's a particular framework that helped (Claim/Why/Example/Takeaway): 

2 - Use the Bullet Draft

I learned this technique after joining Great Founders Write in September. It's a technique that involves you writing your thoughts out in bullet form. It helps me brain dump and then worry about editing later, preventing “analysis paralysis.”

You can learn more about this technique here.

3 - Use the Hemingway app

As mentioned in my Trump example, simplicity is critical in writing. The author, Ernest Hemingway, espoused this. In fact, an app was created in his honor to help writers simplify their work down to a Grade 5 reading level.

The thinking was that if you can simplify complex topics to this level, you've demonstrated your mastery of it. I use the tool as much as possible now, in conjunction with Grammarly. You can learn more about the Hemingway app here.

4 - Spend more time editing or outsourcing

When we speak, we may often go off on tangents. I'm certainly guilty of this. However, editing is a skill that ensures each word, sentence, and paragraph is leading you on a sensible journey.

Mark Twain once said, “I didn't have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one.” So if you don't have the time or patience to edit, outsource it to someone who does. 

5 - Be consistent

Being consistent is a superpower, but your motivations must be intrinsic if you’re training yourself in later years. We can develop healthy habits when we're young if we’re given the right teachers. But when we’re older, it’s a lot more difficult when you don’t have someone else telling you what to do or holding you accountable.

Therefore, when I started my daily writing habits with this newsletter, I tied the goal to something identity-based (e.g. to become a better writer). I learned this trick from James Clear, author of Atomic Habits. 

The Monthly Review

The above lessons were taken from an exercise I did over the weekend reviewing my month. (If you wish to see behind-the-scenes of this, click here and upgrade as a Premium subscriber.)

Hopefully, you can use my lessons to refine your own goals and career choices. How? By simplifying your priorities.

Aligning yourself each month is a good routine (see Lesson #5 about consistency) for ensuring you’re still doing what you want to or should be doing. Otherwise, you may find yourself going "off path" without even realizing it.

Even Dickie Bush, the founder of #Ship30for30, continues to do analog monthly reviews: 

As the saying goes, Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS). And when it comes to writing and communicating - be clear, not clever. 

Are there areas in your business or life that could use some simplifying? How about your communication style? You deserve to be heard!

Until next week, remember: through patience & persistence, it will come.

GeorgeTwitter | LinkedIn | Blog | Tools

PS. Next week, I'll be focusing on blockchain topics again! Get ready 💪

Last month's most popular newsletters:

• Indigenous Incan Socialism

• The Art of Tweet Reviews 

• 9 Lessons for One-Person Businesses from 90 Days of Consistent Writing

• 5 Ways to Improve Your Life & Work Today Using Traditional Sāmoan Rhetoric

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