Angie 00:00 Good Monday morning, everybody, and welcome to No More Mondays. This is the show where we believe three important things: humans still matter, mediocrity is expensive, and ownership will change everything. As always, I am your host Angie Callen, and today we are talking about something that might seem simple but can lead to a lot of that expensive mediocrity — and be surprisingly hard to do. And that is getting clear. Today I am joined by Steve Woodruff. He is part of my unconference family, and he is also known as the King of Clarity. He helps leaders, teams, and organizations get crystal clear and communicate effectively — music to my ears. He is the author of Clarity Wins and To the Point, and his core belief is super simple: confusion loses and clarity wins. I couldn’t agree more. And news flash — most of the time when people struggle to communicate, it’s not a messaging problem. It is a clarity problem. So today we’re going to help you address it. We’re going to talk about why clarity is hard but shouldn’t be, where confusion shows up, and what actually changes when we just get back to basics and simplify. Steve, welcome to No More Mondays, King of Clarity.

Steve 01:10 Great to join you here, Angie.

Angie 01:12 I also forgot to tell you that I kind of want to call you Steve “The Wolf Man” Woodruff, because you have maybe the most amazing radio voice I’ve ever heard. That may change after the millions of people who hear you on No More Mondays. Okay — so I love this idea that clarity is something we overcomplicate. And it actually does become a hindrance to communication, whether it’s at home — just a couple days ago my husband was trying to ask me a question, and I said, no, you didn’t say that, you think you did — or in our businesses, with clients and teams. And for some reason it’s simple but really difficult for people, especially smart, capable people. We try to do too much. Why is this so hard?

Steve 01:55 The biggest barrier to clarity is this constant desire to give too much information. In a lot of the work I’ve done with corporate clients, there’s just this desire to spew too much — whether it’s branding, marketing, selling, or leadership. We want to say it all. And the problem is that the human brain can only process so much information. If we overwhelm people with a white paper when all they’re looking for is a sound bite, we lose the opportunity to get our point across. It sounds easy to say: say less, be simple, be distilled. But it’s really, really hard to do for most people.

Angie 02:30 When we think about it from a business and marketing standpoint, the white paper versus sound bite is such a good example — because for us, we feel like everything in the white paper is critical to the messaging. When really the audience only needs the sound bite to then add layers to a conversation. People feel like they need to get everything they think you need to know out in one giant fell swoop, and nobody can digest that.

Steve 02:52 No — and you’re not doing anybody a favor. In fact, you’re making people work too hard. If they have to sort through a bunch of jargon, or five messages that should have been just one, or two minutes of nonsense — you’re actually being unkind to that person. What they really need is: give me the simple point, and then if we can unfold it later, great. Turn the light on for me really fast right now. If your podcast title was “Tuesdays are really bad, Wednesdays are questionable, Thursdays are blah blah blah” — no. “No More Mondays” is fine. And then: okay, why did you name it that? Now you can tell me more. It’s the little bits — what I call memory darts — that really make a difference. You’ve got to get your message into a memory dart that quickly turns the lights on and makes people go: huh, I need to know more about that.

Angie 03:40 I love memory dart, by the way. When we were at the unconference, I said to somebody: I’m a former engineer who loves people. And they looked at me and said: is that your memory dart? And I realized — yeah, I have a memory dart. I didn’t even know it. Whether it’s a sound bite, dangling the carrot, thinking about how to start a conversation instead of trying to have the whole conversation in one fell swoop — it matters, because you’re right that the human brain can’t digest a lot. I’m curious — are our attention spans actually getting shorter?

Steve 04:15 Microsoft put out a study that said we now have the attention span of a goldfish — six seconds, or some crazy thing like that. I honestly don’t believe that biologically or physiologically the human attention span has changed in any way. I just think the competition and distractions have increased. Noise and stimulation is so great that it makes it much more difficult for anybody to focus, because we have 28 things in front of our face now instead of one. Nonetheless, the wiring of the brain is that it’s looking for relevance — looking for the “what’s in it for me” all the time. And the art of a great sound bite, a great introduction, a great memory dart, is that it’s got to contain relevance to the listener, peak interest, and rise above all the other noise.

Angie 05:00 I’m going to agree — it isn’t our attention spans that are reducing. It’s what’s competing for them that’s increasing. And you make a really good point about what a memory dart is and most importantly who it’s for. That’s where confusion often comes from — we mistake information we think the audience needs to hear for what the audience actually wants to hear. Talk to me more about that.

Steve 05:22 There’s a principle called the curse of knowledge. If you know something really well — you’ve been immersed in it, it’s been your jam for years — you subconsciously assume that everybody else has that information or cares about it. That’s a big problem. That’s when we either dump everything on people, or leave things out because we assume too much. Engineers, doctors, software programmers, people in high-tech industries — they’re very much guilty of what I call curse of knowledge problems. They can talk in tribal language to each other and everyone gets it. But when you get out of your bubble and talk to other people, you have to learn to simplify. You can never assume people know what you’re saying. You have to illustrate, give examples, tell stories, define your terms, and be careful with acronyms and jargon.

Angie 06:15 I could go in 12 different directions and have 12 different episodes on this right now — because please note: memory dart, former engineer who loves people — the high-context STEM brain. I fall into this too. A lot of times I’ll start giving my husband context because I like context and I think he needs it, when really I just have one sentence I need to ask him about. Thinking about how to relate to your audience is just as critical at home as it is in marketing. So what’s the anatomy of a memory dart?

Steve 06:55 A memory dart is a way of packaging a single thought in a vivid way that quickly turns the light on, makes people understand or think a certain way, and triggers memory. I go by the term King of Clarity — somebody called me that for the first time on my Facebook timeline years ago: “Happy Birthday to the King of Clarity.” I thought: wow, that’s presumptuous, but that’s good branding. I embraced it. And it’s a memory dart because you’ve only met one King of Clarity. You’ve probably met a thousand consultants. But there’s only one King of Clarity — and it also begs the question: what does that mean? It’s not only meant to turn the light on. It’s meant to provoke questions and lead the conversation. It’s meant to create engagement, not just exchange information. People can hear 25 things about me and forget 24 of them. But if they remember “Steve’s the King of Clarity,” and the time comes to make a referral — I win.

Angie 07:55 Because they remembered the right one of the 25.

Steve 07:58 The one that mattered most.

Angie 08:00 I think about this in a very common scenario we all run into — anytime we meet someone new: hey, what do you do? How does that sound with your memory dart?

Steve 08:10 I have two memory dart formats I use for the inevitable “what do you do?” question. Because contained in that question is actually several things the person is also asking underneath the surface: who are you, why should I care about what you do, and what do you do. So when I introduce myself to a new person, I don’t start with an exchange of facts. I start with the beginnings of a story. I’ll say: well, by now I should have been a retired astronaut, but I had to settle for becoming the King of Clarity. That makes people ask more questions. I’ve given them a tiny bit of information, but I’ve opened the door to my story — which is the most interesting part any of us has. The most important part of any introduction is your story. And everybody has an interesting twist in their background they can use as a format. So there’s the intro with a twist, and then there’s the one-sentence value proposition — how you summarize what you do and the value you provide that makes you different. If you’ve got your intro with a twist and your one-sentence value proposition, you’re golden for opening up any networking conversation.

Angie 09:10 Okay, get ready everyone — this means you have to stop saying “oh, I’m a doctor.” Because that’s a pattern interrupter, and it feels awkward to buck social norms and say something wildly different. But it makes you more memorable. I love this because when you say “I’m a doctor,” you’ve put yourself into an absolute identity that leaves no room for a conversation. Instead of “I help people be physically, mentally, and spiritually well” — which makes someone go: oh, how do you do that? Now there’s an actual exchange instead of a short, in-a-box identity. This is a framework for creating the pattern interrupter.

Steve 09:55 The pattern problem is that the expected answer to “what do you do?” is a factual answer. “I’m a lawyer.” Well, we haven’t gotten anywhere. But one of my favorite introductions by a lawyer — I’ve never forgotten it — she said: “I’m JK Elkins, and I went to law school so you don’t have to.” Absolutely brilliant. I don’t know how many lawyers I’ve met — I’ve forgotten them all except her. And I still remember her name because of that twist. Another way to do a great intro with a twist is to take your job description and make it a little funny. My youngest son started a job doing photography and drone documentation of building sites. His job title was “documentation specialist.” I said: that sucks. Who wants to talk to a documentation specialist? We brainstormed, and I said: Seth, next time someone asks what you do, just say — they pay me to fly drones and take pictures. It’s true, it’s funny, it’s intriguing, and it opens a conversation.

Angie 11:00 And then you become JK Elkins. Now I’m going to remember her — the lawyer who went to law school so you didn’t have to. Steve becomes: is that the guy who said something about being an astronaut? And by the way — Steve was the King of Clarity before ChatGPT started telling everybody that clarity was the answer to everything. We need to establish that right now. Here’s where I struggle — how do you take your memory dart plus one-sentence value prop, your intro with a twist, and actually get that conversation into something valuable? How do you transition to the questions you want to ask to see if there’s a fit?

Steve 11:50 One of the most important skills for a consultant, coach, or anyone is asking questions. And one of the most important aspects of asking questions is digging into people’s origin stories, success stories, failure stories. You open the door to that when you start opening your own door. When I talk about the astronaut thing — I wanted to be an astronomer, went to college, and my dream died my freshman year when I hit physics and calculus.

Angie 12:20 You and I are kindred spirits, Steve.

Steve 12:22 When you tell people those bits, it helps them open up. My technique is I ask about origin stories and success stories, and people talk to me for 40 minutes and realize I haven’t said anything about myself — I’ve just been asking, just been pulling it out of them. And here’s one of the coolest networking strategies ever: if I say “Angie, what do you do?” and you answer, I say: “I’ll bet when you graduated high school, your yearbook future plans didn’t say ‘No More Mondays podcaster.’ How did you get from there to here?” And then I just shut up. Stories pour out. People are dying to tell their stories — they’re just waiting for someone to ask.

Angie 13:05 And to listen. Very few people in our lives actually hear what we have to say. My friend Justin Schenck talks about being interested instead of interesting — and I love that phrasing. Because my MO in any networking conversation is exactly what you just said. I’m a former engineer who loves people, but I don’t like to talk about myself, so my coping mechanism is to ask tons of questions. So I could hear myself saying: “I’m a former engineer who loves people.” They say: “well, that’s really strange.” And I say: “I know — because of that, humans are my favorite systems to solve. What are you trying to workshop right now?” There we go — we just did it. That’s my version of the yearbook question.

Steve 13:52 The one thing that’s missing from yours is — I don’t yet know how you help people. “Former engineer who loves people” is cool, but you haven’t let me know what you actually do in your interaction with those people, and how the engineering background feeds into it. We want closure of stories. We want something following. If you can tell me you’re a former engineer who loves people and what you do now is coach and advise leaders through tough decisions — then you’ve got it.

Angie 14:22 So everyone — we’re walking the walk right now, and we’re synthesizing this in about four minutes. It would be: humans are my favorite system to solve, and I coach and advise leaders and executives through tough decisions. What kind of stuff are you trying to workshop right now? That’s the dot connector. This isn’t hard — but it is challenging, and it took a while to get to “former engineer who loves people.” For everyone out there who’s new to this idea of introducing yourself differently — what’s one thing they can do to simplify immediately?

Steve 15:05 What you have to realize is this is not only for the other people — it’s for your confidence. When you can walk into any place and confidently answer “what do you do?” and just roll it off your tongue because you’ve practiced it and it fits — it’s awesome. The best thing you can do to start working on your introduction is this: I have a very simple four-step format for creating your origin story. I started here — that could be childhood, high school, first job, college, wherever you want to start. Then this happened — that’s the twist. Someone told me I should do this, I was knocked off a bicycle and broke 15 teeth, whatever. Now I’m doing this — bringing it up to speed. And here’s where I’m heading — your goal, your aspiration. If you can answer those four questions with simple statements, you have a compressed origin and evolution story you can tell in one minute. And you can pull your intro with a twist directly out of that “then this happened” part — because most of us have like five of those.

Angie 16:10 Yeah, every several years you have a “then this happened.”

Steve 16:13 Exactly. And it turns out that’s the most interesting thing you can say. Everybody wants to know they’re talking to an interesting human. As soon as you show up as someone who had this accident, or fell off this cliff, or went through a downsizing — it makes it so much easier for people to relate to you. Instead of being a stuffed shirt with a role and a title.

Angie 16:32 Instead of a box, you’re kind of like a whole exciting toy department. And it’s so interesting — we learn and communicate in stories, but for some reason we don’t use them in the high-opportunity situations. Here’s me as the active case study: I started my career as an engineer, then I moved to Colorado and realized there’s more to life than sitting in a cubicle designing documents. Because I love people, I channeled that into coaching, and I am now advising executives and teams on how to navigate complex problems.

Steve 17:10 See — that’s just a nice compact story. That’s like 40 seconds.

Angie 17:14 I’m so glad this is recorded, Steve.

Steve 17:16 And you’ve just outlined both your story and your value proposition in that little bit. And anybody can do that. We all have those four parts. So craft those into your little story, and become a storyteller. Then, as we talked about, become a story asker. Ask people about their story, their background — and as soon as they start, you have all kinds of places to go: how did you meet that person, how long did that job last before you realized it wasn’t good? You can go on and on for an hour just asking questions and being a genuinely interested interviewer. It makes people feel warm, feel liked, feel important. And all you’re doing is figuring out interesting new stuff.

Angie 17:58 My MO is to be asked that question first — what do you do — and when I get to the “here’s what I’m doing now,” I end that with: what about you? Now I’m on the question-asking offensive. But one more thing worth adding: we all have these four parts, but because we tend to hide them or feel vulnerable about them, we don’t talk about them. But as soon as you show yourself willing to say “yeah, this thing happened and changed everything,” you’ve created an atmosphere of solidarity and connection. That’s instant rapport territory.

Steve 18:30 You give people permission to be human. And in the corporate world, that’s actually counterintuitive. You’re supposed to say all the right jargon — I’m a VP of HR, blah blah blah, all your credibility and title nonsense. You really stand out when you’re more creative and more human about it, and it gives other people permission to drop their guard and be more human too.

Angie 18:52 It really is amazing what happens when you give yourself — and therefore others — permission to be human. Turns out humans still matter. But this comes back to the simplicity of all of this. The exploration it requires you to do to find those simple nuggets. At the end of the day it’s just a very clear, effective way to communicate and start a relationship — instead of trying to tell someone everything you possibly want them to know in one fell swoop. Which is also really common when people go to interviews, by the way. They can’t trust that everything will unfold over 29 minutes.

Steve 19:28 Yep. And to do that effectively in an interview, you’ve got to be in touch with your keywords, your core strengths, the things that make you different. If you don’t have a distinct and differentiating understanding of your identity, you’re going to spew jargon and try to measure up to everybody else. Your goal isn’t to be like everybody else — it’s to be different from everybody else. If you happen to be primo at project management — no detail left behind — that’s what you go with. In the interview you say: when it comes to organization and project management, there is no detail left behind. People go gaga over the way I report and make things happen. Either that’s what they want, or it’s not — and if it’s not, good. I’ve just eliminated myself from a job I wouldn’t be happy in.

Angie 20:10 You’re not a fit. But the big thing is — this goes back to confusion. If you can’t clearly articulate your value proposition, whether you’re interviewing, talking to a potential customer, or trying to get your team’s buy-in on something — if you can’t clearly communicate the goal, the need, or the value proposition, you have a confused buyer. And confused buyers don’t make any decision. They just don’t act.

Steve 20:35 And you become a commodity. You just blend into the background. Actually — I have a little friend here. Give me just a moment. Meet Justin.

Angie 20:45 We have a special guest, yes.

Steve 20:47 Justin is my emperor penguin. And here’s how I illustrate this: we’ve all seen those nature programs where you have all these penguins on the ice floe. They all look the same, they all sound the same, they all walk the same.

Angie 20:58 Oh yes — they’re adorable.

Steve 21:00 And I say: look, you are just another penguin on the ice floe until you have some kind of differentiating message. Whether you’re just another potential new hire, just another digital agency, just another coach — you don’t want to be another penguin. You’ve got to have a way of standing out. Otherwise you’re just off in the background among the hundred other people who are not going to be chosen. So what is it about you that is uniquely awesome? If you don’t know your superpower, figure it out. Talk to the people closest to you and ask: what am I absolutely fantastic at? What is my best thing? That’s what you’re going to lead with. And that’s true on a company level, a brand level, and an individual level. You’ve got to be in touch with your awesome and not be ashamed of it.

Angie 21:50 Love that add-on at the end — sometimes we just have to embrace our weird, because it’s actually the thing that makes us different. It is a superpower. But in an effort to blend into the sea of sameness, we try to neutralize it, instead of being the one penguin that gets filmed for Planet Earth. How do you become the weird penguin that actually gets filmed?

Steve 22:10 You’ve got to be that penguin. Seth Godin — brilliant marketing writer — wrote a book called Purple Cow that was transformative for me. If you drive past fields of cows, nobody’s going to remark about any cow until they see a purple one. If you see a Purple Cow, you’re going to talk about that Purple Cow. Great marketing, great branding, great messaging is about Purple Cows. You can’t afford to be background noise — not in this environment. It’s up to us to bring forward what makes us unique and turn the light on for other people, because otherwise they don’t know.

Angie 22:48 And we’re all in the dark. And guess what’s a Purple Cow? A memory dart, it turns out.

Steve 22:54 Clarity is Purple Cows. A memory dart. Justin here is a visual memory dart. I speak in memory darts — that’s what I do, because that’s what I believe in. And when you become aware of the concept of memory darts, you’ll suddenly see them everywhere. The great communicators throughout all generations have used that format to grab attention and turn the light on in the mind.

Angie 23:15 You just helped me connect two dots. I always say clichés are a thing because they’re true — but they’re also true because they’re memory darts. “Growth doesn’t happen in the comfort zone.” Those sound bites are highly memorable and they stick for a reason. So for all of you out there — what’s your Purple Cow? What’s your stuffed penguin? What is your memory dart? Where did you start, what happened, what are you doing now, and where are you heading? And how do you turn that into a memory dart that becomes a great conversation starter with clarity and curiosity behind it? This is a great conversation with a lot of clarity in it. Steve — thanks for joining me.

Steve 23:55 Oh, I’m so glad to be here. It’s been really fun. And of course I still remember your T-shirt — which is a visual memory dart, by the way, about the human thing. You live this out, you embrace your weird and put it right out there. The fact is, if you were just “well, I’m an executive coach that helps people” — nobody would care, and nobody would listen to you.

Angie 24:15 Nope. On that note, as we close out — don’t try too hard. If you try really hard to be overly creative about your memory dart, you may shift it into something you actually just aren’t. Get out, have conversations with people, pick up on the words they commonly use for you, and be okay with your unique differentiators. For somebody out there who wants a little more help — how do they find you, follow you, and get the reading material?

Steve 24:42 My two books are on Amazon. One’s called Clarity Wins and the other is To the Point. Clarity Wins focuses more on developing your brand messages and memory darts. To the Point is an actual universal formula for clear communication — clarity goes beyond introductions, it goes into everything we do. You can find out more about me at stevewoodruff.com. And LinkedIn is where I spend most of my time — look for me there, you’ll see that presumptuous King of Clarity, and feel free to follow me.

Angie 25:15 Own it, Steve. Doesn’t have to be weird — just unique. I love this conversation. Thank you so much for being here today.

Steve 25:22 Thanks for inviting me. It’s been a blast, Angie.

Angie 25:25 Clarity is simpler than we think, and it doesn’t take a lot to stand out in a world full of distractions — except for that one thing, which is clarity. Steve’s books, follow him on LinkedIn — he’s connected to me so you can find him there easily. We’ve got all the links in the show notes. And remember: clarity about yourself comes down to knowing what makes you unique and not being afraid to lean into it. Steve — huge thanks for being here today. And to all of you out there — if this conversation got you thinking, and I don’t know how it didn’t because I’m over here thinking and I do this stuff — share it with somebody who needs to hear it, or leave us a rating, because it’s hugely helpful. As always, I’m grateful for you, Steve, and for everybody out there being part of the No More Mondays community. Until next time — here’s to fewer Sunday scaries and No More Mondays. See you next week.