Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Rushion Interviews CEO and Chairman of Axios, Jim VandeHei, co-authors new book Smart Brevity!

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Rushion Interviews CEO and Chairman of Axios, Jim VandeHei, co-authors new book Smart Brevity! · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

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Speaker 1: Welcome to my show, Money Making Conversations Masterclass. I'm your
0:03
Speaker 1: host ra Sean McDonald. I recognized that we all have
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Speaker 1: different definitions of success. For you, it may be the
0:08
Speaker 1: size of your paycheck. Mine has inspired people to develop
0:11
Speaker 1: a plan to reach their dreams. It's time to stop
0:14
Speaker 1: reaching and reaching or reading other people's success stories and
0:17
Speaker 1: start writing your own. You can only exceed the expectations
0:20
Speaker 1: by believing in yourself. People always talking about their purpose
0:23
Speaker 1: or gifts. If you have a gift, leave with your
0:25
Speaker 1: gifts and don't let your friends, family, or cor can
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Speaker 1: stop you from planning a living your dreams. My guests
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Speaker 1: is Jim vander High. He is the co founder, CEO
0:34
Speaker 1: and chairman of Exists, a media company that helps readers
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Speaker 1: and viewers like me get smarter, faster across the constant
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Speaker 1: control topics reshaping our country and lives. At CEO, Vanderhi
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Speaker 1: has steered access into becoming one of the most celebrated
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Speaker 1: digital media success stories in the past decade. He's on
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Speaker 1: the show discussing his new book, Smart Brevity, The Power
0:55
Speaker 1: of saying More were Less. Please Welcome to Money Making
0:58
Speaker 1: Conversations Masterclass. Jim band to High, Thank you for having me, Trea.
1:03
Speaker 1: I love the philosophy of your show, so I'm eager
1:06
Speaker 1: to dig in. I appreciate it. As I stumbled through it,
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Speaker 1: I guess I was trying to use less words to
1:11
Speaker 1: get to the heart of the matter. And the heart
1:13
Speaker 1: of the matter is this interview. Um. You know I
1:16
Speaker 1: I I grew up in the era of shorthand. You
1:18
Speaker 1: know what, a language that people don't use any more
1:21
Speaker 1: than these little cursive words that make words shorter. And
1:23
Speaker 1: you get through the process a lot of secretaries that
1:26
Speaker 1: using if you want to take notes in shorthand. And
1:29
Speaker 1: then I then I came through the whole process of
1:32
Speaker 1: watching people through texting. They started shortening things even more so,
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Speaker 1: and sometimes you know, l O L is laugh out
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Speaker 1: loud and things like that. And then I come across
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Speaker 1: this book called smart Brevity, which is more about communication
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Speaker 1: all different levels. How did this whole idea come about, Jim, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: so it came about because smart Brevity is kind of
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Speaker 1: the core philosophy of the media company Axios that we started.
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Speaker 1: And what we were trying a soul for was you, me,
2:02
Speaker 1: your listeners, anybody who's trying to get ahead, and kind
2:05
Speaker 1: of you know, be successful at life. We just need
2:07
Speaker 1: to know a lot more across more topics than ever before.
2:10
Speaker 1: You have to kind of understand technology and media and
2:13
Speaker 1: politics and business, and that's a lot. There's a lot
2:16
Speaker 1: to ask for busy people. And so we came up
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Speaker 1: with this concept of smart Brevity, which is really high quality,
2:21
Speaker 1: trusted content but delivered as efficiently as possible. You know,
2:26
Speaker 1: so much of what you and I were taught coming
2:28
Speaker 1: up in journalism and coming up as communicators was not
2:31
Speaker 1: necessarily to be efficient. It was to fill time or
2:34
Speaker 1: to fill news holes. And our idea was, well, people
2:38
Speaker 1: don't have time for that anymore than the smart phone
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Speaker 1: and people checking it two fifty times a day makes
2:43
Speaker 1: it really impossible for that. And so writing the book
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Speaker 1: was kind of an expression of I learned a lot
2:50
Speaker 1: from starting in our company. I feel blessed we've done well,
2:53
Speaker 1: and I want to share with other people the things
2:55
Speaker 1: that have been really helpful to me in terms of
2:57
Speaker 1: how can you be a much better communicator? We know
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Speaker 1: the thing about communication and when I look at my world,
3:02
Speaker 1: you know, before I started my company, uh this platform,
3:06
Speaker 1: Money Made Conversation master Class. I managed Steve Harvey from
3:09
Speaker 1: two thousand and so just reshaping his brand and get
3:13
Speaker 1: the idea. And then all of a sudden, when I
3:14
Speaker 1: stopped managed them in sixteen, I didn't know who I was.
3:18
Speaker 1: So it's a whole world of branding and communication. So
3:21
Speaker 1: I had all these credits, I had all this information
3:24
Speaker 1: about me, but it was massive. And so the whole
3:28
Speaker 1: term of brevity I had to learn it on the flat,
3:32
Speaker 1: because that's what brevity is about. Being able to tell
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Speaker 1: your story and if I'm wrong in a short form,
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Speaker 1: but really still deliver information that people want to hear.
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Speaker 1: Correct for sure, for sure. And and it's harder, is
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Speaker 1: you know, to be brief than it is to be
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Speaker 1: long wind and it really takes We have the slogan
3:49
Speaker 1: here of taped up on the wall that brevity is confidence.
3:52
Speaker 1: Length is fear. To really sharpen your thinking and be
3:54
Speaker 1: succinct and be clear about who you are and what
3:56
Speaker 1: you want to express. It's not easy. You need to
3:59
Speaker 1: be thoughtful about Yeah. I always tell people I believe
4:02
Speaker 1: the two thousand seven of the timeline when uh, when
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Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton at the time I announced her presidency, I
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Speaker 1: believe on the iPhone and I said that I always
4:11
Speaker 1: go back to that point where it changed the way
4:12
Speaker 1: we do bit through our whole world, because you know,
4:16
Speaker 1: when we look at it now, it feels like the
4:17
Speaker 1: iPhone has been around thirty or forty years, and it
4:19
Speaker 1: really hasn't been around that long, but it has changed
4:22
Speaker 1: that dynamic of how we communicate from a from a
4:25
Speaker 1: visual standpoint, from an audio standpoint, from a texting standpoint.
4:29
Speaker 1: Is that if you look at life, you know, because
4:31
Speaker 1: you know, we started with fire, you know, and then
4:33
Speaker 1: we then we flew, and then now we have the iPhone.
4:36
Speaker 1: When you look at it, it maybe a question too
4:38
Speaker 1: big the ass answer, but is that probably the the
4:42
Speaker 1: one form of technology science has really just leaped forward
4:46
Speaker 1: so fast in our life, but certainly in communications it's
4:50
Speaker 1: the biggest thing since the printing press, like once you
4:52
Speaker 1: can put down the written word and distributed mass scale,
4:54
Speaker 1: it radically changed the world. Well now with the iPhone,
4:58
Speaker 1: and you're a good memory, it was two thousand seven
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Speaker 1: when when the iPhone came out, like now, suddenly all
5:03
Speaker 1: of us have infinite access, often at a relatively low price,
5:08
Speaker 1: to as much information as one could possibly fathom. And
5:13
Speaker 1: I don't think whereas a species were made for this.
5:15
Speaker 1: I think we're getting hit with too much information too fast.
5:18
Speaker 1: I think people don't know what to trust. I think
5:20
Speaker 1: people have this ability to express themselves, often in unhealthy ways,
5:24
Speaker 1: and all these social platforms and find somebody out there
5:28
Speaker 1: who will applaud us or like us or friend us,
5:31
Speaker 1: even if we're saying or doing things we probably shouldn't do.
5:35
Speaker 1: I think that explains a lot of why politics has
5:37
Speaker 1: kind of gone off the rails. And but what it's
5:40
Speaker 1: also done is it's made it really hard to communicate.
5:42
Speaker 1: It's made it really hard to sport to win this
5:44
Speaker 1: war for attention. Like when I'm talking to you, I'm
5:47
Speaker 1: not just competing against like error or you maybe like
5:51
Speaker 1: getting distracted by by a bird. I'm like your phone
5:55
Speaker 1: might beep, you might get a tender update, you might
5:57
Speaker 1: get a text update you and have people calling emailing,
6:02
Speaker 1: slap you know, slacking you. Like, there's just a thousand
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Speaker 1: things and that's new and nobody sat down and it
6:08
Speaker 1: actually taught people to rethink how you communicate in this
6:13
Speaker 1: era of chaos. Yeah, you know, it's really interesting. I'm
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Speaker 1: thank you for coming. I'm talking to Jim vanderha He's
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Speaker 1: the co founding CEO chairman, of Axis. But more importantly,
6:22
Speaker 1: he's on my show to discuss one of the writers
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Speaker 1: of the book Smart Brevity, the Power of saying more
6:27
Speaker 1: with Less. He's one of the co creators of Axis
6:30
Speaker 1: and as well as political. Um, you have been a
6:33
Speaker 1: guy who's been behind putting your words Smith, I would
6:37
Speaker 1: say a word Smith, because people take your words and
6:40
Speaker 1: articulate them and they read them and uh. And there's
6:43
Speaker 1: a skill like my my skill is my degree is
6:46
Speaker 1: in mathematics. So you through a number of me, I
6:48
Speaker 1: can go it back to you just as fast. And
6:50
Speaker 1: that's by communication. And so I know in my life
6:53
Speaker 1: I grew up. I was born under rotary dial telephones,
6:56
Speaker 1: so I know the how long it took you to
6:59
Speaker 1: dive you you know, so you know exactly just watching that.
7:03
Speaker 1: And I remember in eighteen ninety I went to like
7:06
Speaker 1: a little science fair. They was talking about the video
7:09
Speaker 1: telephone and you know, you one day will be able
7:11
Speaker 1: to die. It was nineteen ninety U sevent excuse me.
7:15
Speaker 1: They were talking about video telephones and I went wow,
7:18
Speaker 1: and I saw how long we took to get the
7:20
Speaker 1: video telephone. Were like two thousand seven really, And so
7:23
Speaker 1: when you look at all these transition. And it's about
7:25
Speaker 1: communication because at one time used to be able to
7:27
Speaker 1: say GM, you used to be able to lead a
7:29
Speaker 1: house and nobody could reach you. And then when you
7:32
Speaker 1: got back then communication started again. And I think that's
7:36
Speaker 1: the part of life that we are are we being
7:38
Speaker 1: beat up too much with too much information, and that
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Speaker 1: is why what you're talking about is so necessary, and
7:44
Speaker 1: we were communicating to people on a daily basis. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I think beat up is a good term for it.
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Speaker 1: I think we are being crushed by information. We're ingesting
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Speaker 1: too much of it. Uh And certainly if it's long
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Speaker 1: and it's not worthy of our time, it's a it's
7:58
Speaker 1: a waste of of of our mind share, and it's
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Speaker 1: a real problem. It's just like you said, I mean,
8:03
Speaker 1: they think about this program and like you and I
8:05
Speaker 1: are doing an on zoom. You're in a different city.
8:07
Speaker 1: I'm in a different city. Somebody could be listening to
8:09
Speaker 1: this in their car. Somebody could be watching this in
8:11
Speaker 1: their car. Somebody could be in the woods and happen
8:14
Speaker 1: to have nice satellite connectivity and be able to watch
8:16
Speaker 1: it as crispally and here it as clearly as you
8:18
Speaker 1: and I. And that's just a different world. And the
8:22
Speaker 1: big thing about the book is you you have to
8:24
Speaker 1: take the world as it is, not the way the
8:26
Speaker 1: world the world you wish it were to be, and
8:28
Speaker 1: and the way it is is that people are distracted.
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Speaker 1: People have very little time, and if you're not respectful
8:33
Speaker 1: of their time and respectful of their intelligence, they're not
8:35
Speaker 1: going to read or hear what you're trying to say.
8:38
Speaker 1: And that is a waste of time on a waste
8:40
Speaker 1: of energy. And if you don't retool your skill set
8:43
Speaker 1: to make sure that you're able to communicate, particularly at
8:46
Speaker 1: work or school or an areas where you're trying to
8:48
Speaker 1: get ahead, you're not going to get ahead. Like communicate,
8:51
Speaker 1: you think about the workplace and about your job, like
8:53
Speaker 1: obviously because the nature of what you do. Your entire
8:56
Speaker 1: job is communicating. But almost every person's job is communicating,
9:00
Speaker 1: getting up, communicating down, communicating sideways, communicating to customers, ingesting
9:04
Speaker 1: information as a form of communication. And yet nobody's setting
9:07
Speaker 1: people down and saying, huh, maybe you should do it
9:09
Speaker 1: differently than they did. And you know, then you than
9:12
Speaker 1: they would have done in two thousand five, when there
9:14
Speaker 1: wasn't a smartphone, when there wasn't Facebook, when Google was
9:17
Speaker 1: a baby, when most of the websites you visit didn't exist,
9:19
Speaker 1: when most of the apps you use weren't even thought of.
9:22
Speaker 1: So it's a wildly, wildly different world. We'll be right
9:25
Speaker 1: back with more Money Making Conversations Masterclass with Rushan McDonald. Now,
9:32
Speaker 1: let's return to Money Making Conversations Masterclass with Rashan McDonald.
9:37
Speaker 1: I think the COVID area when the when the county
9:40
Speaker 1: were set down in March. I remember I was doing
9:42
Speaker 1: some contract work when I first heard over the word
9:45
Speaker 1: Zoom video conferencing. And because I was doing a lot
9:48
Speaker 1: of contract work, I was based in Atlanta and had
9:50
Speaker 1: a lot of meetings in d C. And it would
9:52
Speaker 1: go to meet was another video conferencing device that was
9:55
Speaker 1: out there, and it was actually was ahead of Zoom
9:58
Speaker 1: at the time. I was doing to go to me
10:00
Speaker 1: all the time and so but but when the country
10:02
Speaker 1: got shut down, that's when it kind of changed the
10:05
Speaker 1: culture of how we communicated. In other words, it changed
10:08
Speaker 1: the rules. You know, you don't have to look a
10:10
Speaker 1: certain way. You can be anywhere, and whether socially or
10:15
Speaker 1: appearing on talk shows whatever they were, we loosened our
10:19
Speaker 1: standards are respectful ways we can communicate, which means that
10:23
Speaker 1: people could inundate you at any time. And I think
10:26
Speaker 1: that's why your book is so important, because with the
10:30
Speaker 1: world turning becoming standard less, that means that we have
10:33
Speaker 1: to talk better or less. Is that is that correct?
10:38
Speaker 1: I think it is correct. And another dynamic that happened
10:40
Speaker 1: because of COVID is that you know, I could be
10:43
Speaker 1: at home doing this that happened to be in the office,
10:45
Speaker 1: but a lot of people are working from home, people
10:46
Speaker 1: scattered about, and when people aren't working together face to face,
10:51
Speaker 1: it makes communications, especially written communications, that much more important.
10:55
Speaker 1: You need to be You need to connect people so
10:57
Speaker 1: everyone is aligned to knows what they're supposed to do,
11:00
Speaker 1: and you need to do it in a way that
11:01
Speaker 1: leads to greater productivity. And you need to somehow create
11:05
Speaker 1: an environment of creativity if there's not even physical presence.
11:08
Speaker 1: And I mean this, I think we're gonna look back
11:11
Speaker 1: years from now and like COVID obviously affected politics, affected health,
11:15
Speaker 1: but it radically changed the workplace more than probably anything
11:18
Speaker 1: has changed the workplace in the last twenty thirty or
11:21
Speaker 1: forty years. Like suddenly you had to work from home
11:25
Speaker 1: and you had to rethink communications. I mean to be
11:27
Speaker 1: honest as a business proposition, mar Brevity became exponentially more
11:31
Speaker 1: valuable because of that dynamic, because people were struggling to
11:34
Speaker 1: figure out how do I communicate with people? And good
11:37
Speaker 1: communications is it's magical because it gets people to hear
11:41
Speaker 1: what they're supposed to hear and do what you want
11:43
Speaker 1: them to do. Bad communications could be a real it
11:46
Speaker 1: could be a real killer for a company, real killer
11:48
Speaker 1: for a relationship. Well, it's really interesting. Uh. Right before
11:51
Speaker 1: our schedule this interview, I started talking to my staff.
11:54
Speaker 1: You know, so I always always feel good when i'm
11:56
Speaker 1: kind of like kind of like with the curve. I
11:58
Speaker 1: feel you you under the curve, which means you're you're
12:01
Speaker 1: talking to dynamics that we need to start looking at
12:04
Speaker 1: or start living there. And uh, you know, as a
12:06
Speaker 1: as a company, as my company with your thirty and
12:08
Speaker 1: fifteen media, you know, we have a capabilities one sheet
12:11
Speaker 1: that we have to do. That deck used to be
12:13
Speaker 1: like forty eight pages. Now I've reduced to one sheet.
12:16
Speaker 1: And then I had my Rashawn McDonald ePK Electronic press kit.
12:20
Speaker 1: It used to be about thirty pages, and I told
12:22
Speaker 1: my staff reduced it to one sheet. I want to
12:24
Speaker 1: because I was gonna put all that on that, I said,
12:26
Speaker 1: make it work, I said, because people do well. They
12:29
Speaker 1: don't want to fan through thirty pages to find out
12:31
Speaker 1: about Rashard McDonald what he's working on. So that's why
12:35
Speaker 1: when when there's anybody when your book came across my deck,
12:37
Speaker 1: des I laughed. I said, this is absolutely right. I said,
12:41
Speaker 1: I know that you can't talk in expansive terms with
12:44
Speaker 1: anybody in it anymore. And as as you, as you
12:47
Speaker 1: started dropping these dimes on of information on everybody who
12:51
Speaker 1: received it the most and who resisted it, Yeah, you know,
12:56
Speaker 1: the the resistance tends to come from journalists, like journalists
12:59
Speaker 1: and people who are paid to like spread a lot
13:02
Speaker 1: of words, a little long winded. They don't, they don't
13:05
Speaker 1: love it like where you see it. But it's been
13:07
Speaker 1: fun to watch, like I've seen that really take off
13:09
Speaker 1: with students and teachers. Certainly in business is probably where
13:12
Speaker 1: it's been most effective. I was just on Facebook with
13:15
Speaker 1: somebody who randomly reached out to me who's a preacher
13:18
Speaker 1: in New York, and was like, I really want to
13:20
Speaker 1: figure out how to make my preaching more efficient. And
13:22
Speaker 1: I pointed out to her that that the Pope while
13:25
Speaker 1: we were writing the book, it did a speech in
13:27
Speaker 1: Croatia where he talked to Catholic priests and said, you've
13:30
Speaker 1: got to cut your homilies down from forty minutes to
13:34
Speaker 1: ten minutes. And he said that the nuns were the
13:36
Speaker 1: ones who applied at the longest, because he said, quote unquote,
13:39
Speaker 1: they're the ones who are subject to our are to
13:42
Speaker 1: our verbal torture. The Pope more brief, and that truth
13:48
Speaker 1: is like your exercise of your forty pages down to one.
13:52
Speaker 1: The truth is you can do with it. People think
13:53
Speaker 1: you can't. There's nothing shallow about being short. It's actually
13:57
Speaker 1: really confident and helpful. And Claire, fine, I bet your
14:00
Speaker 1: one sheeter is a hell a lot better than your
14:02
Speaker 1: forty sheeter was because it forced you to think about
14:05
Speaker 1: what are the things that are really really important? What
14:08
Speaker 1: do people really have to know? And when you do that,
14:12
Speaker 1: the audience realizes that, and they know you're being respectful
14:15
Speaker 1: of their time and their intelligence, and they reward you
14:17
Speaker 1: for a Jim, I will absolutely tell you I prefer
14:20
Speaker 1: about one sheet over my expansive deck. And you absolutely
14:25
Speaker 1: correct that. Uh. I was just telling the story that
14:28
Speaker 1: some of the information is not has no value today.
14:31
Speaker 1: It's something that I've done in the nineties and the
14:32
Speaker 1: early two thousands, is about what I'm doing now, and
14:35
Speaker 1: I think that's what when I when I read your book,
14:38
Speaker 1: one of my favorite chapters is the meeting chapters. You
14:41
Speaker 1: know when when you gather your staff and you're talking,
14:43
Speaker 1: because that's where I had to learn. And I took
14:46
Speaker 1: some notes from your chapter because sometimes you get on
14:49
Speaker 1: these zoom calls and these staffs called, and you feel
14:51
Speaker 1: a need to talk, You feel a need to over
14:55
Speaker 1: emphasize what you're trying to get out of your staff,
14:58
Speaker 1: and that's where the communications really can or a person
15:01
Speaker 1: who's working for you, I'll motivate them correct, Yes, I
15:05
Speaker 1: mean think about like most meetings tend to be very
15:07
Speaker 1: meandering and then speak. You know, you're succinct and clear
15:14
Speaker 1: in command, for sure, but most people other than you
15:17
Speaker 1: are meandering. And I think about a meeting. The whole
15:20
Speaker 1: purpose of a meeting is what meeting for a reason?
15:22
Speaker 1: What is the one thing we need to accomplish here,
15:24
Speaker 1: Let's talk only about that thing, and at the end
15:26
Speaker 1: of the meeting, what are the specific takeaways that we
15:29
Speaker 1: can share with everyone who needs to know and think
15:32
Speaker 1: about that could be done in twenty minutes and it
15:34
Speaker 1: could be a hugely effective meeting. But if you go,
15:37
Speaker 1: if you're a drift, if you don't know what the
15:39
Speaker 1: focus of it is, if you don't know what the
15:40
Speaker 1: specific takeaways are, if you're not clear and concise in
15:43
Speaker 1: the language that you're using, you just had a nice
15:45
Speaker 1: conversation that's going to be forgotten by everybody and you
15:48
Speaker 1: wasted that time. And so I do I think this
15:51
Speaker 1: works in power point, I think it works in meetings.
15:53
Speaker 1: I think it definitely works in speeches and sermons like anywhere.
15:57
Speaker 1: If you just it's about being respectful to the audience,
16:00
Speaker 1: really being sharp about what are the one, two or
16:02
Speaker 1: three things you really really need them to know and
16:04
Speaker 1: that they really really need to know, and then you
16:07
Speaker 1: can find yourself, uh, having a type of success you
16:10
Speaker 1: want when you communicate. Yeah, First of all, a smart
16:12
Speaker 1: brevity is for anyone who communicates hear me clear on
16:15
Speaker 1: that you're talking to somebody, whether it's a colleague, of
16:17
Speaker 1: friend or a spouse. You have to be able to
16:21
Speaker 1: not over talk. You know, I've come from the Baptist community,
16:24
Speaker 1: so so when you talk about church. You know, I
16:26
Speaker 1: am born up the hour and a half church service.
16:29
Speaker 1: You know, come to Jesus two or three, uh called
16:34
Speaker 1: to the altars and get out of here, you know,
16:37
Speaker 1: so and so I so. I would love to see
16:39
Speaker 1: this incorporated in the Baptist Church world. Brevity from the
16:43
Speaker 1: pool pit. But the most important thing that I took
16:46
Speaker 1: away in reading your book and also watching you, is
16:48
Speaker 1: that you know there's a concern for communication because I
16:52
Speaker 1: got I got the good feeling that you're feeling that
16:54
Speaker 1: people really have. That's a lost art. That's a lost
16:57
Speaker 1: art from the standpoint of what's the limit and what
17:00
Speaker 1: you're trying to say. But then in so many ways
17:03
Speaker 1: that people are being in a day with information that
17:05
Speaker 1: we really have no window of focus, and that focus
17:11
Speaker 1: really is the key to solid communication correct absolutely. Like
17:15
Speaker 1: foggy writing, foggy talking is a reflection of foggy thinking.
17:19
Speaker 1: So if you're talking and writing sharply, it means you
17:22
Speaker 1: took the time to really sharpen your own thought and
17:25
Speaker 1: that's that's a benefit to you. Like I do this
17:27
Speaker 1: all the time. I really try to distill my thinking
17:29
Speaker 1: about different topics. I write it down and try to
17:31
Speaker 1: distill let into as fewer words as possible, mainly so
17:35
Speaker 1: I can remember it better. And if I have to
17:37
Speaker 1: articulate it articulated sharply and hopefully memorably, so people, you know,
17:41
Speaker 1: sort of respond the way I would hope that they respond.
17:44
Speaker 1: And like, I'm in the media and I run a company,
17:46
Speaker 1: so I'm paid to community. Let's be honest, as are you.
17:49
Speaker 1: But these tricks that we learned, that the science behind it,
17:53
Speaker 1: it's applicable to anybody, and all of us want to
17:55
Speaker 1: be heard. We really desperately we want to be heard.
17:58
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more money May in Conversations
18:01
Speaker 1: Masterclass with Rushan McDonald. Now let's return to money Making
18:07
Speaker 1: Conversations Masterclass with Rushan McDonald. I want to bring closest me.
18:12
Speaker 1: I want to make sure I run across. I try
18:14
Speaker 1: to break everything down easy to my audience. And I said,
18:17
Speaker 1: they're dumb audience, but I know that again brevity is important,
18:21
Speaker 1: so they take away they can walk away those five
18:23
Speaker 1: tips I heard you do. And I like to bring
18:25
Speaker 1: up those five tips that I heard you do and
18:27
Speaker 1: the and then you give me a short synopsism of
18:29
Speaker 1: the importance of how we can use them. First, one
18:32
Speaker 1: of the number one will stop being selfish, yeah, shopping selfish,
18:36
Speaker 1: start stop writing for yourself, stop communicating for yourself and
18:39
Speaker 1: thinking about what does the other person need to hear
18:41
Speaker 1: and read. That instantly changes your perspective and makes you
18:45
Speaker 1: a better communicator. Now, basically what I did when I
18:47
Speaker 1: reduced my Rushan McDonald ePK from forty pages to a
18:51
Speaker 1: single sheet. Now I feel confident that when somebody gets it,
18:54
Speaker 1: they won't just trash it, or they won't get past
18:58
Speaker 1: the colorful opening page. They have the one sheet and
19:01
Speaker 1: the information is there, and that's to stop before for you.
19:04
Speaker 1: The one is for them. Yes, that's that's that's absolutely
19:07
Speaker 1: grab me reasons. You're right, Whether it is a subject
19:13
Speaker 1: line and an email, a headline on a story, a
19:15
Speaker 1: text you're sending to somebody, you're at war with other
19:18
Speaker 1: people for their attention. So be provocative, be interesting, be succinct.
19:23
Speaker 1: Give them a headline, say hey, this is why you're
19:25
Speaker 1: going to read this. Be very clear. So if you
19:28
Speaker 1: grab that person, then you get them into the next sentence.
19:30
Speaker 1: That next sentence should be something really interesting, something illuminating,
19:33
Speaker 1: something they should need to know. While if it is,
19:36
Speaker 1: you'll keep them reading deeper, and so you have to
19:38
Speaker 1: think that methodically about the cadence of your communications. Absolutely so,
19:42
Speaker 1: in no words, if well, if what is there simple
19:45
Speaker 1: technique that wants to take away if they try to
19:47
Speaker 1: start standard production meetings a standard staff meeting, is they
19:51
Speaker 1: at tenching grabber technique they can use? Are some old
19:55
Speaker 1: things that they should stop using. I think a very
19:58
Speaker 1: successful device for both a speech er for a meeting
20:01
Speaker 1: is to say, very specifically, the one thing we want
20:04
Speaker 1: to accomplish today is, or the one reason we're meeting
20:07
Speaker 1: here today is, or the one thing I want you
20:10
Speaker 1: to remember is. I would use that phrase and then
20:12
Speaker 1: just fill it in and then at the end reiterate it.
20:15
Speaker 1: So now the person has heard the most important thing
20:18
Speaker 1: delivered succinctly twice. They heard it at the beginning and
20:21
Speaker 1: the end. Common sense would tell you they have an
20:23
Speaker 1: exponentially higher chance of retaining what you just said, as
20:27
Speaker 1: opposed to not stating it, being unclear, hiding it behind
20:31
Speaker 1: other sentences or other paragraphs. You know, it's so funny, Jim.
20:35
Speaker 1: I was a lot of times people call me now
20:37
Speaker 1: they say stuff like, I have two things I want
20:39
Speaker 1: to talk to you about. I have three things I
20:41
Speaker 1: wanted to and I've been hearing it probably this year
20:43
Speaker 1: a lot because people know I don't like talking on
20:45
Speaker 1: the phone a lot, so and they they've always said, well,
20:49
Speaker 1: you know I was still talking. We hug up as
20:51
Speaker 1: you were. So now they say, hey, I got two
20:54
Speaker 1: things I want to talk to you about before we
20:55
Speaker 1: wrap up this call. So I agree that technique works. Uh.
20:59
Speaker 1: The three is keep it simple. Keep it simple, like,
21:03
Speaker 1: don't you know like your sentences, your paragraphs to be short,
21:07
Speaker 1: should be direct. You don't need to use fancy words.
21:10
Speaker 1: You don't need to use words you learn to college
21:12
Speaker 1: and ones that you'd show off that you can maybe
21:14
Speaker 1: get a crossword puzzle. Just just keep it simple, be yourself,
21:18
Speaker 1: be direct. Well, this one I really love, would like
21:20
Speaker 1: write like a human because I always tell my friend, Okay, look,
21:23
Speaker 1: I don't understand what you're saying. If you can just
21:26
Speaker 1: break it back down to me, then I guess with
21:28
Speaker 1: this conversation go a lot better. What exactly your version is?
21:31
Speaker 1: Right like a human that I don't know what it
21:34
Speaker 1: is about our species. At the minute that we have
21:36
Speaker 1: to write or communicate something, we suddenly button up our collar.
21:39
Speaker 1: At an additional layer of starch, and we start to
21:43
Speaker 1: talk like the most annoying, insufferable person you've ever met.
21:46
Speaker 1: We start to use fancy words and talking in a
21:49
Speaker 1: deeper voice and use back run nims as opposed to know,
21:53
Speaker 1: talk to me like you talk to me over a
21:55
Speaker 1: beer at a bar. That's how you should communicate. People
21:57
Speaker 1: want authenticity. Their turn off by your arrogance or your weirdness.
22:03
Speaker 1: If you're using these fancy eleven dollar words, wow, and
22:06
Speaker 1: the last one is number five, Just stop, And that's
22:10
Speaker 1: that should be our gospel. Just stop, like can stop writing,
22:14
Speaker 1: Like if you've made your point, stop, you don't have
22:16
Speaker 1: to make it again. It's your example about right, Like, oh,
22:19
Speaker 1: I say something really good and then they that people
22:22
Speaker 1: seem to like it so much, I say it again,
22:23
Speaker 1: like no, just stop, just stop, beautiful. This is five
22:26
Speaker 1: tips for effective efficient communication of talking to Jim vander
22:30
Speaker 1: High his book, I really really recommend smart brevity, the
22:33
Speaker 1: power saying more with less. Again, thank you for taking
22:37
Speaker 1: the time to come on Money Making Conversation master Class,
22:39
Speaker 1: because and and I talked to a lot of entrepreneurs.
22:42
Speaker 1: I talked to a lot of people who are dreamers.
22:44
Speaker 1: But more importantly, if they don't know how to communicate.
22:46
Speaker 1: I have two things I always tell people. I call
22:48
Speaker 1: it two seeds, communication and consistency. If you can't communicate,
22:52
Speaker 1: then you never get the consistency. Once you get consistency,
22:55
Speaker 1: you got to tell people what you were doing was
22:57
Speaker 1: actually gonna work when you communicated with him. So I
22:59
Speaker 1: believe even what you're doing in this book, and I
23:01
Speaker 1: want to be one of the people who continue to
23:03
Speaker 1: promote the gospel of smart brevity. I love it. I
23:06
Speaker 1: appreciate it, and I lovely or focus on like the
23:08
Speaker 1: dream or aspect like I always say, like I live
23:11
Speaker 1: the American dream like I was. If you met me
23:13
Speaker 1: in college, you'd say, I'm the last person you've ever
23:15
Speaker 1: met that was going to start a couple of media companies.
23:17
Speaker 1: At one point four nine one grade point average in college,
23:20
Speaker 1: I could barely get it into and wasn't able to
23:22
Speaker 1: be successful. And anybody can do it. And I think
23:24
Speaker 1: this is hopefully one building block in your in your
23:27
Speaker 1: career or Jim, I I said, I got a math degree,
23:30
Speaker 1: but it took seven years. So you and I have
23:33
Speaker 1: a lot of DNA and quality DNA and commons, So
23:35
Speaker 1: I thank you. A game coming up masterclass again. Definitely
23:39
Speaker 1: heavily promote this book not only just a good book,
23:41
Speaker 1: but it's also a game change on how we talk.
23:44
Speaker 1: And also I think you can also relieve people on
23:47
Speaker 1: how they can tell people how they wanted them to
23:48
Speaker 1: talk to them, because that's important. It has to be
23:51
Speaker 1: a two way street. You know, you have to tell
23:52
Speaker 1: people what you're willing to accept. That way they can
23:54
Speaker 1: communicate with you a lot better. Again, thank you for
23:56
Speaker 1: coming to the ship. Thank you appreciate it very much.
23:59
Speaker 1: Have a good day. We talked saying for blah blah,