How to articulate your thoughts effectively (like Steve Jobs)
Summary
TLDRIn this video, Vicky discusses how to effectively articulate your thoughts by breaking them down into actionable steps. She emphasizes the importance of understanding the impact of your ideas on others and provides a simple four-question framework to enhance communication, referencing Aristotle's principles of logos, pathos, and ethos.
Takeaways
- 😀 Effective communication involves articulating your thoughts in a way that others can understand and act upon.
- 🧠 The misconception that ideas should only be shared when they are 'good enough' is counterproductive; articulating ideas helps clarify them.
- 📚 Joan Didion and Stephen King emphasize the importance of writing to discover and clarify one's thoughts.
- 📋 Writing down ideas frees up mental capacity, allowing for deeper thinking and clearer articulation.
- 🎯 To articulate thoughts effectively, start by considering what action you want your audience to take after hearing your idea.
- 🤔 Ask yourself what you want your audience to know about you to establish credibility and trust, using Aristotle's concept of ethos.
- 📈 Focus on what you want people to know (logos) rather than simply regurgitating all the facts and figures.
- 💬 Incorporate emotion (pathos) by considering how you want your audience to feel about the information you're presenting.
- 📱 Steve Jobs' introduction of the iPhone is an example of effectively combining ethos, logos, and pathos to connect with an audience.
- 🚀 Jobs emphasized the revolutionary nature of Apple's products to appeal to an audience interested in innovation and change.
- 🌐 Simplicity and clarity are key in communication; using big words or complex language can actually obscure your thoughts.
Q & A
What is the main topic of Vicky's video?
-The main topic of Vicky's video is about how to articulate your thoughts effectively.
Why do people sometimes fail to communicate their ideas clearly?
-People sometimes fail to communicate their ideas clearly because they might not have broken down their ideas into actionable steps or they might not have considered the impact of their ideas on others.
What is the misconception about when to communicate an idea according to Vicky?
-The misconception is that people think they should only communicate their ideas when they are good enough, but Vicky suggests that articulating and writing down ideas can actually help make them clearer.
Who are Joan Didion and Stephen King, and what do they say about writing?
-Joan Didion and Stephen King are renowned authors. They both say that they write to find out what they think, which implies that writing helps clarify their thoughts.
What is the first step Vicky suggests to articulate thoughts clearly?
-The first step Vicky suggests is to ask what you want people to do once they've heard your idea, focusing on the impact of your idea on others.
What are the four questions Vicky suggests to help articulate ideas?
-The four questions are: 1) What do you want people to do? 2) What do you want people to know about you? 3) What do you want people to know about the topic? 4) What do you want people to feel?
Why is it important to consider the audience's perspective when articulating ideas?
-It is important to consider the audience's perspective because it helps in understanding how the idea can affect their lives, making the communication more effective and relatable.
What is the role of 'ethos' in effective communication according to Vicky?
-In effective communication, 'ethos' refers to speaking to the credibility and trust you build with your audience. It involves sharing what you want your audience to know about you to establish trust.
How does Steve Jobs use ethos in his introduction of the iPhone?
-Steve Jobs uses ethos by establishing Apple's credibility by highlighting its history of introducing revolutionary products, thus building trust with his audience.
What is the difference between 'logos' and 'pathos' in the context of Vicky's video?
-In the context of Vicky's video, 'logos' refers to speaking to logic and reason, focusing on facts and figures, while 'pathos' refers to speaking to emotion, connecting with the audience's feelings.
Why is it a misconception that one needs to be highly intelligent or have a big vocabulary to articulate thoughts properly?
-It is a misconception because language is meant to express thoughts, not to conceal them. Simplicity and clarity are more effective in communication than using complex words or jargon.
Outlines
🗣️ Effective Communication: Articulating Thoughts
In this video, Vicky discusses the importance of articulating one's thoughts effectively. She highlights the common issue of having a clear idea in one's head but failing to convey it clearly to others. To address this, Vicky introduces four simple questions that can help break down ideas into actionable steps. She emphasizes the misconception that ideas should only be shared when they are 'good enough,' arguing instead that the act of writing and articulating ideas can help clarify them. She quotes Joan Didion and Stephen King to support the idea that writing is a way to discover one's thoughts. The goal of the video is to encourage viewers to try articulating their thoughts more clearly.
📱 Steve Jobs' Approach to Revolutionary Products
Vicky uses Steve Jobs' introduction of the iPhone as an example to illustrate how to build credibility and trust with an audience (ethos). Jobs emphasizes Apple's history of introducing revolutionary products, such as the Macintosh and the iPod, to establish the company's credibility. He focuses on the word 'revolutionary' to resonate with his audience's desire for innovation. Vicky explains that the goal is to make the audience understand the impact of the idea and what they should do with it. She also introduces the concept of logos, which involves using logic and reason to support one's ideas, and pathos, which connects to the audience's emotions.
🤔 The Importance of Emotion in Communication
Vicky delves deeper into the elements of logos and pathos, explaining that logos is not just about presenting facts and figures, but about making the audience understand what they should know to take action. She contrasts this with pathos, which is about making the audience feel a certain way about the information. Using Steve Jobs' presentation as an example, Vicky shows how Jobs connected the features of the iPhone with the emotions of feeling smart, easy to use, and ahead of the game. She emphasizes that logos and pathos must be connected to drive the audience towards the desired action, such as buying the iPhone.
💡 Simplicity in Articulating Thoughts
In the final paragraph, Vicky dispels the myth that one needs to be highly intelligent, have a large vocabulary, or extensive public speaking experience to articulate thoughts effectively. She quotes George Orwell, who said that language should express thoughts, not conceal them. Vicky advises viewers to ask themselves four key questions to clarify their thoughts: what they want people to do, what they want people to know about them, what they want people to know about the topic, and what they want people to feel. She encourages writing down thoughts to see the connections and articulate them clearly. The video concludes with a call to action for viewers to try articulating their thoughts more effectively.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Articulate
💡Misconception
💡Ethos
💡Logos
💡Pathos
💡Actionable Steps
💡Credibility
💡Revolutionary
💡Stream of Consciousness
💡Engagement
💡Mental Capacity
Highlights
Articulating thoughts effectively is crucial for clear communication.
A common issue is having a clear idea in your head but failing to convey it clearly to others.
Four simple questions can help break down ideas into actionable steps for better communication.
A misconception is that ideas should only be communicated when they are 'good enough'.
Writing down ideas can help clarify them and free up brain capacity for deeper thinking.
Joan Didion and Stephen King emphasize writing to discover thoughts and perspectives.
The goal of communication should be clear: what do you want people to do after hearing your idea?
Articulating thoughts is not about a stream of consciousness but requires a structured approach.
Aristotle's principles of logos, pathos, and ethos can guide effective communication.
Ethos involves establishing credibility and trust with the audience.
Logos focuses on logic and reason, emphasizing what the audience needs to know rather than all you know.
Pathos connects with the audience's emotions, showing how facts and figures impact them personally.
Steve Jobs used ethos, logos, and pathos effectively in his introduction of the iPhone.
Jobs emphasized Apple's revolutionary nature to build credibility and connect emotionally with the audience.
The iPhone was presented as a leapfrog product that was both smarter and easier to use than existing smartphones.
Jobs connected the iPhone's features with an emotional appeal, making it desirable and futuristic.
George Orwell's advice on writing emphasizes simplicity and clarity to effectively express thoughts.
The four questions to ask are: What do you want people to do? What do you want people to know about you? What do you want people to know about the topic? What do you want people to feel?
Writing down thoughts and analyzing them can help articulate them clearly and effectively.
Transcripts
hi everyone it's vicky welcome back to
my channel today we're talking about
how to articulate your thoughts
effectively
now i think we've all had this
experience where we have an idea we're
really excited about
in our head it makes a lot of sense but
when we talk to other people
they're a bit confused they don't get it
and we don't know
why they don't get it what's missing
right
or it's the other way around of maybe a
professor
a teacher a boss who's telling us
something
and we know it's important that it
should make sense but somehow
we don't really get it so if that ever
happens in your life and you're
wondering what to do there are actually
four very simple questions
to ask in order to help you
break down your ideas into actual
actionable steps that you can
integrate into the way you communicate
so we'll talk about that today if you're
interested
keep on watching
now before we actually go into the four
steps
i need to address a very important
misconception that keep
most of us stuck and that is we think
that only when our idea
is good enough should we then
communicate it should we then write it
down should we then tell it
other people about it but actually it's
the other way around
having an idea which may or may not seem
clear in our head
if we start to write them out we start
to articulate it
maybe not for other people just for
ourselves we will
actually have more brain capacity to
make that idea
clearer joan didion said i write
entirely to find out what i'm thinking
what i'm looking at what i see and what
it means
stephen king says the same thing i write
to find out what i think so it's the
other way around we need to write
it down see it on paper and then release
that mental capacity in order for us to
think
for us to make that point more
articulate make it
clearer so if you ever find that oh i
just can't sort through this
idea is normal it's because you're
thinking too hard you need to put it
down on paper
see it in front of you and then break it
down release those
memory space from your brain so that it
can actually have
capacity to think through the problem on
a deeper level
so with that in mind how do we actually
think in order to clear our thoughts and
become more articulate
it's not about stream of consciousness
right we can't just let it
go everywhere we need a structure and
the structure
usually has a goal at the end so the way
we want to start is asking ourselves the
question
what do we want people to do once
they've
heard our idea and this is something
that we
usually miss right we don't actually
think about the other person like what
are they going to do it's
more of just satisfying our need
to share our ideas but the ones that
really communicate with someone
is that those the audience understand
what it means for them what this idea
how this idea can
affect their lives so if you really want
to articulate your ideas clearly you
need to know
how it impacts others and what you want
people to do so in this video
i hope at the end you will want to try
to articulate one of your thoughts
that you have not been able to
communicate as clearly to
other people so with that goal in mind
i've thought about what's the easiest
way to get someone to do something it's
giving them
step-by-step instructions that are not
complicated that are not long
so i've honed it down to just four
questions
you can ask yourself right it doesn't
you don't need to
take course or anything just four simple
questions
so you'll do it and i add misconceptions
so that you remove what's blocking you
from actually doing those things you see
why they're blocking you
so you're more open to trying this
with the goals defined the next three
steps
are a lot easier and i'm referencing
aristotle here
in his logos pathos and ethos
in rhetoric which is basically just
effective
speaking effective writing or just
effective communication
we'll start with the ethos which means
speaking to
the credibility and trust you build
between you
and your audience the question that's
useful to ask here is
what do i want my audience to know about
me in order for them to understand in
the first place why are you talking
about this
you can draw on your experience your
expertise your values
on why you are sharing this idea you're
sharing
this topic and it gets people to open up
and i'll use steve jobs here as an
example when he was introducing the
iphone for the first
time every once in a while a
revolutionary product comes along
that changes everything
and apple has been
well first of all one's very fortunate
if you get to work on just
one of these in your career
apple's been very fortunate it's been
able to
introduce a few of these into the world
in 1984
we introduced the macintosh it didn't
just change apple
it changed the whole computer industry
in 2001 we introduced the first ipod
and it didn't just
it didn't just change the way we all
listen to music
it changed the entire music industry
well today
we're introducing three
revolutionary products of this class
the first one
is a widescreen ipod with touch controls
the second is a revolutionary mobile
phone
and the third is a breakthrough
internet communications device
so three things
a widescreen ipod with touch controls a
revolutionary mobile phone
and a breakthrough internet
communications device
an ipod a phone
and an internet communicator
an ipod a phone
are you getting it
these are not three separate devices
this is one device
and we are calling it iphone
today today
apple is going to reinvent the phone
as you see for steve jobs here he is
establishing
apple's credibility building that trust
with his audience
by saying that apple is revolutionary
he repeats this again and again because
he knows
that that's what his audience is after
notice that he's not saying
apple has x years in producing great
electronics or
x years in producing very
durable products or effective products
he
is focusing on the word revolutionary
the idea here is
you don't have to build your credibility
through
just boring numbers like i've been in
this field for
50 years and that's why you should
listen to me instead he's focusing
on things that actually draw
interest from his audience and for his
audience right it's people who
think differently so they are interested
in things that are revolutionary they're
not interested
in the best in class they're not
interested
in the leader of the industry they are
interested
in a different perspective in things
that change the world
and turn it upside down so that's why
steve jobs here use the word
revolutionary
and he continues to hone in on this idea
so when you ask yourself the question of
what do i want people to know about me
you'll have to think about okay the goal
i want people to do is an action
now what can they know about me in order
to be
open and receptive to this idea comment
down below and let me know
do titles make you feel like yes i can
trust them these days
now the next element i want to talk
about is logos speaking
to logic and reason and i think this is
one
where most of us are very familiar with
this is what school teaches us right you
need the
facts and figures you need the
statistics
you need to put in the examples you need
to walk people through the process
in order for people to understand what
you're saying
but there's actually more than meets the
eye with logos
the question you actually want to ask
here is what do i
want people to know not that
what do i know and just regurgitate
everything you know
that's why most of the time things are
really boring and we find it hard to
concentrate because it's just like
a dribble of all the facts and we don't
know how everything connects together
right so it's what do i want people to
know
in order for them to take that action
again
right it's always connecting back to
that goal
and i'll show you how steve jobs does it
in a moment
but first i also want to introduce
the third element which is pathos
and the way to think about pathos which
is speaking to emotion
is that it is actually linked
to logos and the question to ask
is how do i want people to feel
and this is usually what is missing
in the way that we articulate that
people do not understand
they might understand the facts and the
figures
but they don't know how they're supposed
to
feel about it they haven't seen the
connection between
these numbers these facts and what does
that mean to me
how does that make me feel this actually
comes from the instinctive way we
process information
it's the information error now there's
so much information
so our brain needs to be able to sort
things
into useful and not useful and for our
brain what is useful
is does this help me survive and thrive
right and what are those those are
feelings of i
want to live and i want to live
comfortably
and happily so that is why
most of the time when we just focus
on okay i am a established scholar and
these are the things i
found people don't understand those
things because
they don't know actually how how does
that actually
make sense in my world what is that
supposed to make me feel is it going to
help me survive
is it going to help me thrive what is
the connection here
so with that in mind let's check out
steve jobs again
let me talk about a category of things
the most advanced phones are called
smartphones so they say
and uh they typically combine a phone
plus some
email capability plus they say it's the
internet sort of the baby internet
into one device and they all have these
plastic little keyboards
on them and the problem is
that they're not so smart and they're
not so easy to use so
if you kind of make a you know business
school 101 graph with a smart access and
the
easy to use access phones regular cell
phones are kind of right there they're
not so smart
and they're you know not so easy to use
but smartphones are definitely a little
smarter but they actually are harder to
use
they're really complicated just for the
basic stuff
people have a hard time figuring out how
to use them
well we don't want to do either one of
these things what we want to do
is make a leapfrog product that is
way smarter than any mobile device has
ever been
and super easy to use this is what
iphone is
okay so
we're gonna reinvent the phone now
software on mobile phones
is like it's like baby software
it's not so powerful and today
we're going to show you a software
breakthrough software that's at least
five years ahead of what's on any other
phone
now how do we do this well we start with
a strong foundation
iphone runs os 10.
now
why would we want to run such a
sophisticated operating system
on a mobile device well because it's got
everything we need
it's got multitasking it's got the best
networking
it already knows how to power manage
we've been doing this on mobile
computers for years
it's got awesome security and the right
apps
it's got everything from coco and the
graphics and it's got core animation
built in
and it's got the audio and video that os
10 is famous for it's got all the stuff
we want
and it's built right in to iphone and
that has let us create
desktop class applications and
networking
notice how he doesn't mention every
single thing that is great about the
iphone compared to all of the other
competitors out there because there are
many
right but he picks and chooses the one
that's going to make an impact
and is going to emotionally connect with
you he summarizes all of those things
together with just
it's smart and is easy to use how does
that make you feel
it feels like it's not intimidating
right it doesn't look like a blackberry
with all those little buttons that
it just looks very complicated it's easy
to use
it's smart and it leaps frog everything
that's on the market
and you're using something that's five
years ahead
of all of the other things that exist
out there and guess what
you like to think differently you like
the feeling of i'm using something that
is so
futuristic so cool with touch screen
no no weird keypads right
how does that make you feel you feel
different
in a good way you feel special i'm in
on this new tech world
right and that is how he gets you
to buy the product which is the goal of
his whole
presentation listing a few things that's
going to demonstrate the point
connecting it with the emotional aspect
of how easy
it is how cool is how streamline is how
is going to make me feel so special and
ahead of the game five years ahead of
the game
it's a similar approach as he used when
he was introducing the ipod
right it's not that it has five gigs of
memory what does that mean
right it means that you'll have a
thousand songs
in your pocket now that is powerful
right i can
feel it having all the sounds i love
more
songs i could ever dream of just in my
pocket not in a funny
cd walkman thing if you know people
know those things back in the days so
that's how you combine
logos and pathos they have to be
connected you have to make it make
sense together in order to drive towards
the goal
of for him buying the iphone buying the
ipod with those four questions
in mind i want to end with another
misconception that hold people back
and it's this idea of i need to be smart
i need to have a big vocabulary
i need to have a lot of practice and
public speaking in order to articulate
my thoughts
properly and that is not true george
orwell said it himself language
is an instrument to express thoughts
not to conceal or to prevent thoughts
so this idea of using big wars sounding
fancy
they actually conceal your thoughts they
are actually not directing
the attention to the idea instead
his rules of writing is to be simple to
be concise
make the words as short as possible and
just use
examples that are engaging that
translates
into something that people understand so
ask yourself
the four questions what do i want people
to do what do i want people to know
about me
what do i want people to know about the
topic and what do i want people to feel
then put your thoughts through these
by writing them down seeing the
connections and you will be able to
articulate
your thoughts clearly and effectively so
if you found this helpful please give
this video a thumbs up
subscribe if you haven't already and
i'll see you
in the next video bye
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