Uncovering the Heart of Your Journey

It doesn’t matter whether you are communicating about your business, a project or an important cause. To do it effectively, you must communicate your vision. Your vision will inspire your audience and entice them to join you on your journey.

Great Chris! Very helpful. But how do I communicate my vision if I am not even sure what my vision is?

Fair enough, so let’s begin with that.

I have been working on this myself, and I found some great information from Tom Youngs, who has a great Notion dashboard that I am trialling.

Vision, Mission & Values

Tom suggests that you really need to clarify your vision, mission, and values. Your vision is your guiding light. It is your view of where you want to go in your future. Your mission is how you will solve the problems or negotiate the obstacles to get to your vision. Your values are what you stand for in terms of your character, which will shape how you will approach your vision and mission.

To determine your vision, you must first identify a problem you see in the world that you want to solve. Your vision is then the world you will create with that problem resolved. So, let me take you through the process I went through to see how it can work for you.

Identify the Problem You Solve

Firstly I needed to identify the main problem I see in the world that I believe I can solve. In my experience, so many people have great ideas, but they lack the ability to compel others with their ideas. For these ideas to have an impact in the world, they need to compel others to join them, support them or promote them. This was true of many of the TEDx speakers I coached or watched over the years.

I hate the fact that great ideas go to waste every day. People give up on their ideas and their dreams every day just because they don’t know how to communicate them properly. It is a waste, and it costs us all some quality of life.

I found through my work with TEDxRuakura that I could help people put their message across in a more effective and compelling way. Helping people to communicate their ideas effectively can result in more people taking action, meaning we can solve some of the world’s biggest problems. I later realised with my work with start-up founders that this is also effective for businesses looking for investment, talent or clients.

Who Are You Solving the Problem For?

With that clarified in my own mind, the next thing is to determine who the people are that I can help. From my previous experience, I knew I could help authors, activists, scientists, and entrepreneurs. But not all of them. The people I can help have a few other things in common. They are optimistic about the future and feel that there is something they can do to improve it. They have some belief that they can make a difference. And importantly, they are smart and willing to work.

It is important that you know who it is that you can help. In this way, you can communicate your vision to people who are in a position to use your help and who can be inspired to come on this journey with you.

What is the Transformation?

But this is only the set-up; your vision has to portray how you can help solve their problems and what life will be like when these problems have been solved. I know I can help these people with coaching, workshops, online training and speaking clinics. I know I can also provide support in terms of building a community to help resolve these issues.

• So, what is the problem you want to solve in the world?

• Who are you solving that problem for?

• What will their life look like with this problem solved?

Take the time to answer these questions for yourself and see how much easier it will be to dial in your communications.

Unpacking Wisdom is a weekly section where I dive into a famous (or not so famous) quote and explore how this can apply to the Compelling Communicator.

I am in awe of many of Yogi Berra's insightful quotes. This is one that rings true and one that is directly relevant to me. In my reading, Berra, is highlighting that theory is well and good, up until the point it is put to the test. And putting it to the test is to put it to practical action.

The danger that is being spotlighted here is that of mistaking theory, planning, education and preparation for action. This is something I have been historically guilty of indulging in. Putting off taking real action, and salving my conscience through planning, training, and preparation.

Action and planning are two different things.

Planning is not a bad thing. Unless it is unending, with no actual action being taken, it is easy to feel you are working when you are planning, learning new skills or preparing yourself. But the reality is that unless you actually take action, you are accomplishing nothing.

What I am up to this week…

Professionally:

This week, I created a Microlearning workshop (15 minutes) on creating loglines and how useful they are. The key to microlearning workshops is to give tasks that lead to experiential learning rather than instructive learning. - A great reminder.

Recreationally:

Getting ready to launch the inaugural Misty Flicks Challenge - A filmmaking competition.

What I am reading:

I have been enjoying the audiobook Wink and Grow Rich by Roger Hamilton