Find Your Message in Two Minutes

0:04 so one exercise that can really be 0:07 helpful in helping you to figure out 0:10 what your central message is is a 0:12 adaptation of a classic improv theater 0:15 exercise that we call half life now I 0:17 came up with this exercise a couple 0:18 years ago and the idea is that you try 0:21 to learn how to slough off the 0:23 unimportant stuff and find the thing 0:25 that's most important to you by going 0:27 through an iterative process of talking 0:29 about what you're interested in and then 0:31 taking it away and it's really a simple 0:32 idea you start and you record yourself 0:36 or you just have somebody to help you 0:38 the lease here is going to help me in a 0:39 moment countdown 60 seconds and you talk 0:43 about whatever it is you're going to 0:44 talk about for that 60 seconds but no 0:46 more just 60 seconds and then when 0:49 you're done take a deep breath and then 0:51 you do it again same topic but you only 0:54 give yourself 30 seconds to do it and 0:56 then as soon as you're done with that 0:57 same idea do it again but now only 15 1:00 seconds to do it and you know pro 1:02 version you get it all down to 8 seconds 1:05 and the idea is you learn through the 1:07 experience of cutting it down from 60 to 1:09 32 15 28 what it is that's the most 1:13 important thing what it is that you most 1:14 want to get across and just to really 1:17 emphasize the point I want to talk about 1:19 a couple of the places where I use this 1:21 exercise in my everyday life so it's 1:23 super super helpful I did half life for 1:26 every single chapter of my dissertation 1:27 I did it for the dissertation as a whole 1:30 I do it every time I'm planning a lesson 1:32 when I want to teach and probably 1:34 arguably the most importantly right now 1:36 I do it every time I have an important 1:38 meeting for relate so I guess I just 1:40 really want to emphasize that it's 1:42 really valuable and it's valuable for a 1:44 couple of different reasons so one you 1:47 learn something from it every single 1:49 time and you'll learn something from 1:51 each version you learn something about 1:53 what you want to or how you want to 1:55 structure your narrative from the 60 1:56 second version and you really learn the 1:58 core of what you want to say from your 8 2:00 or your 15 second version and two and 2:03 arguably probably the most practical 2:05 reason why it's valuable is that it's an 2:07 exercise that's effective but only takes 2:09 two minutes which means that if you 2:11 really hate the message that you came up 2:13 with the first time you can do it over 2:15 again and basically waste no time 2:18 have you even taught this exercise to 2:19 the public relations professionals here 2:21 at the University of Michigan to help 2:22 them prepare faculty members for 2:24 interviews right to find that core 2:26 message that they need for an interview 2:27 context yeah absolutely so we're going 2:30 to go ahead and demonstrate this for you 2:32 and in true improv fashion Brian here he 2:35 has no idea what I'm going to tell him 2:36 to improv on he has no idea what I'm 2:38 going to do I swear I this is all made 2:40 up I know she's going to ask me about my 2:42 research but I don't know what and so 2:44 I'm going to make it up just like you 2:45 will yep so and just to prove that you 2:47 can do the low budget version i have my 2:49 iphone here i'm going to give them 60 2:51 seconds here on the clock brian your 2:54 topic is you're going to be talking 2:55 about communicating about cancer 2:58 statistics using visuals ok ok you ready 3:02 ready 60 seconds on the clock go so one 3:07 of the things that people think is that 3:08 the way to convince people that cancer 3:10 is important is by throwing numbers at 3:12 people right counting the millions of 3:15 people who are affected by cancer 3:16 counting all the different things that 3:19 might happen to you if you get cancer 3:20 the statistics about how valuable cancer 3:22 screening is etc and those data are all 3:25 really important from a population 3:27 standpoint right those are the numbers 3:29 that we use to justify why it is we 3:31 spend so much money and so much time 3:33 thinking about cancer trying to prevent 3:35 cancer treating cancer but the problem 3:37 here is what do I know about those 3:40 numbers those numbers don't connect to 3:41 me so what I we need to do is to help 3:43 people understand how do those numbers 3:45 relate to things that they can 3:46 understand with so how many people out 3:49 of a hundred might get cancer how many 3:51 people will need will actually survive 3:54 if they have a particular therapy how 3:56 many people so we'd use visuals to show 3:59 that population and enable people to see 4:01 the ones who will succeed versus the 4:03 ones who want to alright so that was at 4:06 59 seconds all right you ready for 30 30 4:10 in three two one go so cancer is a 4:16 really important thing and we have lots 4:17 of data that helps support why we care 4:19 about cancer none of our people who are 4:21 affected the risks etc but that doesn't 4:23 necessarily make it easy for people to 4:25 understand why they should care and 4:26 numbers are really important for helping 4:28 explain why we should get screened for 4:30 cancer or 4:31 why why we need to have potentially 4:33 chemotherapy if we get treated for 4:34 cancer or maybe why we don't need to 4:36 have chemotherapy if we do get cancer so 4:38 the cool the key idea is to create 4:40 visuals that help people see that 4:42 relationship excellent he was just at 30 4:45 seconds all right are you ready for 15 4:49 ready go there's lots of numbers about 4:53 cancer and the numbers of people who are 4:54 affected by cancer but we need people 4:56 individual patients to understand why 4:59 those numbers are relevant to them 5:00 numbers can help people understand why 5:03 it will matter to them and make good 5:04 decisions one see he did it in actually 5:07 in 13 seconds that time you want to try 5:09 pro gotta do it eight seconds on the 5:12 clock ready go numbers explain what 5:15 cancer is important but numbers don't 5:16 make sense unless people can already too 5:18 late it to their own lives so that's why 5:20 we use visuals absolutely all right so 5:23 take a second now uh we mean it when we 5:26 say that Brian did that cold she did not 5:28 know what I was going to ask him so how 5:29 did that feel what I realize now looking 5:33 back is that first round I got stuck in 5:35 that first 30 seconds when you said 30 5:37 seconds I was like oh man I'm still in 5:39 the introduction and so I realized that 5:41 I'd spent lots of time talking about 5:43 general issues without getting to the 5:44 point that I really wanted to and so I 5:47 sort of quickly got there as much as I 5:49 could in the 60 second version and then 5:50 I've tried to start earlier when i went 5:52 to the 30 second version to get to the 5:54 point of what i really wanted to talk 5:55 about which is why people need to 5:57 understand numbers to make good 5:58 decisions yeah so and i think that part 6:00 of what was interesting to me is that 6:02 you took it in a completely different 6:03 direction than I expected you to I 6:05 expected you to start talking about how 6:07 you represent numbers in a graphical way 6:09 so that people have an intuitive 6:11 understanding of it but instead what you 6:13 did is you talked about why having a 6:15 deep understanding of number is is 6:16 important to the person which is equally 6:18 important it's just a totally different 6:20 direction and I could go back and do 6:22 this exercise again if I really wanted 6:24 to have a story about the visuals and 6:26 what's important about the visuals and 6:27 why our research visuals but what struck 6:29 me in that moment as to the most 6:30 important thing was why do we care about 6:33 the numbers at all why is it useful and 6:35 so that's why I gravitated towards it 6:36 absolutely and so I think that this 6:38 illustrates a couple of points right is 6:41 one it gives Brian some information that 6:44 he might be able to use when 6:45 he starts thinking about how he might 6:46 want to structure a presentation around 6:49 this and since it he had it were headed 6:52 in a different direction and I was sort 6:54 of anticipating it helped him really 6:56 focus in on what the core of what he 6:57 wants to say actually is yeah so this is 7:01 the point right this exercise it doesn't 7:03 take very long it's really effective at 7:06 helping you refine your ideas and find 7:08 that core message and if it doesn't work 7:10 the first time you can go back and do it 7:11 again you know I know this is looks like 7:14 it might be a little awkward right I 7:16 will own every time I do this there's a 7:17 little piece of me that's a little 7:18 awkward but the thing is I do it and I 7:22 do it every time because it really works 7:24 yeah so what we're going to do now is 7:27 we're going to challenge you pull out 7:29 your iphone if you're alone if you're 7:31 not alone go find a friend a partner 7:33 someone who you feel safe practicing 7:35 with and just try it you don't have to 7:38 record yourself you don't have to have 7:40 any record of this existing whatsoever 7:41 but stand up try it and I promise you 7:45 you'll see the power of half life it 7:47 really does work and I use it just as 7:50 much as the lease does to try and 7:51 prepare for lectures to prepare for 7:53 interviews things like that you got to 7:55 learn by doing so just do it