When I was young, I was always drawn to people that sounded intelligent.
People like Alan Watts, Jordan Peterson, Daniel Schmachtenberger or other individuals who could explain deep ideas in an exciting yet palatable way.
Most of the time I didn't understand what they were saying, either because I was too young and dumb, or they were just overcomplicating what they were saying, but they sounded smart and articulate, so I gave them my respect.
Now, the thing is, I never thought that I could do the same.
I never thought that I could be articulate.
I thought that those people were just inherently more intelligent than I was.
I honestly didn't think that my brain could do that.
I was a smart kid in school, but being good at taking tests is a lot different from being good at stringing together coherent thoughts and articulating them to someone else.
I felt like I had to memorize entire books worth of information so that I could recite it on the spot, because I was trained to learn that way.
But now, over a decade later, and without really trying to become articulate, people ask me how I write and speak so well.
Now, I'm my own worst critic.
I don't think I'm the best writer or speaker at all.
But over the past six years of me doing this, millions of people have chosen to hit the follow or subscribe button on my social accounts, newsletter and YouTube channel.
I'm not an entertainer.
I'm not that funny.
I'm actually quite boring, which I like.
I wouldn't even say that my content is eloquent or revolutionary.
I can however, attribute most of that success to being able to articulate valuable ideas in a way that people are drawn to, and that's not very difficult to do.
So maybe you're a new creator who wants to stand out.
Maybe you're going on a podcast and don't want to stumble over your words because you don't have a script when you're on a podcast.
Maybe you want to command respect in a company meeting or a sales call, or maybe you just want to be a more interesting person.
Now I have three methods that I want to share with you that will help you articulate yourself more intelligently.
And I've ordered them from beginner to advanced so that you can practice and you can get started right now.
These are the methods that I use when it's time to speak, or when it's time to write, or when it's time to write a CV for a job application, if that's something that you're going to do, or when you're just trying to explain yourself in an argument and get your point across.
But there's something more important to that that has to come before, because you need something to articulate.
So first, we need to build our inner album of greatest hits.
If you want to articulate yourself intelligently, you need a pool of 8 to 10 of your biggest ideas.
That can be connected to almost any topic.
Then, when it's time to write or speak in any situation, you have a starting point that you've already thought through hundreds of times before.
I've been getting invited onto more podcasts, but these aren't the types of podcasts that I was invited onto as a beginner.
When you're a beginner, you kind of just get on the podcast with a friend.
He asks you some questions.
He's trying to build the podcast and needs someone to come on to the episode.
And it's just a good way of, I guess, like making friends or making connections.
But now you're getting into, I guess, the big leagues quote unquote, where people spend thousands to tens of thousands of dollars on the production quality of their actual podcast.
That's nerve wracking.
And there's a lot on the line.
And since hundreds of thousands of people may be tuning in to listen to that podcast, I feel like I need to provide a ton of value.
I better be able to articulate myself.
Now, I'm not the best podcast guest yet, not by a long shot.
If you watch any of the podcasts that I'm on, it's definitely not as articulate as this YouTube video because Devin's in control of the editing here.
I'm in control of the key points.
I get to choose what I'm talking about.
It's kind of premeditated.
But when you're on a podcast, sometimes they give you the outline, but usually you're just riffing.
When I listen back to the podcast that I do go on After I listen to them, I'm just like kicking myself because I knew that I could have responded to certain questions better.
And that leads to the exact problem.
I've written two books.
I've written hundreds of newsletters.
I've created hundreds of YouTube videos.
I've written thousands of social posts.
It's obvious to me which ideas are the most valuable.
It's obvious which ideas have led to the most DMs of people telling me that that idea changed their life.
It's obvious that I really only have 8 to 10 big ideas that illustrate the value that my brand provides.
I've spent countless hours refining those ideas.
I wake up in the morning and write for two hours, and it usually has something to do with those 8 to 10 big ideas.
Those are the ideas people want to hear.
Those are the ideas that introduce new listeners to who I am.
But that's my biggest mental hurdle.
I don't want to sound like I'm repeating myself.
So when I get on a podcast or when I'm asked to speak in front of a crowd, I avoid saying the things that I've already said.
Well,
My mind kind of goes blank and I feel like I have to force something out just to avoid having an awkwardly long pause.
It's like I want to somehow have this mind-blowing idea on the spot.
When I know that's not how ideas work, ideas require time to dissect and explore.
They have to be a part of you.
Jordan Peterson, regardless of your opinion, is known for his articulation.
It's captivating when you listen to him.
Why?
If you look at his body of work, it's obvious.
He has a body of work.
If you wish to articulate yourself and you do not have a body of work that is continuing to be refined and continues to grow, then you have a lot of work to do before you can actually be naturally articulate.
Now a question to further hammer this home.
Why do you listen to your favorite musician?
Because they have a specific sound or style that you enjoy.
Most of their music sounds the same with slight variations here and there.
You can listen to a few seconds of their song and know exactly which artist plays it.
If an EDM artist immediately decided to switch to country music, their first track would be horrible, as most first iterations are, and most of their audience would not like it.
The same applies to being a creator, a speaker, a writer or just a person who wants to be able to articulate themselves.
You need to write or speak thousands of times until your best ideas are obvious.
By nature.
You must repeat yourself, because the most important ideas deserve to be repeated, And how else are you going to refine them?
Now you can think of these big ideas as tweets, right?
These are the big ideas that you use when it's time to speak.
So in my own writing, I have a few topics or content pillars that I go to all the time.
These are the things that I write about.
It's like the one person business model, lifestyle design, how to get what you want in life, how to master your mind.
And now I'm talking more about AI.
For each of those content pillars I have just a few, a handful of tweets that I've written that hit hard and have been validated by the market.
They get a lot of engagement and they're just good ideas.
Now, when I think about it and when I actually study how a podcast guest responds to the host, the best speakers don't answer the question that the podcast host asks directly.
They don't say, Well, good question.
Let me think about this for a bit.
Oh, yeah.
And then they go on.
That's not what they do.
Instead, they just speak their best idea the best idea that relates to that question with confidence, and then they expand on it with a few supporting points.
Now, not only does this keep the listener engaged, leading to the podcast doing better and then more podcasts wanting you to have on increasing your success, but it's also a clippable moment.
So if that idea has already gone viral or has been validated, when it's clipped and posted on social media, it's going to again, and that's only going to compound your success more.
If you've watched any podcast with Alex Ramosi, you know that he's very good at this.
So if a podcast host were to ask him, what's the greatest skill that someone can learn right now?
Or Mosey could say, oh, learn sales or learn offer creation.
But he understands that there are levels to this game.
So he would probably respond with his literal second most viral tweet, which is.
The single greatest skill you can develop is the ability to stay in a great mood in the absence of things to be in a great mood about.
That's very eloquent.
That's a great quote that has nothing to do with actual like skill acquisition.
That's on people's minds.
So that's a pattern interrupt as well.
So by Hormozy just making the decision to say that idea, he sets himself and the podcast host up for a very interesting conversation on a topic that he's probably very fresh on and can talk about nonstop.
And not to mention that tweet has 105,000 likes.
So when it's clipped, that simple decision from Hormozy to actually say that idea is going to pay back tenfold because it's going to go viral again.
So all of that makes sense.
But how do you actually start practicing this?
Once you have a few ideas that you're ready to articulate, how do you actually articulate them?
Right.
Because that's also a part of the process of getting these ideas right.
So I'm not just giving you frameworks for how to articulate yourself.
I'm giving you frameworks for tweets or social posts or something that could potentially go viral.
So that's what we need to talk about is the three methods to articulate yourself intelligently.
If you don't know what to learn, start writing.
Not because writing is some shortcut you can't stop looking for, but because writing teaches you how to think, how to learn and how to inspire people to care about what you do.
Now, I call myself a writer, but I wouldn't actually consider myself one.
I don't care about grammar, I don't care about how clever I sound most of the time, and when I start paying too much attention to being more clever, my articulation tends to suffer a lot.
I also don't care if my sentences run on or if I don't say something the best way it could be said.
This actually helps me stand out against AI.
My writing isn't that polished.
Yet, as I said before, millions of people have chosen to hit the follow or subscribe button because they found some form of value in that writing.
Now, throughout my journey as a writer, I've realized that writing is so much more than writing.
It's not only just putting letters on a page.
If you want to become articulate, you should probably start writing.
That is, you should start writing intentionally because you already write every single day.
You text your family and friends, you email your prospects, clients, and coworkers.
And depending on your work, you may write project outlines, feedback, proposals, and more.
If you really think about it, the foundation of media, which is how you or your employer gets your work in front of other people and persuades them to care about your work so you can survive and get paid, is writing.
Now, media has evolved.
If you want to succeed in any venture, you must go where the attention is.
Right now, most of the attention is on social media YouTube, podcasts and advertisements like Facebook ads all of which require you to articulate persuasively in the form of video scripts posts, sales copywriting, post captions and anywhere else that someone is reading a written post or spoken script, which is nearly everything.
That's personally why I write one to two hours every morning.
It's because that's the foundation of literally my survival and everything I do.
If I don't write on social media or my newsletter or YouTube script or emails to prospects, how am I going to ever get a customer for my own work?
That's why I created Two Hour Writer.
That's my writing system.
But by writing, that's how you practice articulating your ideas from the start.
It's like a first draft, and then you refine it, and then you practice speaking it and then you get really good at it.
And, as a bonus, by posting your ideas in public, you get direct feedback in the form of engagement, so that you know which ideas are the most impactful.
And building an audience from that also doesn't hurt.
So with that said, how do you actually start practicing articulation in the form of writing?
That's what we're going to do is we're going to start with writing.
So here are three frameworks.
The first is beginner level and I'm calling it the micro story because the human mind is a story engine.
Humans can't help but pay attention to a story, especially if it's short and impactful.
Once you learn how to do it well, you can effectively short circuit someone's brain into being interested in the topic you were talking about.
The foundation of a story is transformation.
This does not have to be a transformation about a specific person.
A transformation can be as simple as introducing a problem and giving a solution.
And that's exactly what this is.
So if you want to make that a bit more impactful being able to just write a tiny, tiny story that isn't necessarily about a character or anything, it's just a transformation then you structure it like this
You start with a problem.
So you state a relatable problem or pain point that you've observed or experienced before.
Then you amplify the problem.
So you illustrate how that problem leads to a negative outcome if it is not solved.
And then you give a solution.
So you state the solution to the problem.
And in something like a short social media post.
This can be one sentence or a short bullet point list in a long newsletter or script.
This can be all of the key points with their explanations.
The problem and amplification would account for the hook.
So this section of the video would be the solution section of the micro story framework, because I'm just going through the key points of how to actually solve the problem of not being able to articulate yourself.
Now, if you've studied copywriting at all, you've seen this framework before it's called the pas framework and after six years of doing this, that's still my go-to when if i'm just like lost and don't know uh, what to talk about, how to articulate it whatever, i just go to this framework pas, start with the problem.
Okay, what's a problem?
You don't know how to articulate yourself.
Okay, how do you amplify that?
What does that lead to?
Down the road?
You won't get the girl.
You won't land the job.
You won't be able to start your own business.
You're going to live in your mom's basement for the rest of your life.
Okay, what's the solution?
Use the PAS framework.
That's a tweet.
It would actually probably do pretty good.
You could expand that into a newsletter.
You can turn that into a YouTube video.
Or you can say it on a podcast.
When someone says, what's the greatest skill to learn?
You say articulation.
Why?
Because most people don't know how to articulate themselves.
Go into the Amplify Salute.
Do you see what I'm getting at?
Now, of course, with all of this, this is assuming that you already have an idea to write about.
If you have an idea, then just think of the problem.
What's the problem?
Okay, amplify it.
Okay, what's next?
Give the solution.
Boom.
And if you don't have an idea, you need to hunt for them.
You need to read old books, go down rabbit holes on a topic, listen to a new podcast or just sit with your thoughts and follow them until you reach a compelling insight.
When you hunt for an idea, you aren't just letting the information go in one ear and out the other.
You are listening intently for an idea that you wish you wrote.
Then you jot it down so you don't lose it.
Then you articulate it in your own words using these frameworks so it takes a new shape.
Now, the intermediate framework is called the pyramid principle.
The pyramid principle is a communication framework that structures ideas in a hierarchical, logical way to make information more palatable and persuasive.
And it's pretty simple.
You start with the main idea, the key conclusion or recommendation.
You support it with key arguments, usually three to five key points.
You provide detailed evidence, so data examples or analysis.
And unlike most content today that waits to give you the answer until the end of the video or newsletter or whatever it is, this takes an answer first approach.
Now, this works perfectly with the example from before with Hormozy, where if his answer to the question what is the greatest skill you can learn is the ability to stay in a great mood in the absence of things to be in a great mood about, that can serve as the top of the pyramid.
You're not starting with a problem.
You're not starting with anything else.
You're starting with the idea, the conclusion, the answer.
Then he could support that argument or that idea with key arguments as to why he thinks that's the best skill to learn.
All you have to do is ask why three to five times and come up with a compelling answer.
And then after that he can give examples from his own life data about being in a great mood if he has the data or statistics on hand, or just anecdotes from people in his life or clients or customers.
I've also seen this framework be used in YouTube videos as well.
If you are scrolling the YouTube timeline, try to pay attention to this.
Try to notice these frameworks.
You'll see some titles that just state the problem.
You'll notice some titles that just state like a really big idea.
And once you understand these frameworks, you can just see them everywhere.
So for the pyramid principle, you start with a great idea, you make an argument about it and then you support it with data.
Now, if you struggle to continue writing or speaking or you just get stuck or feel like you have writer's block or speaker's block, This next framework is really going to help.
But this is the advanced framework, which is just cross domain synthesis.
And this one is my favorite because I have multiple interests.
It's hard for me to stick to one topic or niche.
I want to weave things in, right?
I'm reading things throughout the week.
I'm watching videos throughout the week.
I'm studying new things throughout the week.
I want to incorporate those in my life. somehow beyond just like consuming information.
I love studying psychology philosophy health business design, tech and really anything that gives me the tools to live a better life.
So this framework is how I tend to structure most of my newsletters not all of them, but most and outside of the ones where I'm just focused on a singular tactical topic, like this one where I'm just teaching something to do
So, here's the framework.
First is problem and amplify.
Your introduction should state a relatable problem and illustrate what happens if that problem is not solved.
Second is cross-domain synthesis, so you note patterns or concepts from your other interests that help support your argument.
If I'm talking about deep work, I can use the concept of entropy from physics to illustrate how distractions work.
This teaches my audience something new and I can sleep well, knowing that all other deep work content out there does not do this.
And third, you have a unique process or solution.
So you have a list of ideas or steps that best solve the problem you introduced at the beginning solidifying the transformation.
These should come from your own contemplation rather than someone else's prescription.
What I mean there is you should actually think through okay, what is the best way to solve the problem and reach the solution, rather than okay.
I watched this YouTube video.
He had a good solution.
He had a good how-to or step-by-step advice.
I'm going to take that and put it in mine.
So in practice, let's say, you're writing a newsletter with this, or an article or a Twitter thread or an Instagram carousel or a YouTube video script or something longer form, so that you can articulate for people 10 to 20 minutes.
So you'd have the title of your piece, the introduction with the problem, a section that teaches a concept from another interest or discipline, then a unique way to solve the problem in the form of multiple sections describing each key point.
Now, the problem here is that this leads to something very long like a newsletter book chapter YouTube, video or even a solo podcast.
And if you're just starting out, you'll be staring at a blank screen because you don't know how to fill in each section.
Now, luckily, writing is like Legos with ideas and ideas come in predictable forms.
If you understand those forms, you can guide your mind to brainstorming what to write next.
And here are a few easy ones.
You can use a pain point.
So if I don't know how to start a section, I start with a relevant pain point and ideas start to flow from there.
There's an example.
So once I've started a section, you can throw an example in anywhere.
This grounds what you're saying.
You can use a personal story.
So think to a time in your life that relates to what you're writing about.
This can go anywhere.
You can use a statistic.
So research a truthful statistic that adds more authority to your point.
You can use a metaphor.
So explain a complex idea as if you're talking to a child.
Alan Watts is incredible at this.
You can use a quote. where you include a quote that justifies what you're saying.
Quotes are easy because they're almost always great ideas.
You can use a reframe, so give people a different perspective on the point you just discussed.
Or you can just ask what, how, or why.
Because when all else fails, writing and speaking are just thinking, and thinking is questioning.
So if you didn't screenshot those, you probably should because that's like...
Those are the Legos.
Writing is Legos with ideas, and those are the Legos that you piece together to articulate, sentence after sentence or paragraph after paragraph.
And if I don't know what to write or what to say next, I tend to cycle through those in my head or latch on to the closest one and then give that.
And once you get the hang of this, as with any skill, it becomes second nature and your thinking process starts to evolve.
I hope that was helpful enough to get you started.
I would highly recommend joining the paid tier of my sub stack.
If you scroll through and look at the paid posts, there are many drills and techniques and courses on writing and marketing and business and everything that we talked about today.
So check those out, like and subscribe before you leave, because they're just a button click and I'll see you in the next video.
Bye.
