Full Transcript: MOTM #560: Articulating the Abstract: Making Your Work Understandable

[Transcript starts at 1:58]

  Hello, friends, Maestro here, bringing you another episode of my favorite podcast. I said it, I mean it. And you know what? I don't even listen. I'm not going to lie. I don't even listen to these episodes yet because I said what I said, it's done. Uh, I used to, I used to listen to them and I would edit it myself, but I don't edit them anymore.

Bless you, Courtney, you're the best. Uh, so I don't listen to them again, but it is still. My favorite podcast, right? I have great pride in my work. So we are doing today. We, I guess it's me, but we'll count Courtney and Lex as well. When I say we. Today's episode we're gonna dive into a question that was submitted by one of my most favorite people.

I'll keep her anonymous. She knows who she is because she asked the question. but I did one of those little AMA question box things, and for the record, if I put one of those up, AMA means ask me anything, if I put one of those up on my stories, and your question is too long for the question box, just DM it to me.

This same person made a really good point that perhaps people get a little bit turned off from writing the question, because they're like, I can't write it short enough, and so I don't want to ask it at all, so just DM me. Her question is a little longer, and she DMed it to me. Oh, she's the best. Uh, and I wanted to make this the full episode.

Uh, sometimes I do it, you know, the little, last time I did it, like, you know, questions at the end. Um, and actually I did one question as the main one the end, but this one I'm going to make as the main, the whole entire time today. Okay, so the question. She said, I've realized the really transformative stuff I do with clients one to one is hard to explain because it's both unique to the individual client and also just kind of hard to put into words.

I know this is one place I could be doing a better job of communicating, but I'm not entirely sure how. I thought of doing some case study conversations to talk about it, or maybe using my husband to model some of what I do. But I'd love any other ideas for communicating more complicated ideas that don't fit into 60 second snapshots.

And don't fit a specific formula. I think this is something that probably a good number of you can relate to. And, you know, if I was going to summarize that, it's that she can't explain succinctly what she does. So I actually, now that I'm saying this, I did, uh, an episode that was from another question, um, which was, how do I have impact with less words?

With fewer words. So Courtney, if you could link that episode, it's just a few episodes back. I'm not sure of the number, uh, but, uh, that is another good episode to reference. Uh, but regarding this one, uh, her main question is how do I succinctly say what I do so that I can attract more people? And this is something I've actually been working on, uh, with, with another client quite a bit.

And, uh, the person who asked this question, I know you're listening to this right now, uh, I think you already know the answer. I think that as soon as you asked it, you were like, I know what the answer is and just say it back to me. Uh, but this is a phenomenal question because I do think it's something that's shared by quite a few people.

So if you are in this boat and you're like, how do I succinctly say what I do? How do I say it in a way that will attract more people? Real talk, this is simply a matter of reps. You need to do the thing more and you need to talk about the thing more. So she actually knew this, and which is why at the end of the question, she was like, what are some ideas for ways to talk about?

So we're kind of go into that, but I want to highlight that, that this is a matter. Of reps, number one, you need more reps working with people. Number two, you need more reps talking about the thing. And this is not at all, you know, a chicken or the egg thing. Every time I say that, I think of my brother because he hates that phrase.

And he's like, clearly one came first. Uh, but this is not, you know, uh, uh, which came first kind of thing, or which comes first kind of thing. And like that you can go back and forth. No, the reps working with people comes first and then the copy. Okay, so you're going to work with people, you're going to learn your no, you're going to, you know, mess up.

You're going to be like, that is not who I want to be working with. And you're going to work with people and be like, that is what I want to be doing. That is how I want to be showing up. And you'll be able to refine your messaging from that. Okay. The second part of that is the actual content and the copy.

That comes from saying it more. Uh, becoming, being succinct in being able to say that. I said, one, you get, you work with more people, but two, you actually have to talk about this thing more. So I was thinking about this the other day and just when people are like, I have posters block, I have posters block, or I have writers block.

And to me, I, I, it's not that I don't understand it. I think that it's just, the words are wrong. Right? Or I don't know if the words are wrong, but the words, let's say this way. The words tell you exactly what to do, right? If you have writer's block or poster's block, think about having a blockage in the toilet.

Okay. It's unpleasant, but let's think about that. You don't like try to put more stuff into the toilet to like get the blockage out. You have to get out the thing that's stopping it, right? So you probably call someone, they come in with a snake and they push it through. They're trying to get the thing that's actually blocking it.

To that end, you have to create. And it's not about creating something new and being like, Oh, I got to think of something new. It's whatever is in your head, whatever you want to say, you need to say, just get it out. Go write it on the whiteboard, go make a post, go make a podcast. You don't necessarily have to publish these things.

Although I will say that putting it, that content out there frees up space. And I've spoken about this in past episodes, right? Where you create that void and then it can fill in. With other things, right? It can fill in with new ideas. It gives your audience, if you do make this public, it gives your audience the opportunity to interact with these things.

And one of the things that you'll find, and it's happened to me, is you'll put something out and you'll be like, that isn't necessarily the best. It was the best that I could do, but I don't think that it's overall my best. And it'll do really well. And you're like, well, shit. And look at that, it's happened to me time and time again.

It's one of the things I talk about in the intensive, right? So if you do have posters block or writer's block, copy block, whatever you want to call it, the answer is inherent in the phrase, it's a blockage. So you have to get that thing out and you don't get that thing out by like creating a bunch of new stuff that goes on top of it, right?

If you're thinking about the toilet, then you understand immediately what I'm saying. You're like, nope, do not put more. Into the toilet, right? You have to get the blockage out. So you have to just create, you have to get those reps. Okay, so I'm going to circle back, to make sure that, that, uh, I have this written out, so I want to circle back to what I was saying earlier, and that it's a matter of reps, right?

We have two fold matter of reps. One is a matter of clients, more reps with actual clients, and then the second one is more reps with actually just talking about it. So remember, the clients come first, the copy comes second. So people tend to think, well, I have to have the best copy to attract people. You don't.

You have to have the most, you know, touch points. That's realistically what you need, because people will still see what they want. I think back to when I used to make videos, movement videos, and I would film them in my CrossFit box. And realistically the stuff, I remember specifically doing a post that was about walking and how when you walk while you're texting, especially texting with both hands, you lose trunk rotation because your arms are fixed.

You lose arm swing and then you lose trunk rotation. And I remember filming this and I'm like, I'm, I'm in the CrossFit box, but this is just walking. And because I was in the CrossFit box, so many people would write and just be like, I know you like primarily treat CrossFitters, but like, what do you think about X?

Or you know, I have this thing. And I'm like, what? People will still see what they want. So this is why you get those reps is get it out. And then you start to see what are people saying, what are people seeing, and do I need to refine that messaging? Do I need to change that messaging so that they start seeing what I, you know, intend them, what I want them to see?

Copy is, in itself, inherently retrospective. It says what we already know to be, to be true. All right, so that's why we write about what we know, write about what is present, like get that blockage out, see where it lands, see how it lands, see who it lands with, and then say, okay, I need to refine this because this is who I'm attracting, and that's the wrong person, or this is who I'm attracting, and it's the right person, or this is who I'm attracting, and they just told me something, and now I have a better way to say this that perhaps will resonate with more people like them.

So. Kind of moving forward in terms, in terms of like the tactical things were like, how do I. You know, express this and the answer is to do it all right. She, she had mentioned doing case studies. Absolutely. Do case studies. Case studies are actually great because it allows people to see themselves in that person that you're depicting.

Right. So it's nice when we have a specific problem and people are like, my knee hurts. And then if you're like, I solved knee pain, well, then that's great. But it's also super beneficial when you just take someone. Take the audience through someone's transformation and then people can put themselves in that person's shoes and see themselves in that person.

And maybe that person just looks like them or they're just, you know, all the other things besides the specific problem that that person is talking about. Or maybe in addition to the specific problem that person is talking about that you're solving, there's other, all those other things, you know, that person they've met, that those things resonate with that person.

So absolutely case studies are phenomenal. You can hop on your stories and do it. You can put it, you know, in any of your. Other. A kind of content that you want, uh, one of the things that can be super helpful is doing these things immediately. So if you have a really great coaching session, hopping on and doing stories and talking about it in the moment or hopping on your computer and doing a podcast episode or typing, whatever is your preferred mechanism means for, um, creating, doing that in the moment.

So you have all those ideas, super fresh, and you can just. You know, relay that, that information, uh, do IG lives, do IDTVs, do podcast episodes, write long emails about it. All right. Brevity takes practice. It takes time. It takes energy. It takes reps. It takes skill. So go ahead and start off with the longer stuff.

Yes. I always say that attention is earned. Absolutely. You're going to get no attention if you have no content, right? So at least start off with the longer stuff, sort of start off with whatever you can get out. And then with practice, rep, time, you hone that skill, you refine that skill, and you can compare that down and, and be like, actually, this is the most important part of, of this.

And I, I'm 100 percent recounting my own, uh, you know, journey through all of this where. You find out, you learn what you actually do. You learn what is the right thing to say. You don't, you know, you don't like find it. It's not like, Oh, how do I know what the right thing to say is? You don't, you learn it.

As you go. And so if I think back to even what I do now and how I coach now, and, and doing the intensive, it very much just started off with like, I'm going to teach you about Instagram and this is the deliverables. And we got, got people through, you know, you know, hook, let hook, wow, that was a lot there.

I've had close to, to 300, let me actually back that up a second. We leave those little parts in. I don't have Courtney take them out because this is real. This is me speaking. So for any of you that are thinking about starting, I said a little Canadian there, right, about any of you that are thinking about starting a podcast, and especially if you're editing it yourself, leave that shit in.

This is how you speak. You're not like, you know, some perfect, you know, orator. Like it's fine. Leave it in. I talked to people and they're like, Oh, it takes a lot to edit it. I'm like, what exactly are you editing? When I say editing, it's just like adding the bumpers onto the beginning and the end. Maybe adding links into things.

There's no like actual sound editing. If you have two people on, then like, yeah, make sure the tracks line up. But if it's just you, if you stutter a little bit, leave it in there. If you say, um, leave it in there. Even with pauses, you think that they're a lot longer than they actually are. Right? So it's okay.

Leave that stuff in there. So, uh, I got a little off track there. I don't even remember where I was. Uh, but suffice to say, brevity takes practice, takes time, takes energy, takes reps, it takes, it's a skill that you look to refine, right? So start with the longer stuff. Yes, attention is earned, but. If you create nothing, you're going to get zero attention.

If you create long stuff, you'll get some attention and then you can look to refine that. Right. So I think I was talking about how my own story and learning, uh, you know, creating the Instagram intensive and. I created the thing, got the attention, got the reps, got people through it, and then I'm starting to learn like, okay, this is actually what I do.

And, you know, I still continue to learn. I have like three, like I was saying, 300 people or so, 300 plus people have gone through it so far. By the way, doors are open right now. When this episode drops, it'll drop on September 2nd. Doors close tomorrow, but they are officially open right now. So, uh, But having, having taken people through it, I'm still learning what exactly people consider the transformation to be and how it works for them.

And, you know, I just did an IG live. I don't know how long ago, a week, two weeks, it wasn't a week. It wasn't maybe two, three weeks ago. And Kelly and Surabhi both said things that I screenshotted because I was like, I love how you're saying this. And, you know, part of what they were talking about in terms of.

The value they found in, in the intensive was the confidence that I gave them because I believed in them, you know, I lend them my confidence by believing in them and giving them the confidence to show up as themselves and learn more about themselves. That's something I couldn't say the first time.

That's something I didn't have the words for. That's something I probably wasn't doing and really aware of and wasn't as good at. This is round nine, right? I probably wasn't as good at it the first time, but those words come like this copy is coming. The, the, you know, the copy with more clarity is coming after the fact, after getting more reps.

So when we're starting out and we're, we're trying to get those reps, we're trying to get those people, write out whatever it is you think you do, share this in any way that works for you. Do not be. You know, feel confined by the parameters of Instagram. There's a bunch of different ways that we can share on Instagram as well.

So it doesn't have to be a real, it doesn't have to be, you know, it could be an IG live, that's way longer. It could be an IGTV, that's way longer, right? You have a lot more room there. It can be a longer caption. It can be a swipe post. It could be, uh, an email, a newsletter. It could be, uh, where someone, you know, has a video that they get to watch of your sessions.

It could be a podcast episode where you just speak. Specifically about what it is that you do. I think that that is part of the, and I hesitate to say this because you can be a great teacher and still not be so concise with your words, but I truly believe when there is mastery of, or something. And part of that mastery comes because of reps and time.

When there's mastery over something, you are able to explain it in fewer words. All right? So you can be a great teacher. You can be great at what you do and, and struggle for, struggle to have the words. But I do believe that when you are, you know, true mastery of something, that is when you will have the ability, you will be more likely to have the ability to explain something.

In a more succinct way, because you just have so many reps and yes, the paired with that is just like the inherent, uh, writing and speaking capabilities of, of that person. But. You see something so much, you start to learn what is, I don't want to say superfluous, but you start to learn, like, what are the bedrocks, what are the really important things here?

What do I keep saying over and over and over again? I say this a million times. If you've only had ten people, then you haven't had the opportunity to say it a million times, to do it a million times, to see it a million times. So we see, circle back to this idea of reps. Now, if we kind of dive a little deeper into, well, getting these reps, there's something to be said about solving problems that people actually know they have.

So, while there's a big transformation that this person, you know, clearly helps her people with and takes them through, I would contend that some people don't know that they have that problem. So yes, work to just talk about it in any way that you can, but also if you know that you solve, that you can solve a problem that people know they have, and you enjoy solving that, and that ties into that ultimate transformation, solve that, right?

We're looking at vehicles for things. So for me, instilling confidence has always been at the heart of what I do. I've just had different vehicles for it. So first, when I was a staff clinician PT, I was. I was instilling confidence in people to move and live their life, right? Then I went into the educational side of things and I was instilling confidence in providers to kind of think outside the box, to actually take the time to listen to their clients, to think about things in a new way.

And that was the vehicle in that case was, was rock tape and my own, my own movement, the maestro course. But the actual thing I wanted for them was that, that self confidence. Then I moved into the online business space and Instagram has largely been the platform for that. And I'll give them this vehicle, but Kelly nailed it and Surabhi nailed it.

And I'm so grateful for them because they see me and I'm so grateful for so many, for so many of you, because you tell me these things as well. And I'm like, thank you. Like you truly see me. I just have a vehicle and I'll solve a problem that people know that they have, but how I solve it is the magic, right?

How I get them to post consistently, how I get them to show up on Instagram is by instilling that confidence. And I won't market necessarily that confidence or put it at the forefront because a lot of people don't realize that that's the problem that they have. So you can put it on there, but I may not lead with it because they don't know, but they know that they have this Instagram problem, they want to post more, they want to try and use this for business, they don't really know how to use it.

And so I talk about that. And now if we kind of think about, well, how do you attract then the right kind of person? Remember, it's not singular, right? Once is never. So it's not that I have this one piece of copy and, you know, because I only talked about Instagram that I'm going to get people that are like, that aren't actually looking for confidence, that aren't actually wanting to do the thing.

These people are going to be in your ecosystem. And the goal is to be talking about things all the time and showing up in the way that you want people to be showing up. Living the message that you want people to hear. And when you do that, you inherently attract the right kind of person. Alright, Seth Godin says it, and I say it to you all the time.

We attract what we are, not what we want. So, this kind of circles back to what we said earlier of you do the thing first, you attract the people in any way that you can, put out the copy, whatever you have. And then you see, are the right people coming? All right. You do a little reflection on that, a little debrief.

Are the right people coming? The people who I want? No. Okay, then I need to change something. I need to change my messaging. And that's not just copy. That's also your behavior. How are you showing up? What are you condoning? What are you condemning? How are you living? Because that's what people are going to say, and that's what they're going to be attracted to.

Okay. So realistically, the answer to this of how do I explain what I do and what I do is kind of nebulous. I would contend that you need to do more. I. Do more, more M O A R. Everything is a rep. I've said it before. That's a phrase I'm saying a lot in this. Because, well, I have said it before. And this speaks to that concept of reps.

Because you start to see, okay, this is something I say a lot. This obviously means something to me. This is a problem that I'm solving. This is something that's a, you know, a central tenet in my approach. Right. Reps, reps, reps, reps, reps. So. I have said in the past, and I will say it, say again, the one gift that I'd want to give any creator or any person that's trying to start a business, or just really anyone in general, is the gift of time.

When you remove urgency, everything changes. When it's, when you're like, I don't have to, you know, I have to make this sale right now. That, that is, it's tough. This business plan, this business plan has to work. This launch has to go well. That urgency. It makes things really difficult. Now, I can't tell you how to remove that urgency.

That's up to you. Like, maybe you have to get a different job. Maybe you have to go and do something else to put food on the table. I don't know. This is a part of, a matter of, you know, taking radical responsibility for the decisions that we've made thus far, and acting accordingly. But if I could give anyone a gift, it would be the gift of time.

Because, as it relates to this and what we're talking about, That allows you to get more reps and it allows you to see things as reps. Because when people do a launch and it doesn't go well, I think too often they just view it as a failure. They don't view it as a rep. You can combine the two at least. My coach calls them failed reps.

Like it's still a rep. It's still a learning opportunity. And then you go into debrief and you say, why did that happen? Did I rush this? Was my messaging off? Was this hope marketing? What was going on with that? Do more. I can't tell you specifically and I mean, the person who asked this and you're listening now, you knew that this was going to be my answer, uh, which is why you kind of asked like, well, what can I be doing?

And I'm going to say, do everything, go ahead and do an IG live where you take someone through a session, go ahead and record a session and cut up pieces of that and use that for content, go ahead and just try to explain what you do and make that as a post, go ahead and explain what you do and make that as a single.

Podcast episode. Go ahead and explain what you do and make that as a thing that goes out to your newsletter. We have a blockage there and we need to get that thing out. We don't need more on, you know, piled on top of it. We need that thing to move first. So let's get that. thing out. Don't worry about making it perfect because it doesn't exist.

And remember, we can't refine things until after the fact. We have to get them out first. Okay. So to answer the question that was originally asked, which is, how do I say what I do when it's a little bit nebulous? How do I say it more succinctly? More reps. More reps working with people. And maybe they're the wrong people, that's okay.

You'll still get information of that. More reps just saying the thing, communicating the thing, in any way possible. I think that's it for today's episode. I'm looking at my whiteboard. I do believe that's it. If you have questions, comments, concerns, you want something to be an episode, you'd like me to answer a question, let me know.

You don't have to wait for those little ask me anything boxes. I do love hearing from you and it helps me out. Ciao. Go and shoot me a DM, Limb Movement Maestro, or text me 310 737 2345. One more time, uh, if you're listening to this the day that it drops, this will come out on, what, Thursday, September 2nd.

Uh, that means that doors are open for my Instagram intensive. They will close tomorrow, Friday the 3rd, at midnight. And we will start, we'll have our first session on September 14th, that is a Tuesday, at 4 p. m. PST. So, make some moves, if you have any questions, DM me. Uh, Courtney, if you could drop the link for the Registration for the intensive in the show notes, that would be amazing.

Uh, it's also going to be in the, go to the link in my bio on Instagram. No, everything is there. And it's also on my website because I'm trying to make it easy for you. All right. Officially wrapping it up. As always, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. You out there who asked this question, endlessly grateful for you.

You already know that. All right. Until next time, friends, Maestro, out.

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