Say It Out Loud

An exercise I share with my team for writing copy that doesn’t sound like it came from a robot or some generic virtual assistant is to read what they’ve written out loud.

How does it sound? What’s your emotional reaction? Does it make you cringe? Does it make you smile?

The written word and spoken word are not perfectly in alignment. I don't write the way I speak stylistically (different formats lend themselves different approaches) but generally, when I read my writing out loud it at least sounds somewhat human.

Reading our writing out loud allows us to listen from a different perspective. The words come out of our brains and into the real world. It helps us tweak, bend and shape the writing into something that feels aligned with what we’re trying to say.

The same is true for sharing ideas. Often we have the urge to keep our best ideas to ourselves. We’ll save them for a rainy day and make sure no one steals them.

We'll keep them to ourselves because they're not fully developed and we're a bit embarrassed by them or can't articulate them clearly (this is me).

We'll tweak and change and perfect them until they're perfect–then, with perfect timing, we’ll unleash them on the world and be showered with praise.

Except this rarely happens. Ideas need to be exercised. They need to be challenged. They need to work out and build some muscle. Sharing them in their imperfect, unfinished state helps build that muscle.

Talk to your friends about them, talk to strangers about them, talk to your family about them. The simple task of sharing your ideas with other people will help you develop them in the same way that teaching others helps you understand the things you already know on a deeper level.

Not sharing your ideas isn’t keeping them safe, it’s just making them weaker, or even worse, making them obscure.

In the way I hope others will benefit from my ideas, I’d bet that there’s someone out there who would benefit from yours. No need for them to be perfect, they just have to exist.