If it sounds too simple it's because it is... great

“Have you tried the braised beef with rock salt? It’s amazing,” my wife asks me as soon as she comes back from the lunch buffet. 

“Rock salt? Is that meant to make it good? Because salt won’t really change the taste of the meat.”

“I don’t know, that’s what the cook called the dish…”

“Ok, I’ll just ask him myself later.”

After a while I walk up to the cook, who’s checking the dishes in the buffet, and say, 

“Listen, can you tell me what’s really the deal with this beef? I tried it, and it’s incredible, but it can’t just be rock salt.”

He looks a little taken aback, but then he tells me, 

“Well, we grill it with rock salt first, then we braise it with a mixture of red wine and tomatoes we slow-cook in olive oil for a couple of hours. We also season it with scrapings from the grill and add some herbs.”

“Alright, so it’s a lot more than just rock salt.”

“Yeah, sure, but I need to call the dish something and ‘braised beef with rock salt’ is easy enough for people to get it.”

I’ve just proved my point, but I can't help feeling I'm the one who's been taken to school…

It’s never just one thing 

When you build a talk or speech, it takes more than just one thing to make it work: 

• It’s not just a story 

• It’s not just the visuals 

• It’s not just a logical argument 

• It’s not just a convincing delivery 

As great as they might be, no one of those things will get the job done on their own - you need more than “rock salt.” 

Anyone telling you otherwise is probably just trying to sell you something 🤭

It’s always about one thing 

What that cook realised is that people will tune out if you give them a list of ingredients. It will be harder to understand and it might even put them off. 

So he chooses what he thinks is the most important element of his dish, and makes it sound like it’s the only thing that matters. If it gets you to eat it, he’s made the right choice. 

When it comes to a talk, all the other “ingredients” are necessary, but your audience just needs to walk away with one thing: 

• A new way of looking at their problems 

• The action that starts making things better

• The insight that changes how they feel about something 

That will vary from talk to talk: sometimes you want people to do something, sometimes you “just” want them to change the way they see the world (or their world). 

But it has to be one thing. Give them two ways to look at their problems, three actions they need to take, or multiple insights and you’ll lose them. Nothing will happen and everything will be forgotten. 

So when you’re developing a talk, a speech or even a story, ask yourself: 

“What is the one thing I need my audience to think, feel or do?” 

Once you’re clear on that, make sure everything you say drives towards it and supports that one thing. 

That’s how you get people to eat your cooking. 

That’s also how you get them to take action, or change their worldview. 

It’s never just one thing–but it’s always about one thing 🤘

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Getting clarity through your story to stand out from all the other coaches, speakers and entrepreneurs out there 

2. If you dream of speaking on the Red Dot, take this Scorecard and instantly discover how likely your idea is to be accepted by a TED-style organizing committee

3. If you (or your team) got any storytelling challenges, I’m sure there’s something we can do together ;-)

Thanks for reading! Reply any time.