How To Explain Concepts Elegantly (And Keep The Attention Of Your Audience)

We all seem to believe that there’s nothing left to explain.

There are millions of articles, books and stories out there. Yet, there’s always a way to cut through the clutter. No matter how much information exists, some people are still able to communicate in a way that gets and keep your attention.

Here’s how you go about it.
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How do you get better at explaining concepts better?

Saturation of information has already been achieved. However, the client is always looking for something new, different, easier, better etc.

And that's why no matter how much stuff is churned out, your voice can still be heard. It's also the reason why you should get better at:

1- Being able to write
2- Being better at explaining
3- Being less annoying

1) You think of a theory that seems to go against the grain. Then you remove the objection.

Renuka and I have had a long-running morning discussion.

My theory is that “practice” is pointless. Of course, it’s not meaningless, but you have to take a position to see if you can prove something or not. Now, like everyone else, I believed that practice was everything you needed to get skilled at something.

My niece, Marsha and I even composed a song.

“Practice, practice, practice, practice – we’ll turn that into a song.
Practice, practice, practice, practice – you’ll get better and better with daily practice.
Practice, practice, practice, practice – we’ll turn that into a song.”

So, I was espousing an idea, but I eventually grew tired of it and had to take a stance.

A theory that seems to appeal to you might be completely wrong, but let’s say you have a different take on things. Usually, the best approach is to assume that things aren’t as good as they seem. Hence, I believed that perspective in drawing was difficult. I also thought that using a camera in manual mode meant sacrifice to the camera gods.

And so on, the list goes on. You run into a belief system that is like the sword of Excalibur. It’s wedged in the rock. To be a better explainer, you have to have at least some doubt in the system that exists and try to provide a little insight into a different way of doing things.

Hence, the Renuka vs moi debate raged on.

It wasn’t even much of a debate. I lost every time because she said, ‘Practice does help.’ And I had to agree. But I knew that there was something wrong with that idea. Why? Because when there are twenty random people in the room, practice doesn’t guarantee a result.

Even in the now overly famous experiment of 10,000 hours, K. Anders, the author, couldn’t say who would make it. Some people reach a certain level in fewer hours (say 8,000 hours), while others get it in 15,000 hours. Well, whatever the reasoning behind the practice, it’s nice, but who has those many hours anyway?

Then, while on a call with a client, I muttered something I didn’t expect.

I said, “It’s not practice, it’s a pattern”. And I think I knew I’d just won the Renuka vs moi battle. I knew it because she confirmed my new concept. It was indeed the pattern that mattered—and matters. However, to explain something that seems entirely new, you have to be new.

You have to break a tiny piece of the Excalibur sword, not the whole sword. And somehow you have to win the Renuka vs you battle. However, sometimes just solving the problem isn’t the end. You have to have an elegant analogy to explain the concept.

Let’s wander down that trail, shall we?

2. You come up with an elegant analogy to explain it.

I was sitting in a cafe next to an ex-hockey player who wanted to help people with burnout issues.

“I used to play three-four high-pressure games, and then on the weekend, I couldn’t walk around the block. I pushed myself,” she said. Then she went on to explain all the symptoms of burnout, such as constant fatigue and disinterest.

“The problem with burnout,” she said to me, “is that you’re at peak performance level right before everything falls apart.”

What? That line makes no sense, does it?

But it does. Let me give you an extremely brief analogy that goes like this: A rocket is at top speed and on target, right before it runs out of fuel.

An analogy is not usually related in the same way as a personal story.

It’s more of a “like” statement. It’s like “stepping in dog poo”, like “making sure the avocado is at the correct ripeness”. It’s like this, or like that. You begin with a single statement and build a story around it. The personal story of the hockey player is a good one, but it only hits home when you hear about the rocket. That’s when you have to stop and think: Am I the rocket?

If you don’t have a way to explain it, you don’t get across just as clearly.

Hence, when I started out trying to sell The Brain Audit, I was already competing against tens of thousands of sales and marketing books. Just trying to explain myself would work. I could say “I’m a marketing coach”, and someone would take notice. However, what I decided to do was to isolate “one word”. That word happened to be “hesitation”.

I then had to find an analogy that fit that “hesitation” idea.

As you probably know, that’s how the “seven red bags concept” came about. The concept works for selling the book, but it would work just as easily if you were writing a report, an article, or selling a workshop. If you simply slip in a personal story, that’s not going to cut any ice.

People can relate to a story, but they often struggle to share it with others. They haven’t lived the life of the hockey player, but they sure can relate to a rocket hurtling through space, only to lose all momentum instantly.

Roller coasters, sandwiches, velcro, and even Santa can make for elegant analogies.

You often don’t need to do a lot to go from boring to elegant. You start with boring—that is incredibly important. If you want to start with “elegant”, well, that’s almost too much pressure. Once you’ve put your boring analogy on paper, that’s your starting point.

Sometimes you don’t have to tweak anything at all.

You just have to take something so out of the realm of the topic that it feels “creative”. Like “sandwiching” when learning about article writing. Or “roller coasters” when talking about how the brain continues to scan for problems.

Or how “getting the avocado to the right ripeness” is like playing the stock market. You don’t have to think about the analogy. You feel it immediately. It’s grounded in something tactile or emotional.

If the non-tweaked analogy doesn’t work, then go ahead and change 5% of it.

If an analogy of a sharpener seems too boring, talk about a blunt sharpener. If it’s about a mobile phone on low battery, talk about the last 1% that seems to linger forever. The tweak is always something small that no one is thinking about, and you’re just making a tiny change.

You have your theory that’s slightly against the grain.
You also have an analogy.

Those two are cool, but it may not be enough. We must consider the third factor: multiple angles to explain the same thing.

3- You come up with several angles to explain the same thing

If you look through the first chapter of The Brain Audit, you're likely to find a lot of repetition.

The Brain Audit seems to suggest that instead of leading with a benefit or solution, you should start with the problem. Then, there's a litany of examples. How many? Let's make a list.

Driving on the highway, you notice a police car.
An illustration of a block heading towards your head.
Stepping in dog poo.
Laptop slowing down.
Case study by Dr. John Caciopo of dead cats vs plates vs Ferraris
Going to meetings in a 1980 sedan, and everyone else has a flashy car.
The 386 computer vs the 486.
The cam belt breaking on the highway.

I'm betting you don't recall coming across so many examples while reading the book.

Well, I barely remember writing them, but the point is that no one seems to notice. Why is this the case? The answer is “pushback” or “objections”. If we were to examine the first point in this article, it suggests that we introduce an idea that goes against the grain.

Yeah, you figured it out, didn't you?

If you're going to be slightly out there, then you're more likely to get objections. The angles of explanation are directly proportional to the pushback. If the idea is easily understood, then people don't need a lot of detail. But the moment you start to say something like “orange juice for breakfast is a terrible idea”, they want to tie you to the stake.

How much pushback are you getting on your topic?

That's what's going to decide how many angles you use to explain the concept. You will also need to alternate some explanation with the angle.

It might look like this:

Story/analogy
Explanation
Explanation.
Story/analogy.
Some more explanation.
Story/analogy.

What's happening is that you're chipping away at a concept.

You've brought up a concept, but you can't dump everything on the reader just yet. Hence, let's assume the reader believes that “reviews or testimonials” are effective. Your article is about “reverse testimonials”, which suggests that the testimonial shouldn't be “nice” at the start.

Instead, the testimonial should demonstrate realism. The reader isn't ready to suddenly drop their point of view and hug yours. In the case of the reverse testimonial, you'd have to explain concepts such as:

Scepticism first (Before and after)
The transformation
Handling objections before they arise.

Those are three stage-by-stage concepts which sit under the umbrella of “reverse testimonials”.

As you tackle the stages, you must help your reader understand each idea with a story or analogy. That's how you chip away at the concept and develop a very sound explanation.

This chipping away isn't easily found online—or, for that matter, offline.

Which is why some explanations seem so much better than others, and how you can stand out, despite “everything” already being covered.

You need to take three core steps to get better explanations:

You think of a theory that seems to go against the grain. Then you remove the objection.
You come up with an elegant analogy to explain it.
You come up with several angles to explain the same thing because you're breaking down the resistance step by step.

And that's how I win the discussion battle with Renuka, too. Though not all battles.