break down ideas and complexities on this channel.  But to be honest with you, I have always been a  

very scattered thinker. You've seen my Obsidian; I  thrive in the chaos. And when I was a little kid,  

it was so frustrating to me that I couldn't  explain the things that I was excited about.  

I always started at least at step three without  going back to the beginning because I forgot  

the person who's listening to me doesn't have all  the context that's happening in my head. And so,  

I worked on it. Today, I'll share with you the  five things that really helped me go from just  

rambling blah blah into “here's a structure, here  are the things that you need to focus on.” And so,  

let's start from law school, when I first  got real training on being articulate.  

1/ Increase Your Information Density Number one is about increasing your information  

density. If you watch legal dramas, I'm sure  you've heard phrases like attorney-client  

privilege or pleading the Fifth. "My client would  like to exercise his Fifth Amendment rights at  

this time." These are really concise concepts that  explain things like the communication between you  

and your attorney are confidential, or that you  can invoke the Fifth Amendment, which protects  

you not to answer questions or give information  that might incriminate you. Instead of saying  

all of this, we just use three words, right?  Attorney-client privilege or pleading the Fifth.  

This is the first difference between someone who's  articulate and someone who's not. It's about,  

are you using vague words, phrases that require  a lot of explaining, or are you using pinpointed,  

concise words and phrases that get your specific  point across? Here's an everyday example. Say,  

you know, I'm reading this book and lots of  people ask me, “So how do you like the book?”  

Most people would say something along the lines  of, “oh yeah, it's interesting. It's about this  

philosopher Anaximander. It's about, you know,  scientific thinking and yeah, blah, blah, blah.”  

Or you can tweak this into something a bit more  specific. Just take the word 'interesting'. We use  

it all the time. And what does that mean? It just  conveys a semi-positive feeling towards something.  

If you just even simply change 'interesting' to  “it was surprising” or “it's a very idea-rich  

book” or “it's really entertaining,” that all of  a sudden you're conveying so much more information  

with just one change in the word. So step number  one is to increase your information density with  

the right choice of words. 2/ Use Timeless Structures  

When You Communicate Number two is about using timeless  

structures when you communicate. This one, I  learned in law school and was pounded in with me  

over and over again in management consulting. We  started law school learning PEEL. Point, Explain,  

Evidence, and Link. It's so simple; every time  you're preparing a statement, preparing arguments,  

just fill in the blanks. What is the Point? What  is the Explanation? What is the Evidence? And how  

does it Link back to the broader point? And then  in consulting, I started to see more of these. For  

example, SCQA: Situation, Complication, Question,  and Answer. We use that everywhere when we're  

doing proposals. Again, just fill in the blanks.  You don't have to worry about how do I structure  

this? Start from scratch every time. There are  timeless structures for this. In consulting,  

whenever we're doing presentations, it was always  The Pyramid Principle. You start with your Answer  

first, then you go to your Supporting Arguments  and then you go to your Supporting Data. Every  

single time, it's about filling the blanks  of these timeless structures. And if you pay  

attention, you'll see these structures  repeated again and again. Sometimes you  

see them in TED Talks, SCQA. Such a commonly  used structure. Other times you'll see people  

answering executive questions with The Pyramid  Principle, right? Answer first, and then you go  

into other things. In email writing, you see that  all the time as well. I talk about this in my 5  

Minute Communication Framework course, as well.  So by having even a few sets of these structures,  

like the ones I mentioned today, you can  already start to change the way that you're  

structuring your thoughts. 3/ Think in Frameworks  

Which brings us to the question, So how do I find  these structures? And that's step number three,  

think in frameworks. I've done a whole dedicated  video on this. So if you haven't seen it,  

check it out after this. And if you're new to  framework thinking, then at the core of it,  

it's about taking complexity and boiling it down  to a simple representation of how something works.  

Let me give you an example. Let's take something  really big, really complex, like what do humans  

want to achieve in their lifetime? What is it that  humans want? Most people will take this and say,  

“oh well, I don't know. Like all of us want love,  want money, want... I don't know. Some people  

want fame and power, and others, you know, want  freedom.” And you're pulling out all of these in  

a very unstructured way. Or if you think in  frameworks, what you would come back to is,  

“Okay, there are five things that we look for. At  the very bottom, it's about physiological needs,  

like do I have food, do I have water,  do I have shelter? And then once we  

satisfy that we're looking for safety, personal  security, we're looking for resources, health,  

wealth. Then it's about love and belonging.  Do we have community? Do we have friends,  

family? Do we have that sense of belonging? And  once we have that, it's about esteem. Do I have  

the respect for myself? Do other people respect  me? And all of that leads to the one thing that  

we really want, which is self-actualization. Can  I live up to my potential? Can I do the things  

that I want to do? Those are the five things that  we care about. A completely different answer from  

the random one that we're pulling through,  even though the core ideas are all there,  

it's just structured in a different way and is  put into the framework of Maslow's Hierarchy.  

And this is the power of framework thinking. By  condensing knowledge, organizing knowledge into  

a framework where it's very concise, it's  very condensed, it is information dense,  

you're able to train yourself to start to look for  these and also to repeat them to other people. As  

you can see, instead of scrambling for random  thoughts, you have a very structured way of  

communicating something. And over time, not only  does this help you train yourself to speak better,  

you also create a better understanding of how the  world works. You start to map random frameworks  

and start to link them together. And that is  really the power of framework thinking, because  

once you think clearly, you're going to be able to  communicate all of your ideas very clearly.  

4/ Write to Think Clearly All right. Once we are precise with our words,  

we have structures, we have frameworks that are  starting to link together. Then the next thing  

we want to do is, of course, practice. Most people  have problems with impromptu speaking, right?  

We don't know what other people are going to ask  us. We don't know if we'll have the answers. We  

don't know what kind of audience is going to be  listening to us and how they'll react. And that's  

a huge source of anxiety. And to practice, it  means to start way before we're in that situation.  

And for me, I practice by writing. You write  to think, and that's step number four, which is  

write to think clearly. And I don't mean writing  essays and articles. I mean simply writing notes.  

If you know the channel, you know, I use Obsidian  for my personal knowledge management system. And  

every single time I jot down a note, I practice  articulating myself. The first thing is the title  

of my notes are always a condensed summary of the  point of the note. So I train myself already to be  

precise, to start practicing, How can I condense  all of my notes into one sentence? I avoid vague  

words like “on creativity”, right? That doesn't  really tell you what this note is about. I try  

to make it as specific as possible. “Creativity  as intelligence” or “Creativity is about making  

connections.” I'm trying to get that concise  point across. Then in the body of the note,  

there are a few things I do as well. First, I  am listening to Lumen and rewriting it in my own  

words. I rephrase what the author is saying about  this. I'm practicing, How would I concisely convey  

this idea? This is the Zettelkasten Method.  If you haven't seen this, you can take this  

video out. Number two, I also use structures,  simple ones like Speaking in 3s. What are the  

three key points out of everything that was said  in this article, in this book, in this video,  

in this podcast that are important to me. Or,  it's about writing out The Idea Compass. There  

are so many different structures I can use. And  the third thing, of course, is to find frameworks.  

Not just to mindlessly consume, but reorganize the  information into a framework for myself so I can  

not only retain the information better but recall  it better when I need to use it again, when I need  

to talk about it again. All this prep work is low  stakes. It's not in those impromptu situations  

because I want to be prepared for those. I'll have  things to draw on when I'm asked an unexpected  

question. Communicating clearly is a long game.  And this brings me to step number five.  

5/ Convey Emotions Using Body Language It's a long game because it's not just about  

the ideas. It's also about the human connection.  We're communicating not just to get ideas across,  

but we're trying to get a feeling across. Like  when I do business presentations, I'm not just  

laying out the facts. What I'm trying to do  is inspire change, right? Get people on board,  

get them excited, motivate them somehow. So that  part of the emotional part of the communication  

is also really important. And here, I use another  framework and it's SOFTEN. Smile, Open posture,  

Forward leaning, Tone, Eye contact, and Nod. As  they say, body language is as important as the  

message itself. So we have to cover both of our  bases. And on the idea front, if you want to learn  

more about framework thinking, I got this video  here and I'll see you in the next video. Bye.