The other week, Dex Hunter-Torrick, the former speechwriter for the likes of Eric Schmidt, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk said something that stopped me in my tracks… 🍿

Dex’s words are worth sitting with for a moment.

I’d be lying if I said his distaste for the term thought leadership didn’t strike a nerve (not least because it’s in title of this very newsletter), but he’s bang on.

It's being 'delegitimised and 'cheapened' by 'garbage content.'
[Permission to pause and admire the language he used 👏]

But when you look at what Dex is actually doing in this clip, it’s rather clever.

He’s shifting The Overton Window of what thought leadership is and what it means to prepare for presentations.

It's a model used by politicians to gauge how well an idea might land with the public. Ideas that fall inside the window are considered normal and expected 🥱. Ideas that fall outside it range from radical to unthinkable 🤯.

Simple enough.

Any time we want an idea to land, our job is to take our audience from Expected to Radical/Unthinkable. The greater the gap between these two points, the more chance you have of breaking through.

You could look at this image and think it’s about extremism (and given the amount of polarisation in the world, clearly many do).

But it’s actually about relativity and creativity.

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For relativity, let’s take pets as an example. One could argue that pets that fall:

But for a family that's never owned a pet before, a dog or a cat could seem unthinkable. What end of the spectrum they sit on is down to personal taste 🤭.

The window is personal to everyone and it’s our job to meet our audience where they are at (not where we want them to be).

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For creativity, it’s about choosing the right examples to bring your idea to life.

That’s what Dex was doing in this clip - he used Mark Carney to show what a great speech can do.

1% communicators realise that the right example can change everything.

When they've pinned down an idea they believe in, they don't just stop at the first way of landing it (usually your personal story).

They look further:
History 📜 | Science 🧪 | Culture 🌎 | Nature 🐯 | Technology 💾 | Data 📊 | Art 🖼️ | People 👥

Testing the same idea multiple ways 🧪.
Until they find one that gains traction 🚀.

That's how you get an idea to land.

This is exactly the kind of work we focus on inside MicDrop, my community for thought leaders who speak. Our doors will open again in June, head to the bio to join the 12 others already on waitlist.

Click here to join the waitlist

Alex

P.s. I’m going to be talking more about this at Ideas Fest Encore on Wednesday. If you’d like to come along reply to this email with the word encore and I’ll send you a link to get a free ticket :-).