Steve Woodruff, affectionately known as the "King of Clarity." Woodruff, with his extensive experience in clear communications and branding, shares invaluable insights on the essence of impactful leadership through precision in messaging. His approach, centered around the Clarity Fuel formula, emphasizes the critical role of concise and memorable communication in the success of leaders and their organizations.

Through real-life examples and personal anecdotes, Woodruff demonstrates how leaders can elevate their influence and legacy by honing their message to cut through the clutter, ensuring their vision is clearly understood and embraced by all. This episode is a treasure trove for anyone looking to amplify their leadership impact through the power of clarity.

Want to learn more about Steve's work? Check out their website at https://www.stevewoodruff.com.

Connect with Steve on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/swoodruff/.

Key Points with Time Stamps:

• [00:01:54 - 00:02:35]: Introduction of Steve Woodruff, the "King of Clarity," and the importance of clear communication in leadership.
• [00:05:19 - 00:05:39]: Woodruff discusses his approach to clarity consulting and the impact of precise messaging on small business growth.
• [00:09:02 - 00:09:23]: Emphasis on having a "lead horse" in messaging for memorable and effective communication.
• [00:20:07 - 00:20:57]: The importance of differentiators in crafting a unique and compelling leadership message.
• [00:26:15 - 00:26:39]: Woodruff explains how to make complex ideas accessible and engaging to broad audiences.
• [00:33:13 - 00:33:28]: Closing thoughts on the foundational principles of clarity for leaders and their significance in today's fast-paced world.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment of my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on the show.

00;00;51;10 - 00;01;01;23
Craig Andrews
Well, welcome, Steve Woodruff. Okay. Actually, we're going to pause. the name of your company, impact Tivity. Is that right?

00;01;01;26 - 00;01;03;18
Steve Woodruff
Just call me the king of clarity.

00;01;03;20 - 00;01;05;18
Craig Andrews
King of clarity. Okay.

00;01;05;21 - 00;01;20;19
Steve Woodruff
Don't even worry about word impact. Tivity is the formal name of the company, but I'm trying to move farther and farther away from that. And so goes by that king of clarity. They call. They call him the King of clarity.

00;01;20;21 - 00;01;31;07
Craig Andrews
And, Woodruff, am I pronouncing that properly? Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's go again.

00;01;31;09 - 00;01;54;27
Craig Andrews
My guest today is Steve Woodruff. He is the king of clarity. And I'm not telling you this because that's what he told me just a few days ago. I spent an hour or we're a little over an hour with him on the phone, and he helped me bring clarity to my own process, to my own message. It was powerful.

00;01;54;27 - 00;02;35;09
Craig Andrews
It was impactful. And we're hoping he's going to bring that here. he delivers keynotes, workshops on clear communications using the Clarity Fuel formula. And he's authored books. Is authored the point how to win with clarity fueled communications. another book called clarity, Winds and Unstuck ten Proven Strategies for Breaking Through the Barriers to Small Business Growth. And so, if our conversation today delights you, the listener, as much as my conversation with Steve delighted me a few days ago.

00;02;35;12 - 00;02;37;28
Craig Andrews
You're in for a treat. Steve.

00;02;37;28 - 00;02;41;23
Steve Woodruff
Welcome, Greg. Good to be here. Thanks for having me.

00;02;41;25 - 00;03;09;03
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So we met recently, you know, somewhat recently, the last few months. And, we met through a group called ISI. Iron Sharpens Iron. And the first thing I did, like many people, was I checked out your LinkedIn profile, and I saw that you knew one of my neighbors, Roger Dooley. and, and we got, connected.

00;03;09;03 - 00;03;37;27
Craig Andrews
But the very first time I heard you talk, you said that you are the king of clarity. And it was it was said with a, you know, a little bit of a passion. and I know this may sound dramatic, but the ground rumbled a little bit. It. Yeah. And I was just be honest, I was I was a little intimidated because I was like, I immediately is like, okay, where am I not being clear?

00;03;37;29 - 00;03;50;18
Craig Andrews
You know, and that was where me and my, you know, with my own insecurities went was, geez, I've got somebody who's going to point out all the areas where I'm not being clear.

00;03;50;21 - 00;03;52;16
Steve Woodruff
I only do that if I'm asked.

00;03;52;18 - 00;04;00;22
Craig Andrews
You only do that if you're asked. Well, and I asked Saturday and you did that and you did it in spades. Thank you.

00;04;00;25 - 00;04;21;15
Steve Woodruff
That was fun. I mean, there's hardly anything I like more than brainstorming with somebody about their identity and their business direction, their message. I just I just love it. And I've told people over the years, many times, if I could just do this for free for the rest of my days, I would do it because it's to me, it's like it's the most fun thing in the world.

00;04;21;18 - 00;04;45;23
Craig Andrews
Well, in this place where I really benefited was you. Normally, you know, your typical client or enterprise sized companies, particularly what, pharmaceuticals. Yeah. And so you basically brought insights that are normally limited to, you know, enterprises that can write the fat checks to normal folks like me.

00;04;45;25 - 00;05;19;02
Steve Woodruff
Yeah, that's part of the fun of what I do. So, I created a series of workshops for organizations, mostly corporate teaching people how to communicate with clarity because there are certain rules and principles and practices that anybody can apply to their marketing and selling and branding and email and all that. So I teach those workshops, but I also do clarity consulting with individuals, companies, sometimes even departments of companies, because departments of companies need an identity, too.

00;05;19;08 - 00;05;39;17
Steve Woodruff
They need a way to express their value to the rest of the organization. So I love working with individuals or groups on who are you? What's your value and how do we say it and get right to the point. And it turns out, you know, if you're a marketer, it's hard to do. It is hard to distill a clean message.

00;05;39;25 - 00;05;43;06
Steve Woodruff
And everybody's got that challenge.

00;05;43;08 - 00;05;56;06
Craig Andrews
Well, and here's part of where I was intimidated. As you point out, I'm a marketer. I'm supposed to be the one that's delivering the clear messages. But as we talk, sometimes it's hard to do surgery on yourself.

00;05;56;08 - 00;06;16;16
Steve Woodruff
Impossible. Yeah. One of my favorite quotes is you can't read the label of the jar you're in. And I'm well known for spewing that for many, many years, although I have no idea. Just who came up with it. but this is a fact of human nature. We are subjective beings, and so we cannot objectively look at ourselves.

00;06;16;22 - 00;06;49;15
Steve Woodruff
A company cannot objectively look at itself. So we often need someone from the outside to help us formulate the words, the packaging, the ideas into a clear direction. And and I needed to I had to go through rebranding last year and I had a consultancy, us, a small branding agency, go through it, and they had pretty much beat me over the head to get me to reduce my message down, because I was trying to say too much, just like everybody else tries to say too much.

00;06;49;17 - 00;06;53;22
Craig Andrews
but when you have a lot to say, why not say it?

00;06;53;25 - 00;07;16;13
Steve Woodruff
No, you have to pick the lead message. So, this is this, boy, you're going to get me wrong. Nuts. if you're a company, a small company, if you're a consultant, if even if you're just someone out on the job market, nobody can remember five things. If you go with five things, you are forgettable. You have to have a lead message.

00;07;16;15 - 00;07;40;18
Steve Woodruff
And the human brain only has a capacity to remember a couple things about people. And so one of the points of this book, the first book that I wrote, Clarity Wins, is you want to love your pigeonhole. People are going to pigeonhole you as an individual or as a company because that's how the brain works. It puts you in a place somewhere.

00;07;40;20 - 00;08;05;07
Steve Woodruff
So you want to choose that place by giving the right words, the right messages, the right stories, so that you're pigeonholed accurately so that people can refer you. So if I tell you these eight things I do, you're not going to know how to refer me. I can do eight things, but I don't want you to put me in these generic categories.

00;08;05;08 - 00;08;14;21
Steve Woodruff
I want you to remember. Yeah, well, Steve's the king of letters. Bingo. Mission accomplished.

00;08;14;24 - 00;08;33;00
Craig Andrews
And so that sounds good when you say that. But if I put myself in the shoes of someone or even myself, I'm like, yes, but that's underselling all these other things that I do. How would you respond to that?

00;08;33;02 - 00;09;02;19
Steve Woodruff
I'd tell people, look, you've got to have a lead horse and you got to have stuff in your back pocket. So you want to go to the market with one primary message that's going, that's your most important one, your most memorable. The one that's going to make you money. The one that's going to make your business succeed. Then I have several things in my back pocket that I talk about quietly, privately, after I've already established my identity as far as my primary message.

00;09;02;21 - 00;09;23;26
Steve Woodruff
By the way, I also do this, or by the way I can do that. But if I tell you the three things upfront, you don't know which one is primary and you're going to get confused. And I don't want you confused. I want you to think of me for one primary thing, and then I'll let you know some other things as it's necessary.

00;09;23;28 - 00;09;31;10
Craig Andrews
Well, and then it triggers. There's a message, saying in marketing they confused. Mine does not buy.

00;09;31;13 - 00;09;56;15
Steve Woodruff
Correct. And the last the biggest problem with clarity clarity and good communications is too much information TMI. So the constant human temptation is to say too much an email that's too long a presentation. It's too dense. A website that has 28 things. That's the best way to lose an audience. And we just feel this need to say it all.

00;09;56;17 - 00;10;07;14
Steve Woodruff
And one of the most important perspectives I give is don't do that. Make one point. Well, don't make five points badly.

00;10;07;16 - 00;10;29;21
Craig Andrews
You know what? I if you choose another career, maybe you can coach pastors because, you know, I, now I have a very good pastor, but in so many times I hear preachers that will will talk and they they won't cover all these different things.

00;10;29;23 - 00;10;30;27
Steve Woodruff
Right?

00;10;30;29 - 00;10;58;01
Craig Andrews
And the and I would loved I know they don't do this. You know, this is something that's, more found in profit making motives where, you know, if the pastors were running a business, they would probably do samples. They would do samplings of the congregation five days later, you know, quick calls saying, what's the one thing you remember from Sunday's sermon?

00;10;58;04 - 00;10;59;29
Steve Woodruff
Yep.

00;11;00;03 - 00;11;12;15
Craig Andrews
And I think they would I think they would be crushed. I think they would be disappointed. When you look at the amount of work that they put into it. And I think five days later, most people don't remember anything from Sunday sermon.

00;11;12;17 - 00;11;45;18
Steve Woodruff
It's true. And part of my adventure into this whole clarity thing is that I was studying for the ministry in my 20s, and I was learning how to preach, learning how to teach, and the best book for learning clear communications is the Bible. It's full of illustrations, parables, symbolic language, summaries, stories. And so I learned a lot of the core principles of clarity just by reading the Bible and by trying to preach it.

00;11;45;21 - 00;12;10;16
Steve Woodruff
And preaching. Okay, so here's a back pocket thing. Okay. I do want to work with pastors. I don't prime I don't make that primary at all in my identity online. But I believe that these principles are absolutely crucial to effective church leadership. And my hope is that over time, that will also develop. Yeah, that's a back pocket message.

00;12;10;16 - 00;12;18;23
Steve Woodruff
Don't go those don't go saying Steve the preacher coach not there yet. Well, one of.

00;12;18;25 - 00;12;41;27
Craig Andrews
One of the things in sales also is whoever talks the least wins. And there's a there's a bigger reason for that. And there's a little bit of ego and somebody's feeling, you know, making sure that they feel heard. But there's a practical implication that if you set out the goal that you're going to talk much less than your prospect.

00;12;42;00 - 00;12;46;09
Craig Andrews
That means you're going to have to be very compact and efficient in the words you choose.

00;12;46;12 - 00;13;05;18
Steve Woodruff
And you don't have to ask a lot of questions. And that's as you know, I mean, many salespeople just spew and spewing is the worst thing you can do. you're going to find out what somebody really wants and needs just by asking questions and so that's what I do all the time with people I don't I don't like spewing.

00;13;05;20 - 00;13;25;15
Steve Woodruff
I like asking questions. It's much but fun for one thing. And also you're helping your customer. Are articulate. They they kind of think they know what they need. But if you can actually help them define what they really need before you talk about a solution that's way more powerful.

00;13;25;18 - 00;13;48;13
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The that's something that I talk a lot about and, you know, talk about and and my book make sales magical is when somebody can get to the point of self-discovery, when you can lead them to that point of self-discovery where the light bulb goes off in their head and they can explain it to someone else.

00;13;48;16 - 00;13;57;10
Craig Andrews
They can also defend it to someone else when they believe it's their idea. And that idea gets attacked by an internal force that may be trying to undo the sale.

00;13;57;12 - 00;13;58;24
Steve Woodruff
You know.

00;13;58;27 - 00;14;01;16
Craig Andrews
If they feel like it's their idea, they're going to defend it.

00;14;01;18 - 00;14;32;08
Steve Woodruff
Correct. Yeah. So part of the art of selling is, is this dialog of discovery. It's not just here's this message, here's this message. Now, this is one of the reasons why I've never really liked the approach of selling in the pharmaceutical industry. It's a highly regulated industry. Every single thing has to go through scrutiny. And you basically have to there's there's skill involved, but there's a lot of canned things that you've got to say.

00;14;32;08 - 00;14;53;00
Steve Woodruff
You got to say in a certain way. And I just I find that real frustrating, you know? And I realize people's hands are tied by regulators. But, you know, if you're not in a regulated industry, then it's a lot more fun to be creative and to listen and to essentially to co-create ideas with your clients.

00;14;53;03 - 00;15;18;23
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. You know, you bring up an interesting point. So one of the places I've done some work is, financial services, you know, highly regulated by the SEC. Yeah. You can be fined even potentially go to jail if you say the wrong things. But what I found in that, you know, back to you mentioned the Bible in parables.

00;15;18;25 - 00;15;57;21
Craig Andrews
Is there it forces you to find different ways of communicating ideas that people can relate to. In some ways, I've found that by having that pressure, having that restriction, I was able to come up with a better, more creative, more powerful message. Yes, because of that. But it's but at the same time, to your point, it's it's deviating from, you know, you can't say in financial services if if you invest this.

00;15;57;23 - 00;15;59;15
Steve Woodruff
You're going to get this return, you're.

00;15;59;15 - 00;16;03;03
Craig Andrews
Going to get this return. Yeah. You're you're going to lose your license and get fined. If you.

00;16;03;09 - 00;16;26;19
Steve Woodruff
Decide that. Yeah, I've done I've done clarity work with with financial advisors, with insurance companies. And there are just certain restrictions. But one of the fun things that I came up with recently with working with some of my former clients in workshops, was okay. I realized that when it comes to selling your product and you're talking to health care professional, all this is, you know, really regulate.

00;16;26;22 - 00;16;55;13
Steve Woodruff
But what about when you're talking across the backyard fence to a neighbor and you want to sell your company as a place to work? How would you position your company? And that allows people to be more creative and to understand, okay, what would be the point that I need to make for a prospective employee as opposed to somebody I'm selling the product for?

00;16;55;16 - 00;17;11;20
Steve Woodruff
Then we can have fun. And I've done this with a couple of my clients, and it's a blast because they can suddenly put on their hat and go, oh, that's a different kind of audience. I can say what I want to say, I can package. This company has 47 different aspects, but what's going to be the lead message?

00;17;11;23 - 00;17;13;14
Steve Woodruff
Oh, that's so much fun.

00;17;13;16 - 00;17;27;21
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And that's I like that. I hadn't thought about that. Yeah. How would you sell your company? yeah. Maybe another way of is if you were talking to your neighbor, how do you tell your neighbor what you do?

00;17;27;24 - 00;17;51;24
Steve Woodruff
What you do say it's the same principle, basically. So 1 to 1 is encapsulating the essence. The other is saying, what does a prospective employee want? Well, they want job security. They want opportunity. They want to know there's a future. So how would I take, for instance, the pipeline of products in my company's, you know, portfolio for the next five years?

00;17;51;24 - 00;18;10;08
Steve Woodruff
How would I take that pipeline and express that in terms of the opportunity you would have if you joined us in this company? So I'm not dealing with anything proprietary there. I'm just I'm just appealing to the what's in it for you? And part of the what's in it for you is, hey, we've got this tremendous growth opportunity.

00;18;10;08 - 00;18;43;05
Steve Woodruff
You want to get on this train as opposed to just saying, well, we have great people, great products, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Commodity messages and commodity messages are worthless. so you know, who doesn't have great people? Who doesn't have great product? Yeah. We are who isn't looking for the patient health care outcome. Yeah. We know well that in fact you could take the pharmaceutical company messages and basically swap the names and the vision statements and purpose statements and you you'd hardly ever miss any of it because it's all the same stuff.

00;18;43;08 - 00;18;52;26
Craig Andrews
You know, as when you were talking. I was thinking about how Steve Jobs, recruit recruited, John Sculley to Apple. You know, the guy who all ultimately fired him.

00;18;52;26 - 00;18;53;25
Steve Woodruff
But, yeah.

00;18;53;25 - 00;19;04;04
Craig Andrews
The he asked him. Sculley turned down the job, and he's in jobs said, look, do you want sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?

00;19;04;06 - 00;19;14;01
Steve Woodruff
I love it. I absolutely love that line. No, it's that's just. How can you resist that kind of message? It's wonderful.

00;19;14;03 - 00;19;18;12
Craig Andrews
And Sculley is like, yeah, let's change the world. Let's start with you. You're out. And.

00;19;18;14 - 00;19;21;23
Steve Woodruff
Well, it took a little while, but yeah, yeah.

00;19;21;25 - 00;19;42;17
Craig Andrews
But, yeah. So the I guess here's what putting it to work, you know, so if you have a message and you know that it's a little bit not clear how, what would be some initial steps that somebody would take to start clarifying their message.

00;19;42;19 - 00;20;07;04
Steve Woodruff
So the major the major step is to define the differentiators. So there's got I believe that every company, every person, every consulting, everybody has something that's going to be their differentiator, some kind of superpower or some kind of unique set of skills, some kind of experience and knowledge. And you have to bring that to the surface, and you may need help with that.

00;20;07;12 - 00;20;35;22
Steve Woodruff
You know, somebody on the outside to help you do it. So whether it's a personal brand or company brand, you want to bring that to the surface. And I use keywords a lot. I talk about let's narrow the description of you or your company down to three keywords. The things that everybody says you're great at. And so you bring that to the surface and you say, is this what you're really all about?

00;20;35;25 - 00;20;57;01
Steve Woodruff
Yes. And then I'm looking there for the DNA, the wiring of the person or the company, the things that makes this company, this company. so Apple, you know, innovation would be one of them. User experience would be another one. It's not just about the boxes. It's not just about the operating system. It's something a little bit more elaborate on that.

00;20;57;03 - 00;21;24;28
Steve Woodruff
Once you've got the keywords and you can match stories that reinforce those ideas, you've got the beginnings of a great brand, because you got to have stories that say that, that illustrate what you're doing. And people, of course, respond to stories, and then you want to start package that into sentences. They're very specific, clear, simple sentences that any human being can understand.

00;21;25;01 - 00;21;49;00
Steve Woodruff
So the combination of keyword stories and look then small sentences is what helps somebody come up with a differentiating message. But first you gotta know what makes me special. What's the cool thing? Why should you think, Craig or Steve or Bob or Jim and not anybody else?

00;21;49;02 - 00;22;05;05
Craig Andrews
And the thing that I run into when I ask somebody, what makes you special? They tell me, and I'm sitting there internally saying, yeah, you and a thousand other people are making the same exact claim.

00;22;05;07 - 00;22;06;19
Steve Woodruff
Yeah.

00;22;06;21 - 00;22;08;11
Craig Andrews
So how do you get around that?

00;22;08;14 - 00;22;34;16
Steve Woodruff
You don't make commodity claims. I mean, you just stop it. So I see this all the time. You know, our people are our greatest asset. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want a thousand other companies? Yeah. We believe in integrity and, you know, and customer focus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, all this garbage that you see everywhere, and then you see the same set of words in LinkedIn.

00;22;34;16 - 00;22;57;15
Steve Woodruff
Okay. I'm a results driven professional. Yeah. You and 8 billion other people are results driven. These are just throwaway words. So you take the jargon, you throw that to the side, and you figure out a way to say it in a human way, to say it in a way that creates an image in the mind. It creates a word picture that sounds intriguing.

00;22;57;17 - 00;23;16;09
Steve Woodruff
And that's where some creativity comes in. And you may need help with a marketing agency, a branding agency, a consult, someone to help put those words together. But the goal is you gotta create an image that's compelling in somebodies mind and jargon and commodity language. Don't do it.

00;23;16;11 - 00;23;17;06
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00;23;17;08 - 00;23;42;06
Steve Woodruff
I call that just another syndrome. If somebody comes up to me and says, I'm a realtor, my unconscious initial reaction is up. Just another realtor, and I just put them right in the commodity bucket. Same with bankers, same with lawyers. But there's one lawyer I've met locally, networking. And her tagline is I went to law school so you don't have to.

00;23;42;09 - 00;24;05;26
Steve Woodruff
Yeah, cool, I like that, but that's true of everybody. But she said it. She said it in a way that I couldn't forget that made me remember her. Compared to a hundred other lawyers I've met, just by that little turn of a phrase. That's that's marketing. That's branding.

00;24;05;28 - 00;24;24;25
Craig Andrews
You know, when you mention realtors, if the realtor came to me and gave me this pitch, if this was their tagline, we help people. I help people buy and sell their dream home without wasting their time. That would just resonate with me like you wouldn't believe. Because that's.

00;24;24;25 - 00;24;25;06
Steve Woodruff
Why there's.

00;24;25;07 - 00;24;33;05
Craig Andrews
Frustration with realtors is they take me to a bunch of houses. I'm like, were you not listening when I told you what I was looking for?

00;24;33;07 - 00;24;51;25
Steve Woodruff
Now there's two elements to what you said. Dream, which has this aspirational emotional aspect, and then the what's in it for me benefit without wasting your time. And with that, it's not that complicated. But you got to come up with something that's going to stick.

00;24;51;28 - 00;25;26;17
Craig Andrews
Yeah. One of the things that we do is we we do user testing, centered around clarity testing. We've we've also historically done user testing, but one of the questions I always get when not always, but many times get when you know, and handling the users is the client says, oh, I want people from my industry. And so I have to go through the painful discussion saying, okay, what you're actually asking for is focus group testing.

00;25;26;17 - 00;25;45;19
Craig Andrews
We don't do focus group testing, user testing is from a broad panel of people. How do you respond to people? Why? Why would you say that? It's important to have, clarity amongst people that are unfamiliar with your industry.

00;25;45;22 - 00;26;14;29
Steve Woodruff
If you cannot explain who you are and what you do to a stranger, to a 15 year old, to someone outside the industry, then you don't have a clear mind about what you do. You got to be able to explain it to somebody that is not immersed in the jargon. We will tend to be too technical, too jargon oriented, too full of ourselves when we're speaking in our own little bubble.

00;26;15;01 - 00;26;39;20
Steve Woodruff
And the real test of a clear understanding is that you can turn to somebody that you just met in the coffee shop and in 30s. The lights are yeah, that takes work. It takes work. But here's the fun thing. Once you've got those words, you've got a tool like a can opener that you can use all the time, every place.

00;26;39;22 - 00;26;49;17
Steve Woodruff
You just it's magic. And so it's worth getting that concise message because you're going to use it over and over and over.

00;26;49;20 - 00;27;11;14
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And I will tell you one of the things I've learned in my testing. So if we cue up testing for for a client, I often go in with my biases and my assumptions and and many times I'm surprised what the users come back with, you know, things that I thought were clear. They come back and they're like, nope, not clear.

00;27;13;00 - 00;27;21;08
Craig Andrews
And I think part of that is when you're a domain expert, you unwittingly fill in a lot of gaps.

00;27;21;08 - 00;27;41;02
Steve Woodruff
Yeah, yeah it's called the curse of knowledge. And so the curse of knowledge is we have so much information in our own heads, we assume everybody else has it. And so we'll say something in shortcuts will say something using acronyms. We'll say something assuming that these blanks are filled in and they're not. And instead of enlightening people, we're confusing them.

00;27;41;05 - 00;28;02;22
Steve Woodruff
So we have to bring it down to a lower common denominator. Not mean being insulting. I mean just being simple and human. If you're not clear, you're making people work hard. You're making them feel bad that they don't understand. And that's not helpful. Our goal is to turn the light on fast, not to make people work.

00;28;02;24 - 00;28;15;11
Craig Andrews
You know, I was reading something recently, I think maybe I was, maybe it was by Donald Miller, and it was talking about we're causing people to burn energy in their brain.

00;28;16;12 - 00;28;34;02
Craig Andrews
And, you know, a stat that that I know that that's just mind blowing. Your brain is about between 2 and 4% of your body mass, but it consumes between 20 and 25% of your energy. I mean, the brain is like power hungry for counts.

00;28;34;04 - 00;28;35;24
Steve Woodruff
That's right.

00;28;35;27 - 00;28;54;03
Craig Andrews
There's a there's a, number I've heard and there's not there isn't clarity about the exact cause of it, but chess players will, you know, champion chess players have been known to burn 6000 calories during a chess match.

00;28;54;06 - 00;29;28;22
Steve Woodruff
I can believe that. I really can't, because the brain is doing an enormous amount of work. And one of the things I open up in, especially in my second book, is that the human brain is actually processing 11 million bits per second of information from all five senses, 11 million bits per second. And it's having to filter all of that and shunt the vast majority somewhere to the background to bring one thing to your focus at the time.

00;29;28;25 - 00;29;52;11
Steve Woodruff
So you and I talking to each other, this is a 60 bit information flow. Two people, you introduce, 1 or 2 other people. We're all confused. We cannot process 120 or 180 bits. We can do 60. So the communications challenge we all have and this is sales, marketing, parenting, preaching, everything. We've got to win the 60 bits out.

00;29;52;13 - 00;30;18;04
Steve Woodruff
We've got to gain focus, create engagement against 11 million bits of competition. How are we going to do that? And the magic of it is the brain has this function called the particular activating system, and that is the master filter. The red is what actually tells the brain. This is the most relevant thing. This is what's important right now.

00;30;18;06 - 00;30;46;00
Steve Woodruff
This is the what's in it for me. And so the race raise the gatekeeper to the brain is tuned to one radio station, WITF FM. What's in it for me? And as a communicator, my goal is to bring the what's in it for me to the front in order to capture attention. And this is the piece that people miss with the TMI, with jargon.

00;30;46;02 - 00;31;12;07
Steve Woodruff
You have to frontload your communications with immediate personal relevance or you're gone. There's a lot of other things much more interesting than you in that presentation. If you don't capture me in the first two minutes and you and I, I'm sure you have, I have. I've sat through unbelievably boring presentations and after about a minute or two, if I don't know where it's going and how we're going to get there and what's in it for me, I'm not.

00;31;12;09 - 00;31;35;25
Steve Woodruff
Yeah, yeah. And that may be that presentation may be some of the most important stuff in the entire universe. And you may have spent a decade developing it and $6 billion. And you bring it right to the moment of truth when you're going to try to engage my attention. If you blow that, if you blow the raz friendliness, you have just wasted all that.

00;31;35;27 - 00;31;58;12
Craig Andrews
You know, as somebody who just recently died, a guy named Daniel Kahneman, introduced the whole idea of, fast, you know, think fast and slow system one thinking versus system two thinking. And a lot of people are confused. They're still stuck in this paradigm that we have left brain thinkers and right brain thinkers. That's largely been debunked.

00;31;58;15 - 00;32;27;26
Craig Andrews
And Kahneman came out with this idea that 95% of your decisions are made in the back of your head, and they're made at lightning speed without you thinking through the decision. well, I'm hearing you talk about is that as I'm trying to translate it to what I know it sounds like back there is that filter. You know, it's the this lightning fast part of the brain is trying to figure out, are we going to devote calories to listen to what Steve has to say?

00;32;27;29 - 00;32;52;26
Steve Woodruff
It's a survival mechanism. With all that input coming in, we we'd be turned into puddles of goo trying to process 11 million bits consciously. We can't do it. So part of it is a pattern matching exercise. The brain is wonderful pattern matching. So if I'm a caveman and I come out of my cave every morning and I see the same view in the same vista each day, all that's going to be in the background.

00;32;52;29 - 00;33;13;21
Steve Woodruff
I'm not going to really consciously process it. But if I suddenly see a sabertooth tiger, tiger coming out of the grass down there, I'm going to focus on that man. That's great. That's got my attention because there's a what's in it for me. It's called survival. And I got to pay attention to that thing. So we've got to recognize how the brain works.

00;33;13;21 - 00;33;28;02
Steve Woodruff
That's the whole foundation of the clarity formula is you've got to recognize that the brain wants what it wants, the way it wants it. And you're either going to follow the rules. And I give four rules, or you're going to lose to you.

00;33;28;04 - 00;33;39;05
Craig Andrews
Well. Well, Steve, this is really powerful. This this is an exciting topic for me. I can literally go for another hour and.

00;33;39;07 - 00;33;45;12
Steve Woodruff
I'll be easily I could do. Yeah. got this stuff probably up in here.

00;33;45;14 - 00;34;06;02
Craig Andrews
Well, I'm sitting here. I'm actively cutting off questions or things that I want to throw in just because I know that would take us another ten minutes, but it's so powerful. You obviously have a lot to share with folks. So kind of circling around. You work primarily with enterprise level pharmaceuticals.

00;34;07;05 - 00;34;19;13
Craig Andrews
But you also help. I mean, you took time to help me, which was enormously valuable. Thank you again. Who so other than pharmaceuticals, who else do you help?

00;34;19;16 - 00;34;54;09
Steve Woodruff
So when it comes to workshops, training people and doing talks and facilitating practical sessions. Okay, that is typically any large group, especially leaders with a budget to train and develop their people. That's my target audience for coming in and helping in a very practical way. Train people using the clarity formula. In fact, and this is the awkward part, because here I talk about niching down and having a very narrow pigeonhole.

00;34;54;11 - 00;34;55;29
Craig Andrews
And here is a book called.

00;34;55;29 - 00;35;27;09
Steve Woodruff
Clear Book called clarity with this book, the point is literally a formula for 8 billion human beings. Any body can apply should apply these principles in these practices. So I've got this, like this awkward thing where I keep talking about niching and specializing and differentiating, and then I've managed to develop a formula for every human being on the planet that anybody can apply any role anywhere, which I it gives me no end of, of cognitive dissonance, but I'll just have to live with it.

00;35;27;11 - 00;35;52;19
Steve Woodruff
So, the fact is I enjoy working with individuals. I enjoy working with consultants, I love helping small businesses grow, and so I'll do short term engagements. This is back part of my back pocket stuff. I'll do short term engagements with individuals and companies and help them get their brand and their messaging and their marketing straight, doing the clarity magic that I do.

00;35;52;21 - 00;36;12;09
Steve Woodruff
and I'll also help pastors more back pocket stuff. But what finances my ability do it is the corporate workshops, because I can charge a lot more and equip a whole bunch of people all at once. And that's what finance is. My ability to help individuals.

00;36;12;11 - 00;36;15;25
Craig Andrews
Excellent. Well, how how would people reach you?

00;36;15;27 - 00;36;33;00
Steve Woodruff
I can be found at Steve woodruff.com. That's pretty easy. LinkedIn, which is where I do most of my interacting now, I've worked in social media for years. I've done a whole bunch of stuff on social media, but I really focused down to to LinkedIn, and that's where I do a lot of my interacting. I do a lot of writing.

00;36;33;00 - 00;36;58;09
Steve Woodruff
I have a weekly newsletter, so if you just look for Steve Woodruff, King of clarity on LinkedIn, you'll find me. And, and then, those are the two easiest ways. and, Steve, it's Steve or Drf.com is my email. and then I just I just love brainstorming with people. Doesn't matter what the industry is. The issues are all the same businesses, business, communications, communication, humanity is humanity.

00;36;58;11 - 00;37;06;25
Steve Woodruff
And I love talking to a variety of people in a variety of challenges, because it all kind of boils down to the same things.

00;37;06;28 - 00;37;18;13
Craig Andrews
Well, excellent. Well, I hope people will reach out to you because when I look at how much you help me, I know you can help them even more esteemed. Thank you for being on Leaders and Legacies.

00;37;18;16 - 00;37;25;06
Steve Woodruff
Thanks so much for having me. Great.

00;37;25;06 - 00;37;54;02
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Alize for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this episode on social media.

00;37;54;04 - 00;38;17;16
Craig Andrews
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00;38;17;18 - 00;40;28;00
Craig Andrews
Please go ahead and subscribe your thumbs up! Ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show. It means a lot to me. It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Alize for me.com. or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.