The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP016 -How Anyone Can Become a Better Communicator—An Interview With Jeff Henderson
Welcome to the Carry New Hoth Leadership Podcast, a podcast all about leadership, change and personal growth. The goal? To help you lead like never before, in your church or in your business. And now your host, Carry New Hoth. Well, hey everybody, welcome to the podcast to episode 16. Actually, my name is Carry New Hoth and I hope our time together today helps you lead like never before. And if you're listening to this around the time of release, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and I want to wish you a very happy new year. And if you're like me this week of release, you'll be working really hard on your goals or maybe you've already gotten them done for 2015 for the year ahead. And that's what I always do. And I know one of my goals for many, many years has been to become a better communicator. I have been fascinated by communication since the time I was a kid, really, it was around age 12 that I sort of was listening to the radio and thought, I would love to figure out how to do that. And at 16, I actually walked into the local radio station in my hometown, just cold-called, walked in one day and said, "Would you hire me?" And strangely enough, they did. They actually gave me a job and eventually they even paid me for it. It was crazy. And so I've been fascinated by communication. Had no idea God was going to use that to turn me into a preacher one day. But that's what I've been doing now for actually, I've been preaching probably for about 25 years since my early 20s, I started preaching. And it's a pretty intimidating thing, as Jeff Henderson, our guest today, says in this interview, "It's one of the greatest fears in people's lives." And maybe you don't think of yourself as a communicator. I think you're going to be surprised at this interview because I think Jeff makes the point that if you're a leader, it comes with a microphone, leadership just comes with a microphone. And if you're going to lead anything, if you're going to lead a team, if you're going to lead volunteers, if you're going to lead a meeting, there's a communication aspect to it. And what I love about the interview today with Jeff Henderson, our guest, is that Jeff says anybody can be a better communicator. The good news is it's a skill and communication can be learned. And so if you don't think of yourself as a communicator, I think you're going to be surprised at today's interview. And if you do, if you're like me and you're a preacher, you're a teacher, you're a communicator in some way, Jeff's interview is full of tips that are so practical and very challenging and very helpful. I think you're going to agree. It's a great spend of the 45 or 50 minutes you'll have been listening to this podcast today. Jeff's just got some great gems. One of the reasons I think he's got so many insights is this has been a lifelong passion of his as well. He tells his story early in the interview of how he grew up listening to his dad preach three times a week. And a couple of years ago, Jeff started something called preaching rocket. It's part of the rocket group of companies. And you can find the link to that in the show notes. Go to karaenuhof.com/episode16 and you'll find all the links to everything we talk about in this episode there. And preaching rocket is something I've actually used over the last couple of years and have found it so helpful. And it's something that Jeff launched because he's just so passionate about communication. He also is a preacher and he speaks on a fairly regular basis at Gwynette Church, one of the six Atlanta area campuses of North Point Church. And you might notice in the interview, I think we say five. It's because we taped this months ago and there is now a new campus, North Point keeps growing. So one of six campuses and Jeff and the people of Gwynette Church, congratulations. In a month, you move into your brand new building and I'm so excited for you. Jeff's just got a lot of information. He is a super humble guy and a great personal friend as well. We've gotten to know each other over the last few years. And he is also my accountability partner when it comes to food. So literally we text each other what we eat every day through an app called Argus. We'll include the link to that in the show notes and kind of keep each other accountable. He does much better on nutrition than I do, but I'm so grateful for his friendship and I've learned so much from Jeff as a leader. So whether you consider yourself to be a communicator or whether you think, no, not really, well, you are. If you're a leader, you're a communicator and Jeff's going to help us get better. So without further ado, here's my interview with Jeff Henderson, lead pastor of Gwynette Church and the guy behind preaching rocket. Well, I have the privilege of being here today with one of my favorite leaders and one of my absolute favorite people, Jeff Henderson. Welcome to the podcast. Hey, Kerry. It's great to be with you. Greetings from Atlanta, Georgia. Hey, it's great to have you. Jeff, you serve as a campus pastor at Gwynette Church, one of North Point community churches, five campuses in the Atlanta area. You sit on the senior leadership team there, but you also launched preaching rocket a couple years ago. Tell us about that. A little bit more about preaching rocket. Well, I'm a preacher's kid, so I grew up seeing my dad preach three sermons a week, you know, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and as well as lead the church, but I just became fascinated with the fact that people could stand up and speak and say something and people could be engaged or they could be bored. So I don't know, I just was always fascinated by that. And when I was a junior in high school, my dad and I developed the ministry where we would go around and speak to high school students and such a great training ground because for the most part, high school students are really mean and so they don't pay attention to you if you don't have anything good to say or go engage them. So I kind of cut my teeth, try to stand up and speak to high school students. So anyway, that we did that for six or seven years and then went into the business world and just helped, ironically, just one day my ball said, "Hey, I've got a speech coming up. Or how to do this better." And so I broke down some things and gave it to him and said, "I do these four things." And he did. And so it just kind of developed and when I became a pastor, I just still have a heart for helping preachers and so when preachers are prepared, great things can happen, but the challenge and the pace of everyday ministry stuff. So we decided to kind of help pastors, especially those that can't afford a staff, basically and they could partner with Preacher Rocket and we can help them in our goal as to reach better sermons. Now, I can see that and you do a great job. I mean, I subscribe to Preaching Rocket and you've helped me become a better communicator. I mean, Jeff's just a phenomenal coach in that area, but communication is more than just for preachers, right? It's something all of us do and before you actually entered ministry, what about a decade ago, 13 years ago, you were in corporate for a while. Tell us a little bit about that and how communication was a part of what you did, even though you really weren't ever paid to speak back then. Well, the way I talk to particularly leaders and I think sometimes leaders don't see this, leadership eventually comes with a microphone and you're going to have, if you're a leader, you're going to have to stand up at some point and say, "Here's where we're going, here's what we're about, here's the new product, here's the new, here's our mission," and it comes up with a microphone. So we could, I think strategy is important, I think values are important. I think product, excellent's important, customer service, all that's great, but at some point, your leadership will grow or diminish based on how well you communicate. That doesn't mean you have to be Steve Jobs or somebody like a great orator, but you do have to leverage your voice and I've just seen it, we've seen it happen, we've seen business people who can just say a few words and a business can gain traction, we've seen business people who do not do that and really people have never been really taught how to prepare a talk. When I first started kind of developing a consulting business about this, when I asked people, "Hey, are you prepared?" They would show me, they would say, "Yes," and then they would show me a hundred forty five PowerPoint slides and if that means that they're prepared. The ironic thing to carry is the shorter messages you speak, the more impactful, but what's counterintuitive, it takes more preparation time to speak shorter messages. It really does, that's very true. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in the church world, you can tell when a preacher is going along, part of the time, actually, I would say most of the time they're going along, it's because they're not prepared and they're searching for their point. When they find their point, they get really excited about it and speak another 25 minutes on it. Our goal is never to fill the time. The other question we ask is, "How much time do I have?" The goal is, "How much time should I need to leverage the time and get the point across effectively?" Those are some great points. I think the universal thing about communication is, I mean, this impacts us even in meetings. Think about how much of your life, if you work in an office environment, is spent in meetings and how many times have we sat there because we don't communicate particularly well? Then every once in a while, somebody says something in a very succinct, persuasive way and it changes the tone. I think that's a great point. I mean, I don't think there's any leader listening to this podcast who couldn't benefit from being a better communicator. No, not at all. I was with a business the other day and somebody asked me, "What if I'm just kind of communicating some details? Do I have to do all this stuff?" I said, "Well, no, not unless you want people to listen. I mean, if you're just communicating information, you can just not prepare. But it's as if because I'm talking, you should be listening." We know this from marriage or friendships or parent-child relationship. At the end of the day, just because you're saying words doesn't mean it's being received on the other end, clearly and succinctly. Again, a lot of people don't see themselves as communicators because they're not the top leader or they're, for whatever reason, they're just like, "Yeah, I'm just not a leader." If you're in any kind of leadership role, then you're going to be a communicator even if you're a meeting one of the four people, your congratulations, your communicator. Very, very true. And I think if you want to grow your leadership, communication and the ability to communicate well, it's just one of those skills that's almost non-negotiable. People who communicate better, it's definitely a leadership edge, a career edge, all of those things, right? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And again, the goal is not to become somebody else. And the goal is not for you to become Steve Jobs or a great speaker. You need to come who you are and leverage your voice and you do have a voice. I mean, we all have our different voices, we all have our different styles. That's what one of the reasons we started preaching, Rocket, is because we just had a burden for hearing pastors preach other preacher sermons and I think there's anything wrong with that, but I think God's given you a voice in background and experience, leverage that voicing. I think God gave that sermon to Rick Warren, let Rick preach it because he can only preach it like Rick. Rick can develop your voice and develop your speaking style and develop what God's place in you. Which I think intimidates some people sometimes, right? It's like what? I've been given a voice, I've been given a message. Why do you think communication is so intimidating to so many people? I mean, we all have to talk, right, very few of us have not said anything today. I'm sure everybody said something at home, at work or whatever. And yet so many of us are so scared of actually studying the craft of communication and getting better at it. Why do you think it's so intimidating? Any thoughts there? Well, it's very personal, I mean, it's very lonely, you know, preacher, I could call it the lonely preacher. You know, you prepare alone, typically, you buy yourself, you're up there and it's, you know, good grief. It's just like, you know, it's not like you're in a band, you know, if the band doesn't perform well, you're like, well, hey, it's the bass player because I was really singing very well. So it's a very, it's a very lonely thing. And it is a great fear, you know, it's the second greatest fear of life and above death. And as I heard one guy say one time, I'd rather be in the casket than talking about the guy in a casket. So it's kind of bizarre. But there's just a fear and again, I think all of us at some level are insecure. And so this, we've got all the insecurities standing up in front of people and being able to communicate. So again, we've never been taught how to do this very well. So that kind of adds with the insecurities. You know what? I can totally relate to that. And I know I've, I think I've spent most of my life battling insecurity in one form or another, but I remember a season when I was in my thirties where I was a little bit sensitive to criticism and not as open as I needed to be to become a better communicator. And it's amazing what happens when you get over that fear. In fact, Jeff, I mean, you and Lauren Espie gave me very detailed feedback on a message I gave. I mean, pages of it. And it was so, so helpful. I mean, there were some parts where it's like, oh, yeah, why do I do that? And I mean, there was a lot of encouragement in it as well. But honestly, in the couple of months, I think that was a couple of months ago, you gave me that feedback. My messages have just gone to another level. It's so liberating. And I just, I've, I've over the last number of years, I've just craved feedback. As much as it still hurts sometimes, it's fantastic. It's liberating. Well, and, but that goes back to, to your willingness to invite feedback and go, okay, this, this, this might be painful, but I'm going to do it and I'm going to get better because what's it's fake is my congregation or my employees or my team. And, you know, it's one of the things we say, rather than try to impress the audience, be focused on helping the audience. If you're more focused on helping the audience and being concerned about them, then it less about yourself, then that creates empathy between you and the audience. And that's one of the things that's often overlooked with communicators, especially in the business world, is empathy. Now, empathy is different from sympathy, but empathy is understanding where you are, putting myself in your shoes and trying to be able to connect to you. And at the end of the day, you know, in a number of years in the business world, as you did, at the end of the day, in the business world, we tend to forget people are human beings. Yeah, we do. And, in the church world, we tend to forget if we're not careful that people have a brain. So, in the church world, we try to talk to their heart. And this is where we try to talk to their mind when it's really talking to both their mind and their heart. And empathy is understanding where are these folks coming from? What are they facing? What are they thinking about this versus just diving in? And so, having that empathy is important, but to get that, you have to invite feedback. You have to ask, okay, how did I do this presentation? And, you know, our brand promise at Future Rocket is, you know, make your next sermon, your best sermon, that you're not going to become, you know, our goal is to transform somebody into an incredible communicator from one to a ten overnight, it's not going to happen. But so, the best thing to do is focus on your next sermon, and, you know, and use the tools that we give you, focus that, and then evaluate it, and then go to the next one. Now, that doesn't mean that, well, what that means is that you're never going to have a perfect sermon. There was only one perfect sermon that was Jesus, even everybody talking about Dr. King about the dream speech, but if you understand the history of that speech, he actually switched midway through to the high of the dream speech because of, from his perspective, the speech wasn't going so well. And so, take the pressure off, try to do a perfect presentation, but put the pressure on of being prepared, and just try to make your next presentation your best presentation. Well, that's a great point, and I think that's something that everybody can focus on. So let's get into some tactics here, Jeff, because, I mean, it's, there's a skill set that can be learned to, which is, I think, pretty good news for all of us who communicate. It's like, yeah, there are some common pitfalls we all run into as communicators. So of all the things that can kill a message or your next talk, what are some common traps that you see a lot of communicators fall into? Well, it's not being prepared and not understanding what preparation is. And I actually, I tell people that they should say their message out loud before they get up in front of you. In other words, the first time this should come out of your mouth, it should not be in front of an audience. But that, I get pushed back on that, awkward, I want to do that, even I got a stand in the rainbow by myself with a few people and do that, and it's awkward, and I totally agree with them. It's totally awkward. There's something more awkward than that, though, that's standing up and bombing in front of a lot of people. So I have delivered some amazingly bad sermons and some terrible presentations, but fortunately nobody was there. And it helps me to get these words out, and it helps me also edit. As Nancy Duarte says, who wrote an incredible book about presentations, she called "Resonate." She said, "You have to kill your darlings." In other words, these things you want to add in to talk and add in to talk, but ultimately might not take you in your audience where you want to go, you have to add it, get shorter and shorter and concise and concise and concise. So preparing and being adequately prepared, both in the content and the delivery, and then having some memorable phrasing. It takes a lot of work to do memorable phrasing in what we call sticky statements. An example of a sticky statement is Steve Jobs saying, "What's an iPod? An iPod is like having a thousand songs in your pocket." That was a transferable and sticky statement to people who understood what an MP3 player was and people who still to this date don't understand exactly what it is, but still have one. I understand what all that is. So being able to describe it in a way that is relatable is so important. No, I can see that and that's a lot of work, isn't it? I mean, sometimes we refer to those as bottom lines and I try to write one for every message that I deliver and often finding the bottom line will take me longer than writing the rest of the 30 or 40 minutes or whatever else I have to deliver that day. It's isolating your thoughts into that memorable, catchy phrase that can be very hard work. It's painful. I mean, it's just painful. I mean, and I have written some horrible, horrible bottom lines, but what you have to do is you have to write – you have to be – give yourself the permission to write bad bottom lines and one of the things I've learned to do is to time to get my phone out and set it to 10 minutes and write out – and for that 10 minutes just write out as many things I can think of that might potentially be bottom lines and then at the end of that 10 minutes to circle the connections that might potentially morph into that bottom line and for me, that's been a great way. And then if I don't have it, I can set my timer to another 10 minutes and do it again. Typically, we've never gotten to 30 minutes until I've found it. So part of it's just tricking your brain to lock into writing things. Well, that's good. Do you ever walk when into a team? I know yesterday I walked into a meeting at our church and we've got a series that we're going to deliver about six weeks from now and I'm trying to wrestle down a bottom line for the first week. And I came in with about six candidates and sometimes I'll just audition them and often somebody in the room will spot a connection I missed. Is that helpful sometimes to get team input? Absolutely. In fact, you know, Lord, after you, we did that for you. You did. I'll never do a talk without sitting down with her and going, "Okay, here's the bottom line, here's what I'm thinking," and then she'll, as you will now, she'll go, "That's terrible." Or, "Hey, that's really good." Yeah. And again, here's the thing about communication. You're going to get criticism. Right. Why not get it ahead of time? Oh, that's such a good thought. That really is. Because you're going to hear it after and then there's nothing you can do. The cat's out of the bag, it's over and you're on to the next week and everybody goes, "Well, that was unclear." Right. So, I would rather invite that feedback ahead of time. Okay. So, preparation, sticky bottom lines. I know you've talked a lot about introductions. If you're doing a talk, even if it's 10 minutes, so you've got a presentation to make, what makes for a great introduction? What makes for bad introduction? Well, I think part of what you want to do is introduce the likeability factor. You want to be likable. That doesn't mean that you want to manipulate people, but you want people to understand that, "Hey, you're a real person, and I'd like to go out. Gosh, I'd like to go out and maybe have a cup of coffee with him or her." That's very, very important because again, there's emotions to this. There's this connection, there's empathy, there's this really important thing that you want people to realize that you're a real person, especially in church world. This is important because we don't take advice from people that we don't like. We might do criticism, but that's why I've had preachers push back on this and say, "Well, I don't want people to like me. I want them to just stand up and say the truth." That's true. There's a place to say the truth. It's just not in the first five minutes. You want to bring people along on a journey because if you've alienated people in the first five minutes and they don't like you, then I got to listen to you. Part of this is to share stories. What is it about you? Or try to have a connecting point? I was in Chicago this week and was talking about work, and the first question was, "Hey, how many of you ever had a job before? Their right is their hands. Maybe you ever had a bad day at work. Everybody raised their hands." Hey, can I tell you my worst day at work? Part of it, you're shrinking the gap in the room. There's always a gap. That's just really, really important to be able to do that. I think in then creating a contention to go, "Hey, I bet you've always wondered this," or, "Hey, if we don't get this in our business, this is going to be a challenge for us." "Hey, if we watch this product, here's what this means for us." I'm going to tell you why this is important. The first five minutes, if you don't bring the cloud along in the first five to ten minutes then you can forget about the rest. Those are great points. I think one of the things that surprised me and you and I have had this discussion is I've been preaching to some of the same people for 19 years. I've only ever been in one church and I don't talk as much about myself at home as I would on the road because you understand when you're in front of a new crowd, they have to get to know you. I'm a dad, I'm a this, or I had a bad day. Self-deprecation, by the way, can really help with that when you've got a funny story that sort of paints you in a bit of a self-deprecating light. That's good, but you encouraged me and I thought I really took this to heart. You got to do that every Sunday even to the crowd that you speak to every week and the reason that was so challenging for me is I thought, well, they all know me, but there's two things. Number one, that's not true because there's new people every week and number two, even so it creates that connection, that emotional connection with people where they go, oh, you know what? He's just like me or, oh gosh, that's funny and now you've got me hooked and it's easy to forget that when you're in front of the same crowd or even in the boardroom with the people that you've worked with for years, that personal story often draws them in in a way that a principal won't write off the bat. Is that true? Do you see that? Absolutely. Anyway, you've got a guest coming as well. So the guests don't know who you are, and even though the person may have heard that story, they may write the story and they may also go and so glad my guest has heard that story before. And I think it fits in if you want, you can even reference it and introduce it. Hey, some of you heard the story before, but it's so good. I'm going to tell you why this is just going to take us home and join you today. So yes, all that's important, you know, and you're sure some of my people come every other week anyway. Yeah. Yeah. But again, I think stories help you become available to people. Okay. So what is the most difficult aspect of talk preparation for you personally? It's something you've done for years, it's something you teach leaders all around the world on, but when it comes to you writing your next message, what's the push point for you? What's the pain point? Well, finding content and in the business world, you don't speak as frequently as you do in the church world. Yeah. So the great thing about the business world is you've got, you got a stump speech. I think every business leader should have a stump speech so they can go out in the field and get it. The challenge is you can get low the sleep and not prepare. So they don't have to develop content as much in frequency than they do. The challenge of that is if you're not speaking as much, then it's kind of like wearing a marathon on today's training. Yeah. And that's a challenge in the work point world, if there's a guy that doesn't speak that much and then they're putting on that platform, well, they need to have them speaking somewhere. Rotary club, they're living room, something so that they don't get out of practice. But content development and you can't wait on content development has to be constant. And so for me, I'm always looking for stories, even if I don't have any word to go with it, I'm just constantly looking at it, oh, I could use that someday. I'm going to use it. But really content development and writing the content. And that's what I tell guys who don't speak that often, if you wait on the phone call, that's dangerous. You know, why don't you go ahead and prepare for a message that hasn't been on the calendar. If you prepare for a message that isn't on the calendar, my experience usually shows up on the calendar. That's a really good point. So in terms of collecting ideas, because that is a challenge and it's something that I've had to get better at over the years, that's where like ever notes your friend, you just always keep notes and I know I've probably got 10 series ideas for the future that I've captured and writing so far, is that a practice you would recommend or if somebody's like, I can barely think about next Sunday if it's a preacher listening. How would you suggest they start to get ahead on content? Because I think that's a universal pain point for people. Well, there's a preacher that says, I can't focus on the next Sunday because of this Sunday coming, then they need to stop and they need to ask themselves the question, how many great sermons can I preach in a year? And they need to answer that question. And you don't preach because it's on the calendar and Sunday's coming. You preach based on how many outstanding sermons you can give. If that's 25, if that's 30, then that's also something you schedule around that and then you prepare accordingly. You don't go, I got to preach 42 messages, so I'm just going to wing it on a Friday. There's way too much of stake to preach to do that. So you need to figure out how many outstanding sermons can you preach in a year? For me, it's 15. I think I can do that 15 or 20. Yeah, I'm down to two after you told me about that question. I'm going to preach like twice a year. So let me push back on that a little bit, Jeff, because I totally understand that. And that is a very sobering question. I heard you say that a few months ago. It challenged me. And I'm fortunate we're a North Point strategic partner. You and I are in the same world. And so I'm down to about 25 to 30 times a year from 48 when I started or 50 when I started. And I agree. I don't have 50 great messages in me. I'm not sure I've got 30, but I might have 20. If I really work at it, maybe, I mean, if you have 12, maybe six, I don't know. But for the average guy who's in a small church, no staff, no video venue or whatever, and they might have like a Wednesday night service or a Sunday night service and kind of like your dad back in the day who had to create a hundred messages a year from scratch. What do you do if you think, you know what, that's just a content machine I can't keep up with? I don't know. Yeah. No, that's fair. That's honest. I mean, I don't know how people can preach three original sermons, outstanding sermons a week. Again, I don't think there's a Bible verse that says we have to preach three original sermons a week. Yeah. And I do think in this world, and, you know, obviously, you know, there are certain places in the world that don't have access to video, but the wonderful thing about media world is that you can leverage that like you're leveraging. But I just don't think the church progresses when we stand up and we're unprepared. Now, people can say what the Lord can do, whatever he wants to do, absolutely. But I think we sometimes, if we're not careful, we can confuse Holy Spirit, spontaneity and laziness. And I don't think laziness glorifies God at all now in the business world. Part of it is people never even taught how to prepare a message. But I just think there's way too much writing on this to wing it. I just think for the people who aren't preparing, somehow they've lost the sight of the fact what hangs in the balance. Well, you know, if you don't have anything, so please don't stand up there. Right. If you do have something to say, then please be prepared because we need to hear it. So I think you've got to fight, fight, tooth and mail. And I understand folks that are like, hey, my elders expect me to do this. Okay. I just think it's in hot. Somebody's got to stand up to the elders and go, this is insane. I mean, we don't have Persians here, you know, we all have these guys. I just don't know, in these pastures that retired in Atlanta recently, and he said, I can preach longer if I preach less. So there's the emotional goal of doing this as well. Now, and I think everybody can relate to that. Just a story from the trenches from a few years ago in our leadership up here. But as our church grew, I added a Wednesday night service. We actually hired a guy who came in and preached with me for Wednesday nights. And then oh, about eight, nine years ago, we shut it down. Because the idea was to do sort of a development service. And it was for believers and the weekend was for outsiders and the whole deal for people to bring their friends. And we realized it was only gaining traction with maybe a hundred or a hundred and fifty adults. And it was the usual suspects every week. And it was a tremendous schedule. And it was actually Reggie Joyner, a mutual friend of ours who challenged us to shut it down. And so we did. And that was very liberating. And then adding video teaching into the mix and maybe video won't be part of everybody's mix. But maybe there's somebody else who can tag team with you. And I've found now that I'm doing less communication than I ever have, it's just better. Because if you're going to come up with a great illustration, you know, you talk about showing it, not just saying it, that could take you a couple of weeks to figure out. And it just goes better. So maybe look at ways of cutting a service or casting that vision or hiring another communicator, even getting a layperson to tag team with you. If you're in that realm or that reality where you're just preaching too much. But no, that's a good discussion, Jeff. Let me ask you, we got a few minutes left. So let me ask you a couple of questions. What are some factors in your mind, some principles, some idea, like some factors, I guess, is the best word that can take a talk from good to great? Yeah. I think the fact that you believe it, that you've internalized it and that this is something that you have experience with. And not that you've gotten it all, I mean, you're not going to talk about marriage and say, "My marriage is perfect. I will never have another argument ever again." But you can say, "Hey, here's how this thing has impacted my marriage. Here's what I'm trying to do." So making it personal or making this product saying, "Hey, this is why I believe in this company. This is why I believe in this." Letting people see you and not just hiding behind content. And I tell both business communicators and pastors, "I need to see you. We want to see you." And if this hasn't changed your life or you don't believe in it, we're going to be -- we're going to smell that out pretty fast. And so there's an internal part of this. Do you believe in what you're saying? There's an old story of the guy who looked at the pastor, and I don't know if I believe what you say. He's not -- I kind of believe what you say is because you believe what you say. And so there's a -- there's this thing about you -- do you really believe in this, or you just kind of, you know, speaking the company on? And then there's transitions. There's transition statements, cultural water loss between transitions. So having your intro, we kind of look at it at three blocks. There's the intro, there's the middle section, and there's the conclusion. There's a strong introduction, and there's a transition statement to the middle content, and this -- the middle block is where a lot of times talks get stuck. Then you have a transition statement to the -- to the last part, and a great talk finishes strong. More often than not, in the business world talks finished poorly. In the church world, they finish better than in the business world, because we have an out. We can say, "Let us pray." In the business world, we're like, "Okay, we'll have a nice day," or, you know, there's not a -- there's not a closing song or whatever, typically. So in the business world, usually the conclusions are very weak. But one of the big things to do, though, I think, is to answer the question, "What do you want them to do?" And if there's a tweetable phrase from your talk, "What would that tweetable phrase might be?" And in that moment, if somebody tweets out, "This is what Gary said this day," then I think that's a win, because the talk has -- you've passed the talk along to them, and now they're passing the talk along to their friends. That's the win. No, I think that's really good. And so is that what makes for great conclusion? Because I think you're right. We often talk about it here as like crash landings, you know? Beautiful flight, great take-off, but you realize you're landing the plane, and you get into that space as a communicator where you're kind of like, "I forgot, how do I land this thing?" And it's really bumpy, and nobody gets killed maybe, but it wasn't very pleasant. And so a great -- we call them to-do sometimes, like, "What do I want them to do, not just what do I want them to know? What are some other elements of just a great ending, a memorable ending to a talk?" Well, part of the reason -- part of the way to do this is to practice your talk. If you practice your talk, you're like, "Oh, this is a great ending." And so, you know, everybody talks a little bit different, but I think repeating the bottom line, more telling a story, a concluding story that illustrates what you're doing. It doesn't always have to be emotional, certainly, being, you know, I think poignant and going, "So, if you forget everything, here's what I want you to remember, and here's why I need you to remember it." And then having the audience repeat back, and, you know, let's say this together, those kind of things I think are really, really important. Great. One of the principles you talk about a lot when you teach communicators is "show it, not say it." I alluded to it before, but can you explain that a little bit? Because I don't think that happens a lot in most communication. Well, there's brain research that says that the brain is a lazy processor, so it's basically trying to conserve as much energy as possible. One of the ways that you can help the brain remember what you say is to have a prop or some kind of visual, because the brain relaxes and absorbs that information better. So, at the 10-minute mark of every presentation, the brain basically asks the question, "When is this going to be over?" And so as a communicator, you need to know that. So having a prop, it doesn't have to be the most creative thing in the world, but having a prop that you can reference through in your talk is so helpful, because every brain in the room is fighting a issue and trying to conserve energy. And so that visual just helps connect every brain in the room. And you know, it's amazing how simple they can be. Because I've been so challenged by this under your teaching, I've been looking for props. So just to give a real world example, last Sunday, I was preaching about entitlement. And entitlement is fueled by greed, this incessant desire for more. And we did a little bit of research and discovered in 1955, when McDonald's first launched, the only soft drink size they had for soda was seven ounces. And today, a child size is 12 ounces. And so we had on stage with us an original seven ounce cup. We had to mock it up because they're not available, but we found a seven ounce cup. And then we had a 12 ounce child size, then a medium, then a small, then a medium, then a large, which is like 32 ounces. And then I pulled out a big gulp from 7-Eleven at 50 ounces and held it up next to the seven ounce thing and used that as an illustration of what happens to an appetite over time when you fuel it. And it was very, very memorable. People talked about it. And I think it's going to be one of those things that the next time somebody's at a drive-through or they're grabbing a soda, it jars their memory, right? It remembers and it's kind of like, right, my appetite keeps growing unless I curb it. That's the kind of thing you're talking about, right, to have a visual prop with you. Absolutely. That's great. That's a great example and, again, people, it's another way to connect with your audience. And for the, again, the way it is is going to talk to be transportable. In other words, it lives on beyond just your talk. And if people can't tell other people what you're talking about, you know, analysis now, that's why we do that. I mean, we miss an opportunity, rather. And that, that, ultimately, as they immediately go, "Oh, well, there's this enjoy. We had this cup and it was, here's what it illustrated." Right. All that's really important. Well, and sometimes, I mean, I think we've all given talk to her, we, we were not sure what we said an hour after it was over. And that's a real crime, right? And I think that's what getting to a bottom line or a sticky statement does is that it forces you to congeal all of your thoughts into a single sentence so that you're clear. Because if you're not clear, nobody else is going to be clear. That's for sure. Jeff, we've got time for a couple more things if you've got a second more. And I just want to ask you about this whole online world we live in with podcasting and instant access to literally the world's best communicators at, you know, the click of your phone. What do you think that's doing to preaching today? It's creating kind of a comparison trap and I think you mentioned earlier that a lot of people just kind of borrow maybe even on the brink of plagiarizing other people's sermons. What do you think that's doing to communication both in the positive sense and in the negative sense? Well, I think we can learn. I think we can learn from people for sure, that's great. But I just feel like the challenge is that if we preach other people's sermons, we rob our church of the sermon that God is going to give us. And there's just some unique backgrounds and experiences and it's hard work. I totally understand it's hard, hard work, but I think the work is worth it. And you didn't get in this to preach other people's sermons. So again, you've got to go, how many sermons can I preach in a year? That's really, really good. And then do that. I just believe in the voice, the unique voice of everyone. And who knows, if you're giving, we know what it feels like to be prepared. And when you're prepared and you're ready to go, you're so glad you're preaching your sermon or you're giving your presentation. We rob the world of what we potentially have said to our lives, our experiences and our voice. I think that's really important and I'm sure that there's not too many of us who haven't thought, oh, I wish I was like, you know, pick on Andy, Andy Stanley, or I wish I was more like Mark Driscoll, or I wish I was more like Perry Noble or Stephen Furtick or somebody like that. But at the end of the day, that's who, you know, you can learn from them, but God created you to be you. And they're really not trying to be anybody else, right? They're trying to be them. And I think the world is, you know, greatly enriched by having a multiplicity of voices. And I think that's a really good word. I really appreciate that, Jeff, and I hope that encourages people. So as we wrap up, if there's one thing that you think communicators could do to get better by the end of this week, what would you suggest they do if it's like, hey, there's a lot of nuggets here, but if I was focusing on one thing, what would help them become a better communicator soon? Well, I think having a systematic plan to get better. What is that? Is it go to a conference, is it read a book? It's just not going to happen by accident. There needs to be, if somebody says, hey, what's your plan to, oh, consider this, what's your plan to get financially free? Well, I've got, I'm going to go, hey, Ramsey, I'm going to read this book. Okay. What's your plan to get to become a better communicator? If you can't answer that question, it's probably not going to happen. And so what does that look like, and trying to figure that out and work that plan, work that plan, it's like a workout program. If you're trying to lose weight or there's got to be a system, you're not text back and forth on the Argus app, what we're eating, it's a system that's going to help us healthier and it does. So the question I ask is, what is your plan to become a better communicator? No, that's a really good point. You know, you and I, we do, Jeff and I text each other via the Argus app on our phones. Everything we eat three times a day and it's an accountability because you're trying to be healthy and I'm trying to be healthy. And I'll tell you, that's a real accountability. And I think even having the conversation and writing a plan could help people so that the takeaway might be, what's your plan? And if you don't know your plan, well, then this week, figure it out. What you're going to do, because it is really like working out because just hoping to be a better communicator isn't going to make you a better communicator, right? No, no, it's not going to happen by accident. Again, we're not saying that it's really, it takes a lot of hard work, but there needs to be a system, there needs to be a plan and you can work that plan and we'll get better. Well, Jeff, preaching rocket is one of those plans, not that it's the only plan out there, but it certainly is that. So people wanted to learn more like to get in contact with you, what's the easiest way to do that, and then where can they find preaching rocket? Yeah, just go to preachingrocket.com and there's a lot of free resources there. If you want to test it out and then you just follow me on Twitter at Jeff Anderson. Cool. And I will link to those in the show notes and Jeff, once again, I can't thank you enough. Thanks so much for this. I think it's been encouraging and challenging and I think we're going to have better communication in the church and in the marketplace soon. Thank you. Well, thank you. And as you well know, I'm learning to you, this is all, we're all, we're all in the journey together. So I love it. This is my hobby. I don't take off anymore. I do this. So I appreciate you letting me talk about it. Awesome. Thanks so much, Jeff. Wow. Listening to Jeff is kind of like drinking from a communications fire hose, isn't it? I mean, there, there are just so many insights in such a short interview that I think you're going to find helpful. And I know I've found helpful. So we've summarized a few of those for you in the show notes. If you go to karaenohoff.com/episode16, you will find them there forever and you will also find links to follow Jeff personally and also the links to preaching rocket. And I would highly encourage you to think about joining that. It is a great resource. I've used it for years. It's really helped me become a better communicator. And if that's something that would interest you, I think you'll find it helpful as well. A couple of key takeaways for me, and I mean, there's a lot there. There's a lot that we touched on in the interview and a lot that I've learned from Jeff over the years. But probably a couple of things that have made a big difference for me is, and I know this is hard to hear, but communicating less. I just found that when I was doing 45 or 50 messages a year, it was just really hard to keep up with that level of volume and to keep the quality up. And I know what it's like to fly, you know, on a Monday and try to figure, okay, what am I going to teach on on a weekend? And you really can't build a team around the weekend if you're running week to week is just really difficult to do. So I've cut back on the amount I've speaking and I think by reducing the quantity, I've been able to improve the quality or at least that's how I feel and that's certainly what I hope will happen because now I've got a couple of weeks to work on a message. Now, I understand if you're like solo church guy, you're really frustrated hearing that because you're like, well, I got to lead the whole church and I've got to speak 50 times a year or 100 times a year and I understand that. That's hard and maybe you don't have the money to hire someone. So a couple of things, a couple of ideas for you if you're in that situation. Number one, see if you can tag team with somebody. I mean, is there a late preacher? Is there somebody in your church that you can say, hey, I'd like to work with you and maybe you could even take five or six messages next year. So think about that. Second, explore video. I know a lot of leaders tell me video teaching doesn't work. I just beg to differ. In fact, next week, I'm going to be talking to Josh Gagnon from next level church. And Josh will tell you, even in New England, where so many things in church world don't translate video church works. And I find here in Canada, video church works, one of our locations is almost 100% video. It works fine. And you're like, oh, it'll never work here. You don't know until you try and until you give it time to succeed. So that's another option. It's at least an option you might want to consider. And maybe you'll discover what I discover. I've still got leadership things I have to do day in and day out. But when I'm only speaking 25, 30, maybe 35 max times a year, I'm a better communicator. At least that's what I found. The other thing I've discovered is work ahead. And generally I tend to be a month or two ahead in series outlines. And now I'm trying to get a month ahead in actual messages written. In other words, having the entire outline done and we have a computer graphics department and it goes to them early. So that way they're not rushed at the last minute and I'm not rushed. And sometimes you have to dust it off the week of and you're like, oh, this feels a little bit stale. But I'll tell you, it's incredible. And it's really helped me become a better communicator and a lot more comfortable with my ideas and the longer they simmer, the stronger they get. And finally, if you work ahead, sometimes you look at it a week or two in advance and you're like, yeah, I want to make some changes. And you've still got the margin to do that. And I think you become a better communicator that way. Lots of other things like show it, don't say it. I love the part about thinking about the message in three sections, beginning, middle and ending. That's just so helpful and it takes what can often be so confusing into something much simpler. So a lot there. I'm pretty passionate about communication. So I'm going to be listening to this interview again and again to continue to glean some insights from it. And again, if you want to join Preaching Rocket, you can do that. All the links are in the show notes at karynewhough.com/episodes16. So thank you, Jeff. Next week, brand new year, we are kicking it off with Josh Gagnon from next level church in New Hampshire. And I got to tell you, it's a very challenging episode, very dangerous episode because if you make excuses for why your church isn't growing, they are all going to disappear next week. Josh is an incredible 35 year old leader leading a church of 2000 that started seven years ago. And on occasions 2000, over 2000 people in just seven years, he's a young leader, a millennial type leader, and my goodness, you're going to really enjoy him. And they're making it work in New England where nobody thought church could work anymore. Fascinating. Great way to kick off the new year. Can't wait for that. If you haven't subscribed yet, do so on iTunes, on Stitcher or on TuneIn Radio. And if you would be so kind, leave a review. It just really helps iTunes take notice of the podcast and gets it in front of other leaders. So we will talk to you next week. In the meantime, I really do hope that this has helped you lead like never before. Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change and personal growth to help you lead like never before. [MUSIC]