I’m a person that does a lot of writing from white papers for my business, user guides and information packets, to music, short stories, eBooks and more, so when a friend approached me with a problem about writing, I was quick to share with him my personal secret for writing and now I’m going to share it with you – writing like you speak.
But first…
Before you understand how and why this will work, you have to know a little bit about our brains and how it works.
Your brain is quite a remarkable little information processor. According to Neuroscientist and Chiropractor Dr. Joseph Dispenza, “The brain process 400 Billion bits of information a second. But, we are only aware of 2,000 of those.”
Just how much information is that?
It’s roughly 34,179,687,500 terabytes of data (give or take). Think of it like this. Today the average computer has a 250 GB hard drive right? That’s a lot of space! So… if you were to measure that amount of information as your average computer, your brain, PER SECOND process more than 14,000,000,000 250 GB computers. And just think, that number is just a ballpark figure. Many agree that it’s actually more.
So what does this have to do with writing, and why the heck do people come up blank when they sit down to write anyway? You’d think that since we process that much information per second we’d never run out of content to write or run into roadblock or draw a blank EVER…
So why do we?
The Secret To Writing Like You Speak – Why We Don’t
In short? It has to do with the way we are taught to read and write.
You see, when we learned to read, we were taught to read one – word – at – a – time – from – left – to – right – and – make – sure – we – understand – each – one – before – moving – on – to – the – next – word. When we learned how to write, we learned to write o-n-e – l-e-t-t-e-r – a-t – a – t-i-m-e – t-o – f-o-r-m – o-n-e – w-o-r-d – a-t – a – t-i-m-e.
A letter becomes a word, a word becomes a sentence, sentences become paragraphs and so on until eventually you have a page, a chapter, a book…
But here’s the thing – our brains shut down the parts that aren’t used allowing us to focus, so essentially we were taught to block out everything else and focus. I think I heard someone describe it as the reverse funnel effect. Instead of pouring in a lot and focusing it to create a big result, we turn the funnel upside down and only let a trickle through. The problem is that we deliberately shut out the part of the brain that’s responsible for creativity, which is just what we need in order to write great content.
In other words, we’re taught to sabotage our own creativity from the start. Unfortunately, we’re never taught to go beyond how we learned, yet, how we speak is 1,000 times faster.
I bet you don’t need a room to be absolutely quiet like a library to speak. In fact I bet you don’t speak one word at a time and wait for everyone to understand that word before speaking the next – at least I hope you don’t.
We speak freely, quickly and people understand while we’re driving or walking or watching a movie and eating and painting and doing all the things we like to do, so how great would it be if you could write as freely and consistently as you speak?
So, the key to writing like you speak is to do the exact opposite of how we’re taught to read and write.
The Secret To Writing Like You Speak: How We Can
Remember how grown ups used to tell us “quit daydreaming” or “come back to reality” and all of those other things they’d tell us to sit down and shut up? Well I want you to START doing that again.
Start imagining and daydreaming and drifting off to the clouds, but this time, do it with purpose!
You see there is a gap between how we speak and how we write. Your imagination and keeping your brain active while you write is how you close that gap.
BEFORE you start writing picture yourself standing in front of a crowd, or speaking to a person one on one speaking to them, but instead of talking about what you’re going to write, picture yourself having already written the book, and you’re talking to them about it, maybe even reciting it back.
And as you’re flexing the imagination station that is your frontal lobe (you can look that up on your own), you’ll notice that you’re developing a story. Maybe you’re grabbing on to bits and pieces here and there, maybe you’re remembering something that you left out… the point is that you’re telling the story.
THAT is your book, and as you’re speaking, you want to write it all down, but here’s the key. Don’t focus on spelling, or punctuation, or grammar, or spacing or margins or any of the technical stuff we all worry about. Just get the story down, and don’t stop until you do.
AFTER you have the whole story down, THEN you go back and fix all of the technical stuff. The reason is that when you start focusing on how good it looks or if the margins are correct, or if the spelling is right or any of the little details before you get the story down, you’re shutting off the creativity function in your brain and getting back to focusing on letters and words.
There’s always time to go back and correct mistakes and grammar and everything else. You have a story to tell, so tell the story first!
Want To Learn More?
Learning about writing like you speak is just the beginning, and while this is a very important part, there’s a lot more that goes into creating dynamic content that engages people, and inspires people, and creates interactions that drive the kind of results you want.
I’d like to show you how and help you get there, and give you the tools and training you need to start from where you are now, to getting all of the results and success you’re after. Watch the video below and follow the link to find out how you can work with me.
How To Work With Dexter
I’m a huge fan of character and proof so here are a couple testimonials from people I’ve worked with in business (not all of them here). After the videos, click the link to get started and find out more about how you can work with me. Thanks everybody!
