You ever been on one of those dates? C’mon, you know the one. The date with the human spreadsheet. The one who spends two hours reciting their resume, listing their quarterly earnings, and detailing the specs on their car, all without ever actually asking who you are. You walk away knowing everything about them, but feeling absolutely nothing for them. It’s all data, no goosebumps. Sound familiar? Now think about the last business meeting you were in. The last presentation you sat through. See, too often in business, we’re all guilty of taking our clients, our teams, and our audiences on the world’s most boring first date, thinking the point is just to transfer the info. We’re not personal, we’re just busyness. And we wonder why nobody calls us back.
As a Grammy nominated spoken word artist, I’ve built a career on the truth that the vehicle is more important than the destination. People know the data, they know the product, they know the talking points—just like my niece knows the story of Cinderella by heart. But she still wants me to tell her the story. She wants the experience. What a motivational poet or any top Spoken Word Artist knows is that your audience is no different. They want to find their story in your story. The world’s best communicators, the truly leading and most inspirational leaders, understand this. They transform a data dump into a piece of powerful spoken word poetry. It’s what this poet believes makes me a vanguard artist: I don’t just speak to the business card, I speak to the human being holding it.
So here’s the challenge from your favorite spoken word poet: stop trying to sell the story and just tell the story. Treat every communication like you’re trying to get a second date, not just close a deal. Are you creating a memo or a moment? Are you listing facts or giving folks a feeling? You want your message to land, to trend like instapoetry, to be the best part of their day. You’ve gotta trade your PowerPoint for a purpose that connects. Stop just informing and start inspiring. After all, nobody ever got goosebumps from a spreadsheet.
