A Picture’s Worth

If you Google the phrase, it appears that a newspaper editor, Tess Flanders, used it first way back in 1911.

"Use a picture. It's worth a thousand words."

That's truer now than at any point in human history because we have so many more ways to see that picture today.

Pictures, images -- videos -- are the most-shared content on the internet, worldwide.

But wait...

"The book is better than the movie," is also a widely quoted aphorism, and some claim that it's correct 74% of the time.

Can both be true?

The simple answer is, Yes.

The reason so many of us know the book is better than the movie is because we have imagined the characters and the settings in our minds, and what we see on the screen doesn’t begin to compare favorably with what we’ve created in our mind’s eye.

The very best air talent has a gift for finding the right words to cause an emotional response in tens of thousands of individual listeners.

They use inflection, pause, pace and energy to convey mood and feeling.

Not in a group setting…that’s actually easier than what you do. Think pep rallies, or political events.

You must find the right words and delivery to cause emotional engagement as people listen, alone, in their cars, at their desks.

Can you help each individual listener feel what you’re feeling, what you’re expressing?

Because that’s your job actually: use words that help them feel what you’re feeling.

Can you do that?