The Awesome Power of a Complete Sentence
If you can’t say what you want to do in a complete sentence with real words it cannot be done… PERIOD.
This article was originally published on LinkedIn in August of 2021. I’m reposting it here as part of moving my writing to my own platform…
In my time teaching at Art Center College of Design, I developed a saying that became the basis for all of my teaching each term…
If you can’t say what you want to do in a complete sentence with real words it cannot be done… PERIOD.
I had recently switched the format of my 3D motion design class from multiple short lessons and projects to one single project created over the whole term. I would give the students a theme to work within like “Sustainability” and a duration limit of 1 minute, and the rest was up to them. Just enough creative constraints to keep them from going crazy. The students would come back with amazing ideas, but I noticed something… The students who could get up in front of the class and say what they were going to do usually did better on their project. This observation transcended the students language or communication barriers, but more importantly, it transcended their skill level too.
Say it loud!
Students with absolutely amazing style frames couldn’t describe what would happen in between those frames or, more important, who they were creating the frames for and why. The design was beautiful on it’s own, but design that is not in service of a message is art. This was a motion design class... Art is amazing, but it’s not design until it has a clear message for a specific audience.
Wordy words are good!!
The next term, I changed things up… I made the first presentation of their idea a written requirement. The students were not allowed to create style frames or storyboards until they could write a coherent description of their idea. One short paragraph that answered these questions…
What are they trying to create?
Who are they creating it for?
How will they go about communicating that idea?
Overnight, their second visual presentations got dramatically better and more focused, by the end of that term the success rate for projects went through the roof. There were still spectacular fails but the number of projects that actually matched up with the stated goals was much much higher. What’s more, the kids who had the most refined written statements had the most clearly defined progress milestones throughout the term. They knew what they had to do by when to get their project done. (I had this info in the syllabus of course but they never read it LOL)
A sentence for your life??
Fast forward to a slightly older Rob working as a brand new Content Manager for Lynda dot com. Creating course ideas with amazing instructors and guiding them to completion with our incredible production team. Every course starts with a question… What does a person need to know about X subject and why? Or more simply… Who is this course for? If we can answer these questions the course will write itself.
In 2015, Lynda dot com was bought by Linkedin. Like most folks at the time, I had a Linkedin account, but I never really went there much. Now that my paycheck was going to say “Linkedin” I started going there much more often to get my head around this thing called “Linkedin”. During our first week of being officially a part of the team we were invited to a “Rock Your Profile” session. An amazing person from the profile group talked with the room about what makes a “good” profile...
Good headshot? Check!
Banner image? Check!
Complete job history? Check!
Professional statement? Uhhhh wait what?
According to the session leader, a professional statement was your way of telling the world who you are and what you’re about. A lightbulb went off and I flashed back to how I’d been teaching and creating courses all those years. If writing down your goal in a complete sentence works for design projects and courses, could it work for your career? The short answer is...
HEY”LL YAY YAH!!!
A more longwinded answer is that a well crafted professional or personal statement gives your work and life focus and context. Realizing you need one is the easy part… The challenge is figuring out what it should be.
Outward vs Inward?
To be clear, your sentence is for YOU, first and foremost. But part of crafting a personal statement should be the question “Why are you making it?”. Are you making it just for yourself to give you clarity and focus? Or are you creating it to share with the world? I’m a big fan of saying things out loud to the Universe. I’m not a very spiritual person, but I believe strongly in self motivation. Saying what you want, out loud, and in a complete sentence is an amazing way to create positive energy in your life. It gets you off the sofa and gives you a reason for getting up in the morning. You don’t have to share this with the world for it to be effective, but when your inner vision aligns with your outer vision amazing things are possible.
Present vs Future?
I’m at a crossroads in my life. I’ve been doing the same pretty amazing job for 10 years now. Even though it’s amazing and I love the people I work with, I’m continuously thinking about what I want to be when I grow up. We all need challenges to grow. What I’m doing now isn’t necessarily who I want to be in the future. Your personal statement needs to evolve with you. Refining your personal statement is a way to create a new direction. The question is when do you share it and where?
My current statement is on my Linkedin profile…
Rob Garrott - Lifelong learner, communicator, and educator making all forms of visualization and tech easier to understand and junk.
It doesn’t suck. But it took a bunch of sweat to get to those 17 words. It’s reeeeeeeally hard to mush a lifetime of stuff into a short sentence, and I had to compromise a lot to get it down from the original paragraph that it started as. It’s an OK description of who I am right now, and that dude is a culmination of all the myriad stuff that I’ve done over the last 30 plus years since graduating from college. But, I’m not the same person I was when I crafted this statement a few years ago. So what next?
Side hustle much?
One of the things I strive for in life is to make sure that nobody could ever accuse me of not caring. The problem though is that it’s super easy to become too emotionally involved in work, and that is not healthy at all. (also the subject of a future article) A side hustle can keep you fresh at work by giving you something ELSE to think about so that you're not so in the weeds at work that you start to take your stuff home with you.
At the time of this writing I have a couple of nonprofits I’m involved with and lifelong hobbies (biking, skiing, music) that I would gladly do all day if I hit the lotto. But my side hustle is working on an animated show concept. It’s a show about the intersection of music and magic, and no this is not related to the absolutely awful second Trolls movie where music and magic brought the world together. (If you ever want to get Rob wound up ask him what he thought about Trolls World Tour) I’ve been working on this idea for years but it’s finally starting to be something I can say out loud in a complete sentence.
This is not something I’m ready to put on my Linkedin profile YET... but because I trust you, I’ll share it with you here…
Rob Garrott - Lifelong learner, creator of an alternate sci-fi universe about musical wizards loved by millions of fans around the world and junk.
At the time of this writing, It’s forward facing and internal. This is a thing I’m holding for myself to guide my future actions. It gives me focus outside of work and this huge personal goal helps me deal with work meetings and a completely stuffed inbox that can sometimes drag me down. Sentences are powerful...
