Joe McCormack: Learning Lean Communication

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

You know, one of the things I'm always saying is that if this country is gonna get better, if this country is gonna go on the right path, we have to step up as a community. Veterans are the sleeping giant in this country, and it is time for us to step up. That's why I wanna talk to you about The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. Now you might have thought about The Citadel in the past as this corps of cadets, this military institution, but they have programs for veterans that don't involve you joining the corps of cadets, don't involve you wearing a uniform every day, and don't involve you living a military lifestyle. If you wanna do that, great.

But if that's not what you're up for right now after your military career, then you don't have to do that, and you can access some of the best programs in the world. The Citadel has some hot degrees in intelligence, tactical strength and conditioning, engineering, and project management. And there's five student type options for veterans. There's graduate college, there's evening undergraduate, there's active duty students, non cadet day program, returning cadet veterans, and online programs. The academic offerings include undergraduate, graduate, college transfer, graduate certificates, and online degrees.

Veterans have access to every single academic degree the college offers, and they have the most flexibility when it comes to their schedule. They can major in anything offered to the cadets and would take those classes during the day with the cadets. But then there's other programs offered in the evening or online and graduate programs to choose from too to make things so flexible for you. The US World and News report has named the Citadel the number one column for veterans in the South. And for veterans who choose to take classes on campus, they get to be a civilian student in a military environment.

They don't have to wear uniforms, like I said before. They don't have to join the military culture of the corps of cadets. The atmosphere is a really good transition environment from military to civilian life. There's an organic mentorship that comes from taking classes with the cadets. The cadets wanna talk to you guys.

They wanna hear your stories. They wanna know what it was actually like to be in the military. A lot of the a lot of these men and women are gonna go on to serve as officers in the military, and they're gonna exact change. And they need to hear from you guys. They you also get access to The Citadel's alumni network.

Like I said, this is one of the most illustrious institutions in the world. And when you join the Citadel and you graduate, you're part of their alumni network. That includes so many leaders. It includes so many business leaders, so many leaders from the military, and so many leaders from the government. The college's core values of honor, duty, and respect align with veteran culture.

They align with who you are, and it's something that you're not gonna get anywhere else in this country. There is tons of special assistance for veterans at The Citadel. And whether you're a veteran or active duty military personnel, you can take advantage of these programs. You also get access to the veteran student success center, the career center, the academic success center, the student veteran association, and all campus clubs. If you wanna play rugby, you could do that.

If you wanna you wanna lift weights, you could do that. You get access to everything that the students get. There's fellowship opportunities. There's tons and tons of financial assistance. So if you're interested in getting a degree from The Citadel and building your life, head over to citadel.edu/veterans.

Chris Albert 00:03:42 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. And that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul Podcast.

Chris Albert 00:04:21 (link to this point)

What is going on, Warrior Soul Nation? This is the Warrior Soul podcast. My name is Chris Albert. I am your host, and this podcast is about helping The US military veteran community and anybody else willing to listen to live their absolute best lives. And today, we're gonna be talking about an extremely important concept that is gonna help you to live your best life, and that is communication, the art and science of communication.

My guest today is a man named Joe McCormack. Joe is a former marketing executive and the founder of The Brief Lab. He's an expert in what he calls lean communication. Now what is that? That means getting across your point in as few of words as possible, not going through an entire mess where you're trying to ask your boss about something and he's sitting there for two minutes wondering what your point is and why he hired you, but getting to the point and showing your boss why it's important and doing that quickly.

You know, the thing is so many of us waste words. We waste communication. We waste attention. Alright? And what this is about is getting other people's attention focused in the right places so we can accomplish what we want to accomplish.

We go through communication in the professional setting. We also go through communication in the personal setting. We talk about communication and relationships. And Joe is a real expert on this. Just by talking with him for thirty seconds, I could see that he knew exactly what he was talking about.

You guys are gonna get a whole lot out of this episode, and we'll get you some links in the show notes if you wanna go check out the Brief Lab and check out some of Joe's work. So with that, I'm not gonna waste any more words here. I am going to start this show off, this conversation with mister Joe McCormack of The Brief Lab. Joe McCormack, welcome to the Warrior Soul podcast. How you doing?

Joe McCormack 00:06:29 (link to this point)

I'm doing great. It's really good to be with you.

Chris Albert 00:06:31 (link to this point)

It's great being with you, man. I've I've been reading about you. Can we start off, can you give me, like, just like a brief, two minute synopsis of who you are, where you're coming from?

Joe McCormack 00:06:44 (link to this point)

Former marketing executive, worked at a big agency in Chicago, specialized in messaging, so helping companies like Harley-Davidson, MasterCard, big brands develop important messaging when it matters. And my career journey has led me to teach people how to be clear and concise.

Working with special operations for the last ten years requested asked me to teach them how to make briefings brief. Led me to write a book called Brief, make a bigger impact by saying less about what you're doing when you're being concise. Started a business called The Brief Lab to teach professionals how to be lean communicators. And it's been a blast.

Chris Albert 00:07:26 (link to this point)

Nice. Nice. You know, I'm in manufacturing, so we have this whole concept called lean manufacturing. It's the first time I'm really hearing the the I've heard of, you know, being laconic before. Right? That's how the Spartans used to use to communicate.

But this is the first time hearing lean communication. Can you tell us a little bit more about it?

Joe McCormack 00:07:48 (link to this point)

Same thing about manufacturing. So if you look at all the things in manufacturing, you're trying to drive inefficiencies out of process. If there's 17 steps to make something and you can make it in 12, I mean, obviously you want to do it in 12. So you're looking for where is inefficiency and how things get done.

The same is proves true when people communicate. There's a lot of inefficiencies to help people communicate a lot of waste, scrap words, people talking to talk, not a lot of intention. Don't know their audience. It's it's, there's a lot of sloppiness even at very, very high levels where people are expected to be good. A lot of inefficiencies.

So when I was asked to do this, I started really studying. What do you really need to say? And what could, what could you leave out without really losing anything? And therein lies the rub people don't even think about like, where am I wasting time and energy by saying stuff that actually in that moment doesn't matter. There so in communication, inefficiency is just like a manufacturing, almost exactly the same.

Chris Albert 00:08:47 (link to this point)

Could you give me an example of maybe a company that that you've helped or a result that you've gotten from implementing this stuff?

Joe McCormack 00:08:56 (link to this point)

The examples are like they're endless. So you think of like any big corporation for this matter, there's not one in particular, they're all bad at it. So you think of like an executive comes to a town hall meeting with employees and talks to them for an hour because they have an hour. Right. But doesn't really think like, okay, well, how much time do I really need with them?

Well, they gave them an hour, so I'm gonna fill the hour. And really at the end of the day, he or she only needed about twenty minutes. Or maybe in fact they needed an hour and a half. I don't know, but let's say that they needed twenty, they really needed twenty minutes. Well, why did you just take forty minutes, forty extra minutes because they gave it to you?

Why couldn't you be giving that time back to them? And that happens in meetings too. You go into a meeting, you're like, well, that was an hour meeting, that should have been an email. People feel like they're sort of held captive in this moment of like, they're just talking at me and this is a flood of information because I can. They're stuck in their inbox.

So company after company is pumping out information at their employees, their shareholders, their dealers, and they're just taught and these people are just overwhelmed. And where is the relief? Well, there isn't any relief. So you've got only eight hours in a day. Well, now I got to just cram, you know what, in a five pound bag.

So corporations, employees need some like, okay, I can't handle this. But what are they going to tell the CEO, stop talking? Right, Sitting notes, just suck it up and take one for the team. You know what I mean? So they're just, and I just thought, well, there's what if we made this an issue where it's like, all right, how much time do you really need?

Well, why don't you just do it in twenty minutes? Well, I can't. Well, why can't you? What's the risk if you talk for too long? Are they gonna what do they actually hear anyways?

Right. Right.

Chris Albert 00:10:39 (link to this point)

And it's funny because, you know, we we think so much about money and we think so much about dollars. But like when it comes to time and when it comes to like the minutes we are spending on useless stuff, we don't really think about that all the time, right?

Joe McCormack 00:10:56 (link to this point)

It's the time, but think about the mental energy that's wasted. So if you go back to manufacturing, think about scrap. I mean, you see scrap, scrap is scrap. I mean, there is mental scrap in people's day and nobody even talks about it. How much energy it takes to sort of sit in that one hour meeting and really there was just this one nugget and everything around it was just scrapped to get that one nugget.

And well, I'm the boss, I do it because I can't. It's like, well, how much waste? It's certainly time, but mental energy, they could have been doing something else like going, like they could have been with their family or they could have been with a customer or they could have been with a coworker, but no, no, you just just you just you just killed it. Yeah.

Chris Albert 00:11:40 (link to this point)

Yeah. That and I was thinking about today, how much time I spend in the morning going through my emails and filing out things that I don't really need or putting things in a proper folder because I might need it later or things like that.

Joe McCormack 00:11:55 (link to this point)

Yeah. I mean, so so you get people to send things to you, they don't think, okay. Well, I'm sending this to you right now. So where are you at? What do you really need?

I I need to give you three bullet points. I'm gonna give you so if you look at, this like, two mail two emails from two different people. Mhmm. And one has got a big block of text, and they didn't do anything. They just started just in case, I'm going tell you all these things.

And the other person was careful about like, okay, what in the subject line do you need to do? I'm to use that space economically. My opening sentence is what I'm talking about, why you should care. These are the three things and then this is the call to action. And you look at them side by side, but one is you're inclined to go to that one and the other one you just, you delete or you delay.

And I wanna train people like if you're sending an email, be the person's email that I wanna read, that you want to read, that's easy to read. And you can actually teach people how to do that.

Chris Albert 00:12:43 (link to this point)

Right. Yeah, that's so important. Particularly, I mean, I was in, before I came into my current position, I was in sales and marketing and just you know, not wasting people's time, not wasting people's energy, getting straight to the subject and getting something that they're actually gonna open. That's that's such a huge thing.

Joe McCormack 00:13:02 (link to this point)

Yeah. Mean, you're so you're you're in a look at people in sales and it's it's it's really cuts across all gamuts of, professional life and then I do work with a lot of guys in the military, it's like, okay, well what am I trying to say? Who am I talking to? How long should it take? What is the most important thing that I want them to be thinking, feeling and doing at the end of this?

And I honestly think that it's so inexact to the way many people do it, that there's just a ton of room for improvement. So we live in a communication age, but we don't teach people how to communicate. Yeah. We know that we live in an attention economy where a person's attention is actually the most precious thing. Where where we where you invest your as a leader of a business, where you invest your time and energy is a scarce resource.

It's not limitless, but it's abused all the time. Right.

Chris Albert 00:13:51 (link to this point)

No, mean, time, big time. I mean, like, everything's trying to grab my attention throughout the day. And whether I'm out on the shop floor, whether I'm up here, whether it's this phone that's going off behind me while talking with you, Absolutely. All these different

Joe McCormack 00:14:08 (link to this point)

So what's really cool about the work we do at the Brief Lab and the point of the book Brief is there are things that successful people who are clear communicators do and there's things that people who are unsuccessful who waste time do. So what we do is we teach people practically, okay, one of the things that you want to do is think, what am I trying to say? What is my main idea? So if I got cut off in the first thirty seconds, what do you need from me? Don't put it at the end, put it at the beginning.

For example, a person knocks you, you got a minute? Okay. Don't put that point at the end of the minute, because it might be five minutes. Say, we've got a budget problem and we need to find a way to fix it the next three days. Now you're like, got it.

We're talking about a budget problem. We've got a time, only three days to fix it. Then you get into the next point. Why am I telling you this right now? Well, if we don't fix the next three days, we can't pay our vendors.

Got it. So now I've got the main point and why it's important. Here's a couple of recommendations, but here's what I need from you. What I'm doing in that moment is I'm managing your attention. Right.

And what I'm doing is I'm being brief, but you feel, it feels different to you. You're like, Hey, this person just walked in my door versus the next person was like, you got a minute. And they're thinking it and they're saying it out loud and they don't know what they're saying. Right. That's problematic because it's certainly a waste of time, but you are starting to think like, why did I hire this person?

Chris Albert 00:15:36 (link to this point)

Yeah, no. And one thing I want to point out that you did there was in the way you phrased it, you also created a path toward a solution rather than just bringing me a problem that we were going to talk about for the next fifty minutes.

Joe McCormack 00:15:49 (link to this point)

That's exactly right. So one of the interesting things is in studying this, how do you actually say less, but you actually say more less time, is comedy. You think about a comedian. What a comedian is doing is they've got a joke, but there's a sequence to the joke, and there's a sequence to clarity. So a comedian will start a joke, and then they'll say some bunch of stuff, and at the end, there's a punch line.

Well, the same thing with clarity, like, okay, well, the main thing is, okay, what am I talking about? Why does this matter? And here's some bullet points, and then there's an intention and an ending. Well, when you do that, if you took the joke, let's say hypothetically, and you change the order, it's not funny anymore. The order is everything.

People speak out of order all the time and they throw more information than you need so that one minute conversation turns into five, the five take turns into 10 and then at the end, you're like, you're frustrated. You're not any more clear at the end that you were in the beginning. And then you're like, why? I think I need to let this person go. Nobody told me how to do this.

And I'm like, well, can teach you how to do it. And then you just take them through a series of practical things like one is the level of detail. Do I need to know the weight of this particular thing that we're talking about? No, so why am I telling them? If you don't need to know, don't tell them.

Tell them the most important things, but don't tell them the things that they don't need to know. People tell you things that you don't need to know in that moment all the time. So that's one thing, we call it trimming. So it's like, it's like, that's in manufacturing, take, why am I doing these three steps? Well, cause we always said it that way.

Okay. Well, how's it working for you? Yeah. Our cost of goods sold is a lot higher than everybody else's. We'll cut those three steps up.

Well, we can't because that's how we do it. Well, in communication, same way. I tell him this because that's what I always do. Well, you're wasting his brain. So don't say it.

So we call it trimming. That's the first thing. Second thing we teach people is always say the most important thing first, give people the headline. What's the headline? How was your trip?

Really good use of my time. Got it. Don't say that at the end. Say the headline first. In journalism, I teach you, give you the headline first.

And then the last thing is just organize your points. Have some put it in order, don't have it be chaos. If you look at your world like manufacturing and process, there's systems and there's Communication is a system. It's like comedy, there's a system, a sequence, and there's an optimum sequence. People have never been taught the optimum sequence.

I just saw that as a marketing person and I'm like, I'm going to teach people how to do this. It's been so much fun because people are like, I wish I knew this ten years ago. And I'm like, I do too. You would have wasted yourself and everybody else so much so much energy, and that's just been very fulfilling for me.

Chris Albert 00:18:39 (link to this point)

No, that's I mean, that's so awesome just to think about. I mean, are there steps? So let's say you're walking up to the boss's office, and you know, you're you're going in, you wanna tell them something important. What exercises would you go through in your mind? Would you go through those three steps as as you as you're walking to the boss's office?

Joe McCormack 00:18:59 (link to this point)

Here's here's the here's the steps that I would do is the first thing that I would do is is don't think that by saying it out loud, it's gonna make sense. Mhmm. So before you get to the threshold of a person's door, stop, go back to your office and sit down for a minute. And people are like, well, don't have a minute. Nobody's so busy, they don't have a minute.

So sit down for one minute and say, okay, so that's preparing. Professionals, successful professionals prepare, like comedians do. You wouldn't stand up at stage and just say, Dave Chappelle is going to stand on stage and just start talking. Like no, they prepare. So go back to your office for a minute and sit down and then prepare.

Now when you're preparing, think, okay, what do I want to say? What is this about? And then, I'm talking about the budget. Okay, that's the first thing. What do why am I telling them this?

That's the next question. Like, you've got questions. Your questions are, what do you want to talk about? So you've got questions. Answer your questions.

First is, what am I talking about? The budget. Next question, why should I care? Well, if we don't fix it, we can't spend money. Well, how did we get here?

Bump, bump, bump, couple points. What do you want me to do? Those are the questions that you would have if I walked into your office. Yeah. Prepare them, and then walk up and now you got a plan and knock on your door, you got a minute.

Yeah. Okay, I need to talk to about the budget, it's broken. The reason they need to talk to you right now is because I need your help. We can only have three days before we can't spend any money. This is how we got here, but this is what I think we can do.

And what I would like to know is, could you help me out with this afternoon for a half hour? Sure. You like that? That was thirty seconds. I could not have done that had I not gone back to my desk for a minute.

You got to prepare. People don't, they're like, I'm too busy. Well, if you're too busy, you'll keep the three processes in your manufacturing forever and you'll be more expensive. And that's just, it's discipline.

Chris Albert 00:20:57 (link to this point)

About this? Because I think this is actually a more nerve wracking experience for people than people let on with. When you are in the elevator, and the boss walks into the elevator, and there is small talk going on, like the boss says, Hey, how is everything going? Like, and I never got this until I got into a leadership position. And I see the kind of fearful look in people's eyes at some points when I when I just walked by.

But I also remember being that young kid walking the elevator and saying, Hey, sir, how you doing? Or when I was in the military, you know, snapping a salute. Good morning, sir. You know, God forbid, they wanted to stop and talk to me. Sometimes, I just have gibberish coming out of my mouth.

You know, what if you are that that that young person just trying to get your foot in the door and you come into one of those moments where the boss is in the elevator, and they're talking to you and you're you're they're scaring the daylights out of you.

Joe McCormack 00:21:54 (link to this point)

I mean, part of it is there's times to speak and there's times not to speak. So sometimes it's better to say nothing. I mean, honestly, like if you're it's it's generally speaking, it's never good to just say things to say things. Right.

So that said, so if you actually do have something to say versus just trying to fill the air, don't say stuff to say stuff. So, okay, so just bite your tongue. But if you actually do have something, say, oh, I always tell people like, be ready to bump into your most important client or your boss. It's like be ready. When I've worked in my career, I mean, I'm always ready for my client to call me and say, how is it going?

Never say good. Good does it, good is like dial tone. It doesn't tell me anything. So right of good is amazing and left of good is we need to improve. So always figure out where in that continuum you are or what you might say to them if they stopped and ask you.

It's always a good practice. It's never a bad idea to think if the CEO and I bumped into each other in the elevator or a colonel bumped into me in the command headquarters and they said, how's it going? That I would be like, like be ready for that. Right. Well, you got to be thinking about like everybody's got a boss and if your boss asks you how's it going and you don't have an answer, whose fault is that?

You know I mean? So be ready to have a short answer for that. Right. And and it takes a few minutes to think about it, but we we call these like impromptu conversations, but be be ready. Professionals are always ready for impromptu conversations.

I found.

Chris Albert 00:23:24 (link to this point)

Yeah. No, absolutely. Absolutely. Another scenario here, and this is maybe a different class of communication, but when I'm communicating with my significant other, she and I, you know, sometimes get straight to the point about everything. Sometimes she's like, well, tell me more.

Tell me this. Tell me that. She wants me to put a lot of meat on the bones that sometimes isn't necessarily there. I don't know how to put on there.

Joe McCormack 00:23:53 (link to this point)

So so there's I I I when I mean, I'm really, really keenly acutely aware of this, having wrote a book called Brief, that's two twenty pages about brevity, is there is a lot to be said about being too brief. So the example I gave, like when you ask a kid, if you have kids in high school, how is school? There is a sequence that always goes the same way. So how is school? Good.

What happened? Nothing. Then they give me homework and then they just kind of trail off into mumbling and you never hear from them So that's too brief. So with the significant other, like it's what do they need? Not what do I feel like saying?

So if I feel like it's fine, everything's good, like that's too brief. And I define being brief as first being clear and then being concise. Well, you can be too concise to the point that it's not clear anymore, because you So didn't tell me some people need to actually, they are too brief, they need to say more. Okay, I need to give what I call level one detail of how was your day? Well, first I got to think, was it good or bad?

Okay, the day was amazing. Well, tell me some more things. It not is enough to just say that one thing. I might need to say it was amazing because this happened, this happened, this happened. You had to put meat on the bone, which is a great way of putting it.

People just take the meat off and they're like, well, why are they well, they're just chewing on a bone. There's nothing there. They're just remnants of a taste, but you've got to actually put some meat on it. Too brief is a problem. And then the other is there's too much fat on it.

Right. And it all depends on the person you're talking to. What do they need? How much information do they need to feel satisfied? And the irony of being brief is that they they actually want you to talk more.

Chris Albert 00:25:39 (link to this point)

Yeah. That's a that's

Joe McCormack 00:25:40 (link to this point)

a really and good then you start a conversation.

Chris Albert 00:25:44 (link to this point)

Yeah. No. Absolutely. That's a that's a really good way of putting it because I I found that I have to really separate my business mind and my work mind from my home mind in a lot of ways. And if I don't do that, and I'm still in business mode when I'm home, like, it just doesn't work out.

Joe McCormack 00:26:04 (link to this point)

Wait. Wait. I don't how long of a drive do you have going from work from one to the other?

Chris Albert 00:26:07 (link to this point)

It's about a good, thirty minutes.

Joe McCormack 00:26:11 (link to this point)

You know? Thirty minutes is a good thirty minutes. People, you know, complain about commute times. I actually worked for years in Chicago, my commute was brutal. It was an hour and a half each way.

And now I live in a small town in North Carolina near Pinehurst by Fort Bragg. And my commute is only five. It's actually too short. I wish it were longer somehow. But people have a commute.

I I always tell people, and I I wrote a book that came out Brief came out five years ago, and I wrote a second book called Noise, Living and Leading When Nobody Can Focus. And it's all about managing too much noise in your life and digital distractions and information overload and just all the noise, the craziness of, like, way too much information. And one of the antidotes of lowering noise is quiet. So keep using the time from leaving work to going home and using some amount of that quiet to prepare the question that inevitably comes when I transition from one reality to other, which is how was your day? In creating a buffer, are like, all right, so I am going to have a headline, how was my day?

And I am going to say, well that was a really weird day. And then see if I can get her or my other significant other's attention. Okay, well the point was it was pretty weird because I used some of that commute to think about, but then a bunch of weird stuff happened. Well what happened? Maybe to see if that starts a conversation and I actually do this exercise with people in courses because I teach a lot of guys in special operations, at Fort Bragg and other places.

We have an exercise where they have to kind of give their update of their day. Like how was the class and see if they can hold their attention. But you got to prepare it though. You got to think before you speak, which is sounds obvious, but people don't do it. For as obvious it sounds like you got to think before you talk, got to think before you write, people don't think and then they write and they don't think and they speak or they don't say anything.

So that was a really weird day. Naturally, the person's going to be like, why? What happened? And you're like, well, this And then you tell a story and then they're like, that's my debrief for the day. But I use the commute to prepare and that sometimes is a really good bridge for people to go from one mode, business mode to like, I'm walking through that front door and I'm not a businessman anymore.

I'm a father and I'm a husband.

Chris Albert 00:28:16 (link to this point)

That's a really good tip. I think that's so important because if you do carry that stuff home and and you know, business is one thing, but also being in the military is another thing. I think that veterans coming back from deployment, they really have to work on their story. They really have to work on how they are going to communicate their experience to their significant others or the people that they love because for a lot of guys, it is very difficult to communicate that stuff. And I think in some cases, the significant other doesn't know how to support them when they get home because of that lack

Joe McCormack 00:28:51 (link to this point)

It's difficult, there's a lot of noise. Obviously, there's things that they can't say, or there's difficulties in whatnot, but there's I think one of the things I think of just a practical tip in the book Noise is one of the things that can be a huge interrupter or disruptor of how people communicate at home is smartphones and technology because we live in an always, people have the sense of guilt like I always have to be on. I'm always on and there is a pervasiveness of connectivity where I can be connected all the time no matter where I go and I carry it with me. And I think one of the things that is really powerful is to be present is like I not I just put my phone aside for a while, I am not going to check it right now. And giving people what I call a noise, the term present listening, where I'm giving the gift, the present of my undivided attention in the moment, I'm present to that person and one of the things I'm saying no to is I'm not going look at my phone right now.

And that one little thing lowers the noise, but it gives the person a sense of like, you're not really paying attention to me or you are paying attention to me. And it used to be back in the day before smartphones, it was like the remote control And now it's like, it's now it's like the phone. It's like, I'm, I love the phone. I'm not against technology, but I think there's moments like, just gotta put it aside. Yeah.

No. Gotta just like, put it on, like nothing. People are like, oh, I gotta check. It's like, probably nothing bad is gonna happen. Right.

I mean, you put it off for a couple minutes, I have this rule, like seven to seven rule, I I break it, but generally speaking, I don't check my smartphone before 7AM. Right. Right. I don't check it after 7PM. Do I break it?

Yeah, depending on the circumstances, but I have office hours like nine to five, seven to seven, like, and my phone works for me. I don't work for it. So when it comes notifying me and I'm having a conversation just like half hour ago, I'm with a buddy of mine in town having lunch and I just put it aside. Well, my phone went off. I just said no.

Yeah. That conversation was the most important thing. I didn't check it. I checked it after my lunch. What what and I think we intermix these worlds too much.

They we we we we mesh them together, and we should create, like, boundaries of of but more boundaries where it makes it those worlds can we can kind of coexist a little bit.

Chris Albert 00:31:05 (link to this point)

Right. Right. And that's a big rule of mine. I don't look at my phone, until 08:00. I don't respond to email until 10AM.

I respond I don't respond to email after 4PM. Those are big rules that I have, because otherwise, it just intermingles too much and gets in the way of things.

Joe McCormack 00:31:23 (link to this point)

You know, one of the things you talked about, because I work with a lot of, I work with active duty, but I also people, a lot people transition out of the military and veterans, and I love working with people in the military because it gives so much. They're constantly giving, there's a big toll with families, of all the deployments and training up for missions and all the stuff they have to do, is the importance of and many of them just like, they just wanna shut down. It's like there is a time and a place for long conversations, have them. I mean, like, I'm in the spirit of brevity, you can't be brief all the time. There's times that you just have to sit and have a nice long conversation with a person.

And sometimes they need to be doing most of the talking. Sometimes you need to be doing most of talking. Just have to kind of get a feel for that moment. But there is a time and a place for people to have long conversations. Don't squander them.

When a person wants to talk, just listen. Yeah. Yeah, it might be tough, but people in the military have done tough stuff. They can sit and listen to their spouse, you know, like, how was your day? And really like ask, like, how was it?

I want to know. Like, if you had to write a book reporter, news article based on what was said, could you could you do it? And I think, you know, having those on conversations can be very, you know, I I say, I'm not a therapist, but can be pretty therapeutic and make a person feel more connected, you know. Yeah. Very much.

It seems difficult. You're getting out of one very, very intense reality and going into a lot of ambiguity, like what's my life gonna look like in going into civilian life. And there's a lot of conversations that need to have to prepare a person so that they're right about what they really want and what are they gonna do. Because that's such a, you know, my experience in working with them over a decade is, man, what a defining experience to serve in these roles, right? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's who you are, right? You forge this way. There's a lot of long conversations I think that need to happen for people to kind of unwind off of that and to find their way that they have another life and another identity that builds on that previous one that doesn't it doesn't sort of take it down.

Chris Albert 00:33:19 (link to this point)

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I know we're gonna wrap up soon, but I wanted to get into, you know, how'd you get into this this work? I know you're a mic marketing executive. When did you decide that that you were gonna do this?

Joe McCormack 00:33:34 (link to this point)

It wasn't it wasn't a decision of mine. It was it was it was an invitation. Life, there's these moments that happen that are just like, wow, how did that just happen? About ten years ago, I got a phone call from people in the special operations community that had heard of my marketing world and my specialty in being messaging and stuff. So they said, we are an outsider, can you come and teach?

You do this concise messaging for corporations, can you help us teach how to speak like that? Then one thing led to another, and I started realizing there was a massive unmet need of teaching people the art and the science of being clear and concise. I just started down there, and I started realizing, wow, they really, really don't know how to do this. But they're expected to know how to do it. And I just felt like that was my calling.

My calling was, I'm the guy behind the guy behind the guy to teach these people who play at a very, very high level. How do you communicate complex information in a simpler way in less time? And I set out to make it my life's work to teach them how to do that. And I'm well underway. It's like, again, a lot of appreciation because a lot of people tell me nobody's ever taught me how to do this.

And I'm like, I am here to help you how to do that. And it's a very fixable problem.

Chris Albert 00:34:50 (link to this point)

It's amazing because like Manufacturing. Yeah. As I alluded to at the at the beginning of the conversation, there's there's kind of an ancient tradition here amongst warriors with, they called it the laconic way of speaking with the the Spartans. And and you had to say what you meant in as few words as possible, you have some really famous phrases, come and take it, Molon Labe, and all these different things came from that style of speech. It's really interesting.

Joe McCormack 00:35:20 (link to this point)

What I hear the warriors that I work with speak when they're really being intentional, it's pretty awesome.

Chris Albert 00:35:25 (link to this point)

Yeah.

Joe McCormack 00:35:26 (link to this point)

Because you're you're you're talking about some really, really smart people when you give them a craft and ability to do it, a permission even. You can you don't need to put it in PowerPoint with 700 bullet points.

Chris Albert 00:35:37 (link to this point)

Right.

Joe McCormack 00:35:37 (link to this point)

And they thought that that's how we we do it in the military. I'm like, no. No. What are you doing? And then you tell them, boom.

They say it and you're like, wow. That was I was waiting for that. That's great.

Chris Albert 00:35:45 (link to this point)

Yeah. We had a we used to call it death by PowerPoint.

Joe McCormack 00:35:49 (link to this point)

They're like, well, that's how we do it. I'm like, how is it working out for you? I feel like it's not good. I'm like, why don't we change it? Like, alright, that sounds good.

Let's do it.

Chris Albert 00:35:58 (link to this point)

And and what can people find over at the Brief Lab?

Joe McCormack 00:36:01 (link to this point)

We have a pod I have a podcast called Just Saying, which I'm in my fifth season. So that is very short as you can imagine. They're like twelve to fifteen minute episodes where we talk about the book Brief another tool. The book Noise, they're very easy book. They're not like reading long, it's like War and Peace.

They're very practical, very relevant. Thebrieflab.com is another resource. We've got tools to download. But I think that's the three things. It's the podcast, the books, and then the website.

Chris Albert 00:36:30 (link to this point)

Very cool, Joe. What's the URL for the website? It's thebrieflab.com. Right?

Joe McCormack 00:36:35 (link to this point)

The Brief Lab is thebrieflab, thebrieflab.com. And then there's resources there and links to the podcast and the books.

Chris Albert 00:36:44 (link to this point)

Awesome. Awesome. I'm gonna get those up on the, the show notes for this, for this episode. Any any parting advice for our audience over here?

Joe McCormack 00:36:52 (link to this point)

I think the thing about communicating is it's a craft. Some people think it's a natural thing and some people have and others don't. People can learn how to be more intentional when they communicate. So think, when I communicate first, I have to think, who am I talking to and what am I trying to say? By saying it out loud in the moment, people think it's going to make sense, you have to prepare.

Even if it's for thirty seconds or a minute, before you send an email, before you go into a meeting, before you update your boss, think, what am I trying to say? Why does it matter? What do I want them to do? Any time to prepare is good and over time, people will see they get better at it.

Chris Albert 00:37:36 (link to this point)

That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, Joe, I wanna thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate you sharing your insights with our audience. And to everybody out there, mean, this is great stuff that Joe went over today. Definitely head over to thebrieflab.com and check his stuff out.

And, again, thank you so much, man.

Joe McCormack 00:37:58 (link to this point)

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Chris Albert 00:38:00 (link to this point)

Awesome. To everybody out there, get out there and live your best lives while you can. This is Chris and Joe, and we are out.

Joe McCormack 00:38:07 (link to this point)

Alright, guys.

Chris Albert 00:38:09 (link to this point)

There you have it. That is our interview with mister Joe McCormack of The Brief Lab. Like I said at the beginning of the show, we're gonna have all the links up for Joe's stuff, for The Brief Lab, for his books, for everything on the show notes at warriorsoulagoge.com. Hope you guys enjoyed this. I hope you got a lot out of it.

If you guys have any questions, feel free to reach out to us. We are on social media at Warrior Soul Agoge, that's a g o g e, on Instagram, or you can hit us up on Facebook. That is the Warrior Soul Agoge on Facebook and Warrior Soul Gear on Twitter. Get out there and live your best lives while you can. This is Chris Albert, and I am out.

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