3:57 pm - Wed, May 26, 2010

2 notes

Show & Tell

When we were kids, we all participated in show & tell.  It was a break in our stressful day from learning cursive and the fundamentals of math - it was a time to learn about the Venus Fly Trap and Canadian Money (or maybe A-Rab Money).  You’d show something unique and educate your classmates about it.  Such a simple concept, right?  So how come many of us aren’t embracing show & tell anymore?

As we’ve grown up, we have gone away from “show & tell” and have gone on to “tell & maybe show.”  As adults, there are plenty of things we all are guilty of saying we’ll do, but either never get around to, or get discouraged and simply quit on. Show & tell is not just a child learning technique, it’s more of a man’s (and woman’s) game than you realize.  The ability to go out and show something you’ve already done and tell people about it is much harder than saying what you will do; it is also more valuable.

Imagine a child going up in front of his or her class and telling them about something they will show in a few weeks before returning to their assigned seat.  Unless the child promised to bring in Hannah Montana or Justin Bieber, how engaged do you think the group of seven and eight year olds will be if he or she had nothing to show during the presentation?  Just like children, adult’s do not want to hear what will happen, they want to see something tangible and they want to see it now!  As we grow older, our attention span shrinks because of all we have going on.  I’m probably not half as busy as most of the people reading this, but at times, I think my attention span is shorter than one of a gnat - an intelligent gnat on Adderall, if that helps me out at all.

With the help of Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, it is easier than ever to “tell” and forget about doing.  All you have to do is update your status and pow, everybody knows what you’re planning.  If you’re a Twitter/Facebook addict and must talk about what you’re going to do, but still want to embrace the show & tell technique, try speaking in the past tense (despite what your English teacher told you in Junior High).  Speaking in the past tense allow you to show what you’ve already done.  Take it a step further by including a “&” and talk in the future tense about what you want to do with your idea you’ve already established in the first half of the sentence.

Now, if I were Seth Godin, I’d say “Go do the work,” if I were Gary Vaynerchuk, I’d say “Crush it!,” if I were Nike, I’d say “Just Do It,” but I’m The Real Mike Clemente, so I’ll simply say: “Show me!”