Thanks, Captain Obvious

Welcome to the Thought Follower, your #1 source of LinkedIn advice & writing tips, wrapped in a fresh anecdote each week. 

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“This right here, Joe, is my biggest problem.”

I feel myself involuntarily leaning closer to the screen, every fibre of my being ready to coach the HELL out of this world-ending problem.

I’m talking to an expert in customer profiling for ecommerce brands. The business she’s at right now has doubled its revenue since she joined. She’s got so much to offer the world.

She continues:

“Everything [I know] is just so simple. 

[If I write about it] I feel like everyone’s gonna think:

‘Of course that’s the answer. Thanks, Captain Obvious.’”

Have you ever hit this blocker when it comes to sharing your ideas?

Maybe you’ve hit it so many times, you’ve convinced yourself you’re right and you don’t even think about publicly sharing your ideas anymore. Maybe you’ve resigned yourself to consuming, not creating.

Let’s play a little game of dress ups, just for fun.

Imagine you go up to the attic/shed/garage and pull out an old musty trunk. You heave open the lid and peer inside.

There’s a beautiful, ornate burgundy red cloth folded neatly inside the trunk.

It’s your Captain Obvious cape.

You pull it out of the box and try it on, tying the loop around your neck. You swish and swirl, feeling it against your skin.

And then you sit down to write about your work.

With your Captain Obvious cape on, your thinking atomises down to the smallest, most obvious details of what you do. It’s as if you’re transported back in time to your very first day on the job, when you didn’t know anything about what you were doing. Every incremental thing you learnt was a huge revelation. We want to channel that energy into your writing.

Here are some thought starters to help you get your cape on:

• If you were writing the instruction manual, what would step 1 be?

• What’s the first thing you would tell a new Intern about this thing?

• What is the biggest mistake you made with this when you started out?

• If you could only give someone 1 piece of advice on this, what would it be?

• What’s the most common misconception among people you talk to about this?

Some of the most insightful, valuable professional writing is a single actionable piece of advice that someone can take and apply to their business problems, right now.

And if you ask most consultants, C-suite execs, coaches or anyone who leads others through change, they’ll tell you it’s the simple, concrete messages which land the most impact.

There’s an art to sharing the 201, 301 and 401 level lessons, but 101 is the best place to start. You might just find this starting point unlocks a whole bunch of teaching & insight you never considered before.

Next time you sit down to write, put your Captain Obvious cape on first.

And repeat after me:

My knowledge is obvious to me but useful to others.

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