USE “AMAZINGLY ZIPPY” WORDS 119
It was hard to miss financial guru Suze Orman in 2008 and
2009 when the global financial markets were collapsing. In
addition to appearing on her own CNBC show, the bestselling
author was a frequent guest on shows such as “Oprah” and
“Larry King Live.” Banks and financial companies were also
using her in advertisements meant to alleviate their custom-
ers’ fears. I interviewed Orman several times and found her
to be surprisingly candid about the secret to her success as a
communicator.
“How do you make complicated financial topics easy to
understand?” I once asked.
“Too many people want to impress others with the infor-
mation they have so others think the speaker is intelligent,”
Orman responded.^8
“But Suze,” I said, “If your message is too simple, don’t you
risk not being taken seriously?”I don’t care what people think about it. All I care about is
that the information I’m imparting empowers the listener
or reader of my material... If your intention is to impart a
message that will create change for the person listening,
then if you ask me, it is respectful to that person to make
the message as simple as possible. For example, if I gave
you directions to how to get to my house, you would
want me to give you the simplest directions to get there.
If I made it more complicated, you would not be bet-
ter off. You might get aggravated and give up. If it were
simple, chances are you will get in your car and try to
get to my house rather than giving up and saying it’s not
worth it. Others criticize simplicity because they need
to feel that it’s more complicated. If everything were so
simple, they think their jobs could be eliminated. It’s our
fear of extinction, our fear of elimination, our fear of not
being important that leads us to communicate things in
a more complex way than we need to.”^9A Guru Who Keeps It Simple