I was today years old when I realised my daughter doesn't see the world the same way I do.

My youngest is nine. She loves wolves and dragons, and for some reason, her fourth favourite animal is a worm.

She also loves graphic novels. Her mum noticed she always preferred them to regular books and asked her why. She said it was easier to see the characters that way.

It turns out she has aphantasia. If I ask her to picture a camel in a pink tutu, she doesn't see a camel in a pink tutu. She sees the words "camel in a pink tutu."

She's not broken. She's just wired differently. And she's been navigating a world built for people who see pictures in their heads, without any of us noticing.

💡 ONE IDEA WELL

Most of your audience can form mental images. But the image they build may not be the one you intended. "Dirty" means something very different to a teenager than it does to their mum standing in the doorway to their bedroom.

And some of your audience may not be building a picture at all, because you asked them to "imagine" something, and that instruction doesn't make sense for them.

This is the problem with abstract language. It doesn't just fail the people who can't visualise. It leaves everyone building their own picture from whatever materials they have lying around, assuming anyone can build one at all.

I was teaching a group of trainee paramedics on neonatal resuscitation.
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Lecture hall at the ambulance training facility, the kind where nobody sits in the front row, but everyone is still listening. Friends clustered together a few rows back, the way adults still do when nobody's checking the register.

We'd covered airway and breathing, the two that get all the attention. Then we moved on to circulation.

"The circulating blood volume of a newborn is around 80-100mls per kilogram."

Heads down, scribbling facts straight from my mouth to their notepad, bypassing the brain.

I reached down and picked up my can of cola.

"For the average newborn, that's about the same as this."

I pulled the tab.

Heads lifted. A few quiet ahs. Someone glanced at the person next to them, the way you do when you've both just got the same joke.

Same number. One can of cola. The difference between information and understanding.

🧰 LESS MESS, MORE MESSAGE

It's tempting to hear all this and think: just use concrete examples. Cans of cola for everyone.

That's closer, but it's not quite the lesson.

The number itself was never the problem. 80-100mls per kilogram is precise. It's correct. It's also nothing. Nobody has ever held 80-100mls per kilogram in their hands.

The cola can wasn't a simplification. It was a translation. The information didn't change. What changed was whether anyone could hold onto it.

I do this constantly without thinking about it now.

Did you know that a one-month-old's stomach holds about as much as an egg? Parents who've spent a week worrying their baby isn't feeding enough relax a little when they hear that. Not because the maths has changed. Because an egg is something they've held and understand.

🚦TRY THIS

Next time you're building a talk, and you're about to drop in a number nobody can picture, don't reach for the precise figure and move on. Stop and think. What does this actually feel like, weigh like, fit in your hand like?

You don't need the object in the room. You need it in your head, ready, before the number leaves your mouth.

🧭 ASK YOURSELF THIS

Speak soon,

Andy