How you say it matters...just as much.

Last summer I signed my two year old daughter up for a 6 week soccer camp through our city. As you can probably imagine, my expectations were very veeeery low. I was prepared for her to either sit there and play with the grass or just cry and beg to go home.

When we arrived, we saw the coach pull up in his tiny smart car with about 40 soccer balls, a couple of pop up nets, and a whole stack of cones crammed in there with him. As the session started he got down on his hands and knees and started calling each child one by one, looking them in the eyes and making a genuine connection with them "I see you have a big sister shirt on, I bet you're a great big sister!"

Once every child was marked off his list, he began his story about animals. There were penguins who helped us learn how to dribble, eagles who taught us how to stop, and bears who taught us how to turn and run away, all the while keeping our attention on him by referencing local favorite places like the zoo.

While my daughter acted a bit shy during the class, later in the week she heard a song that talked about "soaring like an eagle" and she screamed with excitement because "that's from soccer!!"

It was so evident that this coach had lived and breathed soccer his whole life...but he also loved and understood kids. He could have checked the kids in by talking to the parents. He could have used words like dribble (which he didn't) and go along talking in technical terms and all of us parents probably wouldn't have even known the difference.

But what a difference his presentation made! 

So how does this relate to writing content for your audience as a parent and family coach or educator? It's about knowing your audience. You'll probably describe something differently if you're presenting to colleagues or writing for a professional journal. Of course that's probably not the right time to bring up the latest pop culture news.

But consider your audience. What are their demographics? What things can they relate to? How can you explain something in a way that will make them feel the emotional connection my daughter had with the soaring eagle to remember your teaching/coaching in the wild?

If you struggle to know how to sound relatable when you write, try this. The next time you have a concept you want to write about take out your phone and voice record yourself while you pretend to explain it to a friend (who doesn't already know all about it) in a couple of sentences. Then actually write it out the way you said it.

The more you practice this, the more your unique voice will shine and the more your audience will feel connected to you as a person...because really, they probably didn't hop onto facebook to read a textbook...