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Metaphors are powerful because they take one concept and marry it to another one to help someone understand something. They’re a way to create an instantly-shared view of the world. To capture big ideas, you need something big enough to capture both the idea itself and all the subconcepts associated with it, a “meta-metaphor.”

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“Start with Why” is pretty common advice, but it’s hard to follow. It wasn’t until Tamsen had a conversation with Nilofer Merchant that things shifted into place for her. She said, “change doesn’t happen until we understand the context in which it happens.” In other words, our Why is contextual. The good news is that that’s what the Red Thread is all about: making visible the invisible context for your idea and the change that you’re tryi

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Why do we still buy diamonds for engagement and wedding rings? Because we want to give or receive a symbol of the commitment that we’re making and, of course, “A Diamond Is Forever.” Behind this simple tagline is a powerful Red Thread complete with a Goal, a Problem, an Idea, a Change, and an Action.

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The conventional wisdom with regards to negotiations is to “argue interests, rather than positions.” The problem is that interests are often so fraught with moral obligations and deep-set beliefs about the other side that we need to go one step further. We need to think about the principles that create these interests.

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Our idea of what people need to make a change is really different from what information they actually need, and the difference is the distinction between curiosity and knowledge. We want people to be asking questions because curiosity is how the audience moves themselves along the Red Thread.

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We use the word "story" a lot, but we often mean something else: narrative. A narrative has a lot of things that stories have, like characters and motivations, but the difference is that it isn’t over. It has a hoped-for end, but it’s evolving, and there are any number of individual stories that support it.

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We talk a lot about telling stories with our messages, but a common mistake is to tell a story that’s already over. Nonprofits have been talking about stories for a long time because they’re a great way to get potential donors to understand the impact of a gift. However, when Tamsen worked in the nonprofit sector, she noticed that some stories were more effective than others.

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Have you ever watched a detective movie and felt like you were just about to put it together right when the detective solves it? How do we get our audience to have that feeling when they’re listening to our message? The thing to realize is that, just like a great detective novel, there are several roles we can play in delivering a message.

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We need to reach many different people, but we have only one message. Gretchen Rubin, in The Four Tendencies, explains that there are multiple categories for how we deal with expectations. We need to explain, for those that care about external expectations, why our Goal makes sense for most people. However, for the contrarians, we also need to show the other side. Building a message that appeals to both groups will make sure that you reach everyone.

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When Tamsen first trained for the Boston Marathon, she ended up injuring herself because she was new to running. To train safely, she discovered the Universal Running Cadence of 180 steps per minute. To keep time, Tamsen created a playlist of tracks that all were at 180 beats per minute: everything from David Bowie to Beyonce to the Beastie Boys. Just like all the artists on that playlist, your unique perspective is going to make the universal individual.