Hi, JereMaya. It's daddy. Today is April 2nd, 2022. And for our 13th episode, I'd like to teach you something that has helped me in my career as a writer, storyteller, and employee communications leader. It's called the Think-Feel-Do method.

There will undoubtedly come a time in your life that requires you to write something that matters and I believe that this framework will be your best friend, especially when you encounter writer's block or just have no idea how to start a draft.

The beautiful aspect of the think feel do method is that it can apply to virtually any medium or project that requires communications. From a love letter to a college application essay to an all hands meeting and even a long-term marketing campaign. So, what is the Think-Feel-Do framework? It's plotting out all the most essential aspects of your message by creating three lists.

The first list is the Think category. Whatever your communication medium is, whether it's an email, a slack message, a presentation, a video or a blog, what would you like your audience to be thinking after they experienced this communication?

Specifically. What narratives or facts or knowledge should they be walking away with after experiencing your communication? This part usually takes the longest time because you have to think about what the audience needs to know now in this message and filter out what they don't need to know at this time.

You may find jotting down tons of narratives and facts, and that's totally fine. Put everything and the kitchen sink in this Think list for now. You could always remove certain narratives and facts later on, and maybe even save that for a sequential message.

The second list is the Feel category. After your audience experiences, this communication, and you got them thinking about those narratives. What do you want these recipients to feel? List at least three feelings and emotions. If it's a message sharing good news, the typical feelings you can list out is hopeful, exciting, and energetic.

But if you have a tough message to send out- like crisis communications where people are getting laid off or something terrible happened that may have impacted your business- your message should be far away from the exciting feeling and be more focused on empathy, concern, and instilling confidence that you and the leaders are doing everything you can to resolve the situation.

The third and final list is the Do category. After your audience experiences, your communication knows what you want them to know, and feels what you want them to feel, what do you want them to do now? And this is the most underestimated, most dismissed yet. I find the most important category.

Some folks will just say, I just want them to know like brand awareness, but I'd argue that knowing is half the battle. If you're going to have people spend time and energy experiencing your communication, make it worthwhile for both you and them by giving them something to do. It can be explicit or indirect, but the goal is to have them be part of the change that prompted this communication in the first place. By the way, getting engagement is a great tactic for people to remember and be part of the buy-in process, especially if you're trying to do change management or you're bringing something new to the table.

For example, if a company is rolling out a new benefit, such as manager enablement. Then the Do category list should have a call to action for people to sign up for the classes or check out the intranet page, where they can find more information about these trainings. And of course, if you're going to mention intranet page, that means you have to build that intranet page too. So that will go into your campaign for launching this manager enablement program.

Once you have completed these three lists of think feel, and do you could begin writing your draft because you have everything the audience needs to know, you know exactly the tone you are pursuing based on the feelings you want your audience to feel, and you have that call to action for the audience to do. Think, feel, do. So with the think list in mind, make sure your draft includes the critical facts and narratives that the audience needs to know. With the Feel list in mind, not only apply the words that support your tone, but for certain mediums, like slack, feel free to add emojis that reflect the feeling you want them to all feel.

For example, party poppers and raised hand emojis often convey celebrations and lots of good positive energy, which is perfect for a celebration message.

And for the do list. See when it's best to include the call to action. For lengthy messages, I like to have a good old TLDR statement in the beginning. And for those who don't know TLDR, that just means "too long; Didn't read." It's basically a summary statement in case someone doesn't have the energy or time to read the full message. So if the TLDR statement is compelling and concise enough, it may prompt your audience to want to read the full message.

But at the message is short and you want to give full context and details before stating the call to action. That works too just save it at the end. It really depends on the kind of message you want to send.

Now, I'm just thinking out loud, but JereMaya, you and the listeners may be thinking at this point that all this sounds great in theory. But you probably want to have a fully detailed demonstration. And it just so happens that this week I applied the think, feel, do method to my external announcement on LinkedIn informing my entire network that I have left Intercom.

So let's deep dive into that. With the Think I had to list out what did I want my audience, who in this case are my fellow Intercom employees, as well as everyone else I know throughout my career. So what did I want them to know? What would, I want them to be thinking about after reading my LinkedIn announcement? And as many of us has seen on LinkedIn the past several months. There are many, many ways how people share that they are leaving their company. The majority of these folks tend to say something along the lines of the sentiment. Like "thanks ABC company for the good times. Now I'm off to XYZ company" and you know, that's standard. That's totally fine. But for me, I really want to celebrate my fellow Intercom employees, the company culture, and just express my gratitude for awesome moments we shared together. I wanted to let people know. I really enjoyed life at Intercom and the people there were such a joy to work and share life with.

I also want to share the meaningful things we did together in and out of the office. Lastly, and perhaps most notably is that I didn't want to dilute these narratives by declaring where I'll be working next. I tend to think that could send a mixed message and it can become messy and a distraction.

So I made sure to add everything. I just mentioned to the think list and then have a little special narrative that I'll be sharing my future employment in another LinkedIn update so I could separate my message of gratitude from my excitement, for my new adventure.

So that's the Think list.

Onto the second list, which is the Feel category. I wanted to express the feelings of bittersweet without actually saying bittersweet as I find that is kind of a cliched word. Funny enough, there really is no synonyms to the word bittersweet. So I started jotting down emotions on how I felt this entire month when I was internally sharing at Intercom about my exit.

And to be honest, I was sad that I won't be able to directly work with these amazing folks. Yet. I was also amazed and super proud of the work that we've done together. So, on this Feel list, I added sad, grateful, and proud. And with these three words, I recognized a tone and we'll have to make sure that all my drafted sentences conveyed these emotions to my audience.

And lastly there's the Do list.

After reading this LinkedIn post, what do I want my audience to do?

In this case, I had a few people in mind- for the most part, I wanted Intercom employees to feel recognized and appreciated and perhaps react and reminisce and celebrate the good times we've had together. For everyone else, I wanted them to know that Intercom is a great place to work and get a glimpse of the magic that happens because of the company culture and the people. And naturally when you speak so highly of the people you love to be with - both current and former colleagues, they may reciprocate. They may reacji to you with a heart or a celebration clap, and they may even add comments to the LinkedIn post.

And it's this kind of engagement is what makes LinkedIn so meaningful as people you've shared life from the beginning of your career to the newest hires I just met at Intercom- they all can directly message or publicly interact with me on my post. So when it comes to the Do list of the think feel, do method, it's to celebrate the good time shared, maybe wish me well in my future adventure, and if applicable, follow up with me to learn more about my experiences at Intercom. That's what I wrote down on the Do list.

So after creating these three lists of think Feel and Do I was able to write a solid draft and then publish it on LinkedIn. I'll provide the link in the show notes of this episode, which you can also access through the DearJereMaya.com website.

But if you don't want to read and you just want to hear it now here's what i said:

" This month has been filled with farewells tears, hugs, and cheers since I announced my last day at Intercom.

Intercom has a special place in my heart. I'll always remember that pre pandemic moment when I flew to Europe for my first time.

I joined over 40 Intercomrades to dip and swim in Ireland's freezing ocean at the 40 foot in early December. I also enjoyed my first pint of Guinness in one of Dublin's finest pubs -thank you, Aislinn- and dancing the night away at the End of Year celebrations. As my Irish colleagues often say, "that was good craic."

When we witnessed and experienced anti-Asian sentiment, a bunch of amazing leaders. That's Andrew Meena, Ryan Jax Perry, Christina. These leaders and I co-founded Intercom's Asian employee resource group to build a wonderfully vibrant and collaborative community. With their support, I hosted a fireside chat with my dad- AKA Asian Dr. Fauci- in 2020 to speak to the entire company about COVID, the vaccinations to come and the experiences growing up as an Asian American in the south, during the 1960s.

The attacks and harassment have not stopped but we are a more focused and stronger fellowship in and out of the office to help spread awareness support and elevate Asian people and culture and our allies.

Above all, I'm grateful for being introduced to so many folks I cherish as lifelong friends. Never before have I met so many kind, humble, and genuine people in the same company- folks who truly believe we go further together and make each day count. Super excited for what's in store for my fellow Intercomrades this year.

My next adventure starts in April. Excited to share more then!"

And that's when I ended it with a heart emoji.

And since I shared this message four days ago, the feedback has been amazing as super encouraging. Number-wise this post has over 15,000 views, 240 reacjis and 40 comments. Six people have directly messaged me to learn more about Intercom and one of them is already in talks with an Intercom recruiter and just wanted to know more about my insights about the company culture and the people that she may be working with.

So it's been a very rewarding experience and honestly it didn't take that long to draft this message because of the think feel, do method.

And I feel like I accomplished my goal, which was to create an optimistic, confident yet. Humble. "See ya later" to my Intercom teammates. And this was just a great excuse to reconnect with old colleagues too.

So JereMaya, what are the key takeaways from today?

First good writing requires planning. And with the think feel, do method. You have a great framework to get started on that planning process.

Second after finalizing your think, feel, do list. You could start drafting your message, but you can also ping a friend you trust and respect and see if the think feel, do list that you made, makes sense to them.

This is particularly helpful when you're working with a stakeholder and helping him or her write their message.

If you can get aligned on that, think, feel, do list before even drafting, this will help you save a lot of time and headaches.

Third after finishing your first draft, go back to your original think, feel, do list and make sure it reflects those original points. If not, continue editing or draft to make sure you have all the critical narratives that you actually got the right tone and feelings through your words, and that there is something for the audience to do because of your message.

Well, there you go, JereMaya. I hope this has been helpful for you, not just how to write better, but also how to exit a company in a way that lifts people up and demonstrates your character, that every work experience matters and that even when you are off to a new adventure,

That you developed and continue to grow lifelong relationships. You never know when there's another opportunity to connect. And you could add more value and impact to their lives in the future and they could do that for you too. Love you.