You are not the audience
I was sitting halfway back in a local cinema.
My kids beside me, hands deep in bags of sweets.
On screen, Mario and Luigi were racing through the desert.
Bright. Loud. Familiar.
The sound effects were all there.
The cues I recognised instantly.
But the voice wasn’t.
Chris Pratt instead of Charles Martinet.
It should have worked.
It didn’t.
Next to me, my kids were completely absorbed.
I wasn’t.
A few days later, I found myself leaning forward in the same seat.
A quiet karaoke scene before launch.
Sandra Hüller singing Sign of the Times.
Not slow.
A pause.
A moment where the real person slips through.
Two films.
Two completely different experiences.
The first was The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
The second was Project Hail Mary.
💡 ONE IDEA WELL
It would be easy to say:
One film is good.
The other isn’t.
But that’s not true.
They’re both doing exactly what they were designed to do.
Just for different people.
🧰 LESS MESS, MORE MESSAGE
When something doesn’t land, we assume the problem is the thing itself.
The slides weren’t good enough.
The structure was off.
The delivery needed work.
But often the real issue is simpler.
You built it for yourself.
Not for the audience in front of you.
A Confession
I’ve done this.
My first talk on ingested foreign bodies - the one that eventually led to the Lego experiment - fell flat.
It was an audience of serious clinicians.
And I gave them something that didn’t match what they were expecting.
Too playful.
Too different.
Not pitched for them.
At the time, I thought the problem was the talk.
It wasn’t.
It was the fit.
🛠️ TRY THIS
Before your next talk, post, or teaching session, ask one question:
👉 Who is this actually for?
Not in general terms.
Specifically.
- What do they already know?
- What do they care about?
- What would they find obvious… or confusing… or delightful?
And then this:
👉 What would they love that I might not?
The best communicators don’t just make things good.
They make them fit.
For the people in front of them.
Not the person who created it.
Because here’s the uncomfortable truth:
And if it didn’t land -
they might not be wrong.
Speak soon,
Andy
If this resonated, share it with someone who’s preparing a talk right now.
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