The webinar presenter knew his stuff. He didn’t know his audience. He was a technical expert talking with business owners who have more pressing concerns than deciphering his message.

Someone should teach him how to use similes to explain complicated concepts in pictures. Which is easiest to remember: a dolphin or a “terrabystalbit”?

Similes are preceded by the word “like”. For example, “neuro-linguistic programming is like creating a movie in your mind that changes your behaviors.” “An iPod is like a jukebox that holds thousands of songs.” “Jim is like Tom Hanks.”

If you’re talking with a customer and her eyes glaze over like the deer in the headlights, back up and use a simile to put your idea into pictures she can understand.

What’s the difference between confidence and optimism? Let’s say your accountant friend has been watching the Discovery Channel’s series on brain surgery. He’s confident he can do it.

As luck would have it, you’re in the market for a little probing. You call your friend and he arrives with his hammer for anesthesia. Surgery on!

Before going under the hammer, you luckily realize your friend is the living definition of unconsciously incompetent. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. That’s what optimism can do to you.

Coming to your senses you call the country’s renown brain surgeon. She, too, is optimistic about your surgery. However, she defines unconsciously competent. She knows what she knows while no longer knowing it.

What does this have to do with your business? Learn, study, get experience. Don’t watch. Do. Be optimistic. But become unconsciously competent as quickly as possible.