How Radio Taught Me That Clarity Is the Most Creative Thing You Can Do

My work has taken a lot of different shapes over the years—radio, reporting, internal communications, branding, and now strategy—but it’s all been built on one question: how do we help people understand each other better?

When I worked in radio, first as a reporter and later on the drive show, clarity wasn’t optional. If you lost the listener for five seconds, they were gone. You had to think fast, speak plainly, and still keep a sense of warmth and connection. It was equal parts pressure and privilege: learning how to hold someone’s attention without shouting for it.

Those years on air trained me to find the heart of a story fast—and to respect people’s time. Later, when I moved into internal communications, I started noticing the same pattern in a completely different setting. Teams would pour months into plans that made perfect sense on paper but left everyone confused in practice. The message got tangled somewhere between strategy and human understanding.

I found myself stepping in to bridge those gaps: translating between leadership and employees, between technical experts and the people affected by their work. Not by rewriting their ideas, but by helping them see what they were really trying to say.

That’s still the work I do now through Acorn Creative Consulting—helping founders, psychologists, and small teams make their ideas clear, so they can be heard without having to shout.

Clarity isn’t about dumbing things down. It’s about generosity. It’s what makes creativity sustainable, strategy believable, and communication human again.

And every time I help someone find the words that finally sound like them, I can still see that little red studio light flick on—on air—and feel that familiar surge of focus, knowing someone out there is listening.