There are about 50 or 60 recommendations [in "Win"] for how to communicate, not just the words themselves. All of them had to be tested. And in this short amount of time, it's just very time-consuming and very stressful to ensure that you get it right.

It's not what you say, it's what people hear.

The perfect opening is the word imagine, because imagine allows you to communicate in the eyes and the vision of the listener rather than yours. And the best illustration of that is "1984." Room 101 in "1984" - everyone's read it, and we all have our own imagination of what that looks like.

There are people still in the Republican Party that I believe practice the communication of anger, of disappointment, of regret, of pain, of sorrow, of suffering. That's not what the American people want to hear.

I wrote "Win" for people on both sides, legitimately on both sides. If you're a Democrat listening to this right now, you - the whole playbook is in this book. If you're a Republican, and you're frustrated because Barack Obama is a great communicator, the playbook is in this book. And if you're a corporation who wants to satisfy his - their employees, how to do it is in this book. And finally, if you're an employee and you want to get a raise, whether at NPR or anyplace else, it's in this book.

If you're a good numbers person, you're a bad language person.

The principles behind explaining and educating the product or the elected official is similar, even though the actual execution of it is very, very different.