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Imagination
👽 Explain It to an Alien
Explain an everyday human habit to someone who has never seen Earth before.
What you need
Everyday topics: birthdays, school, traffic lights, pizza delivery, umbrellas, selfies.
How to play
- Choose one ordinary human activity.
- Imagine your listener knows nothing about Earth.
- Explain what happens, why humans do it, and what might seem strange about it.
- Avoid using unexplained words from the same topic.
See one in action
Topic: birthday candles.
“Once each year, humans celebrate how many times a person has traveled around their star. They put small fires on a dessert, sing loudly at one person, and then ask that person to extinguish the fires using breath while secretly thinking about something they want.”
Notice how ordinary things become strange when you explain them without assuming the listener already understands them.
“Once each year, humans celebrate how many times a person has traveled around their star. They put small fires on a dessert, sing loudly at one person, and then ask that person to extinguish the fires using breath while secretly thinking about something they want.”
Notice how ordinary things become strange when you explain them without assuming the listener already understands them.
10 ideas to try
Choose any one of these prompts and use the activity steps above:
- Explain why humans sing before eating birthday cake.
- Explain why people take photos of food before eating it.
- Explain why humans wait in long lines for coffee.
- Explain why people shake hands when they meet.
- Explain why humans wear special clothes to exercise.
- Explain why people press elevator buttons repeatedly even though it does not make the elevator arrive faster.
- Explain why humans give each other wrapped objects and pretend not to know what is inside.
- Explain why people voluntarily watch frightening movies.
- Explain why humans keep tiny plants inside buildings.
- Explain why people say “How are you?” when they often expect the answer “Fine.”
Make it harder / funnier
The alien may interrupt with one innocent but very difficult question: “Why?”
Why it helps
Improves clarity, audience awareness, definition, analogy, and the ability to notice assumptions.
Ready to use this skill?
Try it in Public Speaking →Take the activity into a full SpeakCoachLab practice session.