storytelling

Storytelling Tips from Stephen Hawking’s Co-Author

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Leonard Mlodinow co-authoring books with Stephen Hawking

People who reach the top in nearly every field have different skills, of course, but they share one thing in common: they’ve learned to express their ideas to inspire others to action.

Dr. Leonard Mlodinow is one such expert. He’s co-written two books with his mentor, Stephen Hawking. He also writes scripts for television shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation.

In short, Mlodinow knows science and storytelling.

I interviewed Mldoninow recently about his new book, Emotional. You can watch our entire conversation on my YouTube channel, CarmineGalloTV.

Carmine Gallo and theoretical physicist, Leonard Mlodinow

Mlodinow credits Hawking for helping him understand that teaching complex ideas to non-experts requires a different set of language tools. Most of us don’t understand formulas outside of our field (which is why Hawking insisted on just one formula in his mega-bestselling book, A Short History of Time). Hawking also told Mlodinow that people resonate with stories.

Mlodinow fills his book with stories, both person and historical.

Personal Stories. Mlodinow uses his parents, both of whom are Holocaust survivors, to explain how the brain interprets traumatic events and experiences.

Historical Stories. Mlodinow writes about the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton and how he survived the famous wreck of his ship, Endurance. The story of Shackleton’s 800-mile journey in a lifeboat opens a chapter on happiness and how people can stay positive despite facing daunting prospects.

“People love stories and it pulls people along,” says Mlodinow.

Find stories to make your content relatable. If people relate to you, they’ll be more likely to follow you and take action on your ideas.

The 3 Benefits of Storytelling with NPR’s Guy Raz

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Great entrepreneurs are great storytellers.

Just ask NPR’s Guy Raz, a popular podcaster whose stories of entrepreneurs reach more than 14 million listeners a month.

I recently had a Zoom video conversation with Raz to talk about his new book, “How I Built This.” In it, Guy talks to famous entrepreneurs about the lessons they learned while building their companies.

Guy calls his book a “love letter to the idea of possibility.” It’s a book that reminds us that entrepreneurs are just like us. They have dreams, hopes, fears and failures. But they’ve learned to recover, grow and strive to fight another day.

If you’d like to watch my entire conversation with Guy, you can see it on my YouTube channel (please subscribe to get updated new videos every week).

If you’d like to learn just one takeaway, it’s this: Great entrepreneurs are great storytellers.

According to Guy, the story of your company does three very crucial things.

1). It connects your employees to the mission of the business because when they know the story, they are more connected to the product or service they offer.

2). It connects you with investors and shareholders who need to believe in your story and your product.

3). It ultimately connects you to your customers. When customers understand the story behind a product or a service, they are much more likely to be invested in it as consumers.

Your job as a leader is to inspire everyone around you. You are the keeper of the story. Share it with passion!

Wishing you success,

Carmine Gallo

3 Simple Communication Tips That Turned This Producer Into a Hollywood Icon

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The communication tips I learned in a recent interview from iconic Hollywood producer Brian Grazer are so insightful, I almost kept them to myself! But that wouldn’t be fair to the readers of Talking Leadership, would it? You’re here to get fresh insights from billionaires, CEOs, entrepreneurs and business leaders.  So here goes.

Brian Grazer and director Ron Howard teamed up forty years ago to form Imagine Entertainment. They’ve made some of the highest-grossing and iconic movies and television shows of our time: A Beautiful Mind, Splash, Apollo 13, American Gangster, 8 Mile, The Da Vinci Code, Arrested Development, and 100 others.

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I caught up with Grazer to talk about his new book. It’s titled, Face to Face: The Art of Human Connection. Here are 3 tips that Grazer credits for propelling his career from an entry-level clerk to the top of Hollywood’s A-list.

 

1). Seek out curiosity conversations

When Grazer first started in the business, he set a goal to meet one new person a day in the movie business—and to learn one nugget of wisdom from that person. He then expanded the goal to meet to one person a week from outside the industry. Forty years later, he still sets up “curiosity conversations.” Grazer reaches out to people he’s curious about to talk to them for one hour. He has other motive than to learn something from them that will broaden his mind and leave him inspired, uplifted, and curious to know even more. As Grazer’s influence grew, so did the caliber of curiosity conversations. Grazer has had conversations with a who’s who of leadership over the years: Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, Warren Buffett, Sara Blakely, Isaac Asimov and countless others.

Be curious and keep an open mind and open heart.

2). Establish trust with eye contact

Grazer gave me the simplest and most profound advice he’s ever received—and he’s used the tip for decades to convince studio heads, actors, directors and funders to back his ideas. Strong relationships are based on trust, Grazer says. And trust starts with eye contact. According to Grazer, “Eye contact is the first, simplest and most important step to get on that bridge to human connection. Nobody is going to make any major decision in your favor unless they feel a human connection. It all begins with eye contact.”

eye contact matters.

3). Pitch ideas with a universal theme

Grazer told me that early in his career, he wrote a story about a mermaid who falls in love with a regular guy. Nobody wanted to take a chance on it. A mermaid movie was a hard sell. Grazer made one switch to his pitch and landed Disney as the studio that made Splash, one of the highest-grossing films of 1984 and the movie that made Tom Hanks a star. Instead of pitching a ‘mermaid movie,’ Grazer reframed the pitch. Instead of a mermaid movie, Grazerexplained how  it was inspired by his personal search for true love in Los Angeles, “a place where everything—including relationships—seemed superficial.” Finding a deep connection seemed unattainable to Grazer at the time, almost like falling in love with a mermaid. From that day on, Grazer pitched ideas with universal themes that everyone could relate: love, family, unity, self-respect, or survival against the odds.

Find a theme that relates to everyone and you’re more likely win people over.

Brian GrazerFull disclosure—The personal interviews I have with leaders like Brian Grazer (see photo on left) are my version of curiosity conversations. I’m glad I can share them with you in this blog. Please tell your friends about it!

Find your passion, tell your story.

Carmine

The Tiger Woods Hero’s Journey in One Remarkable Graphic

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Tigermania is sweeping the nation after Woods’s remarkable comeback, winning the Masters after his first victory at the Augusta National golf course 15 years earlier. “It’s a story we’ll be telling our grand-kids,” said one spectator.

Nike, the brand that stuck with Woods through ups and downs, didn’t wait that long. It released a 51-second ad within minutes of Woods putting on the green jacket. Nike is a brand steeped in narrative. Its senior executives are even coached to be ‘corporate storytellers.’

Nike knows a good story when it sees it. A good story has a beginning, middle and an end. A great story has highs and lows. And humans are wired to love great stories.

Nike scored big this week with its ad showing videos and images of Tiger Woods from the age of 3 to winning his fifth Masters at the age of 43. Words on the screen reminded viewers that Tiger has experienced “every high and every low.”

The headlines that accompanied Woods’s victory also framed his journey in the context of epic stories. In the New York Times, Thomas Friedman used Tiger as a metaphor for the ‘game of life.’ One writer declared, “The Greatest Comeback Story in the History of Sports.” A UK newspaper called it “A True Story of Redemption.”

What’s going on here?

Woods’s story is irresistible because it follows a time-tested formula that mythologist Joseph Campbell identified in his 1949 book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

In its simplest form Campbell’s hero is called to an adventure (Tiger’s quest to become the greatest golfer of all time), meets a mentor who provides wisdom along the journey (Tiger’s dad, Earl), faces challenges and temptations (Tiger’s domestic and physical problems), and returns triumphantly as a transformed person (Tiger wins the Masters for the first time in nearly 15 years) and “becomes the person he wanted to be,” according to Sports Illustrated.

In filmmaking and storytelling, the challenges—which Campbell called ‘The Road of Trials’—must be serious and progressively difficult because it’s in the struggle that the hero discovers what they’re made of. Screenwriters call it the ‘all is lost’ moment when the hero appears to be defeated. Awful things did happened to Tiger Woods and we knew all about them.

Yes, Woods’s adventure follows Campbell’s structure. And his trials were awful, which makes the road to redemption all the more powerful. According to Campbell, it’s through struggle that we learn who we are and what we’re made of.

The Tiger Woods comeback story is a reminder that we process our world through the lens of narrative. Stories stick. Stories educate. Stories inspire. Share more of them.

Carmine Gallo is a popular keynote speaker, a bestselling author whose books have been translated into 40 languages, a communication advisor to the world’s most admired brands, and a graduate school instructor at Harvard University. 

Passion is Everything: My Interview with Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz

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“Take your presentations to the next level with Carmine as your coach.” – Howard Schultz, CEO Starbucks

I was grateful to receive that endorsement from Howard Schultz for one of my books on leadership and communication. Schultz recently announced that he would step down as CEO of Starbucks. Needless to say, Schultz has reinvented the coffee culture in America by introducing Italian-style cappuccinos and lattes to the U.S market.

When I interviewed Schultz I learned a valuable lesson about inspiration and leadership, a lesson that has had a profound influence on my career, writing and speaking. And that lesson is this:

“When you’re surrounded by people who share a common purpose around a collective passion, anything is possible.”

In my first conversation with Schultz I was astonished that he rarely mentioned the word coffee. I was the first to bring it up.

“We’re not in the coffee business. It is what we sell as a product, but it’s not what we stand for,” he explained.

Starbucks is NOT in the coffee business, which is why it’s successful. You see, Schultz loves coffee, but he’s passionate about the people, the baristas who make the Starbucks experience what it is. Schultz’s vision was much bigger than to make a better cup of coffee. His moonshot was to create an experience; a third place between work and home. He wanted to build a company that treats people with dignity and respect. Those happy employees would, in turn, provide a level of customer service that would be seen as a gold standard in the industry.

Inspiring leaders like Howard Schultz are not afraid to share their passion. Passion is everything. A leader, manager or entrepreneur cannot inspire without it. Dig deep to identify your core value, the area where you want to make a ‘dent in the universe,’ as Steve Jobs once said. And ask yourself a question that Howard Schultz says is the key to success: What business am I really in? 

Carmine Gallo is a popular keynote speaker and communication advisor. Howard Schultz is one of more than 35 business leaders featured in Carmine’s bestselling new book, The Storyteller’s Secret: Why Some Ideas Catch On And Others Don’t. 

An Autograph That Tells A Story

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I was thrilled to receive an unexpected gift at my doorstep. A mutual friend had given Dwight Clark, the legendary 49ers football player, a copy of my book, The Storyteller’s Secret. Mr. Clark generously sent me a personalized, signed football.

dwightclarkfootball

The signature itself tells the story of one of the most memorable plays in NFL football history.

On January 10, 1982, the 49ers faced Dallas in the NFC conference championship. Quarterback Joe Montana had led a last minute drive to the Dallas sixth-yard line. Only 58 seconds remained in the game. Dallas had the lead. The winner would go on to the Super Bowl.

In a play that now has its own Wikipedia entry, Montana took the snap and Dallas’ fearsome defensive players were about to tackle him. Montana managed to throw a high pass to the back of the end zone. It looked too long. Dwight Clark made a leaping catch that was captured in a photo for the cover of Sports Illustrated.

The 49ers won the game and went on to win four Super Bowls in the 1980s.

Clark’s signature tells the story. He sketches the actual diagram of the play, writes the date and gives the story a title, “The Catch.”

I often say that “everyone has a story.” Now I can know that signatures can have a story, too!

Carmine Gallo is a popular keynote speaker and bestselling author of eight books including: Talk Like TED and The Storyteller’s Secret, From TED Speakers To Business Legends, Why Some Ideas Catch On And Others Don’t. Sign up for Carmine’s newsletter at carminegallo.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Storytelling Rocks at Google

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Google organized the world’s information and gave people access to it in a few simple clicks. Today, in the same world it transformed, Google has a challenge. If data is freely available, how does a company stand apart from its competitors?

Meet Avinash Kaushik. His official title is Digital Marketing Evangelist, but internally he’s known as Google’s ‘Chief Storyteller.’ He’s THE most passionate executive I’ve ever met on the topic of storytelling and how it can make massive changes in a company’s business.

“My job is to change the way Googlers tell stories,” Kaushik said during my visit to his Google office in Mountain View, California. Along with a team of 75 people, Kaushik holds “Storytelling Rocks” workshops to spread the gospel of storytelling to 4,000 account leads, sales and marketing professionals who are responsible for billions of dollars in annual revenue.

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“Avinash, when people think of Google, they think of search. They think of data. What role does storytelling play?” I asked.

“Storytelling is a powerful way to get our clients to think differently,” says Kaushik.

Kaushik points out that Google provides an immense amount of data to clients who can use the information to make transformative changes in their business. But a data dump will fail to help customers if they can’t make sense of it. That’s where Kaushik and his storytellers step in. “The size and the scope of the change we drive is so big, that I think it is best done with stories,” says Kaushik.

The Google Storytelling Framework

Kaushik has developed a storytelling framework called: Care-Do-Impact. Like everything at Google, it is carefully measured for its effectiveness. Presenters are even given letter grades on how well they perform each step of the framework.

Step 1: Care. Kaushik recommends that a Google sales or marketing professional spend the first 20% of a presentation explaining the amazing “out-of-sight” that could transform the client’s business. An “insight” is a small piece of information that the client might already know; an “out-of-sight” is knowledge that is exclusive to the company making the presentation, information that can radically change a client’s business.

Step 2: Do. Kaushik suggests that a full 50% of the presentation be spent on helping the client or customer understand what they should do with the information. This step requires account leads to understand the clients’ business in a remarkably deep way. “We’re creating a competitive advantage for Google because we will know more about your business than anyone else who comes to see you,” says Kaushik.

Step 3: Impact. The remaining 20% of the presentation is spent explaining the impact of Google’s ‘out-of-sight’ on the customer’s future success. Kaushik leaves room in the presentation (10% of time) for the speaker to be interrupted with questions.

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According to Kaushik, this framework represents a fundamental shift in presenting data. Where many companies overwhelm customers and prospects with mountains of data, a Google pitch must give equal weight to the data and how it will impact the company’s business.

“There is a massive amount of interest among our sales team for storytelling,” says Kaushik. And the way we’re going to accomplish a shift in culture at Google is to make everyone a storyteller. It’s very exciting. How often in your life do you get a chance to change people’s minds? I tell stories that fundamentally change the way you think about something, and that’s exciting.”

Google has recognized the power of storytelling to propel its business forward in the 21st century.  It’s an important lesson all of us should learn if we hope to stand out in an ultra-competitive global marketplace.

Carmine Gallo is  a popular keynote speaker and bestselling author. His new book is “The Storyteller’s Secret: From TED Speakers To Business Legends, Why Some Ideas Catch On And Others Don’t.”