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Storytelling Is the Oldest Technology for Changing Minds · The Expert Method

• speaker-0: Even if you're a psychopath, there is great profit in treating people nicely. Cringe. Get over the cringe. Get over the cringe. You're going to cringe because we all do. speaker-1: when you're seeing people, when you're trying to teach people how to craft a new story. Yeah. Where do you see most people getting stuck? speaker-0: The first thing people have to get over and the first thing people have to do is forgive themselves for not being great right out of the box. When you can tell a good story, you get the advantage of pretty privilege. people find you captivating. speaker-1: There comes a point where information stops working. You can explain something clearly, lay out the logic, even show someone exactly what to do, and it still doesn't land. It doesn't stick, and it definitely doesn't change behavior. What does stick, however, is the thing people can feel. The thing that they can picture. The thing that they can retell without even trying. So with that, I'm excited to be joined by Neil Ford. Neil is a master storyteller and teacher who spent decades helping people communicate in a way that people actually remember, whether that's in business, leadership, or everyday life. In our conversation, we discuss why stories carry much more meaning than bullet points, how leaders use stories to shape culture and behavior, and how small moments of attention and kindness end up having a much larger ripple effect and impact than people can expect. If you get value from this conversation, be sure to subscribe and share it with a friend. And now here is my conversation with Neil Ford. Neil, thank you so much for being here. speaker-0: Thank you for having me on, Ian, for the benefit of your guests that don't get to see the behind the scenes that I do. This young man has a marvelous vocabulary, so I'm already a big fan. And the second thing I love about him is how old are you for being so savvy? speaker-1: I'm 26. speaker-0: Ugh, you have no business being as smart as you are at that age. speaker-1: I appreciate it. had good parents and I feel like I got lucky reading the right books at the right time. speaker-0: So again, for the benefit of your guests, the reason I make that claim early is you and I have known each other for approximately 94 seconds. already I know we would be friends. And I think you must have an incredibly high EQ. speaker-1: The EQ side of things, absolutely give all the credit to my sister and how much she's helped me learn in that domain. Neil, I would love to start by talking about something that is an ambitious idea and an ambitious change that you are participating in. And I think is one of the most important things that we can work on together as a community, as a large population. But it feels like, you know, if you spend any time looking at the news or spend time online, you come away thinking that people are mostly divided, negative, hard to trust, like we just can't talk to one another. But a lot of the stories that you tell on your YouTube channel and in your content point in the opposite direction, right? So why do you think that people see the world that way, that we're divided, negative, people are mostly hard to trust, when it's often not like that in real life? speaker-0: We could do the entire podcast on that lone subject. How is it that my lived experience is that most, people are pretty cool. And yet when I look into the media landscape, it's nothing but people behaving like douche canoes and being mean to each other, being selfish. know, greed is on every magazine cover and features and every, you know, we're being fed. Let's face it. We are being fed an algorithmic engagement machine that has discovered that rage baiting, fear mongering, and division is a really reliable way of engaging people, keeping them on the device. I don't know that they set out to do this out of any sense of evil, like, know, count me on team devil. I don't think anybody did that, but I do think that there's sufficient profit in division. that they now sort of justify it. But I want to return to the idea that my lived experience is that most people are pretty cool. You go into the Navy, you go into the Army. platoon is filled with seemingly hateful, awful guys who in the end wind up so close that their own spouses are never going to be that tight. In other words, you know what? It turned out we all had a lot in common despite our different backgrounds. You know, you'll see this somebody who is a dyed in the wool racist goes into the Marine Corps, walks out as his best friend in the world is African-American. That's because most most people are pretty cool. Now, I am trying to do social media posts that are in a way a kind of antidote to the rage baiting and the fear mongering. But I can't scale, you know, I only have about a half million followers. So I am not a big, you know, contributor. But if you look at philosophers, I mean, from the ancients, the ones that have lasted have all said, You have to be the change you want to see in the world. You can't just preach it. You have to live it. And through your example, you will achieve two things. Everybody that comes into contact with you will be curious about where this sense of peace comes from. And the second thing is you yourself will manage to achieve a level of equanimity and peace and not caring as much about threats. for the benefit of your listeners, you and I were just talking beforehand about like, in a kind of perverse way, when somebody is being a D-bag on the highway, now normally in my 20s, I would have been furious and I would have acted out of trying to get my revenge. And now the way I'm looking at it is, ⁓ this is one of the very, very few people in the entire highway experience I've had today. It's actually kind of a jerk. And we'll go into the probabilities of that in a minute, but this is the one so instead of looking at it like hey you guys Instead of looking at that way I go. ⁓ there they did there it is in the wild Somebody's who's having a very bad day. You know what? I'm gonna grant him grace. I'm not gonna respond to the break check I'm not gonna I'm gonna let him into traffic or her. ⁓ Look at that. He threw a soft drink container at me instead of getting angry. I am trying to enforce myself observe that behavior and think to yourself, wonder how I would have reacted years ago to that instead of just looking at it as a way to practice this art of accepting that people are flawed and it doesn't necessarily make them ⁓ an irredeemable douche. Now, to go back to the idea of highway travel. So you and I, we're in a car, we're driving from Los Angeles to San Diego. We're probably in our direction. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: going in our direction, we're going to encounter somewhere between 50,000 and 500,000 vehicles. In that entire trip, you and I will only be able to identify five jerks. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: What does that tell you? That most, most of us, I mean, we wouldn't continue to drive by highway if the impression we get from social media is this is how many jerks are in the world. speaker-1: You know, as you mentioned, right, the way that the algorithms work, the way that the news organizations have, you know, if it bleeds or leads, right, this whole idea of the bad is always going to be the loudest just because it's highest engagement. And I love the point that you made that any change that you want to make in the world starts with you living that change. And in reality, you're not going to be able to change somebody else's perspective. The only way that you can really get somebody to change their perspective is you demonstrating that changed perspective, what that looks like, you leading a happier, healthier life, and then people modeling after that demonstration. speaker-0: Yeah, I think particularly with children. So for example, the influence that your sister had on you is a really, really good example. So think about the entire dynamic of that. First, she sets a kind of an example because the way that you phrased it was she's a very good listener. Just being aware of that, just observing that. I know you have become a better listener. You don't even have to tell me. It's just by observing and admiring that quality, speaker-1: Mmm. speaker-0: you will automatically begin to absorb that. But then let's look at the second phase of it, which was she has the presence of mind to actually either call you out or at least comment in such a way that it will help you raise your EQ, develop a sense of sensitivity around other people. That's the example you were just talking about. They live this. They're not afraid to bring it up as a topic. They're not afraid to discuss it. It helps you grow. Then you spread the virus, so to speak. And that to me is the nature of what makes human beings so remarkably capable of achieving great things is our ability to cooperate. Now, let's consider that on a national scale, not an international scale, but on a national scale. I walked into the headquarters building of Anheuser-Busch, the brewers of Budweiser in St. Louis, Missouri. And as soon as you walk in, the first thing that sort of pops out at you speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. speaker-0: is the motto of the company. On the wall in big brass letters, it says, making friends is our business. And I had an instantaneous reaction, which is, that's a great business. What a great idea. And it occurred to me, I don't know whether that day, but it occurred to me, I go, how cool would it be if you founded a nation and that was the motto? Making friends is our business. I think sometimes that might be the unofficial motto of Canada. Now, having had that as an influence, I say to myself, I would like to mimic that as a personal motto, that I'm in the business of making friends. And sometimes your best friend in the world actually will offer you a criticism. Not to hurt you, not because they're being jerkish about it. They want to help you. The same way they've, you've got a chive in your tooth. speaker-1: Uh-huh. speaker-0: A good friend tells you. A good friend tells you when your zipper's down. They don't want you to suffer the indignity of letting it happen. Well, a good friend will often challenge you. in that way, it's not just that you go into the world singing songs about how wonderful everything is, but occasionally you say, see this and I don't necessarily agree with this as a philosophy. think that's So I'm hoping this is answering your question in the proper spirit. speaker-1: Absolutely, yeah, and think that point that you made there at the end is worth underlining that you have to care about somebody enough in order to give them feedback or criticism, And you're not doing it to point fingers and to, you know, just be mean, right? You're doing it because you care about them and you want them to improve, you want them to get better. And then also, that idea of you walking into Anheuser-Busch's office and seeing that on the wall, seeing that motto on the wall is a good demonstration of them. hey, we're demonstrating this idea, this perception, this ideology, this belief, and now that rubbed off on you, and now it's turning into something that you're trying to adopt into your own life. Yeah. ties back into the example of you demonstrating a change perception. People will experience that and then want to model after that. So I think that story brought it back really well. speaker-0: Now that you've reminded me of that, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going do a video on that. Yeah, I it. Because I'm going to try and do what you're talking about, which is use that as a mechanism for having people self-reflect enough to go, oh, how cool would it be if that was on our family crest? Yeah. Or if that was my personal motto. Or that's the sort of thing you get a tattoo of. speaker-1: Right. It seems like the mechanism that you're using to participate in changing this perception that we have over one another that we're just being fed this narrative that the others, there's this other, right? There's this other that is the enemy. There's these teams, right? And that team is just, you know, ridiculous. They can't be taken seriously. They're so wrong that we can't even discuss with them. And it's just completely divided us to the point where there's just no conversation that's possible between both parties that is essential for us to be able to make the critical changes and the obvious changes for that. If you just look at the problems that we're facing, there's just clear things that we need to be spending our time on and fixing. But anyways, your process of participating in making this change is you're using story or you're using storytelling. So how are you approaching the idea of using storytelling? to shift how we see each other and speaker-0: most blunt version of that is. Human beings haven't changed in probably about 100,000 years. And if you go back and you read the great books, you you go way back and you read everything from Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics, Epictetus, and then you move forward and, you know, now you're among the Augustines. And then you get to, say, the 1900s and you're reading Dostoevsky and Victor Hugo. And before that, the 15th, 16th, hundreds, you're reading Cervantes. It is astonishing how nothing's changed. How older men still think that young women are attracted to them. Oh, if you read Brothers Karamazov, I was driving down the 5 Freeway in the California Central Valley. I could tell you where I was on that strip when I was listening to Brothers Karamazov and laughing out loud at how silly you know, older men can be. And I'm thinking, ⁓ my God, nothing's changed. It's the same silly, same mistakes. We think we're, the brand new man. Every one of us thinks we've somehow invented the human experience and that, you know, all this older generation, what a bunch of, you know, funny, they don't know the first thing. Why, we've got these new typewriters now. And I'm of an age now where sort of I, I lament. not having social media when I was a kid because I thought, ⁓ what a great place to tell stories. But anyway, to return to my theme, which is when you tell stories, you're tapping into a thousands and thousands of year old technology that human beings are actually hardwired to use. The example I always give is to say, look, I can give you bullet points on a PowerPoint presentation, and I am using the modern technology in order to get information across. Or I can resort to a hundred thousand year old technology and I can tell you the story of the tortoise and the hare. And not only will you, Ian, be able to nine years from now, without having heard it again, tell me the story accurately, you know, with really good fidelity, and you can tell me the moral. And what's more, the way you tell the story is so good, the next person that hears it won't have to hear it for 15 years and they can repeat it. That tells me something. It tells me. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: stories of the mechanism for helping people understand, feel, repeat, and remember information. It is the latest technology in human communication. The reason I say it's the latest is because it's hardwired into it's your operating system. It's how we remember everything. You think the biblical parables are an accident. That's the part of the Bible everybody recommends. They remembers, they remember the Sermon on the Mount. They remember the Good Samaritan, right? And so since it's hard baked in, now we have the advantage of these. And I can take advantage of this old technology storytelling and I can scale. So the second, that's my first answer is like why, why storytelling is relevant is because it's the way people take in information. It's the way they remember it. It's the way they have a feeling about it. I can get across a feeling way more effectively in story form than I ever could in bullet points. Can you imagine proposing to a woman? speaker-1: ⁓ speaker-0: marriage or proposing to anyone marriage and doing so with a PowerPoint presentation. I suppose if you were tongue in cheek and incredibly clever, it might be charming. But you your laughter is an indication like that would be an error. Here are the 15 reasons why I believe that matrimony would be advantageous. Or you can describe the feeling that you had when you first laid eyes on your mate. speaker-1: Mm. speaker-0: the indescribable joy that it brings you to think that if we took this adventure together, I cannot think of a better way that I would rather spend my life. That's a story, a story about the future, a story about the past. You see what I mean. It's the operating system that connects to the emotions, and emotions are what make decisions. Emotions are how we make our decisions. speaker-1: . And emotions are what you remember, right? There's that common line of people aren't going to remember what you say, they're going to remember how you made them feel. And if you attach that feeling to a lesson or principle that you're communicating, yeah, makes sense why storytelling really is the most effective way of teaching and communicating. speaker-0: Well done. You know all the good stuff. So you know there is such a thing as pretty privilege. Handsome men when they walk into a business meeting, they're already on the 50. They didn't even have to run the ball back. They start on the 50 and really, really good looking women, they start on your side of the 50. Okay. The experiment of course is that they got a very, very pretty woman. They had her fake breakdown on the side of the road. They timed with a stopwatch how long it would take somebody to pull over and help. Took about 14 seconds before the first man stopped. They put the same woman in a fat suit. speaker-1: Right. Yeah, right. speaker-0: She can't get arrested, right? She's there for hours. There is such a thing as pretty privilege. Pretty privilege is just another way of saying instinctive attraction. Like I've been told by anthropologists that when you smell good in a meeting, has an astonishingly astonishing effect on whether you're to be trusted. Get a load of that. But when you can tell a good story, you get the advantage of pretty privilege. People find you captivating. Let me just ask you a question. Ian, suppose I could make you 30 % better looking. Like, I'll give you like, hey, in exchange for $100,000, I'm going to let you change five things about the way you look. I know a lot of people that would pay that money. please take my money. You know, it's like, OK, well, I'm going to give myself three inches of extra height. That'll be one. speaker-1: A lot of people do you know the cosmetic industry is really ⁓ my god speaker-0: Yes, what am I thinking? Of course, they spend fortunes on that and the results are mixed. But for a comparatively little expenditure of money and exercise of a skill, you can become a really good storyteller, walk into a business meeting and you don't need to be six foot three. They are hanging on every word because you have come up with just the right insight. or you've said it just the right way. And there is something astonishing about, know, John Hamm, who played Don Draper in Mad Men, very good looking man, but you know they must have looked at about 50 incredibly handsome men that could have played that role on looks. John ⁓ didn't win that part on looks alone. In fact, I would venture to say that by season three, You're not even seeing John Hamm anymore. What you're seeing is a character that is his personality. Now, when you walk into it, you know, think about like the French movie stars. If you go back into the old movies, Gerard Depardieu and you know, a number of these other French movie stars, and you look at the women, they're stunning. One after the other, they're all gorgeous. And the men are hideous. Like, really? This guy? ⁓ no, he's amazingly charming. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Mmm. speaker-0: Well, he must be because he ain't nothing to look at. Lay off the muffins, Gerard. Okay. But that's the magic of having this ability to spin a yarn, to explain things with insight and cleverly and timing. It's very appealing. And it's very reassuring too, because if you choose the right subject to talk about, it communicates so much about you. They don't even need to know your resume. Yeah. A little bit like very handsome guy comes into a business meeting, they're pitching investors on some new thing. Everything about this guy reads money. And I don't mean ostentatious money. I mean that understated old money, you know, where there's no labels on anything. Yeah. This is the thing about like real wealth doesn't have a label on them. Right. And what kinds of shoes are those? What do you mean? What kind? What brand? They're not a brand. I have them made. Right? So it's like that. so what happens is when you walk in with that kind of, you are put together and everything is tasteful and it's smart and it, something about it is aesthetic. Clearly the person that bought it had taste. All these things tell a story. says to the investors, I don't need your money. I'm here looking for a partner. And the same is true if you really are quite good at starting a meeting. I have a few examples of cases where the person walked in and by the time they left, you went, well, we all know who's in charge, don't we? And not because they came in and said they were in charge. They were able to communicate they were in charge by giving you a sense of their priorities. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: how you fit into it, the expectations they have for you. And it kind of a weird gentility in the face of, know, I could land on you like a piano from three stories up, but I'm not going to. You know, the great football coaches, there's five or six new crop of coaches who are deeply emotional people. Dan Campbell's a really good example. Deeply emotional people who care a lot about the athletes. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: that are going to get them a Super Bowl. They will weep and they won't apologize for it. They are deeply moved when one of their players is injured or they are, you know. And these are deeply emotional people who will occasionally yell. But if you're yelling all the time, it doesn't have any horsepower. It's like cursing all the time. When grandma finally uses an F-bomb, what the hell? speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: Okay, you know she must mean it. Storytelling is your ability to strike just the right chord. I'll tell you the story of a meeting that I was in, in which the head of this company was explaining how incredibly important this particular product was of all of the products in the panoply of these things. He walks in and he says, I'm quite grateful for your attention today. I have something that means a lot to me and I'd like to communicate how much it means to me to you. This product is vastly more than the metal and the circuitry inside. It means so much more to me and to our company than that. It's not a commodity. And the way I can express this to you is... Before I had my daughter, I was a very ambitious man. I wanted it for myself. I wanted to be important. I wanted people to think of me as important. But when my daughter was born, everything about my priorities changed. I was still very ambitious, but I was only ambitious because I wanted to protect her. Everything about my world had changed from an individual man to, ⁓ I was the same physical person, but now I am a father first. It is my job to protect her, to look after her, to make sure that as she grows into a fine young woman, I will give her every advantage. And sometimes that means being hard on her. But I will always love her in a way that no one else in her life can possibly feel and appreciate the way I feel it. Now, there is a young man who came to me asking to marry my daughter. And I will tell you what I told him. She is the center of my life. She is the thing that gives my life meaning. I will be turning her over to you. You will be her protector. You will be her provider. You will be the one responsible for helping her achieve everything she is meant to achieve to grow into the woman she can someday become. I will always be her father, but you are the most important person in her life now. You're the one she is voting for. as a lifelong teammate. I think you understand how important it is to me that you understand what I'm saying. And that young man said to me, I do understand, and you have nothing to be concerned about. And now I turn to all of you in this room and I say, as I feel about my daughter, I feel about this product. It is vastly more important to me than anything else you will ever work on. I ask for you to appreciate that and understand that. And that's all I have to tell you today." And then he leaves and we all go, well. speaker-1: That resonates. goodness. speaker-0: Looks like, ⁓ yeah, so I don't think we're phoning it in. speaker-1: Wow. speaker-0: This is what I loved about this was everything he said was coming right from his center core, like right down to the marrow. Did we believe him? Yeah, we did believe him. I don't think he gives that speech on every product. I really don't. But what was important was, and the product turned out to be a big success, and then product turned out to be an important flagship for the entire brand. And I believe that you can feel the ghost in the machine when you looked at the work, when you look at the, you can feel more than the sum of the mechanical parts. There is an animos, that's what the Greek would say. It's a kind of living spirit inside an inanimate object. That gets communicated not by bullet points, not by specifications, but by the story that the creators tell in such a way that. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: You don't have to have the creator in every room making the decisions. You just have to have the people in the company understand what would the founder do. speaker-1: animos and you deliver, you instill that animos through the story that you tell to your people. And I think in that story that you shared with us that demonstrated a lot of the different applications of storytelling and how it can be used as a leader in leadership, how it can be infused into the culture of your organization. I can imagine how if you flipped that story into a presentation to clients or into a consumer facing marketing and whatnot, right? That would really resonate with consumers. So I think that story demonstrates how storytelling can really be infused into leadership, culture, sales, marketing, persuasion, et cetera. ⁓ Which is amazing. speaker-0: Well, you're hitting the third point that I was going to make about storytelling, which was culture. Culture, I mean, you've probably heard that culture beats strategy. Okay. There's a reason for that is because human beings are biological cocktails of conflicting emotions and ⁓ competing impulses. So we're unpredictable as a species. However, when we understand each other, when we feel like we can trust one another, it's a very efficient system. speaker-1: Right, yeah. speaker-0: when people trust one another. I'll give you an example. When you've got a recurring customer, that is, let's pretend that you're a car salesman and you've sold Mrs. Hotch and Gertis a Toyota Corolla and she's come around again to buy another one from you three years later. A repeat customer is somebody you don't screw with. You don't cheat them. You give them the best possible deal. If you're smart, you cut it right down to the razor's edge. You try to make sure that if anybody ever says you could have gotten a better deal, you're pretty sure you couldn't have gotten a better deal. Let's say you sell 11 cars to this woman, you know, by making sure that you cultivate that relationship and you cultivate that trust. Trust is something you you can inculcate in a culture through the stories you tell. When you talk about why are you the person you are, who in your life made you who you are? I feel like I know you. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: A lot better than before we started this, just off the story of you and your sister. You didn't have to tell me what your background is. I'm getting a feel for it. And if at some point you say, ⁓ you know, I went to Princeton, wouldn't surprise me at all. You know? And you know, because I think that people that appreciate that human beings are astonishing creatures. They're not robots. They're not computers. They're not cogs. They're not animals. Human beings are capable of vastly more than we often ask for them, but they have to feel like the effort will be worth the expenditure. Like that they will be rewarded either through a sense of satisfaction, pride, or outright compensation. Stories are the number one way that a manager can create a culture and an organization by making sure everybody understands emotionally, what are we in this for? How do we all benefit? Probably heard this cliche, which is, if you work hard and you put in all the energy and we meet all of our targets, by this time next year, I'll get another Ferrari. speaker-1: Yeah, right. speaker-0: You can't do that. have to give, you have to tell the truth and you've got to tell a story about how we all benefit. What's in it for you? speaker-1: Yeah. And why it matters, right? Yeah. just for us, right? Why does this matter beyond just for us? speaker-0: Yeah, do you remember that skit? can't remember which British show it was on. The two guys are imitating Nazis on the forward line of the Eastern Front. The guy says, um, are we the baddies? I think we might be the bad guys. speaker-1: That's great. speaker-0: Now we've got a death's head on our hats. Yes, it's very ferocious. I know, but do you think? ⁓ well... speaker-1: Good? Is that good? Doesn't seem like something a good guy would wear. That's hilarious. But yeah, like beyond that, right, there's digging into or underlining what you said. The culture is more than just words on the wall, right? It's the story behind what really brings that to life, right? Brings that purpose or brings the reason why we're all here and the change that we're trying to make in the world to life. That story is what's going to get it to resonate. with your people and bring the animos or bring the spirit within the organization is all going to be tied to those stories, which is amazing. speaker-0: Yeah, there is a quality of any organization where the stories they ought to tell focus on things that are upbeat. You want to create an environment where you feel like there's hope in the world. You'll forgive me. I've told this story before to my own colleagues so many times, but this did really happen to me. So I was, I was driving along. took a left turn. I clipped the curb with both my left tires, ripped out the sidewalls. Okay. Now I've got two flats. The problem with having two flat tires is you only have one spare. So I am screwed. Except that I was a hundred feet from a tire store. Okay, but I'm experiencing the mixed emotions of crap, I got to buy two new tires, but it could have been worse. So I'm in this waiting room and while they're putting new shoes on my car, there are two women. They're both about 55. They look like they could have been chosen for a police lineup, you know, same rough wardrobe, same basic haircut, wearing very similar glasses and same ethnicity. So one woman, the one over here, she. is on her phone and she is complaining loudly about a bad experience that she had in restaurant where they got her order wrong and then they got her order wrong again and she was pretty sure that the waiter did it on purpose the second time and then she wanted to speak to the manager and I guess a mimosa got thrown, know, and so on and so on and now she was going to leave a scathing Yelp review and she was going to probably put up signs on the telephone poles near the restaurant to discourage anybody from ever going there again. So then she hangs up. And then about 15 seconds later, the other woman sort of leans in and she goes, I had a wonderful experience at restaurant the other day. I was having coffee looking out the big bay window and I saw this very cute girl come walking by with an enormous dog. And she sees an elderly gentleman waiting to cross the street. And even though the signal's gone green, he's very reluctant to go because it's such a big boulevard. I think he thinks he's going to get hit by a car. So she stops, takes him by the hand. They wait for it to turn green again. They walk across the street together. The dog patrols in front of all the cars, make sure nobody gets any fancy ideas. And they get to the other side. And then here's the best part. They didn't just go their separate ways. They talked for a little bit. And then the next thing you know, the two of them walk off arm in arm. Isn't that wonderful? And I said loud enough for the other one to go, yeah, that is wonderful. Now, my question to you, Ian, who would you rather spend the day with? speaker-1: Yeah, the glass half full, right? The optimist, for sure. Right. speaker-0: Because just like social media, I don't need the negativity. I get enough negativity, the fact that I didn't get my, you know, to-do list all done today. I don't need the division. I don't need somebody to, you know, that yammering little voice like, I think she's cheating on you. You know, that kind of thing. speaker-1: Just a sh**ster. Yep, the little gremlin in there for sure. speaker-0: Yeah, you need a leader needs to be that kind of positive upbeat like you think this is bad. We survive worse than this. Come on. Right. Or, know, in a way that guy that was briefing us, I this product, you need to look at this product as though it was my very daughter. It is an upbeat thing. It gives you something to believe in, something to take care of. Everybody knows that in those meetings where you say, well, maybe we'll just chintz out on this. ⁓ I don't think so, Ron. Did you not hear him? No, we got to find another way to make it work because we're not going to, we're not going to buy some crappy gasket. Right. That ain't the solution. Yeah. Or, or you feel free to do that. You're just going to have to go see the old man. How's that sound? speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, no fun. Yeah, something that's just come into me right now is just this idea that, you know, building a business is extremely hard. know, building and creating and solving a problem at a large scale in the world, aka building a business, creating a meaningful product, creating an amazing service, whatever that looks like in your business is extremely difficult. And in order for you to reach your best as an organization, it requires that you bring the best out of every individual in your organization. And really the only way to do that is to have that animus, which I keep coming back to that word, I love that word, that spirit within the organization, that story, that greater meaning to drive people to do their best, right? Do whatever seems impossible, but in order for that, like you need that energy, that spirit within the organization of everybody being bought in and driving themselves to greater... things than they ever thought possible for themselves. What's characteristic of a leader is that you are able to bring the best out of people that you're leading that they never thought possible for themselves. You're able to bring better versions of people out of themselves. And you can do that through the stories that you tell. And the story is what creates the spirit within your organization. And I love how this is all just kind of like falling into place. speaker-0: You know, there's a very famous endurance race that started all of the great race. It's called the Régalois. It's this French race. can't remember exactly where it is, but it's incredibly intimidating. It goes on for 100 miles or something. they do it in teams. So you don't do it yourself. You do it in teams of five, I think. Now, as you can imagine, this, of course, gets all like the French legionnaires all do the race. And then they get Navy SEALs go out to do the race and so on. And then every once in a while, they'll get like a team of septuagenarian women who have practiced all year so they can do the raid Gelwa. There have been years where honest to God, all seven, all five of the grandmothers make it to the finish and the Navy SEALs don't finish. And again and again, you will see that the ones that are determined to win often injure themselves or crap out before the end because of struggle and conflict. speaker-1: Thank speaker-0: within the The conflict within the group is the willingness to leave somebody behind in order to finish. know, that spirit of, well, as long as one of us makes it across, we all win. No, that's not how it works. That Ray Galois does not, no, everybody's got to finish. Everybody's got to finish. And But this idea that we've got to win, puts unnecessary pressure on people and they don't accept that this is a very difficult race that requires us to work together. The way I had it described to me by a guy who used to be part of the event was he says, I want you to imagine a bathtub. The bathtub is filled with energy. This is the energy we have to finish this race. There's a certain amount of energy that you lose organically through the drain at the bottom. That's just because You know, we're exhausting ourselves in this race. So there's an automatic amount of water that's descending. You know what conflict is? Conflict is three things at the bottom draining our energy. That's why they crap out. They crap out because they don't believe in each other or they're fighting with each other. Of course the grandmas made it because they were saying, you can do it, Margaret. We'll make it. Don't worry. Go only as fast as you can. We'll make it. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: You know, meanwhile, the seals are goes, what's the matter with you, Leslie? speaker-1: Yeah, right. ⁓ speaker-0: This is a model that is the same in every company. Being encouraging, being supportive, driving people to be their best sometimes means, you got to do it. Come on, pick it up. Let's go in. You know you can do better than this. forgiving somebody. Being a forgiving person, giving them another shot. Not thinking of them as a bad person. ⁓ they had a bad afternoon. ⁓ Ron, I'm really sorry. did that. Hey, don't even worry about it. I've already forgotten, you know, everybody's getting titled to a couple of those. This, ⁓ this experience of the raid gal was highly instructive for how companies, especially startups need to operate, which is this is not a sprint. Right. is going to require, we all know, we all know, we know there's things we don't know. We know that the water in the bathtub is how much money we have and everybody runs out of runway. speaker-1: Yeah. Mm-hmm. speaker-0: So what we don't need is strife and conflict that where we're wasting time at each other's throats. Right. Everybody's going to get on the same page. There are three operating systems. One, you got to be supportive. Two, you got to be forgiving. And three, you got to be professional. Professionalism means trying to improve your skill set, trying to make sure that you're on time. know, all that old fashioned stuff that we teach in the Boy Scouts. If you're smart and you work for a company where you've got a mentor, he'll make sure you dress better. He'll make sure you show up 15 minutes early. What do they call it? On time is late. On time is 15 minutes late. But just going back to how storytelling figures into this, it's speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. speaker-0: You can set a tone. You can create a temperature in the room. I had a guy that I worked with. He was the head of PR at TiVo. Steve Weimer was his name. He had a vibe about him that he could make you smile no matter how bad things were. What he would do is he would walk into the office at 730 and there was usually a few of us there. he would say at the top of his lungs, to anybody who was there in the cubicles, who is pissed off for greatness? That's why I've got it. That's why I got it there. Who is pissed off for greatness? That morning chant of his, I don't even think he knew he was the only thing getting me through the year. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Because as long as Steve was around, and my other boss, Doug Beater, they both had this ⁓ energy, this vibe. And the worse it got, the more pressure there was, and the more yelling there was from other departments, the funnier they got. They had dark senses of humor. They found the whole thing hysterically funny. And so we were all feeding off that, like flowers that make their own energy from Sunlight right like they were chlorophyll and This is a story the story he tells when he shows up as who is pissed off for greatness That's just another way of saying I understand how bad it is I know every like, know, you know I'm going through it because the louder I say it is me trying to talk myself into it and I know that the voices I know that the people hearing me at 730 in the morning when the official hours are 9 o'clock I know that the people that are here at 730 need to hear it speaker-1: ⁓ huh. Right. Yeah. speaker-0: Right. you're finishing work you didn't get to last night. So positivity in the storytelling, think, a really not to be underestimated and forgiveness. by the way, when you think about People go to synagogue, people go to church, people go to the mosque. Do they go once every four years? No, they're supposed to go every week or more depending on how your family is. But the basic cadence is you're supposed to go every week. Why? What difference does it make? Because every week you get a reminder of how you're supposed to behave. It doesn't hurt to get a reminder. speaker-1: Yep. speaker-0: Ladies and gentlemen, when you're out in the parking lot after you leave here today, just try to have a little more grace. Okay. We don't want any gunfire in the church parking lot. home peacefully. Be nice to the, be nice to the grocer. I know that these are not the explicit member ⁓ messages, but people need to be reminded when you're at the airport, give people a chance to, you know, stressful to travel. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. need to be reminded more than we're taught, right? You come across one idea one time, it won't stick, right? Like we need to be reminded more than we're taught. And I would love to attempt to put a ribbon on the kind of this first large part of our conversation, which is how you are demonstrating how to use storytelling to create a change, right? And in some of the content that you're putting out, right? That change that you're attempting to create is the... change in the perception of how we see one another and this idea that we have of humanity and people. And there's so much to unpack there, but some of the threads that I would love to tie back into and underline is you, when you read the great religious texts, right, they use story, right? It's just a good demonstration of how story is used to teach a lesson. But I think one thing that you talked about when you read about Marcus Aurelius and when you read just anybody's writing from thousands of years ago, I think what really, like you kind of brought this up is the fact that we are so much in common with them from back then. Like how little has really changed, right? How Marcus Aurelius in his journals in meditations, right? You read like what he was, the things that he was struggling with are a lot of times exactly the same things that we struggle with. Yeah. Every single day. So I feel like, correct me if I'm wrong, but in the stories that you're telling, you're attempting to, you know, demonstrate that lesson that we have so much more in common than we were made to believe by a lot of the media that we're consuming. speaker-0: Yeah, it's more than that too. ⁓ The ROI of kindness. It's an demonstration. Even if you're a psychopath, there is great profit in treating people nicely. And so my friend, Marcus, who used to be an improv actor, and then he went on directing commercials, we were at LAX together at the airport. it ⁓ was one of these things. It was a beautiful sunny day in Los Angeles. But because United Airlines has a hub in Chicago that feeds to LA, they were having a weather event in Chicago. and planes were to stand still. And so all of a sudden you see up on the board there are all these delayed and canceled flights in LA off of United. Now people who are seeing, they see the sunlight outside and they cannot fathom why there's this problem. So they're taking it out on the two gals behind the counter at the United baggage thing where they're taking your bags. And everybody seems to think that these two women behind the counter have a switch they can flick and all of a sudden all the planes are going to go. back in the air. They're just, they're not being logical. They're taking it out on them like they are responsible for the weather. So they're being mean and they're being abrupt and they're, you know, it's hard enough to travel. So they're just being nasty. The whole place is a simmering zoo and the couple in front of us checking their bags. They are swamp donkeys deluxe. They are just being awful to this woman. And you can see that the woman behind the counter, she's got the thousand yard stare. You know, she has. finished with the human race. Well, thankfully these two slime out, you know, and they're gone. And when we get up to the counter, Marcus, before I can say anything, before the women can even greet us, Marcus goes, ⁓ man, those two are in big trouble. No one goes, what? goes, Bjarke saw the whole thing and all the trolls know each other and he's going to tell them what happened. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: And when they find out they will have their revenge and I'll tell you something else, if you feed him before the sun goes down, the penalty is double. And he gives her a pack of ⁓ &Ms. Now in that instant, she has completely forgotten about all the people that came before. Everything that came before, she is not remembering at all. All she's doing is fixating on this delightful lunatic in front of her. She's holding the ⁓ &Ms. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. speaker-0: He says, if you feed him before the sun goes down, the partner just to the other side of this woman goes, can we feed him now? Okay. So what happens that that point is Marcus goes back to, he's so he's going, okay, so it's all good. So here's our bags and we're going off to New Jersey. We get to, ⁓ I, what I neglected to say was you knew that what was happening was they put Bjarke behind the counter so nobody could see him. And then slowly, ever so slowly, every time that some douche nozzle came by. They would just put another Eminem in front of him. And so the whole afternoon they were just laughing to themselves going, wow, he's got his work cut out for him. What I did not know was the two women behind taking the bags, you see them again at the gate. They're the gate agents. That's how it works. So we get up there and people don't realize how much discretion those two have at the gate. And Marcus got an upgrade. speaker-1: Nice. Alright. speaker-0: How not that? That's the ROI of kindness. So, know, buck 20 for the candies and about 66 cents for the troll and he gets a $500 upgrade. Of course he does. Why? Because they were his friends now and he had gone out of his way. Didn't ask for anything. That of course is the best way to do it. You know, I'm going to be your friend with no expectations. And then they're like, you know, if I have to bump somebody out of first class to give it to you, I'm willing to do that. But speaker-1: I love it. Mm-hmm, right. speaker-0: This is often the way of the world is that people have a lot more latitude and discretion in service positions than you might think they would have. Let's say, for example, you're really, really cool to a server in a restaurant. Next thing you know, you get a free dessert. Or, and this is something my wife is exquisitely good at, she made a remark to a server the other day and she said, when we came into this place, we were not in a good mood. And just thanks to you, speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: We're actually back to having a good time. And so, yeah, he was looking out for us for the rest of the meeting. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. speaker-0: This is, this to me, is the ROI of kindness out in the world that even if you were a psychopath, you would still do it because you can often, you often find there's a tidy profit to be made from a little extra courtesy, a little more forgiveness. I'll give you an example, Ian, you're young enough to take real advantage of this. So I make a habit of sending people thank you notes. I like to, I do a little. speaker-1: Nice. speaker-0: Cartoons and then off. speaker-1: ⁓ amazing, you draw that? Incredible. speaker-0: Yeah, I wanted to be a cartoonist when I was young. so here's a, here's a good example of sort of note I'll put in there. Game set match equals tennis set match run equals arson. That's what Dmitriy Martin. Okay. So when you send people, especially somebody in your age cohort, Ian, when you send them a thank you note, it's extraordinary how unusual that is. And because it's unusual. speaker-1: Nice. speaker-0: Like, for example, if I send an email, the elapsed time between how long it took me to compose and how much time it took me to send, the elapsed time is somewhere around 84 seconds. If, on the other hand, I have taken the time to get a rubber stamp and do some crazy cartoon and write them a special quote from, you know, Steven Wright or Patton Oswalt, and then I have taken the time to address the letter and get a stamp, take it to the, you know, that's, that's not nothing. That takes time. But the best part of it is that when they get it in the mail, they're so astonished that you took the time. know, I've watched people open stuff that I've sent them. they look, this is their face who'll express themselves. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, it's an interrupt for sure. speaker-0: Yeah, it's a real disruption. It's a disruption the same way that Bjarke, the revenge troll, was a disruption. Now you've improved the temperature and the smell of their day because they know that at least one person out there appreciates them. speaker-1: Right. Absolutely. And ⁓ add on to like my business partner for my marketing agency, ⁓ would like from before I even like joined him, he made a habit of sending a thank you card to every single one of our clients. And it was tremendous the results that it had for our business, right? The ROI of kindness is very real. And I think you're pairing your philosophy on the ROI of kindness with the philosophy that Bob Berg shared on the podcast a few weeks ago, where his he has this book called The Go Giver. ⁓ a dead book. How'd you score him? Nice! speaker-0: love this- Damn, way to go, Ian! Now I feel like I'm sort of second tier. I didn't get drafted in the NFL draft. I've got to go try out as an undrafted. speaker-1: No, no, not at all. This is amazing. yeah. So pairing those two. Yeah. Hey, the last guy I just interviewed this morning, he's got a whole business about helping authors write their books. So maybe I can get you in touch with him. There you go. That idea of approaching every situation with how can you provide value to the person that you're interacting with, right? The go-giver idea with just genuinely just being kind in every interaction with somebody. is even if you're a psychopath is the most beneficial way to enter every situation because it's going to come back to you exponentially, right? It's going to have exponential returns for you in your life. speaker-0: I don't know if it's exponential. do know this. It is profitable. I'll go one further. Even if there was no profit, the sensation it gives you, I believe, is equivalent to friendship. And here's what I mean. You know, they say that loneliness is as bad as smoking. That's the verdict of a lot of health studies. And there is, unfortunately, there's a sort of male loneliness epidemic. There are a number of reasons for that. part of that, I gather that something like 15 % of men or under a certain age don't have a single friend. Well, I've got a counselor for anybody who's close to that as a fate. Be a friend to yourself. And you know how you be a friend to yourself? Be guiltless as you travel through the world. Meaning, take the opportunity to improve other people's day. Go out of your way to be nice to servers, nice to baristas, nice to mechanics especially. Be nice to airport people, every kind of airport person. Be nice to police officers. Be nice to firemen. When you do that, when you are blameless, when you let people into traffic, when you are not afraid to let somebody else take the right of way even if they didn't necessarily earn it. What happens to you is you are being a friend to yourself. You're inviting less conflict. You are attracting the right kind of vibration. When you're friend to yourself that way, you know, there's nothing quite like they say that if you want to overcome depression, the smartest thing you could do is be of service to others. Like stop thinking about yourself, focus on other people. I get that calculus. I totally understand the math of that. When you really do say, I'm going to speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: try to make people's day better. There's an adjunct to that that has to do with business. here's another piece, like besides the thank you notes, I'll give you another, every young person should learn this. If you've got a client meeting, your goal going into the client meeting is I want to make sure in arguably, this will be the best meeting they have all week. Okay. If you go in with that as a goal, all of a sudden you'll start to pay attention to things you might do that could be cool or impressive or amusing or extra. Because you're going to find all through life that how you do anything is how you do everything. That when you are careful about people's feelings, then they look at you as, he's high EQ, he feels trustworthy to me. That when you keep an orderly space, speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: they reckon that your taxes are pretty good. Do you what mean? Right. OK. It's not fair to make those assumptions. I'm just saying that's how people perceive. So if you absolutely go out of your way in a client meeting, let's say, for example, it's on your turf. You control the room. Then what you would do is you would make sure that the room smells pleasant. Like it would smell like coffee, or it would smell like vanilla, or maybe it smells like cookies. That's what the great realtors do, right? They don't just show you the space. It smells good. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: And they will also, they light it beautifully as any meeting room should be lit with intention. And if you can change the lighting in the middle of the presentation, you manipulate the lighting and you don't make a big show out of it. For example, one of the things we used to do was you would never say, the lights, please. That's for amateurs. They would go on a cue. So you would say, and it's a little bit like this. And on the word this, the lights are already starting to descend. you just look like you're fucking Cirque du Soleil. So there should be music when they walk in, and it should be a certain volume. And it should signal when the meeting's about to start the same way that they'll do at a regular show. It'll go very high. It's meant to shut people up, and then you pull it down, and then the person starts the meeting. And then another great quality of a meeting is if you ever have attended Cirque du Soleil, speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: then you know that they've got walk-in music and they have sounds. They have a Beatles review in Vegas called Love and it's, they take the music of the Beatles and they turn it into a big production. And it's quite extraordinary before the show starts, there's still stuff going on. They're very clever about having people, know, cast members out in the audience doing funny things, you know, close music, magicians and, and then, and the beautiful sounds of birds in the place. They're controlling the environment. And they don't just start by saying, well, welcome everybody. Let's go over the agenda. Slide number one. Here are the first we're going to do this, introductions. Then we're going to do, no, because what you're broadcasting when you do that is this is going to be a very average meeting. know, chat GPT spit out the agenda for this thing. It's going to be anodyne, boilerplate. No, we're not going to do that at all. The agenda. is going to be on the lips of the person who introduces the audience. And what that person will also do is say, and I don't want you to worry, we're going to have you out of here 15 minutes ahead of schedule. We don't believe in long meetings. But in the midst of that, I'll make sure you know when decisions need to get made and when we're going to have votes. Don't worry. I'm going to give you plenty of warning. It's a little bit like if you're driving from Phoenix to Tucson and a good friend of yours is the navigator. A great navigator will go, about three miles up, we're going to take a right. I'll warn you. And then you're a mile out and you go a mile from now, it's going to be the turn. And then a good quarter mile out, you go, so here it's coming up. It's coming up. Keep your eyes peeled. They warn you. They keep you apprised. You feel like you're not going to miss a turn. Well, that's how it is in a great meeting. The master of ceremonies keeps it moving. They make sure you know where you are. But they don't start with an agenda slide. They start the way that that guy started by saying, I want to tell you about my daughter. I want you to tell, I want to talk about the man I was before she arrived and then how I am now after she's arrived. Everybody is riveted. are whatever happened before they have forgotten about. Now they're focused on how does this story end and what does it mean? And then if you're really on your shit, so you've got something in front of them, some toy, some piece of food, something that is on theme, like in my case, I would put one of these at every setting, you know, and, when they get to that part of the go, ⁓ I, ⁓ I get it. got my own troll. And, ⁓ there's a snack and it's a very carefully, you know, chosen snack. For example, if the meeting's only 20 minutes, I have no problem putting sugary snacks in front of people. But if the meeting's an hour in no way, I'm putting sugar in front of people because they will crash. just at that moment when we're supposed to be making decisions. No, no, no, no, I don't want low blood sugar. Yeah. I've also got, I've got visuals up on the wall. I, and so on you control every one of the senses, give them something to taste, to touch, to look at, to listen to, to smell. And you make sure to give them an opportunity to contribute. Give them a chance to speak. Ask for their advice. Tell me about what you experienced. speaker-1: Yeah. Mm-hmm. speaker-0: And especially I've noticed that the great ones, the really great ones will say, they'll keep such an EQ going in the meeting that they'll see the expressions on their faces and they'll go, Ron, I'm looking at your face and I can tell at some point I must have made a misstep. I'm going to just stop here. Can you tell me where I went wrong? What did I say that? No, no, no, sorry. It's just, I got a traffic ticket this morning. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm going to try and make sure that we get you over that. Or he says, I'm sorry to tell you, this is a non-starter. This whole idea you're describing, for reasons you don't understand, we can't mention the Greeks in this. ⁓ fair enough. I'm not here to sell you something you can't use. No problem. That kind of a meeting with participation means they're engaged and they're listening. And the earlier you can signal that you're going to call on them or that they're going to be expected to contribute, the more deeply they listen. They don't want to get caught. You know how that is. What do you think, Ian? And you haven't listened to the last eight minutes. ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah, right. speaker-0: I'm sorry, I was playing Roblox. Okay. What did Dave say? So all of these things are, that's the kind of meeting where what they feel when they leave is they feel that you know what you're doing. was organized, timely. They had us out of there ahead of schedule. They validated us while we were all in the meeting. They didn't miss a trick. They, know, before they even came upstairs on the elevator, our gal was down there picking them up. to make sure they knew. What will happen is if you get a reputation for putting on really good meetings, it comes ahead of you. ⁓ They'll understand, ⁓ these people are trying to make this easy for me. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. And people will want to take meetings with you. Yeah. speaker-0: And then there's that right exactly they won't want to miss a meeting right now in the in case of like if you don't control the environment Well, can you get access to the environment? Like maybe they'll let you in there a little early Have you ever had the occasion in where you were asked to speak at something and they didn't give you a chance to test your equipment before? speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. You're fumbling around with stuff. speaker-0: I bet that to be that's a real pressure cooker when people are sitting there in silence and you can't get the mirror thing to work. Right. So I did learn a while back that when there's a when it's a very high stakes appearance, you got to be ready to do it without support. You got to be ready to pivot and go. Not a problem. Let me paint you a picture. And if you can do that. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: If in the middle of a meltdown, can do it without notes, that's impressive. For sure. People go, speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, and you got to be prepared, right? And that comes down to your preparation. And something that the, as I'm hearing you tell the story about, okay, just one thing about how can you make this the best meeting that they ever had? How so many of the principles of why storytelling works and what makes a great story are then infused into that environment that you're trying to create. Again, it's all about just creating the experience, which is what a story conveys. it conveys that, message or that lesson or that idea in a way that's way more memorable because you're painting a picture and you're creating an experience in their head of what you're trying to communicate. But then those principles of why storytelling works can then be taken into other applications about like how do you create and curate the actual environment in which this is going to be communicated, right? So that's there's an interesting thread there that I am not quite catching right now, but it's just fascinating to hear you explain these things and how really the root of it all. comes from storytelling and why storytelling is such an amazing thing and how it can be, those principles can be applied in other situations. speaker-0: Anytime we had to sell a piece of advertising to a client, you we had a recommended campaign and then we had alternative campaigns in case we wrong footed ourselves somehow. But you really wanted to sell the recommended campaign for a series of reasons. So what we would do is we would give them the thing they would say when they were selling it to somebody else. Like sometimes a middle manager has to sell it to senior upper management. You've got to give them what they're going to say. So we would... As an example, we would say, this is called the winner campaign. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Everybody wants to win. You won the first race you were ever in. You were born because you got their firstest with the mostest. Everybody wants to be a winner. Okay. Now campaign number two, it's called the smart campaign. Everybody wants to be smart. Nobody wants to be dumb. Even dumb people know that. Right. And so what happens is as soon as they start describing the campaign to their bosses, they would go, they would go. speaker-1: yeah yeah yeah speaker-0: Well, we really liked the smart campaign. The smart campaign is a magnificent little mnemonic at the end where the guy goes like this, you know, and it says, you can't go, you know, we're using our heads and, you just give them the talking points, but you do it. You don't give them talking points. You give them the story because the story is easier. Remember the stories are usually to repeat and it, makes them seem like, wow, Jack, that was good memory. You remembered that whole thing. Yeah. By design, we armed them. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: to carry that. So storytelling, in fact, why it's most useful, it has that mimetic quality of being you can pass it on. speaker-1: Exactly. Right. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. It's makes it easy for people to be able to reiterate, right. And explain and then reshare it. speaker-0: Yeah. to justify to themselves. we did in fact sell the smart campaign. And at the end of every commercial, it says it's a smart choice, you know, for. Okay. So, and then we would always have it mnemonic. There would be a little animated figure that would come out of the Toyota logo and it would go ding. And we would have this ding. And the reason we did that was literally because a client goes, you know, like a Pavlov's dog. And I go, good. He goes, we really ought to have a little ding and I'm with you brother. Yeah, let's do it. What happened was. speaker-1: Nice. speaker-0: that when our clients would talk about it, they would go, yeah, the Smart Campaign. And that campaign lasted for a long time, mean, years and years. Why? Because people would say, they would go, if we get rid of this now, that just makes us dumb. Incredible. Yeah, so there was something really cool about giving them the script to repeat. there's nothing quite like, if you've ever tried to really sell anything, speaker-1: Peace. Yep. speaker-0: Even when you've got something amazing, sometimes people just don't want to buy. They just don't want to. And that's when you realize, oh, you can't talk people into something they don't want to do because any excuse will do. And if they want something, any reason will suffice. So you've got to them the thing that they can repeat to themselves about like why it's a... There was a very famous radio personality in Dallas. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: He started out, think he was the ninth biggest jeweler in Dallas. What he did was he created a campaign about how I'm your friend in the diamond business. Anyway, let me give you an example of the type of radio campaign advertising he would do. He would go, hi, know, this is a, my name is Roy Grumis and of Grumis Jewelers here in Fort Worth. For all you young men out there who are getting ready to propose to your fiance, I think it's absolutely wonderful. I love to share in the joy of this moment. I sure hope you'll come to see me because I know I'll give you a good price for your diamond. I just want to also say something to all you fellas. You know, there is sadly a possibility she might not say yes. That happens. And I just want you to know if that happens to you, you got enough to worry about without ⁓ me. gouging you when you come back in and giving you some kind of stupid restocking fee. I just want you to know if she said no, come on back. No harm, no foul. I'll take it back, pay you every cent you paid for it. And what's more, next time you come around and she really is the right one, I will make sure you get treated right. Okay. So we're in this together, brother. And that would be the kind of story he would tell was like, you know, she might say no, or, you know, have you ever thought about buying your mom one or? You know, Mother's Day was not a big diamond day. Christmas was a big diamond day. Valentine's day was a big diamond day. Do know those were the only times he didn't advertise was for Valentine's day and Christmas because the radio time was too expensive. Sure. So what he would do is he would just advertise for the rest of the year. And by the time it all came around, here's what happened. All the other jewelers would advertise. And even though It's for somebody else. The audience would hear his name. They would literally say, ⁓ I heard he's having a big sale. not really. That was the other guy. But it's come on in. I'll honor that. Right. It's because they thought of him first and they thought of him as a friend in the diamond business. And they assumed without evidence that if they're having a sale at this place, he'll match it. speaker-1: it. Which they did. speaker-0: All of which is just my way of saying, you know, that there was something marvelously friendly about this guy. It really kind of never did boil down to price. Right. It really was just trust. speaker-1: Right. And you know, having that new monic of I'm your friend in the diamond business, right? Makes it really easy for other people. like, oh yeah, I have my friend in the diamond business. speaker-0: Yeah, and they would say, yeah, and there's, ⁓ I knew a lot of car dealers in my day and a couple of these times these guys were, their advertising was just, it was so corny and so lo-fi and low brow and it was funny. Yeah. But it was, but it was dad joke funny. And yet it's unsophistication. It's ridiculous. Pun based thing. speaker-1: Thanks speaker-0: was about 80 % of its appeal. anybody that is this unsophisticated about their advertising, they couldn't possibly be a cheating card sharp. You can't imagine this guy cheating you because he looks so dumb in the commercials. But they were lovable. They'd get recognized in restaurants. They'd see him on the street. speaker-1: Alright. Yeah. Right. I love it. Yeah. I mean, there is just so much depth to a lot of what you've been sharing that we could spend hours exploring and digging into. Like just the idea of like a marketing campaign and this message that you want to communicate starts by getting really clear on the experience or the feeling that you want to invoke and the people that you want to communicate with and the people that you want to attract. So then how do you build this entire campaign about creating that emotion, creating that feeling? creating that personality, communicating or demonstrating that personality is just, yeah, there's so much intricacy to it. And again, the foundation of it all come from the principles of storytelling, which is just so beautiful how, you know, a lot of times when those things just all fall together and culminate. But I have a couple last questions for you. Thank you so much, Neil. You've been so generous with your time, but I want to finish with one here that in your StoryFire program, you're teaching people how to actually craft and use stories in across... domains where you've demonstrated so many different domains where storytelling can be can be utilized. So when you are seeing your clients go through that process, when you're seeing people, when you're trying to teach people how to craft a new story, where do you see most people getting stuck? speaker-0: The first thing that they don't quite grasp until they start going is they don't realize how much rehearsal things take. They don't realize how many times you have to do it before you get good at it. When they come in, they're thinking, ⁓ I'll spend three days in the gym and then I'll be ripped. They don't realize it just like the gym. It's a process. And there's this old Ernest Hemingway quote, the first draft of anything is s***. And this is Hemingway. So he's telling you that speaker-1: Yeah. Right. speaker-0: I can't publish the first thing I write. It's crap. The process is needed to get you to the outcome that you want. So the first thing people have to get over and the first thing people have to do is forgive themselves for not being great right out of the box. You don't go through the course, the story for our course, and you're not instantly good. What it does is it says, here are all the tips, tricks, tactics, and strategy. And now. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: You've got to start the process of write a draft, pick it apart, record yourself doing it. Cringe. Get over the cringe. Get over the cringe. You're going to cringe because we all do the same way that, when the first time you're on ice skates, you look like a deer that's just been born. You know, get over it. It's okay. You have to forgive yourself. The first thing is you got to be bad before you can be good. And there's an art form here, just like figure skating or just like painting. You got to give it a few whacks. The more you do it, the better you get. The better you get, the more you're going to want to get better because you're starting to see results. You go, yeah, this is much better than when I started. So that's the first thing. Really rehearsal and commitment to try is the first thing. And we should take advantage of the fact that we've got our phones as the as the ultimate TV studio that lets you watch yourself. And as I say, if you can get over the cringe, that's the day you turn pro. Because if instead of going, ⁓ I'm terrible, you go, I could have done that better. If I do this and this, maybe let me see if I can't do that better. OK, I won't do that with my hands anymore. ⁓ my god. All right. But once you start the process of going, I'm not angry with myself and I'm not embarrassed, I mean, after all, nobody else is watching it. It's just you. So there's really no reason to be upset. But once you can get over the cringe and keep going, that tool is amazing for helping you get better. I have no excuse for not trying. There's another thing that I would highly recommend, which is I carry one of these kind of wherever I go. And it's got just an endless list of things that have happened to me. So that I've got a, I've got a long list of topics that I can create social media posts from and that I can use in meetings and speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: There's nothing like having a big library of stuff that you might do a story on that can help you. Cause what happens is you'll go into a meeting, you'll meet with a client, something will pop up and you'll go, ⁓ you know, it would be a great story to tell right here is the time I was at Disneyland and the ticket taker wouldn't let me through the gate, you know, or you'd be surprised at how little things in your day, just little exchanges that you might have with the barista or talking to your spouse or, know, when you look at your dog and Little things can, anytime you have a thought, anytime you have an insight, remember what happened to lead you to that. No doubt there is a story about that. For example, Ian, it would be very interesting for you to craft a story about you and your sister. And the story's purpose is to remind you about the qualities of somebody with a very high EQ. speaker-1: Yeah. Hmm. speaker-0: What is it that they do? How does that make you feel? What event in your lives do you see what I mean about if you keep a notebook, you say, you know, I was just talking to Neil today about my sister and the fact that she was such a good listener, you know, and I've done a story on good listeners because it's a, it's a real, it's a real skill. It's very attractive being a good listener. Very, it's a great quality to listen intently. Now you happen to be in the business. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: of being a good listener, right? Because you've got to be engaged so that you can ask the next question and you can figure out where to take it. You don't want to just go down your list of questions. You kind of want to let the wind blows where it blows. Being tuned to the needs of people is, ⁓ I would guess that no matter what else happens on your podcast, no matter where it goes, whatever profits there is to be had, it's going to teach you to be a great listener and to be sensitive to your guests. And if that was the only dividend, it would still be worth the effort because you're learning it young. speaker-1: Yeah. So to summarize, it's just getting over the cringe, right? Turning press, you can press fields. speaker-0: Forgive yourself that you can't expect to be brilliant from the word go. This is a problem with the generation that grew up playing video games because video games let you do it a million times and then you develop expertise. But for some reason, we think that when we go out into the world, we have to be great at everything or it's not worth trying. Previous generations, my generation that didn't grow up with video games, we were out there from sun up to sun down on our bikes throwing rocks at each other. And it developed a kind of, yeah, no. We're going to be bad the first time we plug our guitars in and try to imitate the Ramones. It's going to be pretty sh**y, but that's okay. It's still worth it. speaker-1: 100 % and turning pro Stephen Pressfield love those books. War of Art is amazing. ⁓ God, so good. reread book that I have. And then the other problem it sounds like is the idea of like, what stories do I have? Right? So just having something like a resource next to you, whether it's a note, a little journal, little stories that you have. Yeah, everybody's got a story in them. speaker-0: Correct, keep track. When I worked in New York, I had the opportunity to visit the last game played in the old Yankee Stadium and the first game played in the new Yankee Stadium. So I bring my family along. Now, my kids are small. My daughter's all of about maybe six and a half. My son is eight. And I think this is fabulous. What a fabulous experience to take them to a major league ballgame where they are watching the best players money can buy. They could not have cared less. We got to the fifth inning and they were getting antsy and wanted to leave. And I dropped a bunch of money. I mean, you know, hot dogs are $20 and beer, you know, they're going to Hoover money out of your wallet like a strip club in Vegas. So I'm kind of like a little bent out of shape that they're, that they didn't seem to care, but we loved them and it was fabulous. And every seat was close to the action. Tickets were eight bucks. Parking was free. The hot dogs were a buck. They had a Xerox program. So it was, it was low rent, but fabulous. And you know what? The kids were into it. They were into it because the players are 30 feet away. And there's a lot going on when guys are bungling grounders. It's not just cycling through the innings. It's like, s*** is happening. Okay. So anyway, there's a point in the game when we are getting our brains beat in by a Mets farm club. So my daughter sees this young guy swinging a bat like he wants to kill somebody with it. He's on the on deck circle. So he's swinging this bat and she says to Hey dad, who's number 10? ⁓ that's Sanchez. So she runs down to the third baseline and she goes, Hey Sanchez. And he looks, she goes, you can do it baby. And he gets this look on his face like, what? Okay. And then she's going like, okay. So he's looking at her and the first pitch goes screaming by him. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: And he goes, ⁓ where am I? Okay. He looks up and he sees her again. She's still doing this war dance. He looks back, pitcher throws him a hand curve. gets all of it and it just goes into orbit and he's rounding second base on the way to third. And he goes like this to her. goes, And she goes, ⁓ So as far as she's concerned, she a hundred percent caused that. Now what happens is five kids come running down to the third baseline and they start yelling out the players names. And it's, it has that, ⁓ it has that atomic quality where it's like when there's five kids, that means that like all the kids are coming to start yelling at the players names. starts a rally. Guys are hitting for extra bases. Guys are stealing. They've got the. Pitcher flustered, know, bases loaded, you know, and they're bunting guys in. I mean, it's, it's Bedlam. It's going crazy. The stands have come alive. Now it's tied and Sanchez has come around again in the order. So he comes in and they give him a few warmup pitches and you can see on Sanchez's face. Oh crap. This guy's throwing in the high 90. Uh-oh. Oh, so he gets in the box. speaker-1: Yeah. Peace. speaker-0: Same as before, first pitch goes, pitch goes by him and only this time it's like, Sanchez goes, why is this shit? ⁓ I'm out of my depth. He's not even playing the same league. Next pitch comes by, he misses it by a good eight inches. You know, he just swings blind. And now he's really like, ⁓ God dang it. We came so close. And he looks up at his stand and Tony goes. speaker-1: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Nice. speaker-0: And, you can see it on his face. He's thinking, I ain't going to go down without a goddamn fight. And he is flicking off one pitch after another, kink, kink, just getting the tiniest flick. And he's still in it. He's still in it. But the pitches are coming in harder. The guy's getting warmed up and ⁓ he's, he takes a step back. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: And he looks back there and Tony's just like, and next one in it's, I'm sure this thing must've come in at 101 and it went out at about 120. And it was a frozen rope and it, they probably found it in a backyard pool filter and Patterson, and then nevertheless, he has not even gotten to second and every kid in the stands has rushed the field. speaker-1: for dance. speaker-0: And the mascots got his head off because he wants to, you know, take part. The owner's given out free hot dogs. The manager can't believe what he's seen. Okay. They wind up taking a team photo with the kids in it. And Tony was standing next to Sanchez and she's got this little, you know, she's going like, you know, six and a half. Okay. So I'm standing next to the manager and he says, is that your little girl? And I go, yeah. And he goes, speaker-1: Wow. Mm-hmm. speaker-0: You know, Sanchez hasn't hit a home run in the whole season and tonight he hit two. So my question to you is, is she coming back tomorrow? So you think, yeah, because she thinks she caused that win, which for all I know, maybe she did. But here was the thing is that was an $8 ticket and they gave me something. The Yankees could have won the world series and it would not have added up to the same thing. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Yeah. speaker-0: which is she got a lifelong love of baseball. speaker-1: from them. speaker-0: And to me, what that is, it's the story. You go to a Yankees game, you had no impact. You did not matter at all. You were there to give them your money. You go to a Jackals game, it matters that you're there. Make a difference. It's important. And we appreciate you. You really think the Yankees are going to take a picture with the team, with the kids from the stands? speaker-1: brain. speaker-0: You can't do it. just physically can't do it. But you can do it in minor league ball. And ever since then, I've had such a love of the idea that you should do the experiences where they don't just tolerate you. They're happy you're there. speaker-1: and you're a priority. And again, one more demonstration of there are so many principles you can take from a story. Your principle that you finished there with is going to the experiences where you're a priority. But also, you hear that story of your daughter and Sanchez, sometimes you just need a cheerleader. A cheerleader to bring you back into the moment, to help you tap into the love that you have for what you're doing and the reason why you're doing what you're doing. And like, it's just so beautiful. Yeah, it's amazing. It's just sometimes, yeah, you're lonely. It's a lonely journey, right? And like tying this back into even like the StoryFire program itself, right? Like sometimes, you you understand these things that you need to do. You're on this path of trying to accomplish what you want to accomplish, but like it gets lonely. So sometimes if you have somebody in your corner who's helping you out in this journey and trying to learn this new thing or whatever that is, just a cheerleader for you that cares about you, that you're a priority, right? You're not just going into this, you know, maybe huge. faceless nameless kind of program whatever but you're going into an organization like working with somebody like you who's genuinely going to care about every individual that comes through that program is gonna you're a priority for them Amazing now Neil. I have one final question for you. It's a recurring question I ask every guest if you had a giant billboard that everyone in the world could see for 10 seconds What would it say and why? speaker-0: don't believe the people who are being paid to divide us. speaker-1: Absolutely. love it. ⁓ speaker-0: whole industry. This is not what I would put on the outdoor board, it's one of my favorite quotes. All you need for an insane asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people. speaker-1: I got that right. Got that right. speaker-0: I have any other meaning. just love it. speaker-1: I like it. Amazing. Neil would love to have you back on at some point. Oh, count me in here. I appreciate it. Neil, thank you so much for the time. Cheers. Thank you for listening. My main takeaway from this conversation with Neil is how much influence comes from things that don't look like influence at all. A short story in a meeting, a small moment of encouragement, a decision to treat someone well when there's no clear upside. Those moments don't feel strategic in the moment, but they shape how people think, how they act, and how they remember you. speaker-0: Mart Young Man. speaker-1: Neil kept coming back to this idea that stories carry emotion and emotion is what people act on. That applies inside a company and how a team works together and outside and how people experience what you're building. The part that matters is not how much information you give someone. It's what they carry with them after they leave and what they can repeat. If you want to get connected with Neil Ford, you can find his StoryFire program along with the links to all of his social media channels in the description of this episode. And if you run a coaching program, course, or mastermind and your clients aren't completing the work, download the free program execution system toolkit in the description. It shows you how to install execution infrastructure so clients can actually follow through and get results. Thank you for listening and I'll see you in the next one.