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What "Rocky" Teaches Us About Communication | Larry Wilson's How to Talk to Humans Podcast · How To Talk To Humans

• 0:02
  Larry Wilson: Hi, this is Larry Wilson and this is How to Talk to Humans.
• 0:07
  Larry Wilson: This is the podcast that shows you how to improve your communication skills.
• 0:13
  Larry Wilson: Are you looking to get a better job?
• 0:15
  Larry Wilson: Are you looking to find a relationship?
• 0:18
  Larry Wilson: Are you trying to do things in your life that have frustrated you and eluded you so far?
• 0:24
  Larry Wilson: I can show you so easily how to change that.
• 0:27
  Larry Wilson: Now, I can only do it with humans.
• 0:30
  Larry Wilson: If you're looking to deal with vampires and zombies, extraterrestrials, this is not the joke.
• 0:36
  Larry Wilson: But if you're really looking to improve your communication skills, I can show you what I've learned for 40 years in the show business working with the biggest celebrities and superstars in the world.
• 0:49
  Larry Wilson: And their secrets are unbelievable.
• 0:54
  Larry Wilson: What I'm going to be teaching you during the course of this podcast every week are tools that you can use to communicate toward success.
• 1:08
  Larry Wilson: I wanted to talk with you today specifically about writing.
• 1:16
  Larry Wilson: And I know this is terrifying to many of you.
• 1:20
  Larry Wilson: Your first reaction, I think some of you, is oh, I'll get AI to write it.
• 1:26
  Larry Wilson: Whatever it is you have to write.
• 1:28
  Larry Wilson: And there's certainly nothing wrong with that.
• 1:31
  Larry Wilson: But I think AI should be used as a um as a template or uh guideline of some kind.
• 1:42
  Larry Wilson: Because it's never going to match what you can do because you're human.
• 1:52
  Larry Wilson: AI will never ever accomplish that.
• 1:56
  Larry Wilson: But it can give you a good structure as a starting place.
• 2:00
  Larry Wilson: If you give it your ideas or the premise of what you have to do, uh the more information, of course, you can give AI, uh, the better job it can do of putting something together like this.
• 2:11
  Larry Wilson: And uh I know that as terrifying as it is, I want to share with you a really interesting story today.
• 2:23
  Larry Wilson: Actually, there's a couple different things.
• 2:25
  Larry Wilson: I just hope we'll be able to fit it all in.
• 2:28
  Larry Wilson: Um, but one story I wanted to fit with you today is about a book.
• 2:34
  Larry Wilson: A woman named Carolyn Bix, that's B-I-C-K-S, has written a book.
• 2:42
  Larry Wilson: I think I think it's been released.
• 2:46
  Larry Wilson: It's called Monsters in the Archives, My Year of Fear with Stephen King.
• 2:55
  Larry Wilson: Now, let me begin by saying this, and I realize some people may think it's heresy for me to say this, but I I don't think King is a great writer.
• 3:09
  Larry Wilson: Um I know some people do.
• 3:11
  Larry Wilson: I think he's a great storyteller.
• 3:14
  Larry Wilson: But boy, oh boy, does Stephen King know how to make you want to know what happens next?
• 3:24
  Larry Wilson: What happens next?
• 3:26
  Larry Wilson: Boy, in fiction writing, that may be the greatest achievement.
• 3:32
  Larry Wilson: So the people, I mean you've you've all, whether you've had this experience yourself, it doesn't have to just be with Stephen King.
• 3:38
  Larry Wilson: It's with any great book that you've really enjoyed, where you stayed up much later than you intended to, because you couldn't put it down.
• 3:49
  Larry Wilson: That's that's great storytelling.
• 3:51
  Larry Wilson: Now, I say King isn't a great writer because I sometimes I think his characters are a little um uh sometimes I think they're a cookie cutter or cliche a little bit.
• 4:05
  Larry Wilson: And I think he thinks that too.
• 4:07
  Larry Wilson: I I've read him or heard him in interviews sometimes accuse himself of that.
• 4:13
  Larry Wilson: Um and sometimes the way he weaves relationships uh between men and women, and uh I just I think he's a good writer.
• 4:31
  Larry Wilson: I just don't think he's on the order of someone like Mark Twain or Kurt Vonnegut or something.
• 4:41
  Larry Wilson: When you read them, it's like reading music.
• 4:46
  Larry Wilson: It they're the way they put the words together and the way they sound and the way they echo in your I mean they're just incredible.
• 4:56
  Larry Wilson: Now, having said all that, I'm I'm not as big a fan of King anymore.
• 5:02
  Larry Wilson: I used to be a big fan of his, but I noticed a trend in his work, and I can't blame him because I'm not a best-selling author.
• 5:11
  Larry Wilson: I don't know what it feels like.
• 5:12
  Larry Wilson: But it seemed like when he became so famous, and his books were everywhere.
• 5:19
  Larry Wilson: I mean, they were so ubiquitous.
• 5:21
  Larry Wilson: If you flew on an airplane, before you got to the gate, you passed some store that had books people would buy to read on the airplane.
• 5:29
  Larry Wilson: And King was always there prominently displayed.
• 5:33
  Larry Wilson: Sometimes more than one of his books prominently displayed.
• 5:37
  Larry Wilson: Hardback, soft cover.
• 5:40
  Larry Wilson: I mean, kind of a perfect to read on an airplane because, you know, it's a fast read, and it's like I say, you can't put it down.
• 5:49
  Larry Wilson: So uh, but I just I I I felt at some point in his journey he stopped adhering to some of the things I think are so important in storytelling, and that I talk about with you here in the VIP training more than once, about how a story has to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
• 6:17
  Larry Wilson: It may seem so obvious to you, but in the beginning, we want to meet whoever the main character is, and we want to learn whatever it is their need is.
• 6:28
  Larry Wilson: Now, you could be talking about yourself when you're crafting a story.
• 6:35
  Larry Wilson: Or, or as I'm talking right now, you could adapt this to thinking about crafting your own story to tell people.
• 6:43
  Larry Wilson: This is how I came to be where I am now, doing whatever it is I do.
• 6:48
  Larry Wilson: And it could be directly related to your business, to selling real estate, to working in finance, to uh creating uh some kind of manufacturing business.
• 7:00
  Larry Wilson: It doesn't have to be.
• 7:01
  Larry Wilson: I mean, this uh I think is an important lesson you can learn from Stephen King.
• 7:07
  Larry Wilson: That in his books, characters are very ordinary people, but sometimes they fall into extraordinary circumstances.
• 7:17
  Larry Wilson: So that could easily be you.
• 7:20
  Larry Wilson: And even if you may not think they're extraordinary, because it's your life and it may be the only one you've ever lived, so it seems perfectly normal.
• 7:30
  Larry Wilson: But sometimes if you step back, if you're able to distance yourself, you may look and go, oh, I guess this is kind of unusual.
• 7:39
  Larry Wilson: Most people do not have these experiences I've had.
• 7:43
  Larry Wilson: Now, once you start telling us about stuff that we don't have familiarity with, it's very compelling.
• 7:53
  Larry Wilson: We always want to learn about new stuff.
• 7:57
  Larry Wilson: Whether it's about fly fishing, whether it's about stamp collecting, whether it's uh what it's like to be a prison guard, whether it's about moving to a strange country where you don't speak the language, could be anything.
• 8:16
  Larry Wilson: But when you start telling us the specific things, when you tell us maybe you're telling us about someone who's a makeup artist for movies and television, and you start to explain about the kit that they put together and where they get the different things and what the different things do, and and the challenges they're faced with when they come into the makeup room, all that stuff becomes fascinating to us.
• 8:45
  Larry Wilson: We're always interested in that.
• 8:47
  Larry Wilson: Um, but so I I urge you, as I'm speaking here, to consider your own story.
• 8:56
  Larry Wilson: It must have a beginning.
• 8:58
  Larry Wilson: If the story is about you, it's where we are introduced to you, learn who you are.
• 9:05
  Larry Wilson: Maybe this involves where you live or how old you are, or what your training is, or what you expected your life to be, or something like that.
• 9:16
  Larry Wilson: And then we want to know what that main character's need is.
• 9:23
  Larry Wilson: And it may be as simple as my need was I wanted to be able to support a family.
• 9:28
  Larry Wilson: That's perfectly respectable need.
• 9:30
  Larry Wilson: Or your need may be that you wanted to be a billionaire.
• 9:37
  Larry Wilson: I'm not making value judgments on any of this.
• 9:40
  Larry Wilson: That's not my job.
• 9:42
  Larry Wilson: It's up to you to tell your story, whatever it may be.
• 9:46
  Larry Wilson: But I can tell you this if you do this exercise, as I'm describing it now, if you apply yourself, you're going to be armed with a powerful instrument that you can whip out any time and lay it on people and really capture their imagination and connect with them in a way that you may have never thought was possible.
• 10:12
  Larry Wilson: But believe me, this storytelling is foundational.
• 10:19
  Larry Wilson: It is in our DNA.
• 10:22
  Larry Wilson: We like these stories because they're a way of making sense out of this crazy life, you know, and I don't mean that you have to figure everything out about life, or that you have to have the raison d'etre, or or the unique that excites it's just your point of view.
• 10:51
  Larry Wilson: You may be able to share something that for someone who wonders, why can't I get ahead in business?
• 10:58
  Larry Wilson: Or why does it seem like the people who are dishonest are more successful than the people who are on up?
• 11:07
  Larry Wilson: Whatever your point of view may be that you present.
• 11:11
  Larry Wilson: It to the listener, it really a story that's really satisfying.
• 11:19
  Larry Wilson: I'll tell you this, I've said it before.
• 11:23
  Larry Wilson: Uh, you know, Hollywood is filled with young screenwriters who think I'm gonna blow everyone's mind, I'm gonna have an unhappy ending to this story.
• 11:36
  Larry Wilson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 11:39
  Larry Wilson: Young writers have been doing this, I would imagine, since Hollywood began.
• 11:44
  Larry Wilson: Sometimes you can do that and have a successful film if it's powerful acting and directing and cinematography and it's clearly uh artistic work.
• 11:55
  Larry Wilson: But in general, we all like happy endings better.
• 12:02
  Larry Wilson: Why do you think we do?
• 12:05
  Larry Wilson: Have you ever considered this?
• 12:08
  Larry Wilson: Well, because if we identify with the characters in the story, we want them to have a happy resolution like we wish for ourselves.
• 12:23
  Larry Wilson: It's as simple as that.
• 12:25
  Larry Wilson: And sometimes it may be more difficult.
• 12:28
  Larry Wilson: You may have created a now.
• 12:31
  Larry Wilson: I'm jumping back and forth.
• 12:33
  Larry Wilson: I could be talking about you crafting your own personal story, it's fine, but I could also be talking about you writing something, maybe it's a work of fiction, maybe it's a biography of someone, maybe it's uh a long dissertation about a particular product or service, either that you provide or would like to provide, or you grew up training, it could be anything.
• 12:58
  Larry Wilson: But when I say these things, I hope that you'll take everything with a grain of salt.
• 13:06
  Larry Wilson: Um there are no rules here, there are no writing police who will bust your door down and arrest you.
• 13:13
  Larry Wilson: You're free to experiment.
• 13:15
  Larry Wilson: And this, of course, is kind of what's really great about writing.
• 13:23
  Larry Wilson: As I've told you so many times, you're sick of hearing that writing is rewriting.
• 13:34
  Larry Wilson: That great writing is not the first draft.
• 13:39
  Larry Wilson: And anyone who tries to present that to you is a liar.
• 13:44
  Larry Wilson: I don't care who it is, I don't care who it is.
• 13:47
  Larry Wilson: You know, the one thing I point out time and again uh Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, which is an incredibly powerful piece of writing, is only 277 words.
• 14:06
  Larry Wilson: That's that's pretty short.
• 14:09
  Larry Wilson: And all these people at one time or another have tried to present say he just sat down and wrote it on the back of an envelope.
• 14:16
  Larry Wilson: Oh my god, not true.
• 14:19
  Larry Wilson: There are too many copies that have eventually come to light by historians that show Lincoln wrote many drafts of the Gettysburg Address, and they were longer.
• 14:33
  Larry Wilson: So he rewrote and rewrote, and that's part of the reason that's so powerful, is that there's no fat in it at all.
• 14:46
  Larry Wilson: It's an extraordinary piece of writing, it's so succinct.
• 14:51
  Larry Wilson: It's you know what?
• 14:53
  Larry Wilson: I'll include a link on this uh uh rerun on the replay of this training.
• 15:00
  Larry Wilson: I'll include a link to a copy of Gettysburg Address because it's unbelievable.
• 15:06
  Larry Wilson: But perhaps in a more modern taste, this book I mentioned that this woman, Caroline Bix, wrote, Monsters in the Archives, My Year of Fear with Stephen King, will uh be uh much more uh it will tell you everything you need to know.
• 15:34
  Larry Wilson: Uh the the uh I'm jumping around here again.
• 15:41
  Larry Wilson: I I don't want to drop the ball here.
• 15:44
  Larry Wilson: I was saying before your first act, we meet the main character, we learn what their need is, what their desire is.
• 15:51
  Larry Wilson: The second act, which is longer than the first act, uh, we see them attempting to achieve whatever they want.
• 16:01
  Larry Wilson: If it's fiction we're working on, then we want to create obstacles.
• 16:05
  Larry Wilson: It's not very interesting if they wanted to do this thing and then they did.
• 16:12
  Larry Wilson: The end.
• 16:13
  Larry Wilson: If we see the obstacles and hurdles and barriers and challenges they had to face and overcome, it's enormously satisfying to us when in the third act we see the resolution.
• 16:29
  Larry Wilson: Now, in fairness, resolutions not always have to be happy, doesn't mean they get what they want.
• 16:35
  Larry Wilson: Um, an example I've mentioned before, and I frequently will cite film because you can stream it, you can take a look immediately.
• 16:44
  Larry Wilson: But also, if you spend five minutes on the internet, you can find screenplays, the written screenplay of all these films that I mentioned here.
• 16:53
  Larry Wilson: You can see what's on the page, which is incredible education.
• 16:59
  Larry Wilson: I wish I had had that growing up.
• 17:01
  Larry Wilson: I mean, it's an incredible resource.
• 17:04
  Larry Wilson: But I mentioned here uh the screenplay to Rocky, Sylvester Stallone's breakout film, his first screenplay, first time we see what's not actually the first time he was ever in film, he had little bit parts and stuff, but it's the one he's famous for, of course, that took the world by storm.
• 17:24
  Larry Wilson: This unknown guy writes this script, becomes an international superstar overnight, really and truly is what happened.
• 17:33
  Larry Wilson: And there's a very important thing in Rocky.
• 17:37
  Larry Wilson: I mean, how this guy wrote such an incredible screenplay, I don't know.
• 17:44
  Larry Wilson: But I will tell you this.
• 17:45
  Larry Wilson: I've read a couple of screenplays of his that did not get produced.
• 17:50
  Larry Wilson: They were early in his career after Rocky, and they were great.
• 17:56
  Larry Wilson: There was a sort of a biography, not a biography, but a story about Edgar Allan Poe that he wrote that I thought was incredible.
• 18:04
  Larry Wilson: Don't know why it never got made.
• 18:07
  Larry Wilson: Wow, it was great writing.
• 18:09
  Larry Wilson: So this I don't know.
• 18:11
  Larry Wilson: I don't know enough about him or his story, but in Rocky, we meet Rocky in the beginning.
• 18:19
  Larry Wilson: He's sort of a he's a dumpy, low, very low-level club fighter.
• 18:30
  Larry Wilson: He's nobody.
• 18:32
  Larry Wilson: And there's all these things about him, but he's really winning.
• 18:36
  Larry Wilson: We, I mean, personally, we come to love him so quickly.
• 18:41
  Larry Wilson: We can see he has a heart of gold, he's honest, he's loyal, he's courageous, but he's just sort of a loser, and through a series of crazy circumstances, but very believable, because obviously Stallone either lived in this world or researched and knew about this world.
• 19:07
  Larry Wilson: Uh, through and it's a little far-fetched, but in the film and in the script, we completely believe it.
• 19:12
  Larry Wilson: It seemed by a series of weird circumstances, the heavyweight champion of the world, Apollo Creed, was going to fight somebody who was like an up-and-comer who was supposed to be a challenger.
• 19:27
  Larry Wilson: And that person for some reason is either hurt or sick, or something happens where they have to withdraw and aren't able to do it.
• 19:34
  Larry Wilson: And all the publicity and everything else has been set up.
• 19:37
  Larry Wilson: And uh the promoters say, we've got to find a replacement, got to find a replacement.
• 19:41
  Larry Wilson: And through a strange series of circumstances, this kind of low-level nobody, Rocky, gets chosen for this exhibition fight.
• 19:51
  Larry Wilson: Now, it's not, you know, that's part of what makes it so great and so real.
• 19:57
  Larry Wilson: Not like he gets a chance at the heavyweight champion of the world title match.
• 20:03
  Larry Wilson: No, it's that's never gonna happen.
• 20:05
  Larry Wilson: But he's gonna fight in an exhibition fight with the heavyweight champion of the world.
• 20:10
  Larry Wilson: And this is someone who Rocky admires and is looked up to.
• 20:13
  Larry Wilson: And you know, it's all a big deal.
• 20:15
  Larry Wilson: And many famous memes that you've seen.
• 20:19
  Larry Wilson: Rocky in training, you know, he gets a coach, a trainer to train him in training harder than he's ever trained, and how difficult it is.
• 20:31
  Larry Wilson: And the famous scene of him in Philadelphia running up the steps of the Capitol building when he's really starting, his training is starting to pay off, and he's getting in shape, and he's starting to feel like he could really do this, and the music is playing, and you know, even if you've never seen the film, I bet you've seen those clips, you know.
• 20:57
  Larry Wilson: So it's very powerful.
• 20:59
  Larry Wilson: Now, in films, at the midpoint, which is exactly the middle of the script, once the film is made, anything can happen.
• 21:10
  Larry Wilson: Anyone can do anything.
• 21:11
  Larry Wilson: But in the writing, the first act is usually about 30 pages.
• 21:17
  Larry Wilson: The last, the third act is about 30 pages.
• 21:21
  Larry Wilson: That's where we find out whether he wins or loses, whether whatever the hero, whatever the main character wants, whether they get it or don't get it.
• 21:31
  Larry Wilson: The second act, which is the middle act, is twice as long as either the first or third act.
• 21:40
  Larry Wilson: It's usually about 60 pages.
• 21:42
  Larry Wilson: And halfway through that act is the midpoint.
• 21:48
  Larry Wilson: And some writers treat it as no different than anything else.
• 21:54
  Larry Wilson: But in blockbuster movies, whether it's by intention or Or by accident, whether it's by design or default, I can't really say.
• 22:06
  Larry Wilson: So I know there's some writers who clearly have talked about, oh no, no, I did this absolutely intentionally.
• 22:13
  Larry Wilson: I have to believe Stallone did this intentionally in Rocky.
• 22:16
  Larry Wilson: His trainer, Mickey, has him watching films of Apollo Creed to try and learn what his weaknesses are and how Rocky's gonna strategize fighting him and what he's gonna do.
• 22:30
  Larry Wilson: And as he's watching these films, this dead center, it's page 60 in the screenplay, the exact center of a 120-page screenplay.
• 22:46
  Larry Wilson: He has what some screenwriters call a visit with death.
• 22:53
  Larry Wilson: And it's sometimes where uh main character confronts what he's most afraid of or his fallibility or his mortality that could be.
• 23:12
  Larry Wilson: In this case, Rocky's watching films of Apollo Creed Rocky's need that is established in act one is he wants to be the heavyweight champion of the world.
• 23:25
  Larry Wilson: Now we can see he's not gonna be, but that's what he wants.
• 23:29
  Larry Wilson: In the second act, he has this opportunity to fight the heavyweight champion of the world.
• 23:35
  Larry Wilson: I mean, this something crazy could happen here, right?
• 23:39
  Larry Wilson: But as he's watching these films of Apollo Creed, he has a realization that oh, I I can't beat this guy.
• 23:51
  Larry Wilson: This guy's the heavyweight champion of the world.
• 23:54
  Larry Wilson: He didn't get that title because people voted for him, he didn't get it because he paid for it or he went to some school he's the heavyweight champion of the world because he's better boxer than anyone in the world.
• 24:11
  Larry Wilson: And Rocky realizes I I can't beat him.
• 24:17
  Larry Wilson: And then the writer Stallone does an incredible thing.
• 24:22
  Larry Wilson: His main character changes his need.
• 24:28
  Larry Wilson: He decides if I could go the distance, if I could go 15 rounds, no matter how many times I get knocked down, if I could get back up before the bell rings, get back in the ring, if I could last 15 rounds with Apollo Creed, that would be the same as me becoming the champion of the world.
• 24:54
  Larry Wilson: Now I'm not gonna tell you what happens if you haven't seen this movie.
• 24:58
  Larry Wilson: It's incredible riding.
• 24:59
  Larry Wilson: It's incredible writing.
• 25:02
  Larry Wilson: This has been Larry Wilson.
• 25:04
  Larry Wilson: I want to thank you for spending this time with me, and I hope you found this information useful.
• 25:10
  Larry Wilson: If you're looking for more, you can find it at thewilsonmethod.com.
• 25:15
  Larry Wilson: There's a ton of stuff there.
• 25:17
  Larry Wilson: In fact, if you want, you can even speak to me because I'm human.
• 25:24
  Larry Wilson: Send me an email at info at wilsonmethod.com because I read every single one.
• 25:33
  Larry Wilson: I hope that you'll join us next week in this continuing journey.
• 25:39
  Larry Wilson: And you'll be with me for the next episode of How to Talk to Human.