The Exchanges

Q So, why did we start where we started? Why did we go on that journey? And obviously, like, you did this in real time, so you would refine this, but like, walk me through your decisions when you made that story.

A The most important decision to make in that story is the structure, meaning what's the chronological, um, structure of that story. I used a BABC model, which is a model that I started in the middle, actually, of the story. I started with my son is going to Camp, and I know he has to take a swim test, and I know it might not be easy for him. The real beginning of the story happens in 1983. I'm going down to the waterfront to take a swim test with nine pancakes in my belly. I jump in the pond and think it's stupid and get out, and I end up a beginner swimmer. 30 years later, I'm with my son. That's a terrible way to tell that story. You can feel that already, but that's how most people tell it, right? Most people tell it chronologically, meaning A, B, C. I started in the middle because, for a bunch of reasons. One is, if I tell you that beginning of the story, it already gives away the end. You know what's gonna happen.

AI assessment note: “I used a BABC model, which is a model that I started in the middle”

Q Is there a difference between telling our own stories and telling other people's stories?

A Yeah, there is. Unfortunately, when you tell other people's stories, they're never nearly as good. If I had told you that my brother went through customs and got the X, On his form, it had to get through that second layer. That story doesn't mean very much to you. My brother, in your mind, is a fictional character. You don't even know. Maybe I don't actually have a brother. It doesn't mean they can't be told. There is a way to tell them. It's tricky and it's not as effective. People want to hear the story of the person sitting across from them. They want to know that you're the one speaking because that requires vulnerability. If I tell you a story and it's not about me, the only vulnerability required is public speaking. And I've overcome that, and presumably anyone who's standing in front of other people can at least publicly speak in an effective, somewhat unnervous way. So, me telling you stories about other people is just me reporting on events for people that you may or may not know. The vulnerability comes from, I'm having difficulties with my wife, and we can't figure out how to solve it, and then one day I decide to start kissing my wife in the morning, and everything changes. That vulnerability It's so powerful. Other people's stories , you just don't have that.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, there is. Unfortunately, when you tell other people's stories, they're never nearly as good.”

Q What's the difference between a story and an anecdote then?

A So an anecdote doesn't have to have change over time. It's essentially one of those, hey, this funny thing happened to me. Isn't this crazy? But it tends not to linger. You know, a story ideally is the kind of thing that when I tell it to you, you're thinking about it for days, weeks, months, or maybe for the rest of your life. Whereas an anecdote is you sit down and you have beers with your buddies and something crazy happened on the golf course. You know, something happened in the airport and you tell them it and they all laugh. But it's not the kind of thing they want to go and repeat to someone. They're not going to remember it. I often think of anecdotes as cotton candy. It's like delicious in the moment and lovely, but you don't really remember your cotton candies, but you remember the best meals of your life. Stories are the best meals of your life. The ones you reflect back and go, I remember the restaurant. I remember who I was with. I remember what I ordered. That's the story.

AI assessment note: “an anecdote doesn't have to have change over time”

Q And then how does the end inform the beginning?

A Well, they're almost always in perfect contrast to each other. They, they have to be opposite of some way. If you want change over time, for the end of my story, you know, I've learned a thing. At the beginning of the story, I must not have that thing learned. If at the end of the story, I say this is a spoon of power, and it's really going to become the most powerful teaching tool I'll ever have, the beginning of the story is, it's just a spoon, and those are words I actually use in that story, just an ordinary kitchen spoon. I tell you in the beginning, this is a meaningless kitchen spoon that, because Lord of the Rings was on the, you know, popular, I declared it the spoon of power for reasons that make no sense except That's who I am, right? But essentially it was a nothing, and I made it a something. So we ask ourselves at the end, what's the change? What's the meaning? And then the beginning is always going to be the opposite of that. And now we have change over time. Now we create what I call an arc, right? It's going to go from one place to another. The customs agent story, you can feel, it's flat. Like, there's no opening where Matt is nervous about going through customs. I've done it a million times. Even when I saw the red X, I'm, I'm in Canada. What's What are they going to do? You know, I guess I, if I was in another country, if I had just entered North Korea and I…

AI assessment note: “they're almost always in perfect contrast to each other. They, they have to be opposite”

Q How do we make a good trailer then for a podcast or for a movie? Like what goes into that in your mind that pulls people in and like, I have to watch this. I have to listen to this.

A We want to make sure that people understand sort of what the problem the character is facing, what that problem is. And Make sure that it's something that we all can go, yeah, I get that. But not solve the problem, or even let us know if the problem will be solved. John McClain desperately wants to get back to his wife, and unfortunately, terrorists now stand between him and his wife. What do you do when there are terrorists standing between you and your wife? Multiple terrorists, and you have nothing except your wits. What do you do? And we go, I wanted to get back to the love of my life. You know, how, how is he going to do that? And suddenly you want it to happen. If they present it as something we want, then absolutely we're going to watch it, because we want to see how to do it. You know, I think there is a part of our brain that says, I need to see how John McClane gets back to his wife, because I want to get back to, maybe it's the love of my life, or maybe it's like, I used to love playing poker, and I haven't been playing it for a long time, and I want to get back to that love of my life. But we want to present sort of the stakes, In the story without revealing too much of the story. So we want to see the yearning, the want, the desire. If it's a podcast, it's essentially, you're going to present a question at the top. You know, something like, you've probably been tel…

AI assessment note: “We want to make sure that people understand sort of what the problem the character”

Q moments from episodes. Imagine having a smart assistant who reads through every transcript, finds just the best parts and serves them up based on whatever topic you're interested in. I use overlap every day to research, guess, explore, and learn. Give it a try and start discovering the best moments from the best podcasts. Go to joinoverlap.com. That's joinoverlap.com. What's the difference between a good story and a bad story?

A I think we can start by thinking about what is a story and what isn't a story, because most people don't tell stories. Most people think of a story as some stuff happened over the course of time, and now I'm going to tell you about that, usually chronologically, and that will amount to a story. And that really is just reporting on your life, and no one actually wants you to report on your life, you know, other than maybe your mother and your spouse might be required To listen. It's just a simple accounting of your day, or your week, or your month, and that's not interesting, and it's not a story. So a story is about change over time. Usually, it's sort of a realization. Like, I used to think one thing, and now I think another thing. That's most stories. Sometimes they're transformational, meaning I once was one kind of person, and then some stuff happened, and now I'm actually an authentically different kind of person. But if you're just doing that, you're better than most people. That sort of is the difference between a bad story and a good story, is what is a story and what is not a story. Once we get to the difference between sort of a well-told story, a well-crafted story, and a one that is not as well-crafted, we get into things like the acknowledgement that no one wants to hear anything you ever have to say, unless you give them a reason to listen. And there are people wh…

AI assessment note: “That sort of is the difference between a bad story and a good story”

Q So what are the most common mistakes that people make when they're telling stories?

A Well, they describe too much, for sure. Actually, there's some really interesting research on comic books. They found that when you compare comic book characters, the comic book characters that have less visual detail are the ones people feel more connected to. So if I draw a circle with two dots, For eyes and a, you know, a little mouth. You're gonna be able to feel more emotionally connected to that than if I created a photorealistic version of a comic book character. Because if I give you the circle with the two dots and the smile, you fill in the rest with what you want it to be. And now you're connected to it. If I say, here's what Joe looks like and it's photorealistic, there's nothing you can do with that other than to accept it in your mind as Joe. Whereas you have a version of Joe in your head, the platonic version of Joe, And if I allow you to place all of your background and need and understanding of the concept of Joe into my unrealized picture, you're more attached to it. So people make the mistake of overly describing, either because they think an audience wants it, they've been taught to do it in school by people who don't write but teach people how to write, or there are just people that get obsessed. I've met lots of people who say, like, I want them to see my mother the way I saw her. And I say, I hear what you're saying, but there's a difference between what …

AI assessment note: “Well, they describe too much, for sure.”

Q I love that. That's really cool. How do we learn to tell better stories then? Like walk me through sort of, you teach a class on this, like what's that, That process for if you had to give a high-level overview of that, like, how do you, how do you learn to do that?

A Start by becoming what I call strategic listeners. There's listening, which everyone thinks they're good at, and many people are not. And then there's active listening, which is, as far as I can tell, you look at the person and nod while they speak, but I'm not sure if that actually yields anything. So what I say is strategic listening, which is what I'm relentlessly doing all the time, which is to say, if I'm watching a movie and it makes me laugh, I say to myself, what did they just do to make me laugh? Like, what combination of words or situations did they assemble, or how were the words spoken in a way that produced the laugh? If you hear someone tell a great story, and you think, wow, that was a great story, or a great movie, strategically, you should be thinking, what was it about that story, about that movie, about the book I just read, that made it great? I think a lot of times what happens is people allow that content to wash through them, which is great if you want to Be a consumer of other people's greatness, but if you want to be a reproducer of that greatness, then we have to be strategic. My wife, when we leave movies, I don't know, somehow she knows when I know a movie is terrible, even if she thinks it's good. Like, we left the first Wonder Woman movie, and she was feeling great, because it was feminist, superhero, icon, and as we left the movie theater, she goe…

AI assessment note: “Start by becoming what I call strategic listeners.”

Q As a fifth grade teacher, how do you advocate that parents teach kids how to write?

A I tell them a bunch of things. One of the things is, if you're talking about spelling, Grammar or handwriting, you're making a terrible mistake. You're making writing unfun. When kids are little, they're writing with pen and paper, and then when they get older, they're typing. I say, never look at the writing that your child is doing. Always have them read it aloud, because what comes out of your child's mouth is always more beautiful than what they're putting on the page. That sort of nonsense on the page, that'll get cleared up eventually. We don't have to worry about that. What we want is to make kids Love to write. That is the only goal every teacher should have. Because once you love to write, you'll start writing, and you'll just get good at it. So we want to do things like let kids write as many things as they want to. You know, there's mistakes where teachers say, well, I need you to finish this before you start that. But as a writer, I can tell you I've never met an author who's only working on one thing. There's the thing that's a do, and then there's the thing you're cheating on, right? And then there's the, the thing you're not telling anyone about that you think is actually the greatest of all the things you're writing.

AI assessment note: “I tell them a bunch of things. One of the things is”

Q What else goes into teaching people how to tell effective stories?

A Knowing what a story is, is really important. So understanding as you move through your life that there's moments happening to you, and those are the things that are worth sharing. I just spoke to a guy two days ago. He's gonna be leading a conference, a whole bunch of people. He's a guy who does this all the time. And he met with me because he said, I'm out of stories. He said, I used all my stories in the last conference, so I need new stories. And I said, how long was the last conference? And he said, two days. He said, you ran out of all the stories of your life in two days? He did. Right? That's the problem often is we just don't have enough stories to tell. If we start to recognize that our lives are filled with stories, that they're everywhere, that we don't need enormous moments in order to carry the day, and instead small moments are actually some of the most powerful moments we can ever share. I would much rather share with you a tiny, seemingly insignificant moment that's filled with meaning rather than one of my crazy stories about the times I've died and been brought back to life. Those are fine stories, but they're not actually my go-to stories because They're a lot harder to relate to. I'd much rather tell you some tiny, seemingly insignificant moment that meant the world to me, because that is more likely to relate to you. So paying attention to that is going to…

AI assessment note: “Knowing what a story is, is really important.”

Q Is there a difference between writing a story and telling a story? And what are those differences?

A Yeah. I had that conversation with someone today, uh, a client who said, can you write my keynote for me? And I said, no, I don't do that. That's also boring. I don't want to do it. I've never written anything down that I actually speak on a stage other than maybe an outline, but even then it often is just, I'm going to tell this story to make this point and the story to make like almost nothing, because I know that What I put on a page is always going to be more grammatically correct than what I'm saying. And so when I help someone with a keynote, I don't ever want to see the page. They want to send me the, they always want to send me the document. I say, I don't want to see the document because a speech does not live on the page. It lives in life. It lives in the air. It lives in your voice. I want to hear what you say because what I say and what you say are going to be very different things. I'm going to say them in different ways. So when I'm writing, which I do, I mean, I've, Nine books, I believe in writing. I know that if I was to take something out of my book and read it out loud, it would sound wooden, inauthentic. It would sound written. If you've ever seen David Sedaris perform, he reads from his books and his notes. He stands behind a lectern and he reads it, and you can tell it's read, like, and that's the goal of that, and there's nothing wrong with it, but it's n…

AI assessment note: “a speech does not live on the page. It lives in life. It lives in the air.”

Q which is sort of keeping track of the little moments every day that happen to you that might be stories, might be anecdotes. In an Excel spreadsheet, that's what you use. Walk me through, like, one you haven't made a story recently that you think is a story, and like, How do you think about structuring it? Like, just walk me through your internal monologue about one of those moments.

A I knew this was a moment. I felt it. My son is getting ready to go to scout camp, and part of scout camp, which I went to all my life, saved my life. The Boy Scouts were more instrumental to me than anything. I knew that he was gonna have to take a swim test on the first day. He's gonna swim a hundred yards. He's not the strongest swimmer. He actually had a little swimming kerfuffle a couple weeks ago. He swam out to the dock for the first time at the lake where we go, and then he couldn't get back. He got nervous because he had gotten so tired swimming out to the dock, which was only like 40 yards out. I knew that going into this scouting swim test, he might not pass. And if you don't pass, it doesn't mean you can't swim, but you have limitations placed on you. So when I was a kid, when I first went to scout camp, they had us do our swim test at 8:30 in the morning, right after breakfast on a Monday. And I was annoyed. I was just that kid that I always wanted to do things on my own terms to this day. I'm sort of that way. My wife says it's a double-edged sword. I've got, like, nine pancakes in my belly, and I go down in the cold of the morning, and I have to jump in the lake, and I swim about 50 yards, and I'm done. I'm like, this is stupid, so I get out. And they go, okay, you can swim, but you didn't swim far enough, you're a beginner swimmer. And I said, okay, whatever. And…

AI assessment note: “I knew this was a moment. I felt it. My son is getting ready”

Q Is it okay to lie when we tell stories?

A I don't think so. I'm a novelist. You know, I've published six novels now. I believe in making stuff up all the time. The phrase, never let the facts stand in the way of a good story, I hate that. It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard anyone say. When we lie in our stories, we can no longer be trusted. You know, when I'm telling stories to people, there's a reason why people share more secrets with me Than you could ever imagine. Everyone from an audience member all the way up to the CEOs of tech companies that you interact with on a daily basis, they end up sharing, like, really private things with me. My wife will sometimes, like, you know, she'll be in the other room, and she'll hear me talking to someone about storytelling in a coaching session, and when I come out, she goes, that didn't sound like storytelling. Like, the whole hour wasn't spent on storytelling. It's because I've spent so much time with this person. And shared stories, and expressed empathy, and done all the things that I do, that people are willing to trust me, connect with me. You know, there's a reason why I tell you the Spoon of Power story, and you know, an entrepreneur once told me, you should sell spoons. You should drill holes in spoons and sell them on chains. He's not wrong. I could totally make a bundle. I'm not going to do it. It's a really cynical and awful way to be. But it's because they k…

AI assessment note: “I don't think so. I'm a novelist.”

Q Sort of like a fake power outage and like, do people want to come back tomorrow and see the resolution of the conflict?

A Yeah. Well, they do the, they do these registers where like how much you were liking the movie and how much you're not liking the movie. And depending on what kind of movie you're in, If they're not liking the movie, if I was paying attention, I would say, well, listen, you're, you're missing one of the four things. There's either no stakes at this moment. We're not worried about anything. There's no suspense, right? We're not feeling a surprise coming, or we're not laughing, and it's one of those four things. I tell stories where sometimes I know there's a boring part. I hate it, but I'll get to a point in the story, and I'll say, for 45 seconds, I have to explain this thing to them, and I don't want to explain this thing to Thing to them, but I have to. So I'm either going to make it suspenseful or I'm going to make it funny. Those are probably the two go-to strategies that I use. One of the two is going to work and get me through the boring part. I still register it as a storyteller as the boring part, because I know that suspense and humor are not really storytelling. They're sort of like I'm painting over the problem so I can get back into the story the way I want to, but it's when we don't paint over the problem. It's when we're speaking and we suddenly know we have to say something that's not going to be terribly engaging, those demos, right? Now I'm gonna demo my platfo…

AI assessment note: “So I'm either going to make it suspenseful or I'm going to make it funny.”