- Persuasion secret number two, storytelling.
- Storytelling.
- Show, don't tell.
Stories bypass a logical brain,
so for me personally, I don't know.
Have you guys ever been to a seminar
where it's two or three days long?
(laughing) Right?
I have in fact, I actually really enjoy those.
If you're listening to a boring speaker,
what you'll notice is that you can't even stay in the room
for an hour, but if you go to a seminar
where it's two or three days,
the best seminars that you can go to,
they're always telling stories.
Story after story after story after story after after story
and you don't even notice the time go by.
While they're doing that,
they're actually persuading you because stories,
going back to Ed's example of going back.
A lot of these persuasion stuff actually are hard wired
within our brain or within our DNA.
Story telling was a way to share with the tribe
whether or not there were dangers outside,
certain lessons that they've learned on their journeys.
This way that people in your tribe
don't actually have to go through the same mistakes
that you've gone through yourself.
So stories are very, very, very powerful.
- And a lot of people, when they try to do persuasion,
they are too lazy, okay?
They think example, they call, email somebody.
Hey, do you wanna buy my services?
They think that's persuasion, no, that's not persuasion.
That's being a fucking idiot.
It does not work.
That's not what I'm talking about.
But they think oh, I'm persuading other people.
No, that's pushing.
That's like pushing your agenda,
pushing your product on other people.
A good persuader's always much more inviting.
So think about push, right, traditional sales.
I take a closing.
Persuasion, it's pulling people,
inviting people, attracting people.
It's a very different idea.
So always anytime you have to do persuasion,
ask yourself a simple question.
Am I pushing or am I pulling?
Chances are, more than 90% of the time people are pushing.
Sell, right, they're wanting to sell.
What are they going to buy
versus how I do I make people want what I want?
How do I have people want my product or services?
- So, when someone,
in dating when someone goes tell me about yourself,
like we said earlier, show don't tell.
So are you gonna say on, you know, I'm charming,
I'm attractive, I'm fun,
I'm interesting. - You should date me.
- You should date me. - That's pushing, right.
- Mm hmm, but if it's like well, what are you looking for?
I'm looking for this.
Oh well, and then you go into your story.
Maybe this person is looking for someone,
not in a weird way,
but looking for someone fun and spontaneous who has
- Sense of humor. - a sense of adventure.
Yeah, exactly.
And then you could tell a story
about something fun you did a while back,
or something goofy you did.
And then you can portray that value,
we'll get more into that in a little bit,
but you'll portray some of that value
or you will make that point of in the story
and they will, not subconsciously,
but they will extract that idea from the story.
So you take the idea of what you want,
so what do you wanna say to this person?
So if she's looking for or he's looking for someone fun,
and then you don't say hey, I'm fun.
That's so weird!
But if you can frame it in a story and tell a story
of time that you had fun. - So without you saying it.
- Exactly. - In other words,
how can you show, how can you demonstrate
through storytelling without you just bluntly saying it.
And that takes more work,
that's why most people, they're not very good communicators,
persuaders, because they're too lazy.
They don't think about how do I communicate that
without saying it.
It's easier to say it.
Just like this.
But how can you say the same thing without saying it?
And that's a very different idea.
Interview.
- Okay, so if you go into an interview for a job
and then the person hiring goes,
why do you want this job?
Well, it's a funny story.
And then you can go into your entire story
of maybe you're living, like example, Stephen's story.
Trying to support his mom, college drop out,
just trying to get by, trying to make an impact,
trying to help other people,
trying to make his family proud.
Would you rather hire someone who has this story
of their background or just say oh I'm here for the money?
- Yeah, or what's my pay?
What's the hourly rate?
What's my vacation pay?
What are my benefits?
A lot of people, they don't understand.
Instead of sharing that with your story format.
Networking.
- It's easy to be direct, just adding on.
It's easy to be direct, say that I want this.
But like you said, if you can frame it in a story
or have a way of not saying it,
it's infinitely more powerful
because the human mind,
you can push as much as you want,
but nothing will every be as powerful
as someone coming to their own conclusions about you
and about what you're offering or what you are about.
So you go networking, let's say you go to a seminar
and these people go hey, so what do you do for work?
- Oh that's such a common question.
- Oh I'm an engineer.
Oh, I'm a life coach, that's a good one, right?
I'm a life coach.
Instead of that, try being different.
Say hey, that's a good question.
So when I was younger, I always had this amazing passion
of talking to people.
I always loved interacting,
I always loved just putting a smile on people's faces.
Now imagine if I do that
and then I go into how I'm a comedian
or I'm a script writer or something
versus I'm a script writer.
That's so lame.
It's volumes how different you can persuade people
and influence and be more impactful
just by not being so direct right off the bat.
- And it doesn't mean you need to use stories
on everything.
That's overkill, that's way too much.
But when you are communicating,
they say in closing sometimes, a one-on-one,
it's a good idea to have a couple stories
of maybe sometimes it could be your story,
it could be your client's success story
that you're able to tell.
So instead of you saying hey, this is how awesome I am,
let me tell you about my client John.
When John first came to us,
he was having these issues, these problems,
and we did these things,
and then we helped him to get to this point.
You have the story...
- So powerful. - Versus we're the best.
Do you see the difference, do you hear the difference?
It's a, but you need to learn how to be able
to share and tell that story
and it takes a little bit of practice too.
You need to practice ahead of time and how you say it.
- So how do you tell a good story?
Well that's a good question.
In every story,
there are three very, very, very important parts.
The first is the value, the point, or the moral.
We'll get into a good example of this
later on. - What's the point
of all the story. - Yeah, why should I care?
Why does this matter, what are you trying to tell us?
That's really the important part.
- I do have a friend of mine who always tells good stories,
but after he tells a story he's always,
and then he stops.
I'm like, and then?
Well that's it!
I was like what do you mean that's it?
I'm waiting for the punch line,
where's the punch line?
That's it, that's what happened.
But he's a very good story opener,
he tells awesome like I may need help with this,
I'm like yeah, yeah, tell me about it.
And then, and then?
He always does this.
He doesn't have a punch line.
How many have a friend like that.
Do you have a friend like that?
- And then the next part is time and place.
Now this is really crucial because in the human mind,
the whole point of a story
is to be able to imagine it in your head.
And it's very hard to imagine something
if there's no time or place
or you don't express it or hint at it
with whatever it is that you are talking about.
So now, imagine if I'm telling you a story
about this couple who can't get together
because of their family values.
Now if this story took place in the 1500s
or medieval ages, that entire theme
and how the person imagines that story,
the medieval ages, it's like a knight and a princess.
Totally different.
That's why it's so, so, so important
to have a time and place.
And usually when you are telling a story,
you wanna start with a time and place.
Think of Star Wars.
In a galaxy, long time ago. - So when was it?
What was the environment?
Where are you?
Where were you?
Why are you there?
You gotta give people a little bit of that background first
before you talk about what actually happened.
So you need to share that point of view, the time and place.
- You have to set the scene. - Yeah, set the scene.
- And then moving on to the third point,
any good story is a protagonist
who's trying to do something or have something happen
and there is something blocking them, so there's a problem.
- Usually a problem.
- Yeah, so something. - Or incident.
- You could have an incident. - A problem, an incident.
- Yeah, something that's stopping them
from getting to whatever that goal is.
So here's a great example of that,
the Tortoise and the Hare.
I'm sure everybody's heard of this story before.
So let's think of a time and place.
We're not really sure of the time,
but we know the place, they're in a race.
That's very clear.
You can imagine the crowds cheering,
you can imagine the runway,
you can imagine the dotted line to separate them
as they're running. - The rabbit.
- Yeah, and we can imagine the rabbit,
you can imagine the tortoise.
But the problem is, the tortoise wants to beat the hare
or the rabbit, the tortoise is slow but the hare is fast.
So the problem is,
the tortoise wants to win, but he's slow.
So, put in the chat,
what is the moral of the story of the Tortoise and the Hare
without me even telling the story.
- That's right. - What is the moral?
Comment it.
- Don't be the rabbit, yeah, don't get cocky.
- That's right.
- Even you're winning, don't get cocky.
- So the moral of the story
is slow and steady wins the race.
Now imagine if, first of all,
just think about how powerful that is
that you probably heard this story maybe once or twice
in your childhood and we all know it.
- You remember. - It's such a universal story
and it's a universal truth
and that's the power of storytelling
because we remember.
- You may not remember exactly.
The story itself doesn't have necessarily a conclusion.
It doesn't say slow and steady wins the race.
It doesn't have that, but it's more powerful
because you come to your own conclusion.
Yes, and notice the same story
I see consistency beats flukes.
You don't wanna be arrogant, you wanna be patient.
See we all get different things out of it.
It's the same story, but we get different things out of it
because we look at things from our own filter.
It's what it means to us.