>> This episode of the Modern Rogue
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Have you heard this, Jason,
that the number one fear
is not death,
but speaking in public?
>> So, I have conquered speaking in public
and thus conquered death, as well‽
>> That does track, but I suppose for the rest of us...
[Brushwood laughs] [anxious exhale]
who haven't gotten there, we've got Brian Govatos,
who is a communication expert.
>> I don't know if I'm supposed to kill you.
[laughter]
>> You can try!
[deep synthetic rumble]
[electrical pop] [gentle vinyl static]
[rising chime]
>> Brian, explain to us what you do.
>> You know companies, right?
>> I've heard of them.
>> Like businesses. >> Like Arby's?
>> Arby's is perfect. >> BRUSHWOOD: [laughter] Yes, sure.
>> They sometimes want to communicate something to people
and sometimes they're bad at it.
[laughs] >> This is a really good reductionist explanation,
I'm with you.
>> And then I come in.
>> Like, when I say, "No, no, no. More horsey sauce,"
and they say, "Sir, we cut you off at a gallon?"
>> Yeah. >> The important thing is everybody's afraid
of how to give impromptu speeches.
Like I think we're all--
we would all rather be in the casket
than giving the eulogy. >> GOVATOS: Yes, yes.
>> So, what are the steps to get us through that?
♪ [smooth jazzy beat] >> There are several and the good news is,
♪ [smooth jazzy beat] it genuinely is easy.
I am proof of that,
[foreboding noises swirl] I am a nervous wreck all of the time.
I'm not comfortable in social situations,
I'm not a natural extrovert.
I fell into a sort of performance background,
a sort of performance methodology that acts as a framework
for how I can be comfortable giving presentations,
be comfortable teaching others,
be comfortable communicating anything anywhere, genuinely.
>> If I'm hearing you right, basically you learned
a structure that makes it possible to do a thing
that you never thought you would be capable of doing. >> GOVATOS: Yes.
>> Now we hear this tricks like, "Oh, imagine everyone naked,"
which doesn't work for me at all.
>> No, it's weird.
When I'm around naked people,
it makes me even less comfortable.
[laughter] >> JASON: Exactly!
>> So, I'm not talking about those kind of tricks.
I'm not talking about those grand gestures.
I've also heard, "Imagine everyone in a cowboy hat."
Somehow that's more familiar, I have no idea.
Instead, maybe if you are really comfortable
with what you're going to say,
meaning like if you're going to tell the story about that time
your grandma poisoned the lemonade on accident,
you've told it a million times,
it's a funny, familiar story.
>> JASON: Classic grandma. >> You can probably tell it on national television and be okay.
It's when you know you got to give something important
that matters to your job or to your career,
to your processes that that's when you get nervous
and buckle up.
>> I think that that is part of what attracts young people to magic,
is because it's a structure that you can practice
at home alone in the bathroom and do it enough times- >> Yeah.
>> -that you just stick to the structure and you know at the end of it,
people will clap and say that was entertaining. >> GOVATOS: Yes.
And you can get incrementally
and objectively better at it.
>> I have questions about magic,
but now is not the time or place.
>> And why it's done in the bathroom
over and over and over again? [laughs]
>> Giving presentations
is something that everyone needs to do well.
They need to be comfortable giving presentations.
There is a time in everyone's life,
more regularly than they'd like to admit,
that you need to talk to a lot of people,
that you need to get your idea
understood by others.
And if you can't do that effectively,
you miss out on opportunities
that you don't even know you missed out on.
>> Right, so let's say I'm somebody who doesn't like
to talk in public, but I've got a job where eventually
I have to give a presentation,
there's 20 to 50 people out there.
That's all a black box.
I don't think of myself as a performer,
what is the structure I should think of
of how to fill--what, 10 minutes?
>> Yes, that's very common.
You need to look at your content, look at your message,
and distill it down to what is the bold promise?
What is the bold concern?
What is that statement that really summarizes
and draws interest in it?
Basically, what are you comfortable leading with
that you know is going to get attention?
>> Should it be true?
>> Yes, and it needs to be something
that you can substantiate.
It's a teaser. >> BRUSHWOOD: Yeah?
>> You must not spoil your own story,
but you must still gain interest.
So, if there's a real practical, pragmatic approach to this,
it is look at your story.
The story is "Our quarter one results are down."
Okay, great.
So, it's a bad story, but you're going to have to deliver that.
>> Right. >> Sorry.
But, distill it down to the bold statement of,
"Give me 10 minutes and I'm going to tell you
"how we're going to turn this ship around."
>> So, what if you wanted to tell the story about
maybe a universal fear, like speaking in public?
Maybe that should be the first thing that you announce,
and then you announce somebody who's overcome that fear
and then you have a structure to take you through it?
>> I would sign on to that.
>> Hmm. >> Hmm.
>> Going on. [laughter]
>> So, you don't start off with like a goofy joke
or something like that?
Because that always seems really contrived.
>> Listen, authenticity--
>> I think you're describing the cold opens of our show.
[laughter]
>> Yeah, this sounds really familiar! [laughter]
>> Authenticity is everything right now.
Younger generations who didn't grow up in this sort of
tried and true, big blue, mega corporations background
that their parents did, they don't see the
"Hello, and welcome, I'm so excited to be here."
Immediate turn-off.
The old rules are dead, really, in terms of giving
presentations in that stoic, traditional manner.
>> It's like the new version of that is
when you watch a YouTube video and the first words
out of their mouth are,
"Hey everybody,
"smash that like and subscribe button!"
It's just like, get to the point.
>> And who are you?
This isn't how you talk to your wife, I know that.
I hope so.
[murmurs of dawning realization]
>> Smash the like button! >> Smash the like button, honey.
[laughter]
>> I don't like that at all.
>> I'm now calling it "the like button" from now on. [laughs]
>> Are you a marriage counselor, as well?
[Brushwood laughs]
>> Okay, I will say I do have a lot of content
in which it's baked in to say, all of what we just covered
applies to relationship advice.
It really does, because you're being authentic
and you're distilling your message into something
that is digestible and that's true.
So, I'm going to introduce a topic, I'm going to introduce
a situation by here is a bold statement
to capture your attention and then I have
the rest of the time to make what I promised true.
>> Because my bold statement is usually, "I'm really sorry."
"It was Brian's idea."
>> Listen--and there's a lot of footage you could show
to make that true.
>> So, I suppose if you have to deliver the bad news
about quarterly four whatever, you would begin saying,
"Bad news, people, we're down 20%.
"But if you'll give me 10 minutes,
"I have a proposal of how we can fix it."
>> And here's why that works.
Now, as an audience,
you've let them go,
"Prove it."
>> You've bought time.
>> You want that "prove it," that's a vested interest.
>> So, that's wild because as a magician,
you don't normally like people like this, - >> GOVATOS: That skepticism of--yeah.
>> -but as a storyteller, you absolutely want this
because this is communicating, "I'm listening."
>> I'm listening.
>> It's your powerful thesis statement
that you're starting everything off with.
>> And it's not needy.
It's not needy, it doesn't come from,
[cloying and desperate] "Hey, hey, hey guys, come on, come on,
"we're going to talk about this and it's going to be so good.
"You're going to love it, promise, it's going to be--"
No, no, no. It's real and I've given you a finite,
specific amount of time to let you know
that by the end of that, you can hold me accountable
to did I do it or not.
>> So, begin with a promise that is of benefit to them.
In the eulogy scenario, it might be starting
your 10-minute speech with, "I hope, by the time I'm done,
"you see this person in a totally different light."
At which point everybody goes, "All right." >> Beautiful.
>> "I knew Ted, my opinion is not changing on him.
"Let's see what he has to say."
>> Right, and then now your challenge is to surprise >> GOVATOS: Yes!
>> -in minute-long vignettes.
>> And as far as story-telling goes,
you're kind of setting the stage, you're setting your challenge
for your protagonist and saying,
here's what we need to accomplish over the next three acts.
>> Yes, the second thing after you've made that introduction
is to be aware of never spoiling what is your point.
Never spoiling that point,
and spoiler alert really does apply to this.
Let's say you've never seen "The Wizard of Oz" before.
Okay...
statute of limitations has expired on that, by the way,
[laughter] >> BRUSHWOOD: It's the one. It's the one we could do. >> I'm going to spoil it for you now.
So, it's obvious that you don't get someone to watch a movie by saying,
[exasperated] "You haven't seen The Wizard of Oz?
"Oh my god, it's great!
"So, it starts out-- it's like in black and white first, right?
[frenetic] "And then there's this twister, and then it's like
"[mumbles] but she lands in Oz."
We don't explain movies that way.
>> It's like the guy from Ant Man. [laughter]
>> Boom-boom-boom, detail, detail, detail.
There's no reason for you to see it now,
whereas if I say, "You haven't seen the Wizard of Oz?
[calm and reassuring tone] "It's like an Americana classic. This is--
"You can't really appreciate modern movies
"before you understand the shoulders
"that they're standing on.
"And Wizard of Oz is one of those
"that all great films stands on.
"You've got to see it, it's like the first epic."
I teased it.
Now you can have discovery.
Similarly, when you're giving a presentation
of a story to convey, don't start off with the
"If we invest 10% more in our employees,
"we'll be able to make it through the next quarter."
That's your point, shh, keep that.
Keep that! That's valuable.
You say, "Give me 10 minutes of your time,
"I'm going to tell you how we right this ship."
And your point is investing 10% more in whatever.
You want to substantiate why, why, why, why,
problem, problem, problem, and then hit them with the solution.
It's so tempting
to lead with the solution to get credibility.
I'm saying, get credibility by promising what's in it for me
by listening first.
>> And again, to take it back to storytelling,
this is just like we try to do in the videos,
it's like don't present what's going to happen
right upfront because then you've just got--
>> You got nowhere to go. >> -nonsense for the next 40 minutes.
>> You can't start at 11.
>> This reminds me bit of Randy Olsen's work
where he talks about and, but, therefore.
And he says that all of his work is--
♪ [spry and upbeat music] the folks on South Park, they would write an initial draft of a thing,
and then their goal was to take every "and"
and change it to a "but."
So, on the Wizard of Oz thing, instead of saying
"This happens and then this happens and then this happens,"
you might say, "You might think that it's an old classic
"that only old people like, but! >> Yes, yes.
>> "You will be blown away
"and you will see the impact that it's had in modern culture."
Now all the sudden, that's a tangible benefit to me
to invest the time to watch Wizard of Oz.
>> GOVATOS: Thank you. >> Anyway, Microsoft I'm available.
[laughter]
>> Okay, well if you want to go for the next level,
we can introduce a third item that is so important,
because you don't have to be an expert
at whatever it is you're talking about.
♪ [lively and carefree stinger]
>> Oh, we know that one pretty well, actually.
>> And so it's successful!
>> That is interesting, because we aggressively
present ourselves as students, bad students at that,
on the show and there are some people who confuse the medium
for the message and keep on saying, "You guys are idiots."
We're like, duh, that's the way we edit it.
We make it look that way, that's the story we're telling.
>> And also we're idiots.
>> That helps, authenticity matters.
There's a story in my family
that my grandmother loves to tell.
She was a teacher's assistant in Vegas for a long time
and one day she was assigned to teach a math class.
And the running joke in my family is that math,
our genetics never had the math--
it just never happened.
She's teaching like fourth grade math and it dawns on her,
much to her horror, that she doesn't understand the content.
And like this math is beyond what she ever learned.
>> But she has to get up in front of a bunch of kids.
>> She's never done this before.
With much glee on her face, she says,
[slightly softer voice] "They said all these people, all these students,
"these are the ones who didn't pass on the final math exam.
"So we need to tutor them and coach them.
"So, that's your job.
"So, what I did was I said, 'Okay,
"so, who got number one correct?"
"Oh, Timmy did.
"Timmy, why don't you go up on the board
"and walk us through how you did that."
>> Yes!
>> Now there are two ways to think of this story,
one is fraud,
[laughter]
the other one is facilitation.
That's what it means to facilitate.
You're taking the information of all the minds
in the room already.
Everyone here knows stuff.
If you're in front of an audience, whether it's delivering a eulogy,
delivering sales quota information,
people--there's already information out there that you can leverage
for the expertise.
>> So, let's say you had to put on a show,
some sort of program 10 or 20 minutes
or something like that,
and you really don't know what you're talking about,
so you bring an expert up on to talk about--
the subject. >> This is getting way too meta! [laughter]
But in the eulogy example, I guess in that case,
let's say you had a structure
where you call your shot at the beginning, saying,
"I hope to change your mind about so-and-so." >> GOVATOS: Yes.
>> And then say, most people
would think of Grandpa Jones as surly and mad.
Who here has a moment that they remember him
being surprisingly kind?
And then their story becomes hijacked.
>> It becomes part of your credibility.
You've just got a prover.
That person just proved your point.
So, now we all look at you as, "You knew Grandpa Jones
"better than anybody.
"That's unbelievable."
You're right, it is hijacking, you're right.
You hijacked that credibility and absorbed it
into your own mega-credibility.
>> Yeah, it really is.
It's like a black hole, you're just like "More mass!"
>> But truly, all the attention is still
going toward you because you're facilitating that.
If we, as an audience, are still seeing that one person
delivering the message, somehow harvesting all this information
with a plan, with seemingly magical foresight.
But all you did was ask, who has a story about him
that is about him being kind?
>> So, all of a sudden, a eulogy becomes
a bold statement at the beginning, I'm going to change your mind about him.
And all you have to do is write down four emotions
that you see on the surface of Grandpa Jones
and solicit counter examples- >> Yes.
>> -and the moment somebody's good, you let them keep going
and if they're bad, you're just like, "Thank you so much."
And then you move on to the next one.
>> Delivering a message is a universal need.
Everyone needs to be able to present
and if you think about it in terms of that bold statement
that gets their attention, not spoiling
really the crux of what your message is, leaving that for the end,
there has to be something worth it
for them to keep listening to you.
And involving the audience to help you build
your own credibility, you genuinely cannot lose.
>> I get that this works and I know it intuitively,
but I have a background as a performer.
♪ [music fades in] If you're somebody right now who has nobody to talk to,
how do you practice when there's nobody to talk to?
>> JASON: A ventriloquist dummy?
>> BRUSHWOOD: Yes, exactly. [laughing] >> GOVATOS: Invest in puppeteering.
>> Break your mind into multiple personalities.
>> I'm talking to you,
you don't want to be a performer.
You've never been interested in performing.
This is scary,
this is fear-based for you.
Take whatever you need to present,
whether your boss called you to say,
"Hey, on Monday I need you to review this with the team."
You're like, "With 50 people‽"
Take whatever you're going to say,
find out what the most important thing is,
and then take that entire chunk
and then cut it in half.
Can you still get to your point
if instead of 10 minutes, you only have five?
Do it again.
Don't speed up what you're saying,
just cut that five down to two and a half minutes.
How does your story need to change to be condensed
smaller and smaller and smaller?
And if you condense it all the way down to say,
15 seconds, five seconds.
Because you can, you really can.
Then you'll identify what that bold promise needs to be.
>> That's one of the key things for me
with movies and books and just people talking, in general,
is the economy of storytelling.
Trim all of the fat, cut unnecessary words. >> Yes.
Okay, check this out, though.
You could also do the opposite.
Take your message, because this happens--
say, actually you have 40 minutes, not 20.
Go ahead and fill up 40 minutes.
What other details are important enough
in your story that justify that additional time?
>> So here's where I think that the youngest generation
has been practicing that, because the tweet
is the atomic unit of storytelling
because you can take any movie and reduce it
to a single tweet or expand it out to the full movie
or expand it out from there to the whole franchise.
Like all of Lord of the Rings is
"Ring gets thrown in a volcano, it's a bad ring." That's the story.
>> The world is saved.
>> And then you expand, you're like,
"Guy doesn't want to do it, he comes from a comfortable place."
>> "Makes friends along the way." Great.
>> A little bit longer and off you go.
Man, this is great.
Okay, so what resources do you recommend people read
to kind of practice to get more of these bullet points
and hooks to tell stories?
>> I really do recommend "Truth in Comedy."
>> I don't know this one.
>> It's a great book, it's focused for improvisors
and improv comedy, but it gets to the heart
of what does the character in this scene care about?
What is the character trying to convey
between this father-son dynamic or whatever?
What is the meat of it?
And we don't have time, this audience is going to get bored
unless we entertain them quickly.
So, that helps you understand how people like Chris Farley
and stuff just distilled and got straight to the character
and straight to the emotional stuff that mattered.
>> Well, this just says a lot about modern attention spans
and how they have been increasingly dwindling
because of mainly social media and the constant access
from our phones and everything.
You really do have to trim everything down
to make it as efficient and razor-sharp as possible.
>> I'm glad you brought this up.
There's a lot of companies out there
that need a facilitator to tell them how to make
their messages.
Where should people go to learn this?
>> You can find me on uh...
Netscape Navigator.
[laughter] >> Nailed it. I nailed it with the set up
and he didn't even know his website.
It's fine, it's fine.
>> I do offer some of these services and consulting
at methodologycoaching.com.
>> Very cool.
Dude, Brian, thank you so much for this.
You just exposed the thing that we do.
This is the last episode of Modern Rogue.
You all have the recipe, make your own.
>> I still get the free soda?
>> BRUSHWOOD: No, it's good.
I'm even doing the thing where I walk off set,
which I always do.
>> He does that sometimes. >> Oh, cool. >> BRUSHWOOD: I like that because
it gives us an out-point.
>> So, is this real?
>> BRUSHWOOD: Everything's better from now on.
>> Will he come back?
>> It's over, he's just right there.
Yeah, probably not, it's fine.
>> GOVATOS: No, I think he's gone.
>> JASON: [quietly] Yeah.
[laughter]
>> All right, we've got to get everybody all caught up.
What do they need to know?
>> First, we need to know what privacy.com is.
>> Yes, privacy.com/rogue.
You sign up, you link it to your account,
and credit card companies make money a few different ways.
One is they charge merchant fees, that's the 2% or whatever.
They also charge you fees in interest on all that stuff,
but the third thing that nobody talks about
is they sell all of your info.
That's how you get all of those airline miles,
that's how you get all of that "free stuff"
is they're literally telling anybody who will listen,
for a fee, what you're up to.
[suspicious laughing]
>> I'm not up to anything.
It's fine, it's fine.
I mean maybe you need that.
>> Privacy.com/rogue does not do that,
they value your privacy.
Your reward is that they're not tattling on you
at all times about what you're up to.
>> And there are all sorts of other
subsidiary little benefits.
My favorite thing is that you can create a bunch of burner cards
at the click of a button and just set limits on all of them.
>> Okay, that brings us up to the part where we were talking
previously about how my credit card got compromised
three different times in the last year
and we know it's somebody local to Austin
with sloppy security standards and I created a honeypot,
I created different burners for each of them
and I labeled them like this vendor dash trap.
[laughs]
That vendor dash trap, and I've been waiting to figure out
which one of you suckers is compromising my stuff.
>> It wasn't me, who did you catch?
[laughs]
>> So, here's the weird part.
As I created the burner cards, there was one little
check box that said, "lock this card to this vendor."
And I was like, I hadn't seen that before.
So, I checked it and I think I've been hoisted
by my own petard because I've locked each of the cards
to the different vendors,
even if somebody is trying to steal it,
it doesn't work anywhere
except for that vendor.
>> So, Privacy's secure enough that you prevented the bad guys
from even committing a crime.
>> Yeah, but the only frustrating thing is I don't get
to catch them in the act red-handed.
But that's fine.
The important part is that everything is safe and secure
and that everything is private thanks to my friends
over at privacy.com.
If you go to privacy.com/rogue, they're going to give you
$5 of real money to spend on literally anything you want.
For example, awesome stuff at scamstuff.com.
You sign up and it's more safe, more secure,
and more private.
>> And you get $5, they're just giving it to you.
Privacy.com/rogue.
>> Burner cards.
-- CC BY REV -- ** MODIFIED BY BIZARRE MAGIC **
[quiet] Just visually-speaking, I am just seeing the shadows
on our faces.
Everything's fine? Okay.
>> I am, too.
>> To my natural eyes, it looks like we're in
a suspense horror movie.
[laughter] >> Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
>> But as long as it looks good on camera, I'm good.
>> Now we have Jigsaw, you're going to have to speak.