#1 Speaking Coach Explains How to Master Speaking (In Just 58 Minutes) | 136

[00:00:00] Mike: The point of a speech is to make an emotional connection with the audience.

[00:00:02] Nathan: Mike Pacchione is the best speaking coach I know. Mike’s number one goal for any speaker-

[00:00:07] Mike: Is that the audience forgets it’s a speech.

[00:00:09] Nathan: He spent years at Duarte coaching executives at some of the biggest companies you can name, including 75 of the speakers that we’ve had at Craft & Commerce over the years.

[00:00:16] Mike: The greatest gift you can give your audience is to be completely present with them. But the only way that can happen is if, A, you know your stuff, B, you know how to calm yourself down, C, and that’s a big one, you know that the audience is rooting for you.

[00:00:29] Nathan: You’re gonna learn the reason you don’t wanna tell stories in chronological order.

[00:00:32] Mike: I think a good story should end in the middle. My three principles make the acronym TED. T is tension, E is editing for emotional impact, and the D is-

[00:00:42] Nathan: I like that. And in this episode, he also shares the three types of talks that you can give.

[00:00:45] Mike: There are a million different ways you can give a speech, but I find it’s helpful to think in one of three categories.

[00:00:50] Funny is one, and I don’t mean stand-up comedy. Second would be rock-solid logic. The last one is to share your pain.

[00:00:57] Nathan: There’s a reason that I hire Mike to work with every single speaker at my conference, and you get to hear so many of his expert tips all for free.

[00:01:04] Mike: Be the emotion you wish the audience to see, as Gandhi might say.

[00:01:08] Nathan: As Gandhi might say.

[00:01:10] Mike: I love that

[00:01:12] Nathan: Mike, welcome to the show.

[00:01:13] Mike: Thank you, Nathan Barry. I’m happy to be able to pronounce your last name. I’m happy to be able to say Boise properly. We’ve got the pronunciation down. Let’s do it.

[00:01:21] Nathan: We’re ready to dive in. So you and I have been working together on Craft & Commerce for a decade now.

[00:01:26] In that time, we’ve done eight events. Mm-hmm. We’re in the middle of one right now, and the thing that I always bri- bring you in to do is to coach and work with every speaker. There’s a lot that goes into that. Yeah. But I was thinking about the numbers. Eight events, 8, 10 speakers a year, we’re, we’re probably pushing 75 speakers that you’ve worked with, and then obviously you’ve worked with hundreds more in the rest of your job.

[00:01:47] Yeah. You do far more than this. But what is one thing that you’ve noticed working with all of these speakers that helps them take a talk from good to great?

[00:01:55] Mike: Yeah. It’s all those people plus Shiv and Haley. I was watching them on stage today, and I was like a proud parent. I was like, “Ah.” They’re

[00:02:00] Nathan: so good.

[00:02:01] Mike: They’re so good at this. Listen, what I want from a speech, and this is perhaps gonna sound strange, what I want more than anything else from a speaker I’ve worked with is if the audience forgets it’s a speech.

[00:02:14] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:02:15] Mike: I want the person on stage… I, I… If you’re in the audience, I… and I’ve trained one of the speakers, Jay Papasan did this great today, I want the audience just feeling like, “I’m friends with Jay.”

[00:02:26] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:02:26] Mike: This is, this is really- Yeah … tight and developed, and the timing’s great, but I’m friends with him. And if the audience forgets it’s a speech- Mm-hmm … that’s a win for me. One of the things that’s surprising about me, people are always like, “Oh, you must love TED Talks.” I’m like, “Maybe.” And the reason for that is ’cause I, I just feel like a lot of TED Talks are person hits the center of the stage, and you can like see themself giving a TED Talk.

[00:02:46] Like, yeah, right, right. Yep. Exactly. I’m in the red carpet, and I will start my speech now.

[00:02:51] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:02:51] Mike: And I just want the audience to forget that they’re watching a speech. Mm-hmm. And that’s the best.

[00:02:55] Nathan: Well, that was something when I was working on my speech ’cause you and I have worked on- Yeah … many of my keynotes together, is I realized I was falling into Steve Jobs- Uh-huh

[00:03:05] and not Nathan Barry. Yeah. And the way Nathan Barry, the way that I want him to show up is he’s talking to his friends. Yep. He’s talking about a product they’ve built, and we’ll, we’ll get into this in another episode. But, “Hey, I made this thing.” And I made it for you. I hope you like it

[00:03:20] Mike: The greatest gift you can give your audience is to be completely present with them.

[00:03:24] But the only way that can happen is if, A, you know your stuff-

[00:03:27] Nathan: Mm-hmm …

[00:03:27] Mike: which you should if you’re on a stage, but there’s still knowing the speech itself. Right. So, A, you know your stuff. Uh, B, you know how to calm yourself down. C, and that’s a big one, you know that the audience is rooting for you. Right. So if you think of the audience as your friends, they’re rooting for you.

[00:03:44] And like, frankly, it’s pretty rare that the audience isn’t. I mean, I don’t know, have you ever been on a stage where you felt them just being like, “I hope he screws up. I hope he makes

[00:03:53] Nathan: some jokes.” No, I have, I have been on stages where I felt like, uh, this room is not set up, like this whole speech is not set up for success.

[00:04:00] Mike: Mm.

[00:04:01] Nathan: And so that’s something, you know, we do a lot of things in the conference in order to really set the room up for, up for success.

[00:04:06] Mike: Yeah.

[00:04:06] Nathan: And the single thing that I think makes it, the two things that make the biggest difference, this would be for conference organizers, is you have to make the room feel full.

[00:04:14] And so the way that you do it is, one, get rid of the tables, all that nonsense, like chairs.

[00:04:19] Mike: Yeah.

[00:04:20] Nathan: You know, pack people up. And then have someone at the back of the room that says, “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. Would you mind taking a s- a seat right up towards the front?”

[00:04:26] Mike: Yes, nobody sits in the front otherwise, yeah.

[00:04:28] Nathan: Yeah, and so Casey on our team was welcoming people, and then as it started to fill in, he, as people come in, he’d be like, “Oh, two people. I got two right here,” you know? And he’s like just, just filling it in. And when someone’s like, “I don’t really want to,” he was like, “You know what? The greatest gift you can give to these speakers right now is sitting up front and giving them your energy.”

[00:04:45] And it makes a world of difference. And, and anyway, so-

[00:04:49] Mike: That’s awesome …

[00:04:50] Nathan: I feel like the, the question you always ask me when we sit down to work on a speech together is, what’s the one thing you want people to take away? Yeah. What’s the… Like, what usually comes out of that? Like, how, how do you use that in your process to, like, get people to distill it down to the essence?

[00:05:04] Mike: Man, every time I ask this, a- and particularly when it’s a really experienced speaker, I’m like, “I’m gonna sound so stupid.” It’s really rare that someone has a good answer. Mm-hmm. Unless, like, uh, maybe you’re ready for it by now, but-

[00:05:18] Nathan: I’ve gotten enough coaching

[00:05:19] Mike: that … yeah, I’m always like, “Fill in the blank for me.

[00:05:21] If blank, then blank.” And there’s always like this, “Huh,” like looking up at the ceiling, “Hmm, I think it’s…” I mean, this is, this is what happens- Yeah … even when someone who’s getting paid $50,000 to speak.

[00:05:33] Nathan: Right.

[00:05:34] Mike: The trap that we fall into is that, and, and even the way that most people get invited to speak at a conference or at a company is, “Here’s the topic.

[00:05:43] Nathan, I’d like you to talk about email marketing.”

[00:05:45] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:46] Mike: So Nathan could talk about email marketing for eight hours.

[00:05:49] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:05:49] Mike: I’m sure people would take something from that, but if Nathan shows up with a point of view about email marketing or the new signal, you know, like what- Yeah … whatever the topic is, it’s a lot easier for you to focus what you actually wanna talk about, and it’s also a lot easier for the audience to do your work afterwards.

[00:06:05] So, like, the great gift of giving a speech, if you have a clear point of view, is now the audience can do the marketing for you. Right. They can go repeat it.

[00:06:13] Nathan: Yep. And- And they can do it in a couple sentences.

[00:06:14] Mike: Yes.

[00:06:15] Nathan: This is what, you know, Jam- we always talk about with James Clear in, in Atomic Habits, is that there’s a few, like, portable stories- Yeah

[00:06:21] that then people can repeat. “Oh, what’d you like ab- about the book?” “Oh, man, the part on, uh, identity ha- based habits.” Yeah. Like, ev- every action you take is a vote for who you wanna become, right? You can talk about that, and there’s a nice tight little thing that someone will remember.

[00:06:33] Mike: Yes. When you can do that in a way that’s creative and gets the audience, that’s a huge win.

[00:06:41] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:06:42] Mike: But generally, like, so I’ve got seven strategies that I kinda mentally walk through when I go through with people, but the, the story is the one that I always… I think if I had to guess what, like, that would be the one I would do, and the reason why is because stories are good, establishes who you are.

[00:06:55] It builds trust immediately. When you build trust, now the audience is gonna just… Like, you can screw up after that- Right … ’cause you’ve won them over. And the other thing it does is for you as the presenter, particularly if you have nerves, you’re getting to something easier right away instead of starting with some bold statement or statistic.

[00:07:14] Right.

[00:07:15] Nathan: Yep, or trying, trying to posture or any of that. Okay, you’re saying start with stories or, like, that being a good way to go. How do you think about story selection?

[00:07:23] Mike: I always feel a little bit weird about answering questions like this because my instinct is like, “Well, it depends. It depends on

[00:08:39] Nathan: Is that the best story or just the first one that I thought of? And often I will force myself to take a step back and say, “What other stories do I have?” And go through a bank of stories and say, “Nope, nope, nope. Okay, that’s a candidate.” Yeah. “This is a candidate.” And sometimes it may end up somewhere else in the talk.

[00:08:53] It may not actually make the talk at all, but at least I know, like, this is a, a, the right story, not just the first one that came to mind.

[00:09:00] Mike: Yeah, and if you’re gonna start with this story at the beginning, ideally it would not be that long.

[00:09:06] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:07] Mike: I’ve seen people w- start with stories that are seven minutes long, and even though it’s a really good story, at some point the audience is wondering-

[00:09:15] Nathan: Where are you going?

[00:09:15] Mike: is this gonna be, is this the whole speech? Whereas if you take that same exact story and put it at the end, that works.

[00:09:22] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:23] Mike: Because at that point the audience knows, likes, and trusts you. Right. And if, and if they don’t, it’s not because of the story. And that can build to this, like, triumphant thing at the end.

[00:09:31] Mm-hmm.

[00:09:31] Nathan: Okay, that gets into one of my favorite things, which is when speakers open a loop and close it.

[00:09:36] Mike: Uh-huh.

[00:09:37] Nathan: And then later they actually fully can close, you know, maybe a few loops that you didn’t even realize were still open. I don’t remember too many det- details of the talk, but I remember Michael Hyatt at World Domination Summit, he was, like, telling stories throughout and all this, and then he, like, tied the whole thing back- Wow

[00:09:52] and I was like, “You are so good at what you do.” How do you approach that? Is that something that you love for speakers to do? Is it something that can be trained, or is it, like, just a particular talk?

[00:10:00] Mike: That is almost always it started as a long story, and then we realized later, oh my gosh, we can tie it all together.

[00:10:07] Nathan: Hmm.

[00:10:08] Mike: So I don’t remember Michael’s in particular, but it’s like, it’s like you told me the story, and it’s 14 minutes long. And like, dude, we can’t start with a 14-minute story. A 14… And, and you- Yeah … wouldn’t tell 14 minutes anyway, but, like, there’s a, there’s two minutes that would start, and then if we did, and then if we cut it here and then finished here, like, that would be amazing.

[00:10:26] And there’s, there’s almost… And it’s like this g- wonderful creative high that you get when, and especially when you work with someone else. Yeah. It’s like, “Oh, my gosh, you know what we could do, duh, duh, duh.” And, uh, and that, that’s the best. But y- there usually needs to be this, like, sensei moment where you realize, oh, like, we can move it around, and that’ll work.

[00:10:42] Nathan: Okay. And, and so what I’m realizing in that, it’s another thing that I’ve learned from you, is that you don’t have to tell stories in order. No. And in fact, you almost never should. And then something that I’ve heard you do before in a workshop, ’cause I actually probably worked with you on, like, five speeches- Oh

[00:10:54] before I ever saw you give a talk, and you have a talk that, or like you gave a workshop talk. You tell this whole story, builds up all this suspense, and at the end, I think it was John Meese who was like… And as you’re, like, wrapping up, I’m like, “And what happened?” And you’re like, “Nothing.” There was no, there was no-

[00:11:11] Mike: Okay.

[00:11:11] There’s this whole online thing, a lot of advice that people give is, like, that a good story should start, should start in the middle, and I’m like, maybe. A- again, you risk it feeling like this is a performance, not a speech.

[00:11:23] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:24] Mike: I think a good story should end in the middle. Or at least should consider ending in the middle.

[00:11:28] So I, I have three principles for telling a story. The thing that you saw is actually when I realized I had a framework for this, which this is how smart I am. I’m giving a workshop to a mastermind of yours, and I look up at the screen, and I realize my three principles make the acronym TED. I’m like, “Oh,” and I, I think I even said that out loud.

[00:11:48] I was like, “Oh, my gosh. That says TED.” Help people with

[00:11:53] Nathan: TED Talks too. Yep, exactly.

[00:11:55] Mike: One of those… So the E in that is edit for emotional impact. Mm-hmm. So said differently, the end of the story is probably not where in your brain the capsule of the story is. You should end it where it gives the audience the emotional feeling that- Mm-hmm

[00:12:12] that will, that will be a win for them.

[00:12:15] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:16] Mike: So the story that Nathan’s referring to, I, I, I won’t tell it, but I had this really freaking creepy thing happen at a hotel. This guy stalked me. I’m staying at this Courtyard Marriott in Connecticut. I wind up, because of where I parked… Gosh, none of this story happens if I just park in a different place.

[00:12:33] Because of where I parked, I wind up walking back and forth through the lobby four different times. Because I walk back and forth through the lobby four different times, I make awkward eye contact with this one guy four different times. Then I get on the elevator. He gets on the elevator. I get off on the third floor.

[00:12:46] He gets off on the third floor. This is already so weird. Like, anybody who’s stayed at hotels, the odds of someone even being on the elevator with you, let alone getting off on the third floor, like, this is really low percentage. Then I get off. He gets off. I go left. He goes left. I make another left. He makes another left, and I’m like- And he’s, like, following me at a, at a weird distance.

[00:13:08] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:09] Mike: And I’m thinking… And I, just as I’m thinking to myself, like, “This guy’s gonna jump me,” he, he stops about halfway down the hall, allowing me to get all the way to the end of the hall, room 326. Hold onto that. That’s gonna matter in a minute. So talked to my wife. Like, I’d flown all the way across the country, drove to Connecticut.

[00:13:24] I, I… I’m like, “Okay, I’m gonna go to bed early,” so I lay out my clothes for the next day, go to bed. Middle of night, phone rings. I answer it. Well, I answer my cell phone. I later realize it’s the hotel phone, and on the other end, I just hear breathing. I just hear

[00:13:39] Nathan: You’re already freaked out.

[00:13:42] Mike: But people pleaser, Enneagram nine Mike decides in that moment, “Hey, what room were you trying to call?”

[00:13:49] And the guy goes, “I was trying to call room 328.” And I’m going, “Oh, it’s 326. Wrong number.” He goes, “I know. I’m standing outside of your door right now.” So I, like, jump into action, throw on all the lights. I’m, I’m expecting to see, like, little shadows underneath the door or something. Looked at the peephole, he’s not actually there.

[00:14:06] I’m like, “Okay, all right. Calm down, calm down.” And I’m thinking to myself like, “Should I call the front office? Should I tell them? Do I wanna switch rooms?” And kind of like weighing the pros and cons of that. And just as I’m having that conversation with myself, phone rings again. For some reason, I answer the phone again.

[00:14:23] And when I do this as a presentation, I click to a slide, and I say, “And that’s when he asked,” click, “Are you sure you wanna go to bed right now?” Gasps from the audience, and that’s when I end the story because there’s nothing that interesting that happens afterwards. They switch rooms. I Home Alone the room.

[00:14:41] I, I mean, I vividly remember I had a glass of water next to my bed where I was like, “Okay, so if, if this guy breaks in, I’ll just like throw water at him.” Like, what was that gonna do? Right. Like, a-ha, you know? But the reason why I end it there is ’cause emotionally that’s the best part of the story.

[00:14:55] Nathan: Mm.

[00:14:56] Mike: So that’s where it should end, and people would do well to ask themselves that.

[00:15:01] There’s a guy in my, um, my current masterminds who, uh, has this amazing story. It- when his, when his daughter was born, he, uh- You have four kids? Three? Four?

[00:15:12] Nathan: Three. Three kids.

[00:15:13] Mike: Three kids. Where do you drive to?

[00:15:16] Nathan: Uh, various practices, school,

[00:15:19] Mike: home. No, no, sorry. I mean, like, when the kids are born, like, where do you drive to?

[00:15:21] Nathan: Oh. Oh, when the kids are born. Uh, you drive to the hospital.

[00:15:25] Mike: Where in the hospital do you drive?

[00:15:27] Nathan: Where in the hospital? The birth center? The-

[00:15:29] Mike: Right. Okay …

[00:15:30] Nathan: pediatric.

[00:15:30] Mike: Yeah, so Doug drove to deliveries, and He tells this story, but then, like, he’s telling it and he keeps going. I’m like, “No, no, that’s the end. That’s all we need to know.

[00:15:42] We don’t need to know that you were, like, standing on forklifts or, like, weird conversations.” He was at the loading dock- Yes …

[00:15:46] Nathan: when he should have been-

[00:15:47] Mike: Yes … at

[00:15:48] Nathan: labor and delivery.

[00:15:49] Mike: Yes. I drove to deliveries. That’s the question you have to ask yourself. So it’s not, it’s not like where does the package end in your brain.

[00:15:55] It’s where is the emotional, like, the best emotional ending for the audience. So, like, think about how you can end the story in the middle.

[00:16:03] Nathan: I like that. What are… When you say TED as the acronym- Yeah … what are the other two?

[00:16:07] Mike: So the, the T is tension.

[00:16:09] Nathan: Okay.

[00:16:09] Mike: So the, every good story should build tension.

[00:16:11] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:12] Mike: Uh, when…

[00:16:13] M- my feeling is in life when you’re bored it’s because there’s an absence of tension. Now, that’s good for human beings. Uh, we don’t wanna be walking around and, like, constantly worried there’s, I don’t know, like, a jackal around the corner or something. But, uh, in a story, there needs to constantly be tension.

[00:16:27] When you’re telling it to someone else, you want to see them nodding along or y- or either saying out loud or you can picture them saying out loud- Right … like, “Wait, then what happens? Then what happens?” So think of it that way. So you wanna be building tension. An easy way to do that, well, easy for me to say, harder for people to do, is particularly for the really important part, and I notice you did this when you were s- speaking yesterday, the really important part, switch to present tense.

[00:16:50] So he calls me on the phone, and I hear breathing. Not I heard breathing.

[00:16:55] Nathan: Okay.

[00:16:55] Mike: I heard breathing, Mike is safe.

[00:16:58] Nathan: Right. Right. He lives. He’s standing on the stage- Yes … in front of me. I remember that.

[00:17:02] Mike: Yes.

[00:17:02] Nathan: But in present tense, you’re like, “I don’t know what happens to Mike.”

[00:17:04] Mike: Right, and it’s weird, even though you can see that I’m on the stage and I’m alive-

[00:17:08] it feels like something bad might happen. Right. So present tense, at least for that, like, real tense part. Mm-hmm. Present tense for that. So T is tension, E is editing for emotional impact, and the D is the use of detail. And this is a tricky one- Okay … because people who are bad at telling stories also use detail, and it’s just too much.

[00:17:26] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:27] Mike: So when I do this as a workshop, I always ask people, like, “Who’s really bad at telling a story?” And someone inevitably, “Oh, my uncle.” I’m like, “How… What’s it sound like when your uncle tells a story?” And it’s like, “Well, he gives you every last detail. So he’ll be telling a story, and he’s like, ‘Yeah, I woke up that day, and I put on argyle socks.

[00:17:41] And I remember I had lemonade, and I checked the weather app.'” And as a listener, you’re like, “That matters. That matters, doesn’t it?” No, it doesn’t matter. The reason why that happens is actually not bad. The reason why that happens is because the person who’s telling the story is replaying it in their own head, so they’re, like, re-experiencing the story.

[00:17:58] Mm-hmm. Which is actually what you want. You just need to edit the story so that the audience doesn’t hear every last detail. Mm. What you want is to be painting a picture of what the story looked like. If you’re Harry Po- are you, like, are you a Harry Potter- Yeah. Yeah, yeah … person? Okay. So I don’t actually know how it’s pronounced, pensieve, pensieve.

[00:18:14] Nathan: Yeah, it’s one of those.

[00:18:15] Mike: The idea in Harry Potter is that, uh, you could stick a wand in someone’s brain and extract a memory and allow them to walk through it. Mm-hmm. Like, that’s what we want when you are telling a story. So even if it’s as basic as giving the location, I was sitting in my home office, or I was sitting at the dinner table- Mm

[00:18:32] or I passed this guy in the hallway, those are allowing the audience to picture what’s happening.

[00:18:37] Nathan: Right.

[00:18:37] Mike: What most people’s instinct is just, I talked to Nathan, and simply by saying, “We were out to coffee”-

[00:18:44] Nathan: Right. I can set the scene.

[00:18:46] Mike: Yes

[00:18:46] Nathan: I’m there with you.

[00:18:47] Mike: The audience can picture it. That’s what we want.

[00:18:50] Nathan: Mm.

[00:18:50] Mike: So the use of detail, and if you want a rule of thumb there, one or two vivid details, it adds credibility and enables the audience to picture what’s happening.

[00:18:58] Nathan: Yeah, I like that. Okay, tension, edit for impact, for emotional impact, the right details.

[00:19:04] Mike: The right details, and, like, it’s fun when I notice this from people.

[00:19:08] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:09] Mike: James Clear did a mastermind and he talked about, uh, one of the happiest days of his life, he remembered getting out of cla- when he was at Denison, junior year. He’s like, “I had no money, and I got, like, a really good grade on a test, and I remember running out of the, uh, running out of the door of the hall, of the, the dorm or the, um-

[00:19:26] Nathan: Classroom

[00:19:27] Mike: the cla- I remember running out of the classroom and just having, like, a big smile on my face.” We can picture that whole thing.

[00:19:31] Nathan: Right.

[00:19:32] Mike: I mean, I’m picturing bald James. I don’t know if he was bald when he was in college, but, like, you can picture that whole thing. That’s what you want. Mm-hmm. There’s this guy Mark Megna, the, like, former football player.

[00:19:43] Uh, and he talked about how he, in high school, he, um, woke up every day at 5:00 AM to go running, and he talked about on really cold days, he would pull the sleeves down over his hands, and it’s like-

[00:19:54] Nathan: Mm. Yeah, that’s a … yeah.

[00:19:56] Mike: That’s what you do, and you can feel that, and suddenly- Right … you’re feeling the cold.

[00:19:59] You’re there with him.

[00:19:59] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:00] Mike: So little details like that make a huge difference.

[00:20:02] Nathan: Okay, let’s talk about the middle of a speech.

[00:20:04] Mike: Mm.

[00:20:05] Nathan: You know, you nailed the beginning. Yeah. That’s really important. We get into the middle.

[00:20:08] Mike: Yeah.

[00:20:08] Nathan: There’s a few things that I’ve seen people do where it changes the tone of the middle of the speech.

[00:20:13] Two things in particular, uh, uh, of examples. One, anytime you tell a story- Like, there’s a change in the tone of voice. I remember this from sitting in church as a kid. Yeah. Right? You’re like, you’re so bored, you’re not paying attention, you know, you’re nine years old or whatever. But the speaker’s voice changes when they tell a story.

[00:20:31] And so you’re like, “What’s that?”

[00:20:33] Mike: Ah. Right,

[00:20:34] Nathan: right, right. Yeah. Right? And you lean in, you can see that. The other thing is, there’s certain lines that you can use, and I’m really curious for your take on this, but one that stands out to me is Craft and Commerce years ago, Tim Grahl was giving a talk, and he has no slides, which already is a badass move.

[00:20:51] Mike: Right.

[00:20:51] Nathan: Totally. You know, it’s like total power move, so long as you can pull it off.

[00:20:54] Mike: Yeah.

[00:20:54] Nathan: Now, he told me later that, you know, he had his note cards and he’s walking around Boise just doing miles- Mm-hmm … rehearsing his talk. And again, this is the benefit of a 20-minute talk, right? You can, you can memorize the whole thing, at least what’s impor- important.

[00:21:08] But he says this line. He says, “You know, I was with Nathan at, uh, this conference in, I don’t know, 2014, and I actually don’t have permission to tell this story.” “I didn’t, I, I didn’t get permission to tell this story.”

[00:21:21] Mike: Should I tell it? Should I tell it?

[00:21:23] Nathan: Which it, so it’s a, it’s an entirely factually true line.

[00:21:25] Mike: Uh-huh.

[00:21:26] Nathan: Of course, it’s a story that I’m fine with him telling. Yeah. He could have asked me, “Hey, Nathan, is it cool if I tell that story?” But had he done that, he would not be able to say, “I didn’t get permission to tell the story.” Which, so everyone knows he’s telling a story, ’cause, you, you know, he starts and then this pause.

[00:21:43] And so if you’re halfway in, then, then he says that line, that hook, and everyone’s all the way in. Like, “What is he gonna say that he doesn’t have permission to say?” And that stood out to me so much, ’cause I was like, man, that little line, and I’m sure you have many more like it- Yeah … leveled up the story and the talk so much, and it built up the tension in a huge way.

[00:22:01] Mike: For the longest time, I struggled with the middle. I love the beginning, I love the end. This is the, the inversion of most people I work with, by the way. Most people are like, “I hate the beginning, I hate the end. What do I do?”

[00:22:10] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:11] Mike: I love the beginning, I love the end. The middle, I was always like, “Eh, this is boring.

[00:22:13] I’m just, like, telling people what to do.” There are a number of different frameworks that I walk people through. So this is one of those, like… Well, it kind of depends. But what I will tell you is the smartest thing you can do in the middle is tell the audience what they think is true or what they’re experiencing right now.

[00:22:29] Mm. And tell them what they should be doing instead. And- The

[00:22:32] Nathan: contrast.

[00:22:32] Mike: The contrast, yeah. Mm-hmm. And some language that I love there is, “You might think that…”

[00:22:36] Nathan: You might think that. Okay.

[00:22:37] Mike: You might think that we should da, da, da. And what you’re gonna insert there is what the audience actually thinks. You’re just gonna be less accus- accusational.

[00:22:45] Nathan: Yeah, you can just fill in the blank on that. Mm-hmm. And it’s actually, you might think that it already does some of it for, for you. Uh-huh. Like, I, as you say that, I’m like, oh, and then you, you’re about to d- contrast it in some way. Yeah. That phrase has built-in tension.

[00:22:57] Mike: You might think that. Also, asking questions is another good one.

[00:22:59] Now, it has to be a good question, but when someone asks a question, you want to answer it. So as long as, as long as it’s not how you doing? How’s the weather today? How was your flight? You know, like-

[00:23:10] Nathan: Yeah …

[00:23:10] Mike: questions don’t matter. As long as it’s a real question, if your audience wants to answer it, you are building tension that way.

[00:23:16] Nathan: And you want them to answer it in their head or-

[00:23:18] Mike: In their head, yeah,

[00:23:19] Nathan: yeah. Okay. What, is there an example that comes to mind?

[00:23:21] Mike: So I, here’s what I love doing, is, uh, set up a situation. Mm-hmm. It’s like a, it’s a, it’s a situational story, so it’s not necessarily like this actually happened to me.

[00:23:30] Nathan: Right.

[00:23:31] Mike: But let me make one up for you.

[00:23:34] You’re talk- what, what’s like something that you would talk about in the future about Kit?

[00:23:37] Nathan: Let’s talk about our subscriber signals.

[00:23:40] Mike: Totally. Yeah, yeah. That’s a great one. Right. So yesterday you talked about like, it’s not who you know, it’s who, who knows you And I think that all makes… That, here’s, here’s, I don’t actually remember the way you said it.

[00:23:50] Yeah. But, like, here’s one way you could say it is, like, “I think that all makes sense, and we’ve probably all felt that at some point. But you’ve probably also asked yourself, how could I actually know who knows me?”

[00:24:00] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:01] Mike: And now the audience is like, “Where’s he going with this?”

[00:24:03] Nathan: Mm.

[00:24:04] Mike: And they probably don’t actually have an answer.

[00:24:06] But you’re building the tension of Nathan has an answer.

[00:24:09] Nathan: Right.

[00:24:10] Mike: So asking that question is a huge one.

[00:24:12] Nathan: Yeah. I like that.

[00:24:14] Mike: Uh, another one is, is similar to you might think, but it’s like, “A lot of people think,” or, “What I see a lot of people doing,” or, “When I’m working with my clients,” and every time the rest of that sentence is filling, it’s just filling in what the audience actually does.

[00:24:28] But instead of it being a direct, like, I’m coaching Nathan and he did this thing, I’m just making it apply to everybody.

[00:24:34] Nathan: That’s right. Making it

[00:24:35] Mike: universal. All of those things will work every time.

[00:24:37] Nathan: Okay, something else that I’ve seen you do is describe people- Oh, that’s my

[00:24:43] Mike: favorite …

[00:24:44] Nathan: in vivid detail. Mm-hmm.

[00:24:44] And you actually did this in your Craft & Commerce keynote when you were having people text in. But how did… Like, talk about how you describe people in a way that gets the audience really engaged, and then yet you can talk about what you did- Yes … to actually maintain engagement in your talk.

[00:25:01] Mike: Okay. I much later reali- I, I learned that there’s actually a name for this.

[00:25:05] So in Hollywood they call it a logline, and that’s meant to be a one-sentence description of a mov- of a movie.

[00:25:10] Nathan: Okay.

[00:25:11] Mike: So Speed was Die Hard on a bus. Mm. One-sentence description of the movie. So this is a logline, same idea, for a person. And the idea is that when you’re telling a story, every human being has, of course, depth to them.

[00:25:23] And sometimes Nathan’s like this, and sometimes he’s like this. But in a story, people do not need to know, like, he’s generous sometimes, and then other times he goes back into poverty mindset. Like, they do not need to know that. Right. So what you want is, if there’s another character in the story and it matters what that person is like, you want to take the adjective that jumps to mind and then find another way of describing it.

[00:25:45] So my favorite example is my friend Sarah Levi, uh, so what most people would say is she’s a health nut. That’s not bad. People understand that. But there is such an opportunity for people to really understand Sarah Levi. So when I describe Sarah, I’m like, “Sarah is the type of person that eats quinoa for her cheat meal.”

[00:26:06] It’s like, “I know who that is. I’ve got that friend.” Right. My w- But like, my wife- She has a million layers to her, and it depends on who I need her to be in the story.

[00:26:17] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:17] Mike: So sometimes she’s the woman who graduated college in three years. Other times she’s other times, uh, she was the student who reminded the teacher to assign homework.

[00:26:30] Right. So you know what I mean? Like, and the better you know the per- and you could have a lot of fun with this stuff. Right. So for you, I thought it would be fun/funny to have every… ‘Cause most people at conference know you in some way. Mm-hmm. To have people tell me, like, what their logline for Nathan would be.

[00:26:50] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:51] Mike: I did one thing really well and one thing poor.

[00:26:54] Nathan: Okay. Well, first what I liked about this is you got in the middle of the talk, which is often a challenging portion to maintain engagement and all of that. Yeah. You got everyone to be very engaged, not just a, oh, vote in a poll or something like that- Right

[00:27:06] but to, like, actively think and to try, like, to try out your exercise in a way that could be entertaining and-

[00:27:12] Mike: Meanwhile, I’ve never done this before. Yeah. I have no idea how it’s gonna go. So my brain is very, uh, “Let’s make sure there’s not a disaster.” So I had prepackaged a few in case nobody replies.

[00:27:25] Mm-hmm. But I put my actual phone number on a slide, like, not the Google Voice, uh, not the Google- Yeah … like this is my legit phone number. I never bothered to think about what if everybody enjoyed doing this and it was fun, because I got, like, 84 text messages in three minutes. And I’m trying to read them all, and they’re coming in, and, and I can’t keep up, and I, I didn’t factor in the way, like- It would keep going to the top.

[00:27:53] So I kept trying to click on things. I’m like, “Ah, no, another one came in, another one came in.” What I should have done is turn… Like, once they started coming in, I should have turned the ringer on so everybody else could hear it, like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

[00:28:03] Nathan: That would’ve been a funny moment in

[00:28:04] Mike: itself.

[00:28:04] That would’ve been a really funny moment. I never asked myself, what if it goes right? I asked what, what if it goes wrong?

[00:28:08] Nathan: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:28:10] Mike: There were some really funny o- there were some really kind ones. There were some really funny ones. The one What, do you remember what your favorite

[00:28:18] Nathan: was? I, I don’t remember the details.

[00:28:21] Mike: Uh, one, there were two that stand out, and one was, “He’s nice guy Steve Jobs”- Okay … which I thought that was, that was great. And the other one The conference that year was particularly cold, and everybody felt it Like, the, the air condi- The air conditioning was like- The air conditioning was way too

[00:28:36] Nathan: cold.

[00:28:36] Mike: Yeah. Yeah. And s- someone texted… Oh, you know what? It was John Meese. He, yeah, ’cause I- Okay … could say. John Meese texted… John knows you and loves you, so this is said in love. But he was like, “Nath- Nathan is the type of person who will set the air conditioning to 56 degrees to sell more sweatshirts.” ‘

[00:28:55] Nathan: Cause we had, we had giveaways- Merch

[00:28:57] like, for sale. Yeah, that was-

[00:29:01] Mike: Which, I mean,

[00:29:01] Nathan: you know- It’s o- c- you know, we’re strategic. We’re about making

[00:29:04] Mike: money. We’re- I’ll tell you how strategic he is. Yeah. Yeah, you wanna know how strategic Nathan is.

[00:29:08] Nathan: Yeah. Okay, we’ll move on to another thing, but before we do that, uh, what’s the one that you wrote for John Meese?

[00:29:14] Mike: John didn’t like this.

[00:29:16] Nathan: I thought it was great.

[00:29:18] Mike: Okay, so like, stage one, what are some adjectives that describe John? Like, he’s smart, he’s really efficient, and I think John is always like, “I can problem solve this better than what people are doing.”

[00:29:28] Nathan: Yep.

[00:29:29] Mike: Stage two. So what would that actually look like? And I, I described John, I was like, John’s the type of guy who probably popped out of the womb and said, “Hold on, I can do that faster.”

[00:29:40] Nathan: I died laughing at that one ’cause I know John

[00:29:42] Mike: so well. I said, but that’s him. Right. Like, he’s like, “Nope, I can do this better.”

[00:29:45] Nathan: Yep. The reason why I wanted to spend some time on this is because, you know, in your TED acronym, we’re talking about detail.

[00:29:50] Mike: Yeah.

[00:29:51] Nathan: Right? So we think about detail of a couple perfect details to help me picture the room or, you know, maybe there’s a color or a texture or something, a temperature that I’m getting out there, but stories are usually based around people.

[00:30:04] And so this is a way of bringing in, very quickly, bringing in vivid detail into a story.

[00:30:08] Mike: That, you know what, there’s a, there’s a woman in my, my speech called The Mastermind, Andrea Davis, who, uh, talks about screen time with, with kids, and she’s talking about her own family. And she tells this story about when she knew it was a problem was when her daughter, who’s the type of, uh…

[00:30:25] her daughter, who’s the type of girl who would clean her room without asking. Bam, we know it.

[00:30:29] Nathan: Yep. Yep. That’s-

[00:30:31] Mike: And now she’s pretending that she has a Glock. Like, she’s like lip syncing to a song and like motioning a Glock. And Andrea’s like, “Whoa.” And that hits so much different when it’s the daughter who would clean her room without asking than-

[00:30:43] Nathan: Right

[00:30:44] Mike: a random

[00:30:44] Nathan: teenager … the, could be a rebel kid, could be- Yes … whatever else. Yeah. Yeah. No, that, that’s so much, makes so much sense. Okay, let’s talk about the ending. Hmm. Endings are fun.

[00:30:52] Mike: Endings are fun, and the time, the, they are the things that people spend the least amount of time on. I mean, most people write sequentially.

[00:30:59] Mm-hmm. And because they write sequentially- You’re like, “I’m tired of doing this.” Nobody would articulate it this way. Yeah. It’s kinda like, “I’m tired. Let’s just end this thing.” Yeah. So yeah.

[00:31:11] Nathan: Wrap it up. Lot of points.

[00:31:12] Mike: So hey, um, hope you enjoyed this talk. Oh, that’s the last slide. Thank you. The ending, all things being considered, the beginning and the end are the most important parts.

[00:31:22] First thing you hear, last thing you hear. Principle of recency would say that the ending’s the thing that matters the most. I don’t know. I actually think the beginning is, but the end, the ending’s really important. Uh, the ending should do two things. At least in most talks there should be a call to action, call to action or next steps.

[00:31:37] The trap that a lot of people fall into is they make that last. Mm-hmm. So now the last thing that the audience has heard is homework.

[00:31:42] Nathan: Yep.

[00:31:43] Mike: And what you actually want is something after that.

[00:31:47] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:47] Mike: This is something that shows them here’s what will… Here’s what your life could look like if you do that homework.

[00:31:53] And, uh, some really good language there that, uh, James uses. James slash our brand’s morphed on this one, but it’s like, uh, here’s the next thing that you… Like, okay, so I have some next steps for you, and then I’ve got one final thought after that. Mm-hmm. So now the audience is, like, kinda, ooh, what’s that?

[00:32:08] Yep. What’s that final thought? But yeah, the, the ending- The- … is your chance to, like, tell the audience, like, here’s what can happen.

[00:32:15] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:16] Mike: And it should be optimistic. It should be, uh, showing them what, like, their new world can look like. And one of my tricks there is to write two different intros.

[00:32:29] Nathan: Okay.

[00:32:30] Mike: And then, I mean, obviously you’re gonna have to, like, rephrase it a little, but one of them just turns into the outro.

[00:32:36] Nathan: Explain that.

[00:32:37] Mike: So the beginning I was, like, brainstormed a few different stories. I’m like, well, it could be this one, it could be this one. So now I’m gonna turn story B into the outro, but I, I just need a little like- Mm-hmm … and look how much I’ve changed since then.

[00:32:51] Nathan: Right.

[00:32:52] Mike: Or I look back at that story, I’m like, oh my gosh, I used to think this, and now I think this other thing.

[00:32:57] But you need to be, you need to be creative with the outro too. And you know, like, one of the strategies there is save your absolute best story, like, um, absolute best client story, save that for the outro. That’s a great one.

[00:33:09] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:09] Mike: Uh, when I worked with Amy Porterfield, this is way back, this is Facebook ads Amy Porterfield.

[00:33:14] Nathan: Yep. A

[00:33:15] Mike: lot of people don’t even know there was that Amy Porterfield. But she had a, she had a pastor on her list who was using Facebook ads, and he doubled his income. So if that can happen for, like, a pastor, what about you with an actual business? Mm-hmm. And that, that’s, that’s where it landed, was, like, that was her best or her most unlikely client story, and it was like, “So that’s possible for Al Jennings.

[00:33:37] What could be possible for you?”

[00:33:40] Nathan: And it lands the whole thing. Mm-hmm. It gets them thinking about themselves. It’s, it’s inspiring. It’s concrete- Yeah … because w- yeah, we had the examples all the way through and, and we had a specific example at the end.

[00:33:50] Mike: And if you can land it in an identity change, that’s a huge win too.

[00:33:54] Nathan: Mm-hmm. And that’s where the, you know, these talks that have, you know, pain, whether it’s like a deep pain or here’s the painful time I learned this lesson, that can be really good.

[00:34:04] Mike: That can be really good. Yeah. Mm-hmm. This is what’s possible for you.

[00:34:07] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:34:07] Mike: But you have to take the next step.

[00:34:09] Nathan: Yeah. That makes sense.

[00:34:12] Something else that has worked well for me, you kind of touched on it, uh, the one more thing.

[00:34:16] Mike: Yeah.

[00:34:17] Nathan: Right? You land on these points. A lot of people like to land on facts.

[00:34:20] Mike: Uh-huh.

[00:34:20] Nathan: You know? And, and here are the, the four facts. And, and there’s a version of this I saw once. Uh, there’s a speaker named Jason Cohen, who’s the founder of WP Engine, which is- Okay.

[00:34:29] Yeah … a huge software hosting, uh, platform. And he ended up on a great tactical slide. This was, would be like a rock solid… You know, he’s teaching software growth tactics. But he had weaved his four main points into a single sentence at the end, that he could put the whole thing on, on the slide, and the, the four points were bolded, but it was one thing that you could remember.

[00:34:50] And I was like, “Okay, you nailed that.” But it was the tactical side of it.

[00:34:53] Mike: Yeah.

[00:34:54] Nathan: Often people end on that, and then they go to Q&A.

[00:34:58] Mike: Yes.

[00:34:59] Nathan: What I really like is when you end on the tactical, and then you either go to Q&A or you go to the one more thing that’s like- Yeah … emotional. ‘Cause if you can end on an emotional note, that’s really good.

[00:35:11] But thinking about Q&A specifically- It’s such a trap. It’s a trap. Because you cede the control to a group of 500 or more strangers who may or may not, like, you know, we’re, we’re playing Russian roulette here. Yeah. And, and mo- it’s not just control, it’s the emotional impact of the entire talk.

[00:35:31] Mike: Uh-huh.

[00:35:33] Nathan: And so I’ll give you the worst example I’ve ever seen of this.

[00:35:35] Please. Which I kind of feel bad just sharing because he’s a good friend of mine. Um, but it’s, you know, it’s a painful time that I learned the lesson. I was just watching someone else’s pain. Um- … Ramit Sethi gave a killer talk at this big theater in Oakland. It was, uh, Sam Parr’s Hustle Con conference, 2,000 people in the auditorium.

[00:35:54] Ramit kills the talk. It’s so good. Then they’re taking Q&A. Questions are coming in, and they have two mics, right? People are lined up, taking a question, taking a question, and Ramit is just on it. He’s like how James was yesterday- Yeah … where he just, like, polished, nails all of this. And the organizers are kinda, like, gesturing him and is like, “Okay, I’m getting a sign that, you know, we need to wrap up, so we’ll have time for just one more question.”

[00:36:14] And so it’s a total roll of the dice for who gets to control the last-

[00:36:18] Mike: You’re doing such a good job of building tension right now. I’m like, what, do they, like, ask about his nationality? Like, what happens?

[00:36:25] Nathan: Yeah. Yes, is the answer. So this woman comes up and says, “Ramit, when are you gonna be a good Indian son and give your parents grandkids?”

[00:36:33] Stop it. It’s so bad. And so what happened is Ramit has just nailed every part of these last 40 minutes or whatever, perfection, 10 out of 10 execution, and he just looks at them and goes, you know, drops some minor profanity and says, “I’m out,” and walks off stage.

[00:36:51] Mike: Oh, my gosh.

[00:36:52] Nathan: And that was the end of the talk.

[00:36:59] And so it sunk in so deeply not to never do Q&A, but to never end on Q&A.

[00:37:05] Mike: Yeah.

[00:37:06] Nathan: And so what I’ve internalized is the one more thing, where you say, “We’re gonna take some time for questions, and then I have one thought that I wanna leave you with.” Because it lets you do two things. Mm. One, when someone asks that, like, life story question or whatever, it gives you w- the audience and you are on the same page ’cause, like, “Hey, w- we know there’s one more thing.

[00:37:21] It’s not that, oh, do we have seven seconds left or s- seven minutes left to the top of the hour. It’s we still gotta fit in the one more thing. So I, I have permission to cut you off on your long question.” And then two, it would give Ramit the opportunity in that moment to say, “That might be the worst question I’ve ever heard.”

[00:37:38] “Let’s go to that one more thing that I wanted to leave you with.” Right? And you can- And then, of course, the one more thing is an emotional story, a moment, something, something that’s gonna make you feel, something that will land the whole point. So that’s what I learned that lesson.

[00:37:51] Mike: Oh my gosh. Uh. The craziest thing is I’ve always given the example of what if someone asks you a bad question.

[00:38:00] I’ve never actually heard one that is anywhere near that bad. So- When I teach this, I’m always like, “What if their last question is about your shoes?”

[00:38:08] Nathan: Right. ”

[00:38:08] Mike: What do you do? And now da, da, da.” I,

[00:38:10] Nathan: and, and- And they have been hard. Like, there’s some terrible questions. Right. That is insane. Well, what if it’s a pitch for their product, right?

[00:38:15] Or whatever. Oh,

[00:38:16] Mike: that’s wild. Yeah, so again, this is, but this is, this is math of the presentation stuff. So you need to mentally, that one more thing, you need to allocate five minutes for it. And even if it’s not five minute, it’s no big deal. You might have a few minutes early, not a big deal. Right. Uh, you need to allocate five minutes for actual ending.

[00:38:31] So your choices are, uh, end the speech with Q&A… Or sorry, end the speech with call to action, then go Q&A, then one more thing, or have two endings. Hm. Uh, and when I say two endings, that doesn’t necessarily need to be like, “And here’s another creative, wonderful, impressive, unlikely success story from one of my clients,” but it might just be reminding the audience of Al Gen- uh, Pastor Al Jennings.

[00:38:54] Hm. And saying like, “Remember, this happened for Pastor Al Jennings. It can happen for you, too.” It might just be, like, that basic, but you do need something that reminds the audience because you don’t want to get hung out to dry by someone.

[00:39:05] Nathan: And you just, yeah. You wanna control the feeling of it all the way through.

[00:39:14] So, another thing that I’ve learned recently, uh, that’s been helpful for me is… W- well, one thing that I struggle with in a talk is to control the tone and the cadence of it, and, like, the emotional arc of it.

[00:39:26] Mike: Yeah.

[00:39:27] Nathan: Um, I don’t… I’m an understated speaker normally. Mm. I’m not gonna build up to a big emotional thing.

[00:39:33] And a simple, uh, tip that I was given is someone was talking about, like, um, stacking quotes.

[00:39:40] Mike: Yeah, yeah.

[00:39:40] Nathan: So you’d say, like, “Nelson Mandela says this, Mark Twain says that, and I say…”

[00:39:45] Mike: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:46] Nathan: And so you get to build up, and you get to position yourself with this, and it, it, like, naturally builds up into, like, making your point in a big way.

[00:39:52] And it’s probably not for the very end of the talk, but, like, towards the end is your, you know, the culmination of an idea. I’m curious one, what you think of that, and then two, if there are other, like, simple formats that you might use to control the emotional arc.

[00:40:07] Mike: Well, this is a, this is another one where seeing the whole field is helpful.

[00:40:10] So what I mean by that is it’s not just a writing thing, it’s a delivery thing.

[00:40:14] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:14] Mike: So I love sta- like, any sort of, like, one-two-three punch. I mean, that’s what comedians learn. Like, that’s, that’s super solid. What you would wanna do there is it’s really important that, that the Quote one, quote two are like pretty fast Mm-hmm, yep And then we slow it down for quote three

[00:40:31] Nathan: Mm.

[00:40:32] Yep

[00:40:33] Mike: By Nathan Barry or Mike Tyson or whoever the third quote is. I think, and I say, or, “And then there’s what Mike Tyson said.”

[00:40:42] Nathan: Right

[00:40:42] Mike: Intentionally go louder because you’re about to go completely silent, silent to allow the audience to c- read the quote that you put on the screen.

[00:40:50] Nathan: Okay, what about humor?

[00:40:52] Mike: Here’s some observations I have about humor. If you’re funny at the beginning, the audience gets tricked into thinking you were funny the whole time. Sir Ken Robinson, I’ve extensive- uh, most popular TED Talk, super, super funny at the beginning. He gets more serious. You walk away thinking he was very funny.

[00:41:08] But if you like track the laughter, and it’s like 75% of the laughter was in the first like, uh, I wanna say like seven minutes of the talk. So it’s very front-loaded, but th- that just tricks the audience into thinking that’s, that’s the whole thing was funny. So that’s one thing. A lot of people aren’t funny.

[00:41:25] I would encourage you to not try to be funny, but what I would encourage you to do is to steal other people’s humor.

[00:41:30] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:41:30] Mike: By which I mean, we’ve got a world of Instagram clips that are funny, reels that are funny, YouTube clips that are funny, and they’re verified because you can see what people thought of them.

[00:41:40] So take that Sir Ken Robinson joke. Ins- when I was at Duarte, we had this Sir Ken Robinson quote, killed every single time.

[00:41:47] Nathan: Hm.

[00:41:48] Mike: Tons of people who worked for Duarte were not funny, but it, it created the illusion they were because this was funny.

[00:41:53] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:54] Mike: So using other people’s stuff is funny. And then if you are trying to do, uh, if you are trying to…

[00:41:59] Like, you went down the route of I want this speech to be funny, uh, there are a couple things I would suggest you do with the script. So number one is read it out loud and just feel for yourself like when does it feel like it’s been a long time since the audience laughed? Mm-hmm. And the second thing is, uh, like actually present it to other people, and if they’re not laughing or laughing as hard as you think they should be laughing, take note of that, and then we need to explore if there’s another way of doing it.

[00:42:25] So a lot of times the joke is actually the slide.

[00:42:27] Nathan: Yeah, that’s something that I, that I probably do the most because I watched Stephen Colbert’s segment years ago on The Colbert Report-

[00:42:35] Mike: This is where I got it from …

[00:42:36] Nathan: The Word.

[00:42:37] Mike: Yes.

[00:42:37] Nathan: Yes. Where he delivers a straight monologue, and there are zero jokes in it But random things show up on the screen next to him that are, are the punchline to every joke, and it’s hilarious.

[00:42:49] Mike: And that’s- Katie did that yesterday.

[00:42:51] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:51] Mike: And Katie’s not on stage trying to be funny.

[00:42:53] Nathan: Right.

[00:42:54] Mike: But that part where she’s like, “Your landing pages,” I think it was, “Your landing pages suck,” right? Yeah. That was… So she just clicked, let everyone read it, laughter.

[00:43:00] Nathan: Right.

[00:43:01] Mike: She doesn’t have to deliver it.

[00:43:02] Nathan: And then even when she, she had a callback to it, where all she did was gesture to the slide- Yes

[00:43:06] and it got a second laugh.

[00:43:07] Mike: And it’s a callback. And yeah.

[00:43:09] Nathan: It was so good. You made the point of, or I, I guess there’s, there’s two different sides of this. One is you can say something and deliver the punchline on a slide, which takes so much of the pressure off, ’cause was your timing perfect, was your delivery- Yes

[00:43:22] you know, like, are you a great joke teller? I don’t, it doesn’t matter. Like, you said your part, the joke was delivered on the slide. Or the other one that you mentioned is the entire funny thing can come from the video that you played, the GIF, whatever it is. And, like, 80% of that laugh will be translated to like- Yes

[00:43:42] “Oh, Mike’s so funny.”

[00:43:43] Mike: Nobody’s there, and this will maybe weirdo me, like, nobody’s there like, “Well, I mean, she wasn’t the one who came up with that.” Right. But, like, Logan Uri, years ago, I mean, that was one of the Craft and Commerce talks that was so impressive to people, and a lot of it was her clicking two emails she had received.

[00:43:57] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:58] Mike: So she was good at recognizing humor. It took the pressure off of her from having to be funny. We think Logan’s funny.

[00:44:04] Nathan: Yeah. Yeah. Those are so good. Um, another thing, you know, you mentioned tension a bunch of times. Tension can be really funny.

[00:44:12] Mike: Mm.

[00:44:13] Nathan: And some of the, the best examples I’ve had is, um, I gave a talk where I t- I was contrasting direct sales with selling on the internet, right?

[00:44:23] And how on the internet you can, uh, you go to a page, and if you don’t like, you just hit the back button. You never get feedback of like, “Oh, Mike, here’s why I didn’t buy your product.”

[00:44:32] Mike: Yes. Yeah.

[00:44:32] Nathan: And I, and I’m just talking about how, like, I make this example of how, like, in direct sales it’d be weird if I sat down across from you and said, “Would you buy this thing?”

[00:44:38] And you just, like, stared at me. Um, and then I kinda played it up a little bit- … and I was like, “It’d be so awkward if you, like, stared at me and then just, like, kinda got up and turned and walked away.” And my friend David was like, “Okay, I like where you’re headed with this, but I need you to play this up a painful amount.

[00:44:55] And so I need you to make contact, like eye contact with someone in the audience. If you kn- find someone you know their name in like the f- second or third row, and say, like, ‘Mike, if I were to… You know, you asked me would you buy my thing,’ and I, like, look at you, and I just stare at you, and then I slowly just turn and walk away.”

[00:45:11] And he had me. He’s like, “I want you to walk all the way to the back of the stage, and I need you to slowly count to 10 in your head.” And it took, like, something that got a little laugh, and it turned it into, like, uproarious laughter. And it landed the point and all that. And the only difference was me doing the exact same thing and doing it in two seconds versus forcing it to draw it out-

[00:45:33] to a ridiculous amount for 10 full seconds. And it was these little tweaks that made a huge difference.

[00:45:38] Mike: That’s amazing. And it’s so funny. I mean, this is true in email, this is true in storytelling, this is true in speeches. It’s incredible how many times it is that Nathan was willing to wait two extra seconds.

[00:45:51] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:45:51] Mike: Four extra seconds, whatever. Yeah.

[00:45:53] Nathan: Okay, I wanna ask you about a problem that I have in speeches. Mm. And I think a lot of speakers do, too. And that is the laugh moments and the applause moments and cueing the audience. Mm. So I do, uh, you know, once a year I do a product announcement speech- Yeah … or something like that, right?

[00:46:10] And there are things that people are really excited about, but if you don’t cue it properly, then they … You get like, right? Like four people are applauding or, or that sort of thing. Or people are like, “Was that a joke?”

[00:46:19] Mike: Yeah.

[00:46:20] Nathan: What do you do to actually- Cue the audience without being pushy or weird or that sort of thing, that, that for the, the laugh or the applause.

[00:46:30] Um, and then how do you sit in it to give them time to follow it through? ‘Cause I see speakers do that all the time as well, where they, maybe they cued it properly and they’re like, “And next.” ”

[00:46:38] Mike: And this is awkward. You’re compelling.” “I can’t handle this. I am going to move on.” Yeah. Uh, pre- so that’s, that’s something you have to do ahead of time-

[00:46:46] Nathan: Mm-hmm

[00:46:46] Mike: is I am going to do this, and if the audience reacts this way, then I will do this. Like, you ha- you need to have rules ahead of time. Mm-hmm. One of the places that’s tricky, this is… I hesitate to say this because Barrett’s already a perfectionist, and now he’s gonna obsess over this. There’s only one thing that I saw Barrett flub yesterday, which was there’s this part where he’s telling the audience about when he had revealed to certain people that he had been abused.

[00:47:14] And he tells, like, a friend, told his brother, and then he told his mom. The part with his mom was supposed to be funny. This is, uh, what his mom said was, “Don’t tell your father.” But the problem, and, and it is funny. Like, that it was intended to be funny. I, I was like, “That’s supposed to be funny, right?” Yeah.

[00:47:29] He’s like, “Yeah.” The problem is we’ve just heard this intense thing, and you’ve not given us permission to laugh. Mm. So the react- and I, for that part, ’cause I knew it was coming, I was looking around the room, and there are all these people that are just like, “Mom.” And what Barrett should have done was to l- so the audience is gonna follow whatever emotions you’re demonstrating.

[00:47:51] Mm. So what he should have done is started laughing. And I’m not saying, like, cracking up, but he, he needs to find the part in his brain where like, “This is actually funny,” and then just start laughing. And he’s like, “And so it should be, and I told my brother, and he said this. And then I told my mom.” And my mom says, “Don’t tell your father.”

[00:48:10] And now the audience knows I can laugh safely. This is

[00:48:12] Nathan: funny to him.

[00:48:13] Mike: Yeah.

[00:48:14] Nathan: Yeah. And so, yeah, that, that pre-laugh, right, you’re setting the… You’re bringing people along in the emotion that you want them to feel.

[00:48:21] Mike: Yeah. So that’s, that’s one of my rules for delivery. The audience will follow the emotions that you’re demonstrating.

[00:48:26] Does not have to say I’m excited. Lots of people do that. It’s like, “I’m very excited to tell you about this product.” Oh, you are? Mm. I know those are the words you’re saying. So, um, there, there’s obviously a version of this that’s too much, and lots of… There’ve been lots of parodies about App- like WWDC goes too far.

[00:48:42] But you need to sound excited about the thing you’re launching. Mm-hmm. Why, why am I gonna be excited about this new product if you’re like, “And, uh, okay, and we’ve got an MCP too.”

[00:48:52] Nathan: Carry the emotion.

[00:48:53] Mike: And the, the, the trick there, where… The reason why it’s usually hard for people is because you’ve known about the MCP for a long time, and it’s not new news for you.

[00:49:03] You need to find the part of… So, uh, actors call this the illusion of the first time. People on Broadway doing the same show night after night, the illusion of the first time. The part of your brain that first learned about the MCP and you’re like, “What? That’s incredible,” you need to channel that when you’re saying the thing.

[00:49:21] So you’re leading the audience like, “Isn’t this amazing?” Like, this thing is gonna totally change your business. I know, I know… You don’t need to literally say those words, but that needs to be the feeling that you have.

[00:49:33] Nathan: Mm. I have actually done that in the past where I, in the speaker notes, I have written in, in brackets the feeling that I’m trying to convey- Yeah

[00:49:40] on that slide, ’cause it’s so important. ‘Cause they’re just, they’re just mirroring you. Was that funny? Can I laugh? Yeah. Am I… Like, am I gonna be the one person who laughs at, like, something that was not supposed to be funny? Yeah. Or, you know, am I supposed to be excited? Am I supposed to be sad? Like, you tell me.

[00:49:55] Mike: You tell me, right. That’s what it is. Yeah. Yeah. So you, the audience will follow the emotions that you demonstrate.

[00:50:00] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:01] Mike: Be the emotion you wish the audience to see, as Gandhi might say.

[00:50:05] Nathan: As Gandhi might say. I love that. So we now have this writing partner in AI who will criticize our scripts- Yeah … help us write different scripts.

[00:50:11] Like, how do you use AI on speeches?

[00:50:15] Mike: I don’t use it much. Mm. I think it’s okay to, but… Well, let me tell you a story. Okay. There is a guy I was coaching recently, and he gets paid a lot of money to speak. A lot of money. And he was ru- He ran through his rehearsal, and I’m, like, furiously taking notes, and I get…

[00:50:40] And there’s, like, this one part, and I’m just like, “This part, what is this?” And we finish, and I’m like, “Dude, what was up with point three?” And he’s like, “Oh, yeah, I don’t know if I understood that either. That’s one ChatGPT f- did for me.” I’m like, “Ah, mm-hmm.”

[00:50:56] Nathan: Got it.

[00:50:57] Mike: So there, there are couple issues here. I, I worked with a behavioral scientist last year, and who knows where this AI, like where everything’s going.

[00:51:06] Everybody’s making predictions, and nobody really knows. But he did feel… And this is, this is, like, the guy that Facebook tries to poach to, like, word things differently and, like, put colors on the screen. Like, he’s that level. He’s like, “Regardless of what happens, the first thing is you have to think, and you have to think for yourself,” which sounds obvious, but it’s just easy to skip that.

[00:51:26] And we’ve all done the thing where it’s like, “Analyze that last phone call.”

[00:51:29] Nathan: Mm-hmm. ”

[00:51:29] Mike: What should I have done?” And it makes sense when you read it, and if you were to regurgitate it to someone else, like, you didn’t actually understand it, and this is the real problem. Even if AI gets to the point where it’s writing like, it’s writing like Obama in its prime, the problem is you didn’t write it and you probably didn’t understand it.

[00:51:47] So congratulations, you’ve now become an actor. Did you go to Julliard? Do you remember how– Do you know how to like memorize this stuff? ‘Cause you’re not even acting in a good… Like you’re not, you’re not in Hamilton. It’s not something that’s written wonderfully. You’re talking about like Sass, like a one-act play about Sass that you have to memorize.

[00:52:05] Yeah. You have to understand what you’re talking about. So sure, uh, maybe it’s helpful for certain writing. Uh, I will say that right now, and we’re recording this in June, right now, like here’s just a classic one that it overdoes. So, and a lot of people do this in speeches anyway without AI, which is like, I, I call this like P.T.

[00:52:23] Barnuming, where you’re like, “Maybe you’re this. Maybe you think this. Maybe you think this. Maybe da, da, da,” and it’s like three to five maybes. You just need one really good one. So I know it doesn’t seem like it should matter. It’s like, well, who cares? It’s like seven extra seconds. No, but it’s seven seconds of permission to go think about something else.

[00:52:40] Right. So AI will do that a lot. And the other thing I’ve found, so one of my questions is always, uh, be really harsh, what should I cut?

[00:52:48] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:49] Mike: It always wants to cut the best part. I feel like the conclusion everybody comes to about AI when it comes to storytelling, speaking, live events, is I’m gonna lean into the humanity.

[00:53:02] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:02] Mike: That’s what speeches always were. That’s not different. Seth Godin, a long time ago, this is like two thousand seven, two thousand eight, he’s like, “The point of a speech is to make an emotional connection with the audience.” That’s still true, and that’s true whether you’re on a stage, that’s true whether it’s a webinar, podcast, whatever.

[00:53:25] And we are trying to educate, we are trying to transform, but it’s like the emotional connection is why we’re there. And, uh, I always find it weird when people are like, “AI will never…” And like I don’t know how anybody can end that sentence confidently. Yeah. But when you are putting a speech together, you absolutely need to think about how this will feel to the audience and your plan of attack there.

[00:53:47] Think about, and it’s like what we’re come back to from the beginning, it’s like the script, the way you deliver it, the slides, how will this feel to the audience? And it doesn’t have to be emotions of tears. Mm-hmm. Emotions of laughter. The slide’s the joke. The slide helps it, right? Like those are the things that you need to think through, and if you have the, if you, if you have AI write your speech Have fun memorizing that

[00:54:08] Nathan: Right.

[00:54:10] Yeah,

[00:54:10] Mike: it’s a- Here’s a better way. Actually, here’s a better way to put it. When I was in high school, I did theater, and I, I was, I was good enough at theater. I would get, like, the third or fourth part in the play. So I had to memorize my lines, and I would just look for… Like, I remember I was this character, Fitzpatrick, right?

[00:54:31] And I was just like, “Where’s Fitzpatrick? Where’s Fitzpatrick?” And, like, turn physical printout of pages, like, turn pages. And I just memorized all of Fitzpatrick’s lines, right? So I was like, “Okay, I’m on page 48. I’ve got this,” and da, da, da. I didn’t know what happened in the play. That’s what a lot of people are doing.

[00:54:46] Nathan: Right.

[00:54:47] Mike: Then there’s my friend Bruce. Understood what was happening in the play. Bruce plays Zendaya’s dad on Euphoria. I don’t think that’s the only reason I didn’t make it to Hollywood, but, like, you have to understand.

[00:55:01] Nathan: Right. You did the work. Yeah. You understood the whole thing, the full context.

[00:55:03] Mike: Yeah.

[00:55:04] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:55:06] I like that. Mike, this has been amazing. We have had a ton of fun working together the last decade or so- Yeah … on all of these speeches. Thank you for, uh, helping us take either really well-known speakers and helping them be a little bit better, or you’ve helped us take a lot of, a lot of speakers at Craft and Commerce who it’s their first speech ever.

[00:55:24] Mike: Yeah.

[00:55:24] Nathan: And, uh, it’s been really special to see that come to life. If people wanna work with you, and they want, you know, they wanna do the same thing that- Yeah … you know, that we do, working together on, on writing the speeches, what are the– what’s the best way to do that?

[00:55:36] Mike: Yeah, so two audiences that are particularly good for me.

[00:55:39] So, uh, people who, uh, are looking to develop a talk, and that doesn’t have to be, like, this talk that you fly all over the world with. But- Mm-hmm … uh, particularly if you’ve written a book or you wanna read a book, or, or sorry, if you’ve written a book or you want to write a book, or just there’s, uh, some thought leadership that you wanna, you wanna get going with, like, that’s a great audience for me.

[00:55:57] Mm-hmm. And the other is, uh, I, I guess I would communicate it like the Nathan Barry that has not done the work to have a bench that can speak for you. Mm. So the founder who is, uh- Flying to every event, doing every podcast interview, and that’s not actually the best use of their time. Like, they should be doing the stuff that they’re great at.

[00:56:17] I help the, I help you develop a bench. Those two are great.

[00:56:20] Nathan: Develop the other leaders in the company. Yeah, develop the other- So this is the, the Haley is the Katie- Yeah … Shiv. Like, for anyone who knows Kit’s team, who, you know, they’re up there doing these incredible things because they’ve put in a ton of work to get to that point.

[00:56:32] Mike: Yeah. Those are the best audiences for, to work for me or work with me. I’ve got a great freebie for you. I mean, we talked a lot- Yeah … about intros. I’ve got seven strategies. Uh, like this freebie’s worth thousands of dollars, honestly. Like, people pay me thousands of dollars for this stuff, and I, I will give you my strategies.

[00:56:47] I will give you a sample for each strategy and a place if you wanna, if you wanna write it yourself that you can practice each stra- each strategy.

[00:56:54] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:56:54] Mike: Let me say that again. A place where you can practice each strategy. So you can go bestspeech.co, so C-O.not com. bestspeech.co/nathan.

[00:57:02] Nathan: Sweet. That’s amazing.

[00:57:04] Yeah. Mike, thanks so much for coming on.

[00:57:05] Mike: Thank you, my friend. Been a pleasure. And Nathan, uh, dude, it is so great to see how much better you are And how much more just at ease you are. There were a couple of things yesterday where you’re just like Nathan of 2017 wouldn’t have done that.

[00:57:22] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:57:23] Mike: There was the one video where it’s you narrating the video.

[00:57:28] Not enough people caught this. This was very funny. It’s you narrating the video that you play out loud. You’ve walked off the stage, you come back on the stage, and you say, “Thanks, Nathan.” I’m like, “There’s no way that Nathan of 2017 would have felt comfortable doing that.” It’s been so cool

[00:57:43] Nathan: to see you improve.

[00:57:45] Oh, it’s fun. Like, working at all of these little things, um, we’ll have to do a, a breakdown of the talk sometime- … and, and, uh, all of that ’cause there were some fun moments- Yeah … to get those jokes in there.

[00:57:54] Mike: But well done, dude. I’m proud of you.

[00:57:56] Nathan: Thank you. If you enjoyed this episode, go to YouTube and search The Nathan Barry Show, then hit subscribe and make sure to like the video and drop a comment.

[00:58:05] I’d love to hear what some of your favorite parts of the video were, and also just who else you think we should have on the show. Thank you so much for

[00:58:12] listening.