Don’t Be Harmless & How To Become Deadly
I’m obsessed with this guy called Julian: he constantly challenges himself to master new skills from the ground up and, at the end of the journey, shares everything he has found. His last newsletter mail, about storytelling, is probably the most effective essay about storytelling I’ve ever read. He first tried to recognize the storytelling ingredients:
Hooks
You're either a person telling a story or you're a storyteller. Storytelling is the art of strategically withholding information. A hook raises a question without immediately providing the answer. For example, “It was the worst date of my entire life.” Listeners wonder, “Why?” You're not going to tell them for a while.
Limited memorization
Hooks require premeditation. The best storytellers on the planet write all the time and talk about the things they’ve already written. But you never want to memorize your words. You only memorize key points then you rediscover the rich details and spontaneous turns of phrases in real-time. This produces pauses, moments of self-reflection, and false starts.
Time dilation
When they finally get to the nail-biting answers, they then drag out the telling. For example, consider how the climax of a blockbuster film is always a drawn-out action scene. The action is never resolved within seconds—even if that’s how long it would take in real life to play out. Instead, every detail is magnified. Every punch is slow-motion. Beyond slow motion, great films also slow down the parts between the action.
A hero’s perspective
It’s necessary to have a hero and a villain. We’re hardwired to put ourselves into the shoes of others and root for them like we are them. That’s what happens when you read fiction or cheer on a boxer in a fight: you transfer your identity into theirs and live their experience—instead of it being told to you.
Vocal rhythm
You talk. Then faster. You go silent. You strike with fast staccato sentences. The audience feels pressure on their heels. Then you slow down to quiet your voice. Now they relax. A sigh of relief. Without vocal rhythm and pauses, you're just a human wall of text.
Then, he found out these things are just byproducts of great storytelling. The forces behind great story delivery are simple. You focus on two things and your body reflexively does the rest:
Blow your own mind when telling stories
Blowing your own mind entails being excited at moments of excitement, being shocked at moments of shock, and being wowed at moments of wonder. Listeners feed off this like sugar. When you blow your own mind, something mesmerizing happens: you relive the story and its impact on you in real-time. People then see that reflected on your face and in your authentic emotions. That's the feeling you need to transfer to your audience. They do not feel it in their bones unless you're feeling it first.
Project charisma: confidence, joy, and love for your audience
When you embody all three, you put listeners at ease. They feel like you truly want them to be there. And when they feel that way, your thoughts flow into listeners’ minds without friction. Listeners lower their guards and their judgment. They're no longer focused on your eccentricities, insecurities, and weird hand movements. Instead, they’ve opened their minds to you. The more a storyteller loses themselves in their own telling, the more the audience does too. To drop your self-consciousness so that a crowd drops theirs.
The seven deadly sins of Speaking
1. Gossip: Speaking negatively about someone who is not present. People will not trust you because a while later, you will gossip about them.
2. Judging: It is hard to listen to someone who consistently judge you during a conversation.
3. Negativity: Having a negative viewpoint on things.
4. Complaining: which is mere viral misery. Could be on anything, politics, sports, or the weather.
5. Excuses: Not taking responsibility for our actions and being a blame-thrower
6. Exaggeration: Drawing an imaginary image and inflating stuff excessively. It can get to the point of outright **lying**.
7. Dogmatism: stating your opinions as if they are facts without consideration of an evidence to support your claims. In other words, Bombarding people with biased opinions on a certain topic.
Foundation of powerful speech (HAIL)
Toolbox of Speech (Voice)
Warm up the toolbox of voice
Speaking is one part of the puzzle because having a good conversation also depends on being a good listener.
(see down here “How to Start a Talk”)
Don't start with a joke, start with a promise
no windows or open doors because could be distracting if somebody walks by or something happens outside
Deep Work, Slow Productivity, Digital Minimalism
Chalks and boards are good for informing and teaching, slides are good for exposing
Chalks and boards are good for showing graphics. You can control the speed of talk to help audiences absorb contents, and use your hand to point a target on board
Props are useful to help audiences think about abstract things
Boards and props are great because empathic mirroring, i.e. audiences can feel they are doing the writing and demonstration
Bad slides contain too many pages and too many words
Audiences can be tired to switch between slides and speaker if they far away from each other
How to create good slides: simplification. Audiences will pay less attention to the speaker if their slides contain too many words
Font size shouldn't be large enough for easy reading
Lazer pointer reduces the speakers' chance to engage (e.g. eye contact) with audiences, using sign-post in the slides instead
Examples: Bad slides vs good slides
Show your passion for the topic.
Provide them with:
People usually fail them because they fail to situate the context and fail to practice
Why should you care about getting famous? because we want our work to be recognised and we need good communication skills to do that
we need to have:
Some examples on final slides: show what you have done (i.e. contributions) and give audiences the time to read them!
A joke — his colleagues always end a talk with a joke, so people think they have had fun all the time :)
The phrase "thank you" is a weak move, "thank you for listening" is even worse, it suggests that people listen to your talk because their politeness.