11 Powerful Brand Storytelling Secrets: Build Deeper Connection with Consumers, Spread Your Idea Further & Faster (…this will BLOW YOUR MIND)

0:00Koyako is a Japanese noodle bar located in Hackney London offering a fast paced dining experience inspired by Japan's train station eateries It specializes in freshly made udon noodles and rich dashi broths. The menu is insane. A rich variety of hot and cold udon dishes, donburi rice bowls and Japanese small plates like karas chicken. I hope I've said that right. Also some banging seasonal vegetable tempura. Koyeko brings authentic Japanese comfort food right to the heart of East London. They've got two locations, one in Hackney, one in Soho in the city. And look, if you want to get your mitts on this absolutely insane grub, use this promo code on your Uber Eats app, Koyoko40.

0:45The details are as follows. You're going to get 40 % off, up to 15 quid off, when you've got a minimum basket of£20. This offer, this wonderful offer, expires on the 28th of July. Get your mitts on Koyoko. Thank you so much. how to get your challenger brand into more supermarkets and increase your current distribution in half the time range reviews are happening right now right this millisecond sainsbury's waitrose tesco ocado co-op all looking for new banging challenger brands don't miss this range review and have to wait another six months it's long don't lose precious self-space your competitors don't let your buyer pick another brand just because you didn't have a grand slam deck.

1:27Northstar Category Management help you create banging supermarket pitch decks so good that buyers find it impossible to say no to. Challenge your brands like Perfect Ted, Trip, Bulbinko, Dash all love Northstar. Look, I am so confident in Northstar transforming your brand. We've got an exclusive hungry offer. Your first month for free. Yes, free. Plus, we're going to give you a free 30-minute consultancy session to see how your brand is currently performing in category. Click the link in the show notes to book your consultancy session and thank me later.

2:01Hey guys, I think this may be one of the most important episodes I've ever recorded. Will Storr is amazing. He's an author, he's written books, The Status Game, The Science of Storytelling, Selfie, How Will the West Became So Self-Obsessed. His books are amazing. His podcast on Joe Rogan was insane. Probably the best podcast I've ever listened to this year. his performance as even Bartlett was insane as well um but I really believe his work is so important for challenger from drink brands I mean I couldn't believe I actually got him on fucking podcast I was like what the hell um storytelling is so important the status is so important for brands um just a quick one if the first 45 minutes we're basically chatting shit whacking lyrical about our favorite books and writing process so if you want to skip that get right into the juicy brown bits about 45 minutes um but yeah there's so much in this like it really stretched my mind to places I didn't think it was going to go to.

2:55Like the story is a deal. The story is a deal between, and it's a deep connection between your brand and your consumer. How do you tell that story? Will goes into this. The status game. Once you know the status game, it's like an x-ray to see the world. You can see status everywhere. How brands can infiltrate the status game is genius. Trip do this. Bold Bean do this. You can learn how to do this. We talk about the blandemic the blandemic of brands uh restaurants buildings how to escape the blandemic um the status game and running three-star michelin restaurants is it ruining michelin restaurants um why falling in love is similar to brand building it sounds a bit fucking woo woo but it's when he says it's true uh the christmas carol and brand positioning there's just so much in this my brain was like what the fuck um and i think this is the best thing culture is me in we once we get into this your whole view of how to build your company culture will change um but yeah i love this one this for me personally i couldn't believe i got well on so i hope you enjoy it as much as i do recording it please um i know i sound needy but please do share the podcast it really grows one recommendation at a time share on linkedin share on instagram i'd be so grateful like give a review five star review that helps us get found um also the newsletters in the show notes i spend ages writing that so yeah please give that a little tickle on the old subscribe button um anyway enjoy yeah as i said to you before we hit record is it was very serendipitous as i was we were talking about status with rory sulland um he brought up your book that was the week you went on to rogan uh and then i and then it all the stars kind of aligned so look i'm incredibly grateful um to chat to you today mate well i'm happy to be here thanks for inviting me dan it's great to be here thank you so i want to start with um i think yeah as i say it's a food podcast it would be remiss of me not to start uh with the hunger and the howling of of killian lone um and i'd love as i said i've read all your book a lot of your books and the storytelling piece and how we relate to main characters and protagonists is something that really fascinates me.

5:07So I'd love to know is in the writing process of The Hunger and the Howling of Killian Lone, how did you relate to the main character yourself? How did you relate to Killian? Well, the book was inspired by a story I did as a journalist. I was living in Australia for like three or four years and working as a journalist. And as I did for a story, there was a Michelin sort of level restaurant in the Sydney Opera House that was run by a chef called Guillain Brahimi, who trained under, I forget who it is exactly now, it was a long time ago, but he trained under one of the kind of French monsters, you know, like the old school, hardcore.

5:51and um guillem brahimi was like legendarily tough like a like a really old school you know like uh and um so i spent three or four days working as a stash in his kitchen um and it was just absolutely terrifying you know i i just i i can still hear him in my head um at one point going where's the fucking duck where's the fucking duck like he just opened over there where's the fucking duck and then at the end um people were saying oh my god like and i was saying god that was terrifying and people were saying he put on special performance for you like he was so much nicer like We've never seen him so nice.

6:21I thought, bloody hell. But the thing about that shift was that the whole that few days was just I just was absolutely intoxicated by it. Even though it was incredibly hard work and I was peeling vegetables, I was like doing the proper groundwork. Obviously, I had no skills. I remember cycling back home at like half two in the morning after my first shift and waking up my fiance or my wife, She was my girlfriend at the time, my fiancée, and was just talking to her. I just absolutely loved it. And I guess I must be doing 28, 29 at the time. But I promise you, if I'd have had that experience at 18, I'd be a chef right now because it was addictive.

7:02It was just like I loved it. And so that's why I ended up writing the novel, really, was almost to get it out of my system. Like I just became obsessed with that whole world of Michelin star chefs, that whole, it was just like the, the, the, the kind of brutal meritocracy of it was like, you know, no one gave a fuck who you were, what your background was, what even what your name was, you can either do it or you couldn't do it. And if you, and if you, and if you could do it, you were in, if you couldn't do it, you were, you were out of the door in seconds. And I think, I think another princess got fired whilst I was there.

7:33She was just out, you know, and, and, and just, just the whole process of beginning the day bleary eyed and everyone's together and you've got these boxes of incredible products coming in and over the course of that day those products um get turned into the most incredible dishes like absolutely i remember one of the things i was working on was this um tuna um appetizer starter which was like wrapped in these basil leaves and i had to pick the basil leaves but i had to pick them in a special way where you kind of had to put it you put the put the very base of the basil leaf between your thumb down on your fingertip and press it you know it was a very specific way of you know they were that they were that insane and it was just like this magical alchemy you know this kind of alchemy of of the boxes turning up at fucking 8am whenever it was and then you've you've just got this in just this building pressure building pressure building pressure and then this service and i just i mean i mean i'm going on about it now because i loved it so much but and so that's where the book came from really i was just became obsessed with this whole this whole world after doing that story the we're going to get on to the book and the storytelling piece but i used to work for i was i was basically the runt who used to deliver i used to um well f looney i had no fucking idea what i was doing i was like right i'm gonna go and work for a cheese wholesaler as a man in a van and ironically it gave me a bit of time because i could basically listen to loads of podcasts this is six seven years ago so it actually kind of did work out but i remember going to i remember seeing the underbelly of the ritz in london and delivering cheese and i was like this this is fucking insane i was like this is just so wild and you see in the rich and if you've if you ever get the joy to go down to the kitchen you can just see the meritocracy and and and actually the state the status um because the because the head chef's a guy called john uh williams john williams actually um but then what i think where why i love food so much especially kitchens and i've interviewed loads of chefs on this podcast is you have that you have the the status and the meritocracy but then that turns into storytelling and what the end consumer gets it pretty much every chef i've spoken to as they say the plate of food is is in a way some sort of story that's coming from their soul so even though they're like these ironclad fist kind of pumping chefs there is a there's a story in there as well um so yes i'd love to know so so that's kind of your time in australia is is is where you kind of got that addiction to the high octane high pressure environment how did you because what what you say in um in in the science of storytelling is is that we relate to our character main characters and in some respect how did you relate to killian killian lone like i think you say who we are as how we're broken like how was how was killing loan in that some respect broken and how are you kind of maybe broken in that in that way as well that that's a really good question then um that's a really quite quite profound question really um i suppose so killian's character is broken in the sense that he has a very unhappy relationship with his mother in in the novel she's she's actively abusive um my parents weren't actively abusive but but it wasn't a happy loving you know childhood and um and that uh is really the fuel that it's i mean the killian known as a tragedy like i should tell you the the premise really so he's this it's set in in eight in the 80s in the kind of birth of you know the beginnings of the nouvelle cuisine era where new was taking around the old French style of the heavy sauces and the butters and the creams.

11:22And it's the, you know, it's the early days of the celebrity chef. You know, it's that, you know, it is very inspired by, you know, reading about Marco at Harvey's and all that kind of era. And he is desperate to be successful. You know, his brokenness makes him incredibly ambitious. You know, he has to prove himself. and he's got this um beloved aunt that leaves him this that dies and leaves in this cottage in the middle of nowhere in wales and he finds out that his um his ancestor was a was a cook for the local king you know hundreds of years ago and she he finds this abandoned herb garden with all these kind of forgotten herbs and one of the herbs in it was it has these kind of semi-magical properties that that is just almost addictive and he finds out that his ancient ancestor was actually sort of burnt as a witch at the stake and and he starts using this herb as a cook and ends up becoming this you know the first you know really not the first famous chef but like you know what one of the early kind of big celebrity chefs and of course because he cheats he ends up you know getting his comeuppance in quite a big way so that's really the story as I say it is a fairy story it's um you know it's a fairy tale it's kind of magical realism um but but it's really a book about um ambition really and about when ambition can go too far and when ambition could couldn't couldn't become corruptive and in the end and to answer your question i think what what i feel i have in common with with killian in the novel is is that sense of the ambition comes from being being made to feel like a failure by your parents a lot being made to feel like you know you're a loser you're never going to get well my parents used to tell me i was going to end up in prison i was going to end up in care i was going to be on the streets that was the relentless message I got from my mum and dad when I was growing up so I think that's what I've got in common with with him hey guys thank you so much for watching this video honestly means the absolute world to me um I'd be so grateful for a small favor please it is so hard on the youtube channel it's so bloody hard um if you please enjoy these videos just click the subscribe button um more subscribers equals bigger guests bigger guests equals better conversations and hopefully you can learn more as you build your food drink brand thank you so so much there's a quote by gordon ramsay which i love which is the velocity of jeopardy and it's basically he talks about you know his he had a kind of really harsh upbringing uh was a failed footballer yeah uh didn't make it into rangers but that that kind of setback gave him this as he says the velocity of jeopardy and what i why i related to your work so much and it's kind of been um because i feel all those things not my i've got a very good relationship with my parents but school just predicted me just to do shit basically and it gave me this neurotic maniacal kind of drive with this podcast and everything i've done but then even in the last even when i was reading your books like i was looking thinking why am i why am i actually doing this when i go to the deeper surface level is this like because this is just a bit nuts like how obsessed i am with it but but i think what you said that's when ambition become goes too far and corrupt and that's something i haven't actually talked about a lot because especially in this kind of selfie um selfie status driven world we're in now is it feels like today and i was just thinking this in the gym if you're not wearing a whoop if you're not doing a 10k fucking run if you're not doing an ice bath like the the the level of perfectionism is so up here now than never before that you're just constantly made to feel like if you're not banging out a 10k run before you've had your cocoa pops that you're an idiot do you know what I mean um which is crazy yeah yeah I mean I was always I was always interested in that Gordon Ramsay kind of you know foundations of it being failed footballer because it because you know as I'm sure you know he was a great enemy of A.A.

15:25Gill, who was a big hero of mine in the... Yes, I love A.A. Gill. ...once threw Gill out of his restaurant and all that stuff. But Gill was the same. I think Gill was... Was it football? But Gill... Was he a failed artist? But they both had that same thing where they felt like, in their early life, they felt like they'd failed. And Ramsey had been given another chance to succeed in another sphere. And so did Gill as a writer. Yeah, I think Gill was a failed painter. and they both had the same thing where they just thought, shit, you know, like I thought I'd failed, but I've got one more chance.

16:01And they both kind of ran at it with everything. And not that I would ever compare myself to a girl, but I had the same thing. You know, I failed all my exams at school. I had an alcohol problem in my 20s. While all my friends at uni, I was working in a shop. And I felt I'd failed too and then got the chance in my mid-20s to write for a national magazine. and it was it was that thing of fuck you know like i don't believe in god but like god's given me one more chance not to be a fuck up so it's so it's that like shit you know like this is it now i've either got to do this or i'm done so so so yeah i i ran at it with everything and i think you do see in the in the influencer sphere like you know i'm sure you're aware there's been a recent set of cancels in on you about youtube is sort of plagiarizing you know um people and it's all these super ambitious i think wherever you get a a status game a sphere where people can can earn plenty of status you're always going to get that that that kind of crust of people who who want it a bit too much and push it a bit too far yeah and also i think the uh the a.a gill thing is really interesting because his book he's got that book poor me which is spelled p-o-u-r it's one of the best kind of autobiographies i've ever His writing style and his prose is just, it's electric.

17:19I mean, I write every day. Like the podcast has came, I write a weekly newsletter all about kind of food and brands and stuff. But I feel like writing for me is this kind of, it takes a lot of this force that's in my head, which is just loads of busy thoughts. And it kind of takes that negative and like flushes it into something positive, which is ultimately what's on the page. I'd love to know what does writing do for you? like yeah on on a really deep level what does it do for you how's it useful oh god um well that's another another sort of really big question so i mean i i i mean you know of course of course i've written a book about status it's it's it's my status game is writing it's what i do to feel like i'm i have value in the world it's what i do to feel like i'm you know i'm quite good at something um and it's something to always throw yourself out like i always feel like there's a there's a lot of space to become a lot better at it so i'm always trying to become better at it but but it's also um yeah i mean you know it's it it it's most of my identity i would say you know like like i like i'm not a parent i'm not a footballer i'm not an artist i'm not a musician um you know almost all of what I am is is a is a writer so it's given me a it's given me a like a functional life to live I think what you said there about being an identity is is so interesting and and I thought one one thing I'd love to know and this is I'm asking for my own kind of personal help here very selfishly is how to how to separate your status and worth from your work like i don't do you see what i mean because it's like yeah i don't know how how to do that and it's um and then i'm this book's maybe been thinking a lot mate i mean a lot of walks i'm thinking am i just is my only identity this fucking podcast is this these these deeper questions but how did how did you um navigate that well i i i mean so i i guess just sort of contextually to explain kind of how it works and and how how being a human works and you know humans like every other animal are in we live in we live in a realm of pure survival where we are programmed to seek food and water and shelter and defend ourselves when we're attacked.

19:50And in this way, we're like every other animal that's ever existed. And then we're also like the plants. We're not particularly special. But what makes us special is that we also live in this story world. We live in a narrative world, a world in which we are not flesh and blood, but we're an identity. We're a concept that exists in our mind and in the minds of the people that we share our lives with. You know, and that's our identity. And for human beings, your identity is pretty much everything. I mean, once you've taken care of survival, our identity is the most valuable thing we own. Our identity is worth more than gold.

20:29I mean, our identity is worth more than life. People kill themselves when their identity is destroyed. people kill themselves when their identity is starved of the it's essential nutrients which is basically connection to other people and status in the world so so you know especially in this individualist neoliberal western environment which is sort of based a lot around success based status part of your identity is always going to be what you do for a living if you if you if you do something for a living and especially if it's something you care about if it's something that you get status from it is going to be a component part of your identity uh which of course you know as you kind of hint towards it puts you at risk because if the if your podcast something goes wrong with it or if you know like if it stops being successful then you stop being successful as a person and and and that's just a reality you know that that that that's just how your identity works you know the more connection and status that your job provides you the more central it is to your identity and i think the way to protect yourself from that is to play multiple status games so so to have more than one important source of status in your life now you know you're a young man at your age i don't i don't know if i would even recommend that too strongly because i think in your 20s and 30s you you know you're building the rest of your life you know if you if you nail it in your 20s and 30s your 40s and 50s and 60s it's going to be much easier um because because you'll because by the time you're 40 you'll you'll be someone in the world um you know even more than you are now so so so i would say that you're you're probably doing all right at the moment you know you've got a successful podcast you're making a success of it you're learning how to how to do something so but but i think is when you when you hit 40 and 50 that's when you need to start hedging you need to start playing you know different status games so so that would be my recommendation you need to have sort of multiple parts of your identity rather than just one what so yeah because we talked about you were saying like a big part of my status and identity is is will store the writer what are some of the other games you've put in place to kind of detach uh or put all your eggs in the will store writer basket if that makes sense the big one is i joined the samaritans so so like i volunteer for the samaritans now you know the the charity the the crisis hotline so people who phone up when they're in distress They're often suicidal.

22:56So that's the major thing I did. I realized that, you know, I'm just playing these success games and there's no, you know, the other big way that humans, humans own status with success and competence, but also with virtue, with offering something virtuous to the world. So I thought I should try and play a virtue game, too. So I joined the Samaritans a couple of years ago. um and yeah so so that's so that's now become another part of my identity that's that's something you know when i'm at the samaritans i'm not a writer i don't feel like a writer i feel like a different version of me so so that's that's something else that i do which is which is which has now become a big part of my life i mean i have to you have to do sort of four hours a week minimum at the samaritans so it's a so it's a big investment of time is there anything else you anything else you do because i'm just thinking people listening to this who basically see their brand or their business as them to the to the point where as we said it becomes corruptive or unhealthy that that ambition is there anything else you've implemented well i think the other thing the other important thing is is connection i mean you know i've written a whole book about status but but equally important is that we feel connected to other people and actually that that's surprisingly what i've found also with with samaritans when you're on a call with somebody that there are lots of strict rules in place you're not allowed to talk about yourself they call it self-disclosure you know you're there for the court and not for you um so so you let's send your name but that's that's about if you want to but but that's about it um and but but even despite that i find that that um you you have these extremely profound conversations with people you know you're there by their side really going into their kind of story world at some of the worst points in their life and before I joined the Samaritans despite the fact I'm happily married you know I felt quite lonely you know I didn't have much of a social life and I don't feel lonely anymore you know when I when I when I've had a shift I feel connected I feel connected into the human world in some sort of profound and important way so that's one thing I mean another thing which is a bit more facile is I've joined CrossFit so you know you know so And again, I found that is, you know, that was partly just for vanity because, you know, when you get to my age, you start getting a middle age spread and it's just horrifying.

25:17But again, I found that the unexpected gift of CrossFit. And actually, the thing that keeps me going there is that I really enjoy the communal aspect of it. Just sort of being there and going through almost like a shift in a kitchen, going through hell together. It has an incredibly kind of bonding effect. hmm yeah i think it's what i love what you said there is there's there can be i think i don't know what i've listened to a lot of your podcast mate but there's one when you said there's almost infinite status games which is really reassuring for type a neurotic hyper ambitious people is you can create either something deep and meaningful i.e the samaritans or something kind of which i still think is pretty profound is the uh is the crossfit but any kind of connection i think uh you know, a lot of people now are kind of running, joining these running clubs.

26:06There are these other games you can play that isn't your main thing. You talked about your... Yeah, and you know, the mission is our chefs get involved with stupid running and they become super athletic and do 18 marathons. And it's something that they're so competitive. I'm obsessed with the chefs. Like, I think they're the most interesting, some of the most interesting characters I've ever met. Like, I'm trying to think, I interviewed Paul Ainsworth, who's down in Cornwall, Tommy Banks, who's up north. His velocity of jeopardy is he was meant to be a cricketer. Not meant to be a cricketer, wasn't that some divine intervention you were going to play in the ashes?

26:50But he got this disease when he was 18, and he had this bug or something that meant he was bedridden for 18 months, couldn't get out of bed. but all he did was watch trickery programs and then he came out swinging and that was his velocity of, uh, velocity of jeopardy. And he won fucking great British menu and he's now the huge Michelin star chef. Um, but I, but I love that addictive, addictive part, part of them. And I, I definitely have that kind of addictiveness in me. You talked about that. So you're working in this shop, you're in your twenties, your parents basically said, look, you know, we don't think you're going to account too much if that's the nicest way of putting it um you talk about um now in fact in fact first i'd love to know what character best resembles do you relate to the most out of all the fiction books you've read uh resembles you in your in that period in in that kind of in the wilderness period for will store well back on your feet um i i think the point of the character in fiction i've most ever related to was is um a character called arturo bandini and there's a there was a writer john fanta he was writing in mid-century 20 mid-century 20th century in los angeles and i and i just fell in love with arturo bandini um he i was reading him at the same age and he was a character who was he was desperately trying to be a writer he was thinly disguised he was that you know john fanta was basically writing autobiography but just changing his name you know very briefly and and And then his most famous novel is Ask the Dust.

28:27And it's about his kind of doomed obsession, kind of love obsession with this Mexican waitress that she just wanted nothing to do with him because he was a lunatic. And I think that's the character that I most, you know, he had this, he had, like me, he was out of Catholic upbringing, you know, this Catholic guilt and Catholic, you know, worries around sex and love and always kind of hang ups and just the kind of desperation and the craziness. and it's just a beautiful book one of my prized possessions when he finished his manuscript he wrote a long letter to send to his agent saying this is my novel and it was such a great letter that you can now buy for a time, there is a limited edition book and it begins he says I didn't need to write a plot for this, my second novel i loved her and she hated me and that is my story and it's like oh you know just the brutal simplicity of that i just absolutely um i absolutely loved it so so yeah probably arturo bandini is the character that i've most related to what's books that in sorry i because i read loads i just find this is i'm being very selfish i just find this interesting the most famous one's called ask for dust um but but there's a book that came before that called the road to los angeles which which which I prefer actually, I think it's because the Rose of the Dust, the Arse of the Dust is this kind of brutal doomed love book.

29:54But the Rose of the Sanchez is similar, but it's also very funny. You know, it has lots of comedy, it has lots of humour in the Rose of the Sanchez. So I like that one. And of course, Charles Bukowski, who is much more famous than John Fante, was hugely inspired by Fante to the extent where Bukowski was worried, because I think when Fante died, there was a little resurgence in interest in him. and Bukowski was worried that Fante was going to become famous because they never would know where he stole all these tricks from. So, so, so yeah, Bukowski is hugely, um, is hugely influenced by, by Fante and they're, they're both published by the Black Sparrow press.

30:31So, um, so, so, so if you like Bukowski, you'll, you'll love Fante. Cause he, he wrote post office, didn't he? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's yeah. I've, yeah, I've read that. I think the way that the disregard for like the, I can't remember the main character's name, but there's sort of the disregard for the sort of fuck it's everything in that book is yes it's just yeah i don't know how you pronounce it i've only ever read it but henry chynasky like is the way yeah but he does exactly the same thing like chynasky is bakowski just as bandini is fanta you know they're just writing thinly very very thinly veiled autobiography and and so you so i want to kind of go into this period where we've talked about you kind of yeah being being in the wilderness which i think everyone goes through in some respects you get this this gift to by to become a writer like talk me through that six months what does that look like and what does that feel like in your soul well so so so what it was was what whilst i was um at school failing at everything um i i was hanging out at a in in i was brought up in summer as well as in kent and there was a study as a venue there was started it was called the rumble club all these bands would come through i remember suede came through and they got paid 80 pounds so it was the bit it was sort of pre-brit pop when all these bands were very small and they would they would come through green day played there you know it's literally like 150 venue it's incredible a little place it was um and they had a they had a a fanzine which they would use to you know like a photocopied diy magazine which they would use to use to promote the gigs um so there would be interviews with the bands and you know listings and stuff um and i was into rock music and they were they were much cooler than me these people at the rumble club they were into indie music uh they were like 10 years older than me and i was like literally 14 and you know getting drunk on woodpecker cider at the rumble club and they um that one of them asked me one time do you want to write a little rock column in them in in in it was called spiel in this magazine i was like yeah definitely i'd love to do that um so i started doing that and And then his name's David, David Jarvis.

32:40He really gave me my first break. He decided he had enough of a spiel at some point when I was about 19 and said, do you want to take it over? So I took the whole thing over. And by then the Rumble Club was then moved to the Forum, which was like a public toilet, which they converted. And it's still there, still going strong, the Forum. And so that's what I would do. I was working in the record shop. It was the grungier. I had the long hair and everything. And I would interview all the bands. I would hang out with the local bands. It was a big sort of music scene. And then one time there was a magazine called Loaded, like a men's magazine in the 90s, early 2000s.

33:17And somebody from Loaded read a couple of record reviews that I'd done and thought they were good. So asked me, do you want to write a story for Loaded? And I was like, yeah, I definitely do. So I did. I wrote two or three stories for them. And then because I was at a job, I think I had like two, is it four weeks off a year i got the the minimum the legal minimum i've only got four weeks off a year i think it is and i'd used up all my holiday period so i said i can't do any more writing for you for a year because because or however long it was nine eight nine months because because i've got no holiday left and the guy went you fucking prick and he put the phone down he's it i just thought oh that's that that's that then but then they found the job for me they they thought well the only way we're going to get be able to he's going to write for us is if we find a job for him So they found that they hired me as a full time staff writer.

34:08So it was just amazing. I mean, it was amazing. It was incredible. It was literally like a gift from the gods. You know, it was just like I couldn't believe because I always used to read loaded. I used to love it. I used to think it was hilarious and crazy magazine. And so to be writing for them was just. And as I say, that's why I was always interested in Ramsey and Gill's origin stories, because it felt the same for me. it was in my mid-twenties I'd fucked everything up um and um and I was given this incredible opportunity to succeed in something so I just ran at it with everything that I had the I think Gil didn't well Gil was dyslexic so a lot of what he did was was speak into a um uh like a oh god I mean I've read every single thing of I think he's amazing he's amazing especially the way he writes about food it's just like wow yeah reading his reading his prose you're just like that it's just insane but but then i so i get it so you get given this opportunity but like how do you actually become because because i remember i think it was in selfie i was reading this yesterday is the one when you tee up the story and you introduce sigmund freud i said like sig but the way you take the way you tie that anything like oh and that was sigmund freud at the end i was like reading that i was thinking fucking hell because so much non-fiction is so um just kind of pallid and just just can be quite quite bland but yeah So how did you, what are the reps you did to run it and actually get really good at storytelling?

35:34Like, was it reading? Obviously it was reading and writing, but what does it actually look like? Well, honestly, I have to thank Loaded Magazine for that. Even though today people look back at Loaded Magazine as if it was some terrible porn mag. When I started there, it was actually staffed by people who really cared a lot about their writing. A lot of really good writers. And there's a writer called Michael Holden who, when I started, he said, you've got to read this book. And the book was called The New Journalism, a collection of journalism by Tom Wolfe. And it was compiled, I think, in the late 60s, early 70s.

36:11And he said, this is what you're doing. They call it long form now, but at the time they called it feature writing. It's what feature writers do. And it basically, The New Journalism opens with this prologue called Like a Novel. and Tom Wolfe tells a story about the discovery that by Esquire magazine another men's magazine in the 60s this idea where you could actually write non-fiction using the skills of the novelist and this just again this is so just I could just blew my mind because because because I went from when I was writing my own stuff for my magazine I never thought about the writing I just it was just filling space just bashed it down you know I never considered it to be in anything like an art form um but but but it reframed it for me and it said you know non-fiction is you know it can be every bit as creative and powerful as literature um and so and the culture the status game loaded at the time when i started it it went wrong very rapidly but when i started it was still the old culture where you get these incredibly ambitious male writers and this sort of slightly bully boy super aggressive climate but but the competition was who's the best writer and people people would upload it would compete everything's like who can write the best first sentence because because the first because because it loaded you were judged by your first sentence if you if you had a great first sentence you know it was like you being like judged by knife skills and the other thing is like um you know your structure who can get away with the craziest most batshit insane structure and still get it printed still get it past the editors so that was how people competed in in those days and like one of one of the rules that loaded um which i've never heard anywhere else about first sentences was that you're not allowed to start a first sentence with a quote the word i the word the or someone's name and and that that was the kind of unwritten rule i was told by the editor and and so it was one of these things like jesus like that really forces you to think and so that's that so and i like you know 25 years later i still do that so if you if you pick up any of my books i never start with a quote with a name with the word i or with the it always starts somewhere else and it forces you to you know think really creatively about how to open up a story so so so all of that that you've talked about honestly it was drilled into me at loaded by by by the writers there at loaded who took what they did extremely seriously and competed with each other extremely seriously about who could be the the best writer it's interesting what you said about if i was 18 and worked in a kitchen i would have i would have become a chef it's almost a bit late later on you got that high octane uh environment but instead of as you said chopping a an onion you're chopping your first sentence and i think it's really interesting what would you say is that is your favorite sense of opening line you've ever written in your opinion oh no you're asking me to choose between my children let's pick let's pick a few and i'd love i'd love to go into the into how you you um how you chop and chop and change them my first book which i started slightly disowned these days was was was based on a loaded story it um it was the yeah so when in the first six months i loaded i wrote a story about ghost hunter in america and it won an award so i i wrote a book about ghosts and the book begins don't freak out that's rule number one so i really like that because it's just sort of you know and that's pure that that's a hundred percent in the loaded style that's just you know following those rules just um um just just just gets you straight into the story in a way that that that that i think i just think is really powerful it really works when i'm teaching people non-fiction these days i i also tell them to sort of try and try and think this way and because i think as as as i say i think the storytelling and fiction uh sorry so not non-fiction is actually any business leader that can get really powerful at telling stories it's kind of i believe uh a passport to the to the top like an email a subject email line if written with a with a really great hook is just can um can really get get meetings you shouldn't really be allowed to have do you mean or yeah if you're trying to write to your team and convey convey emotion um being able to do that in like a compelling way is is is so valuable and i think um seth godin says is that you know writing is thinking so the more kind of lucid you can get with your thinking and polish it and cut it the better you're going to be be presenting what would you say are some so we talked about um the hook in your um first book you wrote what are some of the of your other kids your other uh favorite one my favorite one and it's definitely my successful one because it's the one that that i saw lots on twitter that's my the science of storytelling begins we know how this ends you're going to die and so is everyone you love so so so so that that I think that's probably the beginning I'm proudest of because it's a bit of a punch around the old chops, that one.

41:33And just seeing how it was responded to on Twitter and stuff, that first paragraph of the science of stories, I think people really liked. And again, that was my very early days loaded training that taught me how to do that stuff. and then what is your kind of creative process or discipline i should say uh i don't know if you've ever read the war of art which is by stephen pressfield which is the have you ever read that like the the no i think i've got it oh it's very good so it's about like just get showing up putting your he says put your ass where your heart wants to be which is basically sit at the fucking lap right laptop and write i think this is such a great way of putting it yeah yeah what's what's your daily is it like early morning loads of coffee smash it out is it late at night what are the kind of the idiosyncrasies in your uh process to create these insane books well well i mean it's not really about the daily the daily for me i mean it's just i mean i have ordinary days where you know you know i i basically i can write a thousand words a day it doesn't matter if i really try and write i can i can i can literally write two or three thousand words but they're terrible if but i can't write any more than a thousand good words a day that's no matter what i do that that that's the rule so i say it tends to be 500 in the morning and 500 in the afternoon and emails and whatever else in between those things but but for me the real secret is that i tend to i two once or twice maybe three times a year i'll go away for a few weeks to a to a hotel somewhere with a huge amount of books and i will just spend that time in a very intense phase of reading um trying to figure stuff out um and you know doing three or four hour walks every day processing what i've been reading and putting things together so so all of my non-fiction books have been really put together conceptually in in in in nice hotels you know around the world mostly in asia so so i remember you know it was most of um most of the sons of toy selling was put together in you know in a hotel in ho chi min city you know that's when i was figuring it all out um my most the book that i've just finished i was at the i was in the obroy in um mumbai for three weeks a couple of years ago and that's when i was having lots of eureka moments figuring out what this book is um so so that that's the secret like when i do these trips away it does feel like you've done about sort of four months work in three weeks it's so it's so incredibly intense because one of the things that i do is i don't adjust my internal clock so so i'll wake up at local time midday or two in the afternoon um and then when you know when i'm at home i have to get up i have to walk the dog all that stuff you literally just turn over turn it open your laptop open the kindle app and you're gone and you're in so there's no fucking around and then and then you know three or four hour walk you're back another hour another walk and then you work until two or three in the morning local time four in the morning because you've not adjusted um and it's just so you're kind of doing these um effectively sort of 15 hour days but it doesn't feel like that somehow um and it's just extremely intense and and i come back with what i feel like is this big bag of gold you know all these amazing ideas um all these connections that i've made um so that's really the kind of if i have a secret to what i do it's it's these sort of incredibly intense trips that i do away yeah it's i love learning authors creative process i don't know whether it's bullshit or not but have you ever seen hunter s thompson's like daily routine which is just when he just has like it's just fucked up he has like it's just like 9 a.m cocaine ciggies then it's like more it's like whether it's it's probably yeah you know i read his wife was very skeptical about those stories.

45:22I think there's a good idea. Didn't she say something like, well, the Road to Los Angeles didn't write itself? You know, like, I think, I think, I'm sure that there's a lot of myth-making going on. For sure. Like, he's another absolute genius. But, yeah, I mean, a lot of hard work went into those incredible books. And I'm not sure I believe that it was fucked up. Yeah, they sound, yeah, it's kind of like a gospel or kind of a living memory of him. But why Asia? What does Asia do for you as a place to go and pull these ideas together? I'm just curious. Well, I mean, on a very practical level, it's the safest part of the planet.

46:04Like I feel when I'm doing some of these walks, I'm on my own late at night, sometimes with a nice camera around my neck, and I feel safe. But I've not gone to the Philippines. The Philippines I wouldn't do on my own because I think that's quite dangerous. But like China, India, Japan, Vietnam, you know, I've always felt mostly completely safe in these in these countries. So that's that's one of the main reasons. But also sort of beyond that, it just there's something about Asia, which I just find completely addictive. It's just there's just, you know, an energy in the streets. I love the tropical heat of sort of Vietnam or Bangkok is another favourite of mine.

46:47So there's just an energy and, you know, just the neon and the kind of buzz in the streets. I just I just don't I've never been anywhere else in the world like it, including sort of New York and all those kind of cliche places. It just feels like there's this energy in Asia that I just find really magical, whether it's Calcutta or Bangkok or even a city like Tokyo. Yeah. And also I think some of the Japanese writers. So the obvious one is Murakami, but there's the other Murakami whose writing's insane. It's like he has these fucked up kind of like horror kind of stories. But yeah, there's something in the Japanese.

47:30I always see like the Japanese writing is a bit like that. Well, Murakami's at least is a bit like the sushi in terms of it's just so simplistic. There's like, there's no fat on it at all. Everything's cut away. So, so when you take these walks, like what's that? Cause you see, you come back with bags of gold, like talk me through how that kind of works for you. Well, it's really about making connections. um um often what i'm doing is i'm reading books of psychology books because lots of my books are based around psychology and i suppose the thing about academia one of the things about academia is it's very siloed so so so you know you know necessarily that they've got a very deep deep but very narrow expertise um so so what you're often doing is you're um making connections that maybe other people haven't made so so i mean the the obvious one being with the science of storytelling where um um you know psychologists and neuroscientists are writing about um the importance of change to perception for example or they're writing about um human domestic self domestication where where you know where humans had to suddenly become extremely interested in human behavior and the behavior of the humans and of course an evolutionary psychologist is not going to be thinking about storytelling because that's not their job that's not what they're thinking about but i am so so so what you're doing is you read these books going but you know hang on a minute that you know if we've evolved to be deeply interested in the internal life of other people that's storytelling like that that you know that's why we've become deeply interested in storytelling because storytelling is this this deep investigation into the internal lives of other people so so that's kind of what you're doing and and that's something for my next book the book was out in february um which is called a story is a deal there was lots of that you know lots of thinking about um there's a concept in evolutionary psychology that they call joint attention which is um this idea that it was a crucial part of our evolution as humans because other animals can't do that thing where they're both looking at the same thing and problem and trying to solve it in the same way and trying to figure out how together we can solve this thing so it's and in order to do that you have to have you have to have the ability of joint attention and and from i'm thinking well that's that's also storytelling that that's what happens when everyone's experiencing a story is that they all everybody in the cinema everybody in the theater is having this incredible experience of joint attention everyone's experiencing the same world the same goals the same obstacles the same characters so that's that's kind of what you're doing on the walks really is that you're reading all these books and then on the walks your your Your brain's kind of sifting through and you're thinking, you know, is that that?

50:17Am I right in thinking that and that is the same thing? And sometimes you're wrong, you know. So you're just kind of figuring it all out. You're kind of letting the three or four books you've read over the last couple of days kind of blend and kind of talk to each other and connect with each other. The joint attention thing is fascinating and kind of teased me up where I want to take this next. in terms of the storytelling is kind of the the thread that uh like goes through kind of humans in terms of this collectivism and allows us to do things that as you say no no other animal can um i think steve jobs has got a quote which is like the greatest or the storyteller is the most important person in the room which i love because i think this will help a lot of people are listening to this in terms of you can tell great stories like i really believe sales is essentially a stories and what you've said there the story's a deal is is is really clever but i think to start with i'd love to know um what the relationship between sort of status storytelling and selfie is like how they how they into into interweave first and then second like what is the how can a brand infiltrate that space do you see what i mean uh so for example i was writing about this the other day is there's kind of just do it by nike is is kind of a story they're using and when i if i do a gym session my lonsdale fucking trackies then it's not going to be as good as if i i get my new nike just do it ones on because that's told me a bit of a story that is where i'm trying to i don't know if that helps set the premise of this um so yeah i'd love to know kind of what the difference sorry how the state of storytelling and selfie are linked and then how brands can begin to kind of infiltrate that world yeah okay so it really sort goes back to what we're saying before about the story world that humans live in we live in these two two realities at once we live in the physical reality with the same as all the other plants and animals where we're interested in survival um oxygen food shelter that kind of stuff but we spend most of our time in the story world and the story world is the place of identity it's a place where we have feuds and goals and adventures.

52:50And we exist in the physical world as this bag of bones and blood and meat, but we exist in the story world as this identity. We're a character. It's a semi-fictional character. But that character, that identity is extremely important to us. And evolutionarily speaking, it was important to us because you can think of it as our reputation. if our if we had a good reputation in the tribe in the stories the tribe would tell of each other then everything would get better um uh but if we had a bad reputation we could we could be ostracized from the tribe kicked out the tribe and we could be killed and eaten so so we've evolved to be extremely concerned about our identity about our character in the story world um and so we we measure how well our character our identity is doing in in two different ways the first way is by how connected we are to other people so as a tribal animal you know we program to want to feel we have belonging um and that we that we are um uh connected into a group groups of people that understand the world in the same way as we do so so you know like so people like us we gather into these we flock into these kind of tribes of people like us and we have to feel connected to the human world in that way and the second way is status we have to feel like those people like us that we connected to that we're not just connected to them but they value us they let that they think that we are worth something that we have their respect so we want to be connected and respected as those two kinds of ways and and and those are those are the two things that that brands offer they that they offer connection and they offer status they offer connection by saying if you want to be a by by telling a story of these are our brand values this is the world as we understand it this is what we want in the world and if you agree with it with the story that they're telling then you you feel this urge to connect with them so if you identify with um the the story the vision of the world that nike projects then you're going to seek to connect with it um And the same with status.

55:03We use things which offer us status in the story world, the signal that we are somewhat successful. So those are the two ways that brands can use these ideas is that understanding that they're offering connection and status. They're kind of telling a tribal story. I mean, you know, one example of this is with CrossFit. Like, CrossFit, everybody wears... metcon shoes nike metcons and so now i wear nike metcons shoes you know because everybody does And then when you see everybody's got the Metcon shoes and you feel part of their gang. And so I'm sure that is a good shoe. I have no idea. But I know that I feel connected into that group because everybody wears Metcons.

55:55And Nike has done a great job of, I don't know if it's just our CrossFit box or whether it's all of them. I suspect it's all of them. But they've done a great job in creating a shoe that says, if you're in the know, you know that somebody wearing Metcons is probably a CrossFitter. and and so that's a way that they're offering you know connection into that tribe it's so interesting because obviously the week we're recording this it was a marathon on sunday and i was there watching my mate run and i was like right fuck it i'm a runner now right this is me becoming the hero of my in terms of this i was looking for the storytelling of the race on sunday you know the the buzz ricocheting through london i was like well i want some status and i I want connection to this, to this group.

56:40I'm just talking, I mean, this is actually what was happening the last 24 hours. So I was like, screw it. I'm going to go to this runner's need, which is this shop where they, they put you on the treadmill to kind of test what your legs are like when, when you run. I don't know if it's a load of bollocks, but it's great salesman salesmanship. And I really wanted a pair of these, those on running shoes. I don't know if you've seen, Oh, they're like, Oh, N. No, I don't know those. But yeah, they're kind of like, they're not like a, they're a bit like another version of a Metcon, but in my head, I really wanted those ones.

57:11Anyway, so the bloke comes outside and comes out and it's like, mate, I've got you some Brooks ones and some Asics ones. And I'm like, yeah, cool, mate. I know they might be better for my foot, but I want, I want the on ones. And even though I put the on ones on and they were just markedly less comfortable, but I think it kind of, to what you've just said there is we want, we want status and we want connection. And then the storytelling is almost the thing is, is the beacon that that you know says and as seth godin says tribes like we're trying to pull a together yeah story's a deal a story the deal the the deal of any every archetypal story makes a deal with with people and the deal is always about connection and status if you think about um a fairy tale um uh or you know the kind of tales that the children are told that they're always got a lesson in them and that lesson is this is how you should behave if you behave like a like a hero people are going to love you and admire you and that's connection and status but if you behave like a villain like a bad person you're going to be rejected and disrespected and you know you're going to be low status so archetypal storytelling always has that deal um subconsciously plugged into it it's always offering it's always telling you it's always offering you a deal do do as the hero does do as the story is telling you to do and you can get connection and status and brand stories are exactly the same but it's by our product and you get connection to this group you get status in this group um you can think about um um you know coffee brands in the same way you know mcdonald's coffee starbucks coffee monmouth coffee company the coffee isn't that different if we're honest it's kind of very similar a latte and one or the other you know maybe it's a bit stronger but but but but what what those brands are offering are different stories you know what story do you want to tell about yourself well i mean for lots of people they don't want a mcdonald's coffee they want the monmouth coffee because when they drink a mcdonald's coffee it makes a bad deal with them makes me feel low status it connects me into this fast food shitty world that i don't want to be identified with i want to be identified with monmouth coffee which is all about single origin and looking after the farmers so so so so you know even those coffee shops if you can call it on you know the mcafe um versus the starbucks versus the monmouth they're all you walk into those shops you're walking into a different story world you're walking into a different you know that and and and they're they're they are selling coffee but what they're really selling is a story um and and it's a story about you you know it's a story about it's not really about their coffee it's a story about you when i drink monmouth i feel like a different person to when i drink starbucks and then feel like a different person to drink a mcafe you know for 149 even though i that they're not they're not radically different drinks beyond strength the what it's what we're talking about then uh before this is like how brands infiltrate the kind of the storytelling status and um and you've said kind of status and connection storytelling half the reason you know only like the oat milk so oat milk oat milk was a category that was like a shit house at the bottom of the um crusty kind of old yeah health stores in yeah you know kind of in the like forest row kind of places no one was really drinking it what oatly did so shrewdly is they infiltrated all these hipster baristas where there's a lot of connection a lot of status they got into all the best london coffee shops and because they were in there they got status connection they could build this tribe around there and then once they had this kind of bubbling furnace of kind of diehard zealots of the brand the story spread um which which is wild say you're a brand owner and you are trying to you've got a delicious product whatever running shoes it could be jam it could be chili oil it could be whatever and you're trying to create a better story around your brand to attract more of a diehard tribe who gain status and connection from that story because to preface this is i see a lot of brands who don't have the best story in the world which means they're just quite vanilla they're a bit meh yeah what i mean yeah how would you go about doing that say you're say you're a founder and i know it's quite a big uh go through there well i i think if there's one thing it's specificity i i think bad brands bad bad brand storytelling is usually very vague and it's trying to appeal to everybody at once and if you're trying to appeal to everybody you you know you appeal to you appeal to nobody i think it's a it's a case of you know identifying the people that the group the group of the tribe or the group of people like us that you want to appeal to and you really need to you you need to sort of jump into their story world and find out about their values find out what stories they tell each other find out about their heroes and their villains and then it's just a case of reflecting that story world back at them in a way that they recognize that they identify with you know that moment that they they see they see that brand and go yeah that's that's me you know is the moment you kind of got them and and that's what you're trying to do you're trying to just reflect we all carry around in our brains this everything we'll ever know about everything the entire world that we exist in the story world that we exist in and it's a world of you know of heroes and villains and we're at the center of it um and it's got symbols and you know everything that you need to um to live everything we'll ever know you know exists in our brain but it but everyone's got a slightly different story world to each other and we're constantly looking for people to connect with that are similar to us that respond to the world that experience the external world in a similar way and those are our friends uh those are the people that we fall in love with and when psychologists look at people who are deeply in love um uh they find that one of the one of the tales is they they finish each other they finish each other sentences all the time i mean my wife and i have this we we have the same thought at the same time we both i always say to what i was about to say that you know so we're so in sync our story worlds are so fused um that that that we are you know in that in that story space in the non-physical space kind of almost not the same person but we've we've fused we've blended and and that's what long-term love is that's what love is that's what friendship is that's what companionship is it's people who who have these similar story worlds that that kind of mesh together um and as a brand you're trying to tap into that you're trying to understand understand you know in a profound sense how does this group of people see the world what's important to them how do they like language is really important how do you how do they talk what language do they use what what symbols are important to them who are their heroes who are their villains and it's just a case of reflecting just even a small part of that back at them you know you'll you'll get them because people will look at that and go yeah that's me and we're always looking to connect with stuff that feels like me because it's it's it's incredibly reassuring It's incredibly validating and empowering to feel like there's, there's other people that have a thing that they're in the world that understand the world in the same way that you do.

1:04:32I'm just thinking of brands that have kind of mimicked that reflection. I suppose the obvious one is that example of me going to the running shop saying, I need fucking ons mate. But I do think, you know, in kind of the young professionals in London Vigas, which are those sort of vegan, you know, the shoes with the V. that loads of a certain type of person has has moved and gravitate towards that and i suppose that's a great example of a brand putting their beacon down saying this is our story this is how you're going to get status and connection uh and then and then obviously the tribe coming and then i suppose the tribe tells the story for you this is what kind of seth godin said to me is that if if the tribe get affiliation i i connection and um and status and actually said the third thing for spreading stories was actually fear like um as as a thing but if you get those three things the story will spread you you talked about the um the the different archetypes of stories and um i know you've talked somewhere about like is it the light the light figure the light figure yes define what the light figure is please will and then who was the light figure in in your life to get you to hear well um so in in in story theory the light figure is a is was a concept a guy called christopher booker came up with in a very brilliant book called um seven basic plots uh kind of a masterpiece really um i think uh and so he so the light figure the classic example he gives um is in scrooge's a christmas dickens is a christmas carol the Scrooge story that you know Scrooge is the hero of that story um obviously he's a miser he's selfish and he learns um to be generous and giving and loving and of course the deal that that classic archetypal story makes is that if you are selfish and giving and loving you will be connected and you will raise in status so it's a classic archetypal story but the light figure in that story the three ghosts so the light figure is ones that come in and help the hero get what they want They show the hero how to get their connection status.