Why Storytelling is the Most Powerful Business Skill (and How to Master It)

0:08Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jans. My guest today is Mike Ganino. He's a creative force behind some of the world's most compelling speakers and thought leaders. As a keynote director, he's helped shape viral TEDx talks, launch bestselling books, and transform leaders at Disney, Netflix, and Adobe into magnetic performers. He's the author of the number one international bestseller we're going to talk about today, Make a Scene, storytelling, stage presence, and the art of being unforgettable in every spotlight. So, Mike, welcome to the show.

0:42Thanks. Thanks for having me. So do magnetic people like stick to stuff? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They just walk around and like they attach themselves to like warehouses and cars and it's a good life. I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself. That was terrible. All right. So storytelling, hot topic. I bet you we're only one month into the year, but I know I've done at least one other show on storytelling. So two things. Why do you think so? And it's such a hot topic. And I suppose the follow-up to that is like, what are you bringing that's different? I think it's such a hot topic because like it fundamentally makes sense.

1:18We get it. We see, you know, storytellers, whether we're watching someone on stage or we're watching a movie, we're watching a play, we're reading fiction. We get that storytelling does something to us. And I think that there's an element of it that the reason why it's this kind of like it's coming up and it's coming up again and it's coming up again is because so much of the education around it out there focuses on the fact that storytelling is important. You should be storytelling. Everyone has a story. But not very many people are actually saying, how do you make a story interesting? Where do you actually start?

1:50And for me, that's what I hope I'm bringing. That's not new, but is definitely different than... And I have so many of the books on the psychology of it, the neuroscience of it, the history of it. But how do you actually... What's the first thing out of your mouth? There's not a lot of great resources on that. Yeah. You know what I'm always fascinated with? I read a lot of stuff, probably verges on anthropology. And, you know, that storytelling was it. Like, that's where it started, right? I mean, that was the only way to communicate necessarily. And you told stories to stay out of being eaten.

2:26You told stories, you know, where the food was. You told stories about, you know, who not to trust on the road. You know, is that sort of in our DNA kind of why you think storytelling, you know, part of what makes storytelling so natural? I think so. I mean, I think and I think there's probably plenty of books out there that talk about that exact thing of like this is by but but we are like wired like in Make a Scene. I wrote about how so much that we could be learning about how to tell more effective stories is about how to trigger a dopamine response from the audience in that anticipation of reward in your story.

3:00And so I don't know, our body chemicals respond to wanting to know what happens next and needing a solution. It's like when you sit down and you watch an episode of Law & Order SVU and your brain, even though you've maybe seen it 27 times, you're just like, ooh, I've got to watch this episode again. Because we want to know what happens next. We want to understand and feel that. And so, yeah, I think it's somewhere in there. Yeah, and then six hours later, you're like, I better go do something else. so it's in the title make a scene so you know what do you mean by that other than it you know cleverly works with the the basis of storytelling as a scene right but there's also you can also interpret that as you know somebody is making a scene you know in a maybe not altogether positive so where are you trying to what line are you trying to straddle i think both you know the idea was that it had that double meaning that often my storytelling advice for people is start in a scene.

3:58A lot of times what we hear, we hear this bad advice again of like, start at the beginning. And it's like, well, maybe not. Maybe we don't need to start at the beginning. Or we'll hear that we need lots of exposition or a great story has XYZ in it. And most of the time, my advice to people is, can you just make a scene for me? Like if I'm the director of this film that you're creating, what would I put in front of the camera? And if the first thing out of your mouth doesn't help me decide what I would film, then we're probably in summary and not in story yet. So make a scene is literally my storytelling advice.

4:31And then secondarily, I just think there's so many people that have read so many books about all the things they shouldn't do when public speaking or going on video. Get rid of your isms and change the way you sound and try to sound deeper. Try to sound less shrill. Don't move your hands too much. Get rid of all of your ums. that I thought, what if we just had a book that was like, all of that can actually be quite effective. And when we see someone do it who is effective, we don't worry about how many times they said at all. Yeah. I saw somebody that I think was one, it was one of the most impactful talks I've heard.

5:07And he leaned against the podium most of the time, but you just were, there was something about it worked for him. Breaks all the rules. Yeah, yeah. In the book I wrote about Monica Lewinsky when she did her TED Talk several years ago, she's one of the only people ever in the history of that to have a podium in front of her on the red dot. Yeah. But it was a device. And at the end, she stepped out from behind it as like taking back her identity. And so that even is don't stand behind a podium. No one at TED is allowed to stand behind a podium, except you can sometimes if you know how to break the rule.

5:41Yeah. So this is dangerous. Is there a definition of great story or great storytelling? Is there a framework? Are there rules? Like, is there, you got to have this and this and this? I mean, that was about eight questions. So take it anywhere you want. But I think the ultimate measurement of a story, and this is why even in the book, I don't go through all of these, like, here's the one framework you need, because you could find 20 examples of that not working. And I think so many people have lost themselves trying to do the, like, I need to tell a hero's journey. And then all of a sudden you're like lost in the dark soul of your night and you don't know where you are or what side.

6:18And you're like, I just want to show them. But Yoda shows up at least. I mean, Yoda's there. Thank goodness. Like, you know, Dios de Machina, he's going to save us. I think that, again, all of the, can the frameworks work? Sure. But I've got 30 books on screenplay writing over here. And if all of the frameworks worked, every single movie would be a runaway hit. It's not. I think the measurement of story is, is the pacing correct? That the audience is kind of like wants to know what happens next. That they're never saying, maybe they're saying to themselves, I can't wait to see where this is going versus where is this going?

6:51You want the first version, not the second. Does it cause an emotional response? Do they hate things? Do they love things? Do they feel things? I think those are ultimately the measurements. And when we start to look at storytelling and measure, did you have five acts? Did you have seven beats? Did you have this? We're measuring the wrong thing instead of measuring what was the audience's feeling from what they had. Did it do its job? So I'm not sure if you work with these people, but there are certainly people out there probably listening who say, I'm just not good at story or I'm not as natural born story.

7:24Cause you, we've all met somebody you're like, they could talk all day long, you know, tell stories from their youth, you know, all day long. But a lot of people just, just really hesitate. I mean, it's the same with getting on stage period. But when somebody says I'm not a good storyteller, what do you do with that person? I generally ask them questions. Like when I have a client who says I'm not a good storyteller, like when I work with a lot of executives who are going to have to go out and speak to their company or speak at a convention or conference, and they've been sent to me usually by their chief communications officer to say, help them be less boring.

7:57And I say, great, tell me some stories. I'm not a good storyteller. I just stick to the facts. My general thing is great. So the thing that you just told me, you just told me that AI is a great solution for small businesses. How do you know that to be true? Where have you seen that to be true? I ask questions like that that are like, show me some of your personal experience with it. And that almost always gets them to be able to tell a story. Now, we need to shape it. We need to kind of clean it up a little bit. But it gets them to realize that they actually can tell stories. The issue is that they're measuring themselves against like Steven Spielberg or Mel Robbins or something like that.

8:31And it's like, we don't have to all have, you know, the story of an astronaut who was in space. Like we can have just a, it happened on a Tuesday story that is a metaphor or just an example if you know how to tell it. And usually that's my way in with people who say, I don't, I don't, I'm not a storyteller. I said, oh, cool. No problem. That's certainly a strange job to have anyway. Like there's not a lot of people who get paid well being a storyteller. So don't worry about that. But can you tell me how, you know, the thing that you just said is true? When did you see that? How'd you learn it?

8:58And we started locking stories that way. Oh, a little Byron Katie. I don't know if you're familiar with her work. But yeah, the questions, right? Like, how do you know that to be true? Yeah, that's... I've read that book. You know, a lot of people naturally think, especially you work with speakers who are on stages, but storytelling is a part of life, right? It's a story of, it's certainly a part of a lot of elements of business. So, you know, how do you get somebody to start realizing that, that they don't have to want to be a paid speaker to be better at storytelling? It's really that idea of if you're, I think there's very few people whose job is not to communicate with others and very few people whose job is not to get others to see something the way they want them to see it.

9:43You know, and that doesn't mean it has to be some persuasive, like you'll change your mind. But like, I just want you to understand the situation the way that I do. And a story is often a very effective way to help them see it or say, oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I didn't think of it in that situation or scenario in a way that the data or facts alone couldn't do. And so when I've worked with organizations like Disney or Adobe and Netflix, Caesars Entertainment, it's helping them see that like helping the audience understand the situation they're in. If they're in a sales meeting, if they're a leadership at an all hands trying to convince the team that we have to like, you know, buckle the purse straps a little bit because things are going to get tough.

10:18the most effective way to help them understand the situation is to put it into a narrative that they can say, oh, I get that. I don't like it, but I see where you're coming from. That makes sense now. Or, oh, I understand how the analogy you used about your grandma growing up is exactly like the situation we face. Okay, cool. I'm with you now. And so it's helping them realize that all of those instances are times where a story could do a lot of the heavy lifting that a whole bunch of facts would have to do. Yeah. And I think sometimes like in a sales environment, right? Stories are kind of disarming, right?

10:50We're all of a sudden we're listening to the story. We're building rapport. We're building trust rather than being sold to. Do you think that, you know, we're 10 minutes in and I'm going to mention AI for the first time? Although I think you did. I did. Yeah. Earlier. I feel like, do you feel like I should ask you that storytelling is actually going to be a differentiator, you know, because AI doesn't know my story. It never will. I mean, it might make up some stuff, but you know, my true authentic story that somebody might relate to is probably all I've got left, isn't it? Yeah. And your, your takeaway from the things you experienced.

11:27So even if it's not like your origin story, because sometimes people get lost with that of like, I need my story. And I think, I don't even know what my story is, but I got a whole bunch of them that helped me do my job every day. And I think that that's the thing that AI can't get. It could probably at some point learn something. We can shove enough blockbuster screenplays in there to work. But also we're dealing with human feelings on the other side. So as soon as it starts to work, it's going to start to not work anymore. And so those little stories of something you saw yesterday when you went to drop your kid off at school that made you think about something.

11:59AI will never know that because it's always going to be lagging. It's always going to be behind. And so I think that our ability to communicate in a way that actually makes people feel something. If we go back to like, how do you measure a story? Well, did it elicit a feeling in the person? That is going to be such a differentiator because we have all of the news of the day, all the history of the world, anything we want to find. You could even have AI. I've seen people pop in there and say, here's my goals for my business this year. What should I do? it can do all of that work, but it cannot do that storytelling piece of connecting something you experienced and almost holding it out.

12:38And I don't remember who originally said this of like, hey, have you ever felt this way too? That is going to be such a differentiator, I think. How big a part is the performance part? So the story or the words, the way you express the expression, but how you act on stage, your body language, how you use your voice, your hands. I'm I'm trying to gesture right now. But so how much of that is what really takes a good story over the top? I think a huge percentage of it. You know, in the book, I talk about these five stage languages, which are the five ways that an audience interprets and understands our full meaning, right?

13:15The first one is verbal, the words you choose, the stories you tell, all those things. The second one is voice. Just the way that we sound signals to the audience how to feel. If, you know, I was working with someone recently, an executive, a chief marketing officer. And she was getting asked to go speak more frequently. And the feedback she'd gotten is that her voice was difficult to listen to. And when we got on a call, we started working together. It's that the whole time, she was really up here this whole time speaking like this. And she thought, this is just how I sound. But she also was holding her chest.

13:45She wasn't breathing. She was gasping for air. And all of those are defensive mechanisms. All of those are learned behaviors. And so we did some exercises just to have her kind of like drop her larynx a little bit, which is going to make your voice sound a little more grounded. and she was even shocked of like, oh, is that me? And it's like, yeah, you haven't heard that voice in a long time because you have been on guard probably for lots of valid reasons, your childhood, your I don't know what, who told you what? But we show up in this world physically and vocally shaped by everything that's happened to us.

14:15And then we think that all we need to do to be an effective communicator is put the words in the right order and stop saying um. But the sound of our voice is actually what the audience hears, not even fully the words. It's the pacing of our voice, the speed at which we do. If we're on stage, I had this recently. I was reviewing someone's video and the physical language is the third one. So verbal, voice, physical. And he was trying to have this moment where he was saying to his team, trust me, I'm with you. But he was moving backwards from them on stage. And I said, that is a signal to them of you're hiding something.

14:48Something isn't right. And you've seen it before too, like someone with a hand in their pocket. I think in the book, I use the example of Nixon and Kennedy. And when seen on TV, that debate that they had that was aired, Kennedy overwhelmingly won because he looked calmer. He was tan from a resification. Nixon had just had surgery and was sick and sweaty and pale and looked thin in his suit. But when people listened to it, they thought Nixon won because he had that more gravitas voice, that more distinguished voice. And so the way that we look, sound, and move is not, we cannot separate it from the message we communicate to an audience.

15:27We simply can't. It is a core part of what they take away from us. So for somebody that just hasn't done much of it, wants to get started, I mean, somebody comes to you and says, hey, I'm in this new role or whatever it is, and I need to be doing a lot more. I need a coach for this. I mean, what are the free throws? Like what's the, what's the thing you have them do that is practice? The easy thing is to say, what are all the low stakes places where you can try some of this on that like won't matter. So if you have a, I just did this with a, with a chief finance officer. He was like, Hey, I want to be a better communicator.

15:59I'm getting asked to speak at X, Y, and Z, go on podcasts. Their PR people are trying to get him onto like MSNBC to be, you know, a talking head in these places because it's helpful to their business. And he said, so how do I practice? Do I, do I get ready for that show? And I said, well, you don't get ready. And the first time you deliver anything is in front of the real live audience where the stakes are super high and your nerves are going to take over. What kind of meetings do you have every week? Can you start off the meeting with some kind of story or metaphor that helps the team understand something?

16:28When are you going to go into a board meeting, which is relatively something a CFO does all the time, so not super high stakes? And how can you help them understand a situation that's going on or where some kind of money is being allocated using a story? How can you play with, for him, some of what we're working on with his physicality and his ability to smile and soften his face on camera because it all came across very harsh? So he said, those are all things that you can, on your next Zoom call with your team, be more aware of how are you looking at the camera? How are you leveraging and playing with your voice?

17:02How are you using your physicality? And so all of those places are spots where we can test things. Even for me, so many ideas in the book are things that I've tested through group coaching calls with my clients, through live workshops with my clients, through being on podcasts like this and trying out different stories and seeing what resonates and saying, ooh, people seem to like that and mention it back to me. I ought to put that in a book, which is the more high stakes version of doing a podcast or a group coaching Zoom call. You alluded to the Zoom call. I mean, we are on a lot of formats now, right?

17:35We're on stages, but we're also doing our own video. We are doing virtual presentations. We're on podcasts. Do we need different stories, different approach for each of those? I think that the stories probably have some universalness to them. Maybe they're told slightly differently because the context, if you're on a stage telling a story and it's part of a bigger insight in a keynote, that might be different than if you're on a Zoom call with your team. But the medium definitely changes it. Like for folks, one of the big things that people get wrong with having the camera is they want to be looking at the audience to see the audience on their little Zoom camera, on the little Zoom screens to connect with them.

18:13But there's a flaw in that for a couple of reasons. One is we have no idea what they're looking at. And so someone makes a grimace. They could be watching a TikTok that upset them or they could have gotten a text message from someone. We have no idea. And then we respond to that thinking, oh, I'm boring. Versus when we're on camera, our job is to have a relationship with the piece of glass in front of us. to be able to look through the lens and to have enough energy that this thing that absorbs these cameras absorb so much of our energy that we can still deliver what we want without being obsessed of having a live audience like we would on stage.

18:46So I think that the stories can have, you know, if you've got three or four good stories that work in your business to set it up, like you probably don't need a whole bunch more. But understanding the difference of telling them on a stage, in a boardroom, sitting around a table in an interview with someone or telling it to a camera. And even here, right? The difference between doing it for social media versus doing it in a group coaching call, all of those are different mediums. And so that's where you can leverage, you know, voice can be different. Physicality can be different. Yeah. You wouldn't use your big booming projection voice with five people in a boardroom, right?

19:24Yeah. Yeah. You'd freak them out. You know, one of the things I, my, my one little tip, and you probably tell this people all the time, but when I do, especially group Zoom calls, I turn my view off, camera view off, because I find myself looking at myself. Yeah. And I may be way over there, the corner of the screen, as opposed to, you know, then once that's off, all there's left to look at is the camera. Yeah. You know what I have? I got this, I got an Elgato teleprompter and I have it on the front of my camera with the Zoom screen of the person I'm talking to. So I actually am just seeing you right now through the glass.

20:00And it's quite helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you have to look at the camera at the same time. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I also have this little Plexiglass camera holder. And so what it does is I can put my camera in it and then I can move the camera anywhere I want. Oh, nice. You know, it's just one of those little screen, you know, those cameras you'd put on a screen, but I can, I can move it around that way. So it's really nice for doing a lot of that as well. Well, Mike, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Where would you invite people to find out more about your work and obviously find a copy of Make a Scene?

20:34Yeah, I'm easy. Once you figure out how to spell Ganino, I'm usually the one you're going to find. So G-A-N-I-N-O, MikeGanino.com. The book and all the information about it is at MikeGanino.com slash book. And it's wherever you like to get your books. We've got it everywhere for you. Awesome. Again, I appreciate you stopping by. Hopefully we'll run into you one of these days soon out there on the road. Thanks for having me.