Better Storytelling: Get What You Want @Work & @Home - with Dr. Todd Dewett

Dr. Todd Dewett joins Brian to dive into story telling at work and at home. They uncovered tips and tactics on how to tell better stories, when to leverage the power of a story, and where stories are most effective. These hacks will help you level up your story telling game, so you’ll shine even brighter at work, and in your personal life.

The Audio/Podcast

Episode Digest

Storytelling is a powerful tool for connecting with people and getting your message across. In this episode of Productivity Gladiator, Brian Nelson-Palmer has an in-depth discussion with communication expert Dr. Todd Dewett about how to become a master storyteller.

The Core Elements of Storytelling

Todd outlines the basic structure that most good stories follow:

Act 1 introduces the characters and the situation they are in. Draw the audience in with an interesting predicament.

Act 2 escalates events and creates intrigue. Take the audience on an emotional journey.

Act 3 provides resolution and wraps up the story. Provide a satisfactory conclusion.

A compelling storyteller uses vivid details, varies their tone and pacing, and incorporates relatable characters and scenarios that tap into the audience's shared experiences. This emotional component takes the story beyond just relaying logical information.

When to Use Stories vs. Quick Answers

Stories shine when explaining the "why" behind something, rather than direct responses to simple questions. In professional settings with time limitations, opt for shorter anecdotes rather than long epics. Save the drawn out stories for rare occasions when you really want to drive home a point.

Dr. Dewett notes "Stories are special and should not be used all the time. It's just like your favorite food. If you eat it all the time, you become redundant and lose some love for it." Keep people engaged by strategically picking your storytelling moments.

Stories in Personal Relationships

Overusing stories with friends and partners can grow old quickly. Dr. Dewett suggests prompting loved ones for stories to give them a chance to share. This provides an opportunity to learn new things about each other, even after years together. Share new experiences to avoid repeating tired tales they've heard multiple times before.

Examples Bring the Principles to Life

Throughout the interview, Dr. Dewett illustrates effective storytelling through engaging examples from his own career as a professional speaker. He takes the audience on a journey, using vocal inflection, passion, and practical takeaways people can relate to.

His stories showcase how following a narrative structure and making it personally resonate grabs attention even when delivering difficult messages. Dr. Dewett notes that reading the room and adjusting your delivery based on reactions is also crucial for successful storytelling.

Key Quotes

"Stories are the key to getting what you want in life because it helps people get on board. They relate to stories."

"Stories are special and should not be used all the time. It's just like your favorite food. If you eat it all the time, you become redundant and lose some love for it."

"If you're going to tell them the why, it should be a story."

Today’s Guest

Dr. Todd Dewett
Master StoryTeller, Speaker, Author

Dr. Todd Dewett is one of the world’s most watched leadership personalities: an authenticity expert, best-selling online course creator, a TEDx speaker, and an Inc. Magazine Top 100 leadership speaker. He has been quoted widely, including the New York Times, BusinessWeek, and TIME.

After beginning his career with Andersen Consulting and Ernst & Young he completed his PhD in Organizational Behavior at Texas A&M University and enjoyed a career as an awardwinning professor and scholar. Todd has delivered over 1,000 speeches and created a body of educational work enjoyed by over 30,000,000 professionals around the globe. His recent clients include Microsoft, ExxonMobil, Pepsi, Boeing, Google, Caterpillar, IBM, Zoom, and hundreds more.

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/drdewett

Instagram: instagram.com/drdewett

Website: drdewett.com

YouTube: youtube.com/c/DrToddDewett

Facebook: facebook.com/DrToddDewett

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About The Creator/Host: I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that my life was going to be 10-20 years shorter than everyone else. As a kid I took time for granted, but now as an adult, time is the most precious thing that I have. I teach overworked project managers how to level-up their life balance and pump up their personal practical productivity skills through my Productivity Gladiator training system. If what you’ve seen here intrigues you, reach out, let’s chat! Time is the currency of your life, spend it wisely.

 

Brian Nelson-Palmer

I'm Brian Nelson Palmer. And on this show, I talk about life balance and personal practical productivity skills. And in this episode, we're learning to tell better stories. Stories are the key to getting what you want in life because it helps people get on board. They relate to stories. So today we're gonna jump into that a little bit. And with me on the show today is Dr. Todd Dewett. And he's the author, educator and coach in leadership. So Dr. Todd, welcome to the show.

Dr Todd Dewett

Hey, thanks for having me. I'm just looking at you like, hey, brother from another mother. I love it.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Right? We go to the same barber. If you're not, if you don't see the video or if you want to check out the video, we go to the same barber. I, Dr. Todd, I've been following him for a little while. And I noticed he, he always had that very streamlined look. So I tried to follow in his footsteps and be able to, you know, jump in the pool, Olympic swimmers. We don't need the caps anymore. We got this. So what's now we're going to talk about stories today. So Dr. Todd, actually, should I call you Dr. Todd? Todd, if people see you on the street, what do you prefer?

Dr Todd Dewett

I appreciate you asking. That's kind. No, Todd's just fine.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Got it. So Todd, what's your relation to stories in our episode or topic today?

Dr Todd Dewett

Man, I'll give you the short version. You can pull out as much as you want and make it as long as you want. But humans in general, long before, became part of some of our professions. We are drawn to stories because of the word you used a few minutes ago, which was relate. And I'm gonna talk about that a lot today. I was a kid who loved middle school and high school English class because there were stories involved. In fact, I didn't know I had a great voice for anything I do back then. People liked the sound of it. I know that now, but I didn't. But my teachers would ask me to read stories sometimes in front of the class because, well, it just sounded pretty good.

So I fell in love with sharing stories back in junior high school. And that kind of stuck with me. And then as a person who fell in love with professional life and leadership as an expert focus. kind of communication and relationships dominates what I've been thinking about, talking about, writing about for years. And one fascinating part of that, ever since that thing I fell in love with back in the day, is stories. It's one thing to be very clear about what you're trying to share with your sentences. Good for you, most people struggle with that. And I love talking about that too. But it's another level of amazingness, frankly, to take the same idea, and instead of just using a normal well-structured sentence, clearly enunciated words to put it into a format that shakes people emotionally, not just logically. And that's exactly what a story does.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Nice. Oh my gosh. I have questions about this. So I before I want to jump into the topic, but the one thing I like to ask, because there's, there's a lot of folks out there who talk about being, you know, stories and storytellers, there's whole storytelling organizations. And those, so what would you unique, in general or with stories specifically or both. What, what would you say makes you a little different, Todd, from everybody else? What makes you unique?

Dr Todd Dewett

Well, if you're going to force me to answer that and brag, okay. I have to be humble at the same time. I'm bragging. You'll know what I mean in just a second. So I have an ability to deliver that is not only clear, but somehow for many listeners is emotionally resonant. It grabs people, makes them go, you know, I didn't know I found that topic interesting, but Todd reads the phone book and I go, that's a really interesting phone book that's kind of happened in my career and it's very unexpected. So on the one hand.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

brag a little bit. I want you to brag a little bit.

Dr Todd Dewett

I'm great at structuring the message itself that has nothing to do with delivery. And then on top of that, as if that wasn't enough for most people, I somehow figure out how to authentically and quite passionately share that message. And then on top of that, you can use certain tools. One of them that we're talking about today is a story. So it all comes together. I was born with this stuff and I figured out how to use it professionally. That makes me the luckiest person you're gonna talk to for quite some time.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Absolutely. All right. Well, then I can't wait to hear what you have to say. So let's talk about it. So we're talking about telling better stories and there's different facets of life we'll talk about. But let's start with the basics, which is, okay, what are the basic components to a good story?

Dr Todd Dewett

You know, I used to just dive in and tell anecdotal comments when it felt appropriate at a cocktail party or in class. This is my third career. I used to be in consulting, Anderson Ernst & Young. I was a professor for a long time where I really got into storytelling as one vehicle to try and reach students. And now I use them professionally as a speaker, course maker, keynote guy. What makes them work?

Well, the traditional three act play is the best simple answer to that question. You gotta have characters. protagonist and others at a minimum. They've got to be in a situation that kind of grabs your attention. That's act one, what's going on here? Oh, they're in that situation, that dilemma, that type of potential looming conflict. That's act one.

Act two, there's an escalation of some sort that really does take people to a new level of, oh my gosh, that's amazing, what's going to happen?

Act three is the obvious resolution of this thing so we can bring it to a close. That's an age old, very simple take on how to do a play and people use it to structure stories very effectively and you know I've had multiple courses over time on related presentations and stories and such and that is useful and I like it because it's simple, people are busy and if you want to teach them something start simple just remind them You've got to have some relatable protagonist or if the protagonist himself hit herself isn't relatable a Situation they face that is relatable by the average person So on the one hand I got a PhD and I published a bunch of stuff on the other hand the way I deliver is to talk in practical terms using situations and examples that normal, good, hardworking people at the office or wherever they work can relate to. I'm coming back to the word you started with, even though you didn't know you were setting me up so well. The word is how much can you relate? That really is the differentiating factor.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

late. Okay. So three act play. And one more time, the three acts are the

Dr Todd Dewett

Introduction to the characters in some interesting situation they're a part of that could be difficult or interesting, but it's not clear. Act two, an escalation. Some horrible, difficult thing has happened and we've got to deal with it or else. Act three, we finally, thankfully, find resolution to this issue and bring it to a close.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Well then what's the secret sauce? What differentiates a good story from a great story? And it seems like it might be the difference between how high we go and how much we resolve or what are your thoughts?

Dr Todd Dewett

I think you're on the way to answer it really well there. So I would say it's a culmination of a few different factors. Some people get part of this equation, some get all of it. If you want to name a great storyteller, I guarantee you they've got all this. They've got the three act thing. They understand structure. That's the word that we're referring to there. And then they've got the actual message they craft that is relatable to use the other thing we were talking about. And then the third part is, can they be, and this is big, ready?

I like to talk about authenticity, but I'll say it differently just to be really clear. Believably passionate, believably emotional. If you can do that, it's amazing how much more you can bring a person in to feel a story, not just think about a story or understand and relate to a story, but care about it. That's what emotions do for you as a listener to a great story. So in my case, I'm very lucky and I know it, but I'm good at understanding that structure, building something that people can relate to.

For example, I talk about my mistakes and screw ups over time as a part of learning and growth. Why? Because humans screw up all the time and everyone listening can relate. And then three, as you can see, cause I can't hide it very well, I'm animated and I mean it. And I also, this is not fair. This is an advanced comment for anyone listening. I'm a professional communicator at some level, and I have a great appreciation for little tiny details.

Most people who are listening never think about because they don't have to, they've never been asked to. But just talking to you right now, I'm using elevation of pace, the reduction of pace, the increase in tone, the decrease in, I enunciate words, I pause over here, I get animated with my hand over here and my face over here. These are all different variables in the communication equation. And if you know how to balance them and move them around any message, regardless of how relatable or quality it is, will stick better.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

You know, as you're describing this, I'm thinking about. What is the balance between this and talking too much? I mean, it's possible if you tell really long stories, I've been at parties with people who tell stories that just seem to go on and on. And so that I find my excuse to like, I'm going to go get a drink. I got it. You know, I'll be back. I like, oh, that person's getting started. I'm going to exit. So like, how do you find or describe that balance with not overdoing it.

Dr Todd Dewett

It's a great point. It's an interesting point. And, uh, I hope I've never been that person, but boy, like you, I have seen that person. And the short answer is that one part of the communication skillset, I would wish everyone could have is the ability to read an audience, to look at someone individually or a group of three or 20 or a thousand, whatever it might be. And to see their reaction, to watch and maybe even feel their reaction.

Because what Bob, the guy at the cocktail party you were referring to, uh doesn't have is any sensitivity and awareness to how others are reacting because I guarantee you it's not just you as everyone else listening to the beginning of that clearly long drawn on story who are showing evidence of disinterest or worry that he just didn't see and that can take the form of rolling eyes looking away distancing yourself getting up and leaving bowing your head turning this way anything other than wrapped attention, which is about moving in more. So that's there. Clear data every time we open our mouths, but most of us just haven't been trained to look for it.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Okay, so read the room clearly that there's a, this is a thing and that's certainly you'll get over time. I guess I'm curious also about, well, let's do some actual examples. Cause like you said, people relate to examples, right? So one thing that I would love to say is like, gosh, you know, on the way here, I almost got in an accident, somebody pulled out in front of me. Like, oh, Brian, you're like, I walk up to the party, I walk up to the conversation and that's what just happened. And they're like, “Brian, you're really stressed. What happened?” “Man, somebody almost hit me on the way here.” If that's the scenario, all right, Todd, how do I make that a better story that doesn't go on for five minutes? What are your thoughts?

Dr Todd Dewett

Well, it's a great story. I mean, it's a great thing to share because most of us can relate to that. And if it's not in a car in some other situation where we felt in jeopardy for sure. So what you did in that little anecdote was to start with the punchline, which actually comes in act three of our three act structure. You started with the end. That's not horrifying, but it's not the best. Because if you want to tell a story, what you might have said to them is, you ever been on the way to a party you're really looking forward to, and you wondered if you're gonna live long enough to get there? That's a question that makes them go, “what happened to this person?” Now you've given away nothing, but drawn them in completely to want to know the answer to the mystery question you've just asked. That would be one example.

And then you would say, “I'm on interstate five. I'm doing my best to get here. I was actually on route to be five minutes early, very excited, punctual me. Then I saw the pickup truck.”

Then you pause and you go, “I had no idea a Pickup truck could move across three lanes of traffic in under half a second.” Now everyone's like, what? And you're like, correct. I almost took it right in the front left tire. But thankfully my amazing wife, Brenda, did the brake job that we needed badly last week. So I slammed on the brakes and I missed this. Guys, I'm not kidding. Three inches, maybe? My head rammed forward. I thought I would hit the windshield, but I didn't. The truck last second saw that they were about to hit me couldn't adjust I could look at the guy's face I'm not making this up and he looked at me like I'm sorry. And then he didn't hit me I inches separated us he got over slowed down to my window just look at me again and said I'm sorry and I was too scared to react I just went forward and came to the party and now you know my story so that was an I made that up on the fly obviously but that's act one act to act 3 it takes what you shared it blows it into 30 seconds max but elevates the emotion to something people can actually go, that was interesting. What else happened to you today, Brian?

Brian Nelson-Palmer

I'm fascinated with this because, I'm also a speaker and I speak, I've just given a workshop yesterday and it's, there is a fundamental fight internally between answering someone's question efficiently and then telling a story and making it interesting too. And so is there, would you, do you tend to stick to like, always tell stories or is it saving it all? If somebody has a direct question, you get a direct answer. But if it's general conversation, like how do you decide? When is it a good time? When should it become a story? And when should I just answer the question? You have any thoughts on that?

Dr Todd Dewett

That's a great question, a really, really great question. So I have the pleasure professionally of going against the grain intentionally in a few different ways. My first love as a scholar before I became a practitioner was creativity, innovation and change related topics. And so I'm always talking about how we're doing things wrong. Yesterday's not good enough, we have to invent tomorrow. Let's take some risks, take some change, so on. And it makes people nervous and it ruffles feathers and that's just fine. A story to your point absolutely goes against the rules of communication at work. You're supposed to be curt to the point and efficient effectiveness hopefully based on word choice and clarity, pronunciation, but efficiency above all else. That's a business mantra. You're absolutely correct. The answer is that stories are special and should not be used all the time. It's just like, think of your favorite food. If you really love pizza, whatever. If you eat pizza all the time and you become known as the pizza guy, first of all, you're gonna be redundant in the eyes of others. Number two, you're gonna lose some, maybe a lot of your love of pizza, stories are the same. They're so beautiful like pizza, man. You gotta use that rare, not every day. So the answer is different for everyone, depending on their vocation and their personality, but less is more. Big moments with the group, once a quarter, at that conference, once or twice a year. It's not supposed to be daily. People look at you like, uh-oh, here comes Brian's story for the day. You know, he's not happy if he doesn't tell at least one or two my personal opinion based on the need for efficiency brief expectations we all have in professional settings is that it should be, whatever this means for you, rare, not common. So if you know what you're doing and it's a little less common instead of more common, boom, it tends to have impact because they're not used to it.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Yeah, totally. And as I'm drawing back, the other thing I think about is like efficiency of we don't have time for this situations. A lot of times you're in those situations, especially professionally. I want to get to that in a second. But as I'm thinking about the way you broke it down, like it was really helpful what you said about I broke straight to the punch line. So instead you have a setup, you have some kind of lead up and then you have the punch line. And realistically, you could do that in like three sentences instead of one. So you don't have to take five minutes or 10 minutes to tell a good story, as long as you've got the setup, the event that makes them want to know what happened and then the punchline or the resolution. Is that my track in?

Dr Todd Dewett

That's correct. That's absolutely correct. And it's important to state because as a guy who does a lot of professional speaking, most of my stories are eight to 10 minutes. That sounds really long to a lot of people. It doesn't sound long to me, but in a cocktail party setting, in a Monday morning meeting setting, absolutely it should be three, four, five sentences. Max, if you can do it. Now, if you have the time, if there's interest and it presents an opportunity to address a certain topic, to build certain rapport, et cetera.

You see utility beyond just being the person with the microphone. Okay, elaborate some more and take a minute or three if that is kosher. But in general, you're correct. Error on less is more. Gain comfort with that because doing what we're talking about is a skill like any other skill in the world of communication. And once you get comfortable with it, okay, then you can prod it a little bit, expand it when it feels appropriate a little bit more.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Yeah. Well, let's, you know, you talked about the Monday morning meeting. I w I'm curious. Let's let's talk about storytelling because I'm fascinated. You can really tell stories. People relate to stories and it helps you get what you want. Really? Like this is a, this is one of the many ways of being very persuasive is people relate to you and telling stories. So in that Monday morning meeting, or let's talk about the sort of the professional setting. What is that? Does the advice change at all when you're telling a story to try to achieve a certain end result, or what's the twist? What's the secret sauce there that's a little different?

Dr Todd Dewett

Well, it's an interesting point. You can argue that stories work on average a little better when there's a purpose of driving it as opposed to something fun to share like you did about the car wreck at the party. So the near car wreck at the party. So when you are trying to set them up for a bigger conversation, for example, about a big change coming down the pike, or when you introduce a simple fact that came down from leadership that you need to share with the team and you know it's not gonna hit their ears and make them happy immediately, it might be instead of explaining lots of numbers or lots of rationale from senior leaders, maybe that is a great time to share a five minute, just to pick a number, story that makes this relatable. Not an abstract thing someone foisted upon you, but a shared situation we're all involved with together that we can probably deal with effectively. Let's go.

I'm thinking many times people like to get really clear about what this difficult thing is they want to share and then they want to get very boring Immediately and explain why it's happening with all kinds of numbers and data relevant useful stuff But boring and completely the opposite of inspiration. That's why a short story can make a ton of sense to look We've tried this before and it's failed There's great reason to believe that this is gonna work this time. But even before I described why it's gonna work

You need to understand what our top three clients told my boss's boss about how excited they were we were gonna undertake this because of how it would change the product that we're delivering to them. We're about to make a whole lot of people really happy, which is gonna give us a ridiculous step forward in job security we didn't have yesterday. That's why I'm actually excited to talk about this change with you. Completely different. I didn't do the three act play, but at least I took it out of our group and started talking about something big and purpose-filled that they would care about back to relevance. Why do they care? In this case that I just ad-libbed, it was because they're going to get more job security and make some people happy.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

You know, as I'm listening to you, the phrase that came to me is, “Oh, I get it. Anytime you're going to tell them the why it should be a story.” And that's like the, so why it worked. Why are we making this change? Why are we doing this thing? Instead of just telling them because our data sucks, you could set up the three act play it would be because, uh, you know, the other day, uh, somebody was working on something and an auditor found that.

We didn't report the right data, and that went all the way up to such and such. And so as a result, now we found a resolution for that, which is that this changes. So it's like three sentences instead of one. If you're put on the spot when somebody says why, that might be a really good time for a story. I would.

Dr Todd Dewett

So I'm going to make this easy for you, for me, for anyone that might listen. This is very difficult in three sentences to make the most brutal case possible to do a good reflection of the three act play. Most people call what I just did making up something and what you just did making up something, they call it an anecdote. And I got to tell you, if you don't have time or great skill with a bigger, longer three act story, that's okay. A purpose aligned anecdote, which is what you just shared and what I just made up a minute ago. That is to say, two, three, four sentences that explains something bigger and important for all of us than actually the decision and how it's gonna hit us. The purpose part of why we're doing this is absolutely a mini story, if you will, an anecdote that gets them to start caring more for sure.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

And it followed still the three act play premise for an anecdote versus a story. Just the amount of detail and level of buildup. Like it's the three sentences versus the five minutes kind of thing.

Dr Todd Dewett

If you're, I mean, if you're skilled, you could do that. Most people, uh, I don't want to encourage most pros to go to their Monday meeting and think, okay, I want to talk about this. I think I know what I want to say, but what's, what is one act two? I don't want to confuse them. That's maybe for the, uh, once a quarter at the conference, bigger story. But if you can say something, let me just keep it simple.

Purpose driven purpose aligned a little emotional. I'll tell you why I'm kind of okay If not excited about this difficult decision, they just shared with me that I just shared with you and it's because of Suzanne Do you guys remember Suzanne? She was a client of ours that had that problem last year that we could not resolve and her life looked kind of wrecked as A result what we're about to do. Yeah, it's gonna take a lot of hard work It's gonna make life better for Suzanne and a lot of people like her who depend on what we do.

Now that is not a three act story I just gave you. It's a simple anecdote with some emotion that is purpose aligned. We're gonna help someone like Suzanne and that's a beautiful mini story.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Does the story change much when you're in a management role versus just as an employee? Like as an employee, you might be asking for resources or asking for buy-in from somebody. You need something from someone above. As a manager, does the scenario change much if you're talking up or if you're talking down or is the premise kind of the same?

Dr Todd Dewett

I think if you're talking up in general, using the example of some sort like I did with Suzanne, an external person we all care about is a universal simple purpose driven approach. If you're a manager talking down, I hate the way that sounds, but talking to your team, to your org, all the people in the hierarchy, believe you, beneath you, that is a time to do one of a couple things. One is to talk about yourself. For example, I told you when we were just BS-ing a few minutes ago about how I love to talk about big catastrophes in my life and phrase them as learning moments and what they taught me, because other people need to do the same with the mistakes in their life.

So there's two things.

One, make it more about you and not in a flattering way if you're speaking down, because that makes you an authentic, more relatable person instead of a person holding a spot in a hierarchy above them, which stresses people out. That makes you more relatable and human to them.

And then the other thing is whatever the topic might be, find a way to talk about it in a way that is, to use that word once again, relatable. If you do both of those things, that would be a great strategy for most leaders when they're talking down in the hierarchy.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

And same premise or does that I guess. So that's when you're talking down as opposed to when you're talking up. If you suddenly are in a conference room or you're put on the spot in a meeting and you've got the person two, three levels above you, is it, I mean, the structure of the story is still the same. Is it not as much about you and now it's about a third party relatable or what are your thoughts?

Dr Todd Dewett

A couple thoughts, one is it's about that external thing we can all relate to. I keep talking about Suzanne, who I made up two minutes ago, but here's another one. Speaking 101, presentation 101 is about know your audience. And when you're dealing with someone two levels above you, you should recognize they care about different things, think differently than you every day, different agendas, different goals, different responsibilities. It's not good or bad, it just is. So if you can say to yourself before you engage them, if you know they're gonna be at that meeting, what's their world like? How would I spin my Suzanne story, or whatever it is you're going to share, in a way that appeals to Paul? Paul, who sits up in an office in corporate and crunches numbers all day, and that's his world. Is there a way I can spin that? Maybe, I don't know the answer to that in this made up scenario, but know who they are, what appeals to them, their agenda, their ego. That sounds a little personal, but it's useful if you're thinking about know your audience. So maybe Suzanne's not right at all for Paul. Maybe the answer is we all know that innovation has been amazing in this firm for the last five years. We also know that we have paid for it. Expenses are out of control. The market's loving what we're producing, but our profit and loss is looking very, very difficult. You want to please Paul, maybe you should talk about how this thing we're about to engage in, in fact, should be instrumental in reining in costs. Now I've taken one thing I know that is important to that audience member and tried to make it central to my anecdote or story that I'm sharing.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Got it. So relatable. Yep, relatable to the audience makes perfect sense. And that's a really good point about if you're telling stories down something negative, it's good to be self-deprecating, I guess, to kind of bring it. You're not perfect either. Bring yourself down a notch or two is not a bad thing, making you more human. I'm picking up what you're putting down, Todd. That makes sense.

Can we shift gears away from professional then and let's talk personal for a second? Because I'm thinking specifically about stories with friends or really stories in a relationship with your significant other, with your partner like that. It seems like they, like let's talk about partner. Partner would be tired of your stories. I mean, like they hear your stories all the time.”Why Todd, does everything have to be a story?” Like what is it? Like, do you have any thoughts on that? I know you can relate to it. See? Just cut to the point already Todd. Dang it. Are you like-

Dr Todd Dewett

I know you're a professional speaker, but come on! You're reminding me there's a fa- I won't say all of it here, but there's a famous bit by comedian Chris Rock about that reality in relationships you've just mentioned, whereby at some point you've both heard all the stories the other has to say and when their partner says to you, uh, and I tell you about the time and Chris Rock like, yeah, you told me about the time!

So I wrote a book about it, it's called The 10 Delusions, my relationship's 101 type of book, and you gotta address issues like this. Doesn't matter how much you love the person, let's assume it's real love, you can't always assume that. Sometimes it's just a chemical love and you don't know the difference between the two until the chemical cloud goes away. That's what the science suggests. Either way, real love or chemical love, at some point you're gonna be face to face with a partner that you are stuck with in some regard, and you have to assess how you feel about and communicate with. And even if you're great at it, eventually, to your point, you will share all that you've experienced at some level.

And then what do you do? Well, stop rehashing and start asking more. Here's my experience with my wife. When you believe what I just said, stop trying to always do that thing you go to as a communication mode, because you like it, because you're good at it, because people tell you you're good at it, and ask more of them in that regard. When they didn't come at you with it and you're asking them because you're showing interest, they'll remember things that they haven't told you yet, and later they're gonna ask of you.

About a time when that they've never asked before and you're gonna have new material I guarantee you as funny as Chris Rock is there's more material assuming you're over the age of 20 There's more material in your brain and in your partner's brain to happily Share through an interesting conversation. We've just forgotten and not accessed so much. That's what the cog psychologists would tell us

There's so much there. But if you slow down and intentionally shake up your routine, which is one example of that is me intentionally not telling stories next Tuesday, after I get off and we have three hours together, me and my partner, and ask of them some things about specific topics I haven't heard about from them for a long time. You know, I was thinking about your mom the other day and how funny she is every time we go to the lake. She's gonna think of some stuff. She's never thought about before about her mom because you prompted her honestly like that. And she's gonna say some things you've never heard before. And after you do that just once or twice, she's gonna start doing it to you and new conversations, believe it or not, become a little easier. And that's a beautiful thing.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

So true prompt them for the stories and I'm thinking about, you know, it's funny. The contrast for me personally, is I grew up in a household where my dad was military. And so when it's really funny, even to this day, when I call home, I like dad wants the briefing. He wants the download. What's happening. Here's the bullets. Dad doesn't want the stories.

Dr Todd Dewett

Hahaha!

Brian Nelson-Palmer (29:35.626)

He doesn't care about the characters and the emotions. And if he hears this, he'll probably disagree with me. But realistically, my impression is, dad just wants the bullets. Punchline, punchline, punchline. But mom wants the stories. And so it's just really, I'm like, my mind is blown right now just thinking about, oh my gosh, communication with my family and who's interested in the stories versus the punchlines and their style.

Dr Todd Dewett

Yeah, it's tough. That's an amazing insight, to be honest with you. Kudos to you, big thinker here, because most people don't get that far. When you're talking to anyone other than one person, now you have different styles, different communication needs, different preferences, and any one that you choose will fit one way and fit the other, maybe not as good or maybe better. The point is differently, which makes talking to a group a lot more difficult. I can promise you this, speaking as a pro, I've done over a thousand gigs, I've been in front of a lot of people.

There is no audience whereby you get 100% fully everyone with you. I love that it doesn't happen. Small group at a cocktail party. Same thing. Rarely does everyone go, man, that's just, I'm so glad I spent some time with Todd over there. No, it's just, it's not the way it happens, which is why you err on less is more. Stories are less common instead of extremely common and the length should be a little shorter than instead of a little longer because you never know exactly how people are responding to that. And I told you, you can read that, but the truth is if you actually commit to a story, I mean, you want to share honest emotion about this thing that just happened when the truck almost ran me off the road and I was sweating and whatever you might say, it's hard doing that. And at the same time, reading the reactions of the people. Now I can do that, but I've been doing this for a better part of 30 years. Most people can't do that. But if you're smart,

You'll pause because you got to breathe even when you're passionate. And when you take that breath, this is a great piece of advice for anyone. You take that breath, just look at your partner you're talking to and look, do they seem comfortable and waiting for that next word or do they seem like they are confused, uninterested and really needing to go somewhere else that should be fairly clear to you and only takes a second to see it, but you got to give yourself that second.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

What I'd love to hear is an example of, and you're probably got like 10 of these in your back pocket as far as I can, I want to put you on the spot and tell us a story or tell, I mean, what's the, what's a personal one about like, what's the sort, tell us what is the purpose like all right, let's say we're in a presentation situation. Here is the bullet of the point I want to make. And here is the story that I'm going to tell and kind of narrate for us the parts of the story while you're at it so we can see under the hood, if that makes sense.

Dr Todd Dewett

I can try and do that. I'll be selfish, Brian. So this is my latest book. It's called Dancing with Monsters. It is a business fable. It's actually a very short story about a group of misfit monsters who are having some issues. And one of them has to step up and figure out how to be a leader. It's a lot of fun. It's very silly, yet very useful. I'm very excited about it. Anyhow, there is in the keynote that I've recently started using for this new book. There's several new stories, seven actually.

It's kind of five stories in the hour, but two of them are actually two stories each, so it's actually seven stories. One of them, there's a part of the speech that's about a rule that I wrote in the book. The rule is candor, not just kindness.

When I think about leadership rules, Leadership 101, that's one of them I love to offer. Candor, not just kindness. They're both very important. They go together like chocolate and peanut butter. Don't just talk about one, talk about both of them.

Now how do I describe that on stage? I don't lecture like I just did for 10 seconds to you. I do that on stage, but 10 seconds is it. And then I go into story format. The first part of that story, the first of the two part story, I'm not gonna share with you. It's about a time I went to a large corporation and learned how some HR people were wasting their time talking about a tire issues and women's footwear and what was appropriate things that are not going to make any company great ever and I tell that funny story because it's an example of me giving an audience some candor they need to hear and then the flip side of that I tell the audience of course it's not just about you giving candor when needed if you care about improving yourself oh it's about you being open to that candor as well because not everyone's brave enough to give it to you straight sometimes you've got to empower them just a little bit and it might hurt but you don't grow unless you get a little uncomfortable and hear some unfiltered observations about what you're doing as a pro.

I've been through that a few times. Let me give you one example. This is, and this is the story. I say, you know, I love speaking. I'm pretty good at it, but the truth is I'm not where I wanna be yet. Here's the proof. I was on stage, this is 12, 13 years ago, bunch of suits in the audience, and I am telling stories and all the passion, all the movement, it's going really well. I'm happy, but something strange happened while I was on stage. I saw a person in the audience that I recognized as a professional speaker and author like myself, I knew them. They were two or three steps ahead of me, clearly in the career. And I was intrigued by their presence. I wanted to talk to them because I knew they looked at communicators like I do, surgically, variable, why variable, not just overall as a reaction that most people have. And so I finished the speech, went well, people clapped, that's great, but I was really quickly more so than normal. Off that stage, I wanted to find this guy back at the auditorium and I got him.

People are walking by us, they're getting out, but I really wanted to talk to him. So I grabbed him and he said, hi. I shook his hand and I said, I know you are. I saw your last book. It's good stuff. I'm guessing you have them as a client sometimes here too. And he said, yeah, yeah. I said, great. I didn't know I was gonna see you. I gotta ask you, because I know that you got an amazing pair of eyes when you look at a speech. I'd love to hear some feedback on what you saw today. That would be grateful. What do you think? And he said, well I liked that. A lot of emotion, clear delivery. I see good things for you. That was a really nice speech. I could tell he was doing what people, especially strangers you don't know well, always do when you ask for feedback. They're super nice and nowhere near as critical as you might have dreamed they could be. And so I said to him, because we didn't have time and he's busy and I wanted to respect that, I said, you're being very kind. Thanks, but help me out here because I know I'm just learning. I'm mid-career, not late career.

What did you see I could do differently? I mean, if you could tell me one thing that I could do differently to have a bigger impact, what might that thing be? I asked something very specific. This is me talking to you like you asked me to. I asked something very specific, not general, very specific. And then did something amazing that's hard for people to do. Shut up and watched him and allowed that person some space to try and react to this very specific question that calls for critical feedback, not just the kindness he started with.

And he said to me, okay, Todd. I think I know one answer to your question. And he took a small step backwards, which is very funny, because I know as a organizational behavior guy, I know that when people do that, they're feeling uncomfortable. What we do when we're feeling uncomfortable is we tilt one way or the other or step away because the distance somehow feels a little more reassuring. And I saw him do that and I knew he was getting nervous. I knew this was gonna be good feedback. And he goes, well, I'll tell you what, love what you're doing, but here's the truth. You're a big, loud guy. And I said Yes, I'm a big, loud guy. He goes, well, you never stand still. On stage, no, you move around a lot. And I said, yep, I move around a lot. And he goes, well, you wear glasses. And I'm thinking to myself, this is the worst feedback I have ever received. I sat there and I said, yes. He goes, well, and backed up just a little more. And I knew he was about to drop whatever it was he had to drop on me.

He looked at me and he goes, look, you're a big, loud guy. And you move around a lot and you wear glasses. And when they move, because they move, you're passionate and you're up there, you're sweating, they move well, most people just use their index finger and they adjust them. Um, and I heard that and I went, Oh, no, no way. And he goes, Todd, I'm very sorry to tell you this. He looked around and make sure we were alone. And he said, you gave your audience the bird about 50 times today. This is true story. I'm not making this up. I did. We're almost alone now. So my embarrassment was like this instead of this. And I said, uh, really? He said, yeah. I said, uh, do you think anyone noticed? He looked at me and said, oh yeah, people noticed. But here's the good news. They didn't care. You know why? They loved the message you're sharing. They loved the way you shared that message. They noticed it, let it go, didn't care, stayed engaged with you. That's how good I think you are. And I said, that's extremely kind. Thank you. And he goes, no, listen carefully. You need to stop giving your audience the bird. The end of the story is very simple. I say to the audience, look, if a overtrained professional communicator is running around stages on planet Earth doing something unproductive that he's unaware of, how much more likely is it that you and how might you address that situation? Of course, the answer is feedback and you better hope it's candid and that you find someone brave enough to give it to you. So that's an example of a relatively short story that's practical for the audience. It's about me making fun of myself. It's actually true it happened or a version of it that's very similar to the story actually happened. I was doing this and I got busted and yet it's practical. People can relate to that, can't they?

Brian Nelson-Palmer

So There's a setup. There's characters or something. There's an event that kind of makes them. Okay. What's gonna happen? Like a moment where okay, what is this? That's got to be a ride to get to the resolution.

Dr Todd Dewett

So stage one is kind of I'm on stage having fun, but I noticed something different. I wonder where that's going to go. Cause I've never seen another pro sitting in my audience. And act two is I'm having fun with this person. And after they are nice, they actually show me every indication in their non-verbals that they're about to drop a bomb on me. But what is it act three, the explosion and the resolution, which is him going, now you are great, but you got to stop doing this. And me processing that feedback. So it loosely speaking, it follows the three act format and that's useful when you're trying to think about how to deliver these.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Man, that is very cool. Man, at what level is going up to the to the to the hanger, the cliff hanger and then the resolution. It seems like there's for many people like me who jumped right to the punch line in my example in the beginning, it's not a very big ride. But it's also possible that it's going to be too much. Do you have any like, are there any cues or what are your thoughts on how much is too much? here do you rein it in? Any thoughts on that?

Dr Todd Dewett

Yeah, I have difficult answers for that for sure, but you like honesty, I can sense that. So I'm gonna very much shoot straight with you. There's no perfect answer to that. First of all, are there cues? Yeah, you cross the norms that are expected for any given group. They will show you it by turning away, by rolling their eyes, by talking to them. Anything other than listening on the edge of their seat to what you're talking about. So yeah, there are always cues, always cues, but here's the hard part of the answer.

What's comfortable and what you're good at, how much you can emote and how far you can stretch towards a climax or embellish a little bit, which I always do a little bit to really add some passion and emotion is up to you. It's different for every one of us. I happen to be comfortable with passion in my hands and my face. That's normal for me. Others would look like they're faking it if they tried to act like me. And believe me, you don't have to be crazy passionate the way I tend to be. There's plenty of quieter, introverted speakers who find a way and there's different vehicles for that from word choices to pauses to pictures, many different ways they can find to be very impactful. But the short answer is every audience is different. I said I've done 1000 gigs, I can be honest with you, there's 20 30 times that sounds like a lot to you probably, I don't know. I've bombed. That's rare. Statistically, I usually kill. One out of five to ten gets a standing, oh that's great, but the truth is every audience is different.

True story to answer your question, I was at a gig, how many years ago, four, I don't remember, and I was doing what I normally do for a speech that was my number one speech, I'm trying to transition a little into this thing, this book, but the truth is Show Your Ink has been what I've been writing for a long time, and I was on stage and I did my Show Your Ink keynote and it was killing!

Three days later, next stage, next client. I'm excited. I've been on a roll for two or three clients. I've been doing this material for a while. I know how to work an audience. Let's go. I do the same thing that just killed over there. And it bombed. Now you never know exactly why it bombed. In this anecdote I'm sharing, I can tell you why it bombed because they told me after it was over. I had about 20 minutes left to go and I hit some heavy material that's uplifting and educational, but it's about my dad and some things he learned during his cancer journey, which ended in cancer winning. And I love that story and audiences love it and they come up and tell me so, that's how I know. And I did it like I always do it, right on the heels of the success and the meeting planner run up to the stage, I've never seen this before, ran up to the stage. So I'm three or four feet higher in this person and they go, time, they're doing this thing. I was like, really, I'm sorry. I said, I'm sorry, out loud, which is not good because I'm never late. I kind of understand timing. I'm good at this stage of career and I thought to myself Wow I really botched something. Okay. Okay I'm gonna skip that story and make that one shorter and get done in the next 10 minutes or so that they wanted me to Wrap up and I went ahead and I started to truncate a story and the same guy runs up. Oh five minutes later I'm sorry. It's okay. It's okay. You're fine. Just go ahead and finish the speech as you would and I'm thinking to myself "What is going on here?" and I acted and I'm really good at acting. It's part of what we do as professional speakers.

I acted like it was all cool, of course, and I finished what I do and I got some nice applause, maybe not the biggest ever, but it was really genuine and nice. And then I found out what happened from the meeting planner and from an executive who came over to talk to me. There was one key executive, the number two person in this firm, whose partner was going through a very, very difficult, unwinnable cancer related situation. And there I am talking in some detail with a lot of passion about cancer. And they couldn't take it and they broke down and the CEO is sitting next to them and CEO was upset that I would be so stupid to get on stage and talk about such a triggering topic in front of people who can relate in very difficult ways. And they came to pull me off stage because the CEO said to do that, and then said, don't do that, because they realized that they were acting too rashly. So my point to you is every audience is different. Home run with them three days later, 100% same speech, almost got yanked off stage literally. If you don't like the reality that some people are gonna love you and some aren't gonna get you, some aren't gonna like you, then maybe you should just give up communicating completely because it can be challenging. Ha ha ha.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

God, so true. And, you know, Todd, I caught myself as you're telling your stories very much relating to I because I was raised in a military household, it was all about the punch lines. Like that was the majority of my childhood. And so I have been very good at being extremely efficient. I'm a project manager professionally as well. I've had several careers besides public speaking myself. And I am very good at punch lines, efficient, effective communication. And what I've found is that, man, you totally get sucked into some of your setups and the stories you shared today. I guess, well, we're at the point where we're wrapping up this episode, too. So what I can say is I always like to end with here's what I love. Here's what I love, Todd, that you all throughout this episode, you have not only broken down the part about the stories, but then you've also in all of your examples of stories, you've shown it over and over and over again. There are characters. There is an event that happens, something that, you know, is some kind of lead up. There's some kind of moment where you want to know what happens. And those are the points. I'm sure if I go back and watch this recording or if you do, you'll probably see like, I think I caught myself like I'm leaning in. I'm interested. Like, I know like it was, it was one of those things. So I love, I love the stories that you shared, but also I love, I love being able to now reflect back and go, oh, that's how. So Todd, thanks for doing what you do, man. This was very cool.

Dr Todd Dewett

it's my pleasure. And you know, we were talking for a few minutes before we even got started in this in this chat. And I got to tell you, I hope you rewatch this, I usually rewatch them as well and see something I love something I didn't love. And if you're interested, I do have a new course called storytelling for leaders coming out on LinkedIn. That'll break this down and even more detail if you want to go back and look at what you've been doing on stage. I've said this to many pros. If you want to go back and look at what you've been doing on stage with a little more of a fine tooth comb to re-examine it, you should watch that course and then you'll rethink what you're doing and go, I just know three ways I can go make that a lot better.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Absolutely. And you know, I'm a, I want to yes, and" you there. Yes. Go, go take Todd's course for sure, because that that's a thing. And if you have a recording of yourself these days, everybody's on teams or zoom and these things are recorded. So whether you want to or not, like a lot of people are in this situation where they think professionally, they just don't give speeches that are video recorded or whatever, but you know, football teams watch game tape over and over and over again to make those better. And so what I'm imagining is the situation where you take Todd's course and then watch your own game tape because you've got it now, whether you want it or not, you can watch yourself in a meeting. You can watch yourself in some of the zooms, whatever that scenario is, and take what you've learned from Todd with this and this episode and then watch yourself and see how you do it. Do you do the three parts to the story when you're going to tell a story or do you shortchange one? And how does that, because that for me personally, that's been in my speaking journey as well. Game tape has been amazing because you are your own best critic. Everybody else is going to be nice. Like Todd, you told that story about the guy who, you know, he wanted to be nice to you. Everybody, if you ask, "how was it?" They will never tell you the truth right off the bat. Right. That never happens. Like sometimes I really wish they would if it was horrible, but they won't. Everybody will tell you, your coworkers, your anybody who knows you, will always say that was great. So the two places you can get honest feedback are from people that don't know you and will never know you. So like the Internet is brutal about feedback. But then the other thing is from yourself. And so yourself is a much better audience, because if you listen to the Internet, nobody would ever do anything. There's too many bad people.

Dr Todd Dewett

If you are lucky enough to find a good coach or mentor, and it's a whole nother, whole nother question, but a person who has insight about you, who's willing to say what needs to be said. And this is the end you give them that video. You might hear some amazing things. Let me tell you, video is cheap. It's unavoidable. It's brutal. And it's very useful.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Absolutely. I love it. I will for those folks that we talked about your LinkedIn course and I'll certainly drop links for everybody in the episode notes for this stuff so you can access this part and I'll even go back and see if I can find that Chris Rock segment you were talking about that. I kind of want to watch it now that you now that you tossed it in there and you told a story about it now I'm like I'm gonna look on YouTube and see if I can get that. So I'm gonna I'm gonna look for these things but if people want to keep in touch with you what are the best places for them to find you?

Dr Todd Dewett

Sure. Thanks for asking two obvious answers. One is LinkedIn. My last name is Dewett. There's no one else like me. Very easy to find for better or for worse. And then I also have my own personal website with a lot of different information at drdewett.com.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Very cool. And for you tuning in, so two opportunities for you listening. First, do you have a friend or colleague who either tells good stories or doesn't tell good stories and has ever mentioned somebody who's interested in public speaking or that kind of thing? If you do, would you send this episode specifically to them? Like shoot them a text or an email and tell them why you thought of them for it. You'll tell your own story and why you thought of them for it. Because it might inspire a meaningful conversation. And it almost is a way for you to provide like a gift for them so that they could check it out too. And I find that, you know, sharing, hey, check out Productivity Gladiator, the show is great. But if there's one particular episode that you should listen to and why, I can tell you if I got that message, I would absolutely check out that episode and I would text them back and start engaging with them. And so if that happens to you as you've been listening and there's somebody who comes to mind, please send them this episode. I know Todd and I would both love that.
And the last thing is thanks for subscribing and thanks for the reviews you guys have posted over the years. And I also have special knowledge and events that I send only to email subscribers as well. So if you're not part of the Predictivity Gladiator email list, I invite you to come join the fun. But I love sharing Predictivity Gladiator with you. So thanks for tuning in and that's a wrap.

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