Become A Master Storyteller in 15 Minutes – Shaan Puri

you know the Pixar rules for storytelling I you 22 Yeah the most important one I don't know what the 22 say but I remember one which was um something like the hero doesn't have to win um the audience loves the hero because of the way they try and that was really important to me I was like oh that's right every Underdog Story is lovable because of how hard they try and if somebody just tries something and immediately it works that's not a very good story and you're not very like you don't feel good for them

so you got to say what you tried what resistance you felt and then how you overcame that resistance it doesn't have to be a long thing but you want to make it feel real uh and the last thing I'm I'm kind of emphasizing to you that I think anybody can do in their storytelling is um you're not saying what happened you're zooming into moments to explain how you felt with ideally some relatable visual or audio like moment so it's like I remember he said this to me and I'll never forget these three words he said

you know like whatever some some sentence or I remember looking around and you know there was nobody else there like to Tony Robbins I'm a big Tony Robbins fan he does an amazing job telling his story and he's like I remember sitting in my apartment I looked in the bathroom and I was doing I had because I used to do dishes in the bathtub because my my dishwasher didn't work so I'd soap up the bathtub and he's all he's trying to say is I'm a loser I was a loser now I'm super successful why because

I'm Tony Robins and I figured it out and you can too but first he has to convince you that he used to be a loser otherwise the whole Tony Robin stick doesn't work so he's like how do I convince somebody I'm a loser I could say that I wasn't doing too well or I could say that I used to have to wash my dishes in a bathtub because that paints a picture of a loser he's like I remember I was s then he says I was s in my apartment and I didn't have any furniture

CU I didn't have any money so I just had this one chair like I didn't have a sofa I had a hard chair that I used to sit on he's like it was just a chair he's like and I remember uh the a song was playing that was like there's some song where he's like I don't have a friend or something like that it's only me in my chair and he's like dude that's me it's just me in the stupid chair and he's like so I went for a run and he's like even though I

hadn't run in years I was overweight I went for a run and even when my lungs were burning I was like no you you may be a loser at all things in life but you're not going to lose this run and he tells the story and it's kind of inspiring when you're hearing this and he's just zoomed into one moment that's visual that's audio that's a feeling and he's convinced you of that before state so that the after has some impact the two things that I'm getting there is first you can tell a story a

story is not a record of what happened absolutely it is not you saying this happened this happened this happened this happened it is almost this it's a transformation it's a oh interesting story is just a change the world was one way and then it was another way I was one way and then I was another way my company was failing and then it was succeeding all the story is is just change you only want to include the what happened so much as it explained expl how that change came to be um yeah it's not just

a timeline of events and then you're also really queuing into emotion yeah how come H that's what like people respond to you know um like in my writing course I used to teach um I used to teach this one thing that I was like you know you want to work backwards from the from the emotion I learned this from uh a guy who used to be my my I don't know intern or something like that I we hired him when he was 20 years old Steve Bartlett today a lot of people know Steve Bartlett he's

got a big podcast called dire CEO he's built a company he's done a bunch of he's on Dragon's Den like he's a famous guy now I met Steve when I was 20 or when he was 20 I was 25 maybe and uh he flew from the UK he lived in our office like slept in our office and he wanted to work with us and we worked together for I don't know what nine months or a year or something like that um and Steve was awesome in a bunch of ways he was obviously just like a

21-year-old in a bunch of other ways but the awesome thing I remember was he was like he told me something he goes I just think about what is Jenny in her bedroom going to think when she sees this like who's Jenny who's Jenny what what are you talking about he's like oh like if we're making a piece of content that's going to go on social media social media is Jenny in her bed laying down just scrolling just swiping and she's like basically this has to make Jenny and Jenny like stop think something and share this

with their friends otherwise it's going nowhere there was no point in writing this thing or doing this thing cuz it created no reaction from the person they're just going to keep swiping the world is full of infinite content we only stop at things that we have some reaction to and um so I stored that away and then I heard the same idea from another person this is how you know a good good idea the BuzzFeed guy goes everything we do at BuzzFeed is about Debbie at her desk I'm like Jenny in her bedroom Debbie at

her desk going on here see he goes he goes the most powerful Network in the world is the boor at work Network he goes all Buzz was like growing like crazy at the time he's like BuzzFeed basically Taps into if someone's bored at work and they just want to like you know have a distraction for five minutes we want to make a piece of content that will distract them and get them to forward it to a bunch of other people who are also bored at work right and that's the whole network is the board atwork

Network all right second time I heard the idea then I heard the idea third time this gu Chris Quigley he ran a advertising agency that would make videos go viral and at the time I was like going viral is like a lottery ticket like how do you do a video I don't know it's just like something amazing must happen so I go what's your hit rate on virality like one out of 100 two out of 100 he goes no like eight out of 10 I go8 out of 10 and he's like yeah look he showed

me their their views I was like how do you do this he's like well you know over time the more viral videos you make you have like a base of an audience but he's like that just gets you like some people will see it but how viral it goes is how much they share it he goes so what we do is we work backwards from an emotion he goes the only things people will share is things that are LOL WTF OMG aww like all the acronyms for all the emotions so like oh my god wow

like ha right like if it doesn't do that nobody will share it so he goes we first start with this is the desired reaction we have then we'll write a script or write a write a a blog post or whatever and then we'll go check do we think that's going to create this reaction to somebody no all right let's Juice It Up how do we make it more funny how do we make it more outraging how do we make it more endearing and heartwarming like whatever those are and uh so once I heard that three

times I was like okay I get it I need to create a re reaction out of the average person just in their bedroom or their desk and I need to start with the emotion my target emotion and then work backwards from that write the thing that will create that emotion yeah it's funny because when you write you're like okay I'm publishing this on the internet bunch of people are going to read it you know get a big audience and so you think of hey there's all these people but actually you're just writing to de in

her bedroom or Sally at her desk you know and people consume your content alone and when you're writing you are writing to one person in one place at one moment in time and you have to remember that because the nature of the connection that you're trying to make is different and to double down on that idea in a lot of our media environment especially with a platform like Twitter when you scroll Twitter like you're on the throne you're on the bus you're waiting in line you're you know your friends 7 minutes late you're like come

on where the heck are you you I'm trying to reservations coming up and you're just sort of browsing browsing browsing and your brain's only like halfway on and if you can really first understand your own State when you're in that environment and then write to the person who's in that state now you have a very keen sense of who is this person and you're writing for one person even though if you're looking you're saying hey 119,000 Impressions those are not 119,000 people at once like a football game they're 119,000 IND idual people at 119,000 individual

instances in time and if you think like that you communicate very differently yes perfectly said you're writing to one person at One Moment In Time that's I think a very good point and the other uh thing that this reminded me of is do you know this person Miss Excel have you seen this person yeah yeah so she um for anybody who doesn't know she's basically like an Excel influencer for lack of a better word um she basically teaches people Excel trick tricks but the reason she got popular she went on Tik Tok she started dancing

while like putting an Excel trick on the screen or a tip on the screen um weird combo but it works I was reading some interview with her and they were like how do you create your content like what's what's your process and I was like I'm curious what her process is and she goes uh I I don't she's like it's kind of weird she's like um most people if you say what's the process and they're like consistency like wake up at a certain time start right away you got to write every day you got to

post at a certain time you got do all these things she's like I don't do any of that she goes I literally first like just changed my own energy she's like I work she's like I'm kind of woo wo W that way but like I basically get myself into a peak State of Mind like I get myself into a certain mood and a c certain State of Mind where I feel magnetic I feel charismatic I feel energetic I feel it's just like it's like an like a it's literally like a science called energetics she's like

I work on my energy and two things happen one ideas start coming to me much faster than if I sat down and said what are some ideas I need to post some content today and so she's like I just work about something I say I let ideas come to me an idea will hit and as soon as it hits she's like I run to my phone hit record and I just do it she because I believe all content is just energy transferred through the phone it's my energy shifting to you my emotion that I'm how

I feel about this if I feel excited about this Insight that I have or excited about this this tip that I have I want to get you excited about that tip too and the best way to do that is for me to be there first and I think this is a very underrated thing for writers because most writers they're not performers all performers know this no athlete goes on the field without being warmed up and being hyped up no stage performer goes on stage just kind of cold and low energy but almost every writer starts

cold and low energy and just sits there somewhat miserably and um and there's even some weird Glory from like this like I don't know this like pain that martyr ship of like how you need to be as a writer I think that's all stupid um I think it's very similar to performing in any other way I think you should get yourself into a great state of mind and then have that energy and then sit down and write and let it flow and let that energy rip through you so that the the other person who reads

it is going to feel the same excitement you have about the Insight or feel the same excitement you have about this plan or whatever it is um you know you want that to come with it and a lot of times when people write they have this idea they're away from the computer like they're at the bar with their friends they're on a walk with somebody else they're Thanksgiving dinner they're like man you know auntie auntie Diana she has no idea what's going on in the world that woman was crazy and you're so annoyed at like

11:00 p.m. at Thanksgiving and then you try to write like 3 days later and the problem is they're not capturing the energy that Miss Excel is capturing before she does the videos and people end up writing in such a sober state that their writing ends up being boring and sterile 100% the thing I said at the beginning of this podcast where was like I look for things that I think are important that other people don't practice Overlook or be too embarrassed to say they're working on this is an exact example of them of one of

those nobody wants to work on their like State their energy they don't want you know Miss Excel does she's like I'm going to make myself magnetic before I make content oh I like that that's pretty cool I don't I don't know what that means if that sounds provocative right like okay it's better than whatever the hell I'm feeling uh when I sit down to write okay that's a new standard for me I'm going to do that and so um I think most people would probably in their heart believe that this is true that if you

kind of got your energy right before you did the thing it'll probably turn out better nobody's going to do it which is the best part it's the Arbitrage it's how a less talented person like me could do really well wait all do here now the broadcast so like what so what should I do next time I sit down to write how does this actually work where am I going to dance do some jumping jacks like what do I actually exactly that's exactly right so State change is three things number one radical change in your physiology

so you could Sprint you can do push-ups You Can Dance you can um do 20 air squats you can dump your face in a water whatever it is you will it's the fastest way to change how you feel is a radical change in your physiology it's the first thing um so do that that's that's the very first thing um I have a friend who's a professional poker player he does the same thing he goes during poker players are like notoriously degenerates like you're literally sitting there in a casino which is like the worst air pumped

in environment there's no windows and you're around other degenerates all day people are smoking it's bad um he's like a monk and he during a tournament in the breaks he goes in the parking lot and he does win Sprints he's not doing it to be a better Runner he's not doing it to increase his V2 Max he's doing it because he wants to make a better decision when he gets back to the table he knows he makes better decisions when he changes a state and um that's part of his Edge why he's been a European

like you know poker Champion tour Champion you know several years so first thing is a change in your your um your state the second thing is a change in your focus so what are you even focused on um like you know the the way I imagine is I have this laser beam of focus I don't know if this is true but it's what I've convinced myself which is if I just turn my attention to this I will crush this this will be amazing if I if I put 100% of my focus on this podcast right

now oh this podcast didn't stand a chance and the only limit to me is just where I'm pointing the beam and if I'm trying to point it in five different places or whatever that's going to be a problem this also works with like if you have to write something and there's a deadline if your focus is on the deadline it's the wrong place to focus right if your focus is on you know um your uh how hard it is for you to do something if you're focus on how hard it is it's not a good

place to focus like you need to focus on the thing you want um so you know don't focus on the wall where you're like trying not to crash like turn right B focus on where you're turning and then the last one is basically your story so what's the story you tell yourself um we all have some story that we tell ourselves and if you improve the story you will change the state of mind that you have so if I go into the sto if I go into this podcast right now in my story is um

I'm just I'm doing a favor to David I'm just doing this oh man like you know I had to drive an hour to come here and you know this means I'm not going to be able to do this thing and whatever that's the wrong story obviously I'm not going to perform very well I'm not going to be in a peak State whereas if my story was there was going to be someone who listens to this one person one person who's listening to this podcast and they're going to hear one thing that I say one story

and they're going to be like wow I can't unhear that that was amazing and that person was going to go on do amazing things and they're going to write me a letter one they and be like dude that podcast you did changed my life I'm going to approach this podcast differently right I the different words will come out of my mouth if my story about what's happening is different so similarly if you want to basically change your state physiology first Focus Second Story third