Notes from Five Stars - The communication secrets to get from good to great - Carmine Gallo
Why Great Communicators Are Irreplaceable
Five Stars is for those who believe their ideas matter
It’s easier to rally a team around one common goal than to divide their attention
Frame the argument within a grand purpose
To make an argument easy to follow and exciting to hear, use the following techniques
Antithesis - juxtaposing two contrasting ideas “Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is a necessary evil”
Anaphora - repetition of the same word or words in successive sentences or within clauses - “It is not an affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent. “
Alliteration - Repetition of similar letter sounds in two or more words in a group - “By referring the matter from argument to arms,...”
Parallelism - Express several parts of a sentence in a similar way to show the ideas are equally important, adding balance and rhythm to a speech - “ I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments and common sense.”
Qureshi interview prep :Consider yourself a character in the story and structure your story with a beginning, middle and an end. There should be inflection points, characters and easy to understand motivations. Keep it short while preserving the color that’s interesting. Qureshi practiced the stories he would tell again and again. He recorded himself telling the narrative and asked his friends for feedback
Top leaders believe communication skills as the lubricant of execution that gives the company its competitive edge.
Nothing happens voluntarily in an economy or society, unless someone changes her mind. Behavior can be changed by compulsion, but minds cannot.
In free societies, free talk rules. Persuasion - sweet talk - affords the greatest opportunity to leapfrog from where you are today to where you want to be.
Rhetoric is ultimately the art of happiness. The end goal of persuasion is to use language to encourage both parties to flourish, to find happiness. Aristotle said there at two steps to achieving it.
First step is articulating the theme of the argument itself. Second, the speaker must prove that the argument is solid and logical.
A speaker must back up the argument using three rhetorical proofs. Logic, credibility and emotion. Logos, Ethos and Pathos
Logos - Logical reasoning
Ethos - The character of the speaker
Pathos - emotion
Emotion is the fastest path to the brain. Emotion grabs our attention and emotional memories are unforgettable.
There’s one thing that only humans can do, and that’s dream, so let us dream big. -Gary kasparov
Successful companies and entrepreneurs create a narrative around their products, services and brand. If I want to have an impact on your life or to sell you something. If I want you to use something I have created, I’ve to fit that into your narrative. I have to tell you a story that is compelling enough for you to want to be part of my story because I’ve created change, something new and interesting. And that narrative is something I want you to be part of. That is how humans have created our civilization. We tell a common story that holds us together.
Ahrendts father said - “I can teach you anything. But I can’t teach you to feel. I can’t teach you to care.”
Lessons of 5 star hospitality providers
Get the customers name right
Beat the greet - Be the first to say hello, to step out from the desk to say - “Good Afternoon”
Anticipate Needs - A three star employee meets, a five star employee anticipates
Daily Storytelling - Tell stories that reinforce the company culture.
Who’s Earned Five Stars
Neil DeGrasse Tyson: The secret of communicating science and other complex topics is not to “translate” the content - but to explain with enthusiasm and where and when necessary, link the concept to something embedded in pop culture, where we all have active receptors. Take complex ideas and embed it in familiar ground.
He wrote the following demoting Pluto from planethood.
E.g. if Football were the sun at the 50-yard line, Earth would be at the 15-yard line. Pluto a quarter mile away, get over it.
People are responsible for the state of the world. We are managing the world. Great communication skills empower people to lift themselves up from their current situation and to join together in a systematic effort to create a higher quality of file for everyone.
The most important messages are not the ones that inspire you to do something easy. The most important messages inspire you to achieve your highest potential and that’s hard. It’s always hard. But it’s worth doing.
Dollar Shave club bought by unilever - guerilla marketing of DSC
Burning a message into a person’s skull is a rare art. In order to do that, it must be memorable, clear, vivid, and have an element of emotion associated with it. - Micheal Moritz, Investor
Sharon - revolutionized adult diapers by trying them on. - What sets you apart - “Passion and empathy” - The people who stand out, stand up for customers.”
Students of communication climb the career ladder.
All leadership takes place through the communication of ideas to the minds of others. - Charles Cooley
Google’s CEO doesn’t use bullet points, and neither should you.
Google’s project aristotle found that effective teams have the following qualities
Psychological Safety
Clarity
Impact of Work
David Feinberg - President of Geisinger Health
CICARE. Program Acronym Description - Doctors use this to communicate with patients and it improved their satisfaction scores.
Connect - Make a great first impression, greet patient by name where possible
Introduce - Introduce yourself, your name, and your role
Communicate- Explain what you’re going to do
Ask Permission and Anticipate
Ask questions - Also anticipate needs and concerns
Respond -Respond to a patient’s needs or requests promptly and positively
End with Excellence - Close the loop, communicate next steps, and manage up by explaining who the patients will be meeting next
Inspiring Leaders wear SCARF
Status
Certainty
Autonomy
Relatedness
Fairness
Wallace said that a real leader’s authority comes from the power we give that leader and we give them power because of the way they make us feel.We like the way we feel in the presence of a great leader. We like the way they persuade us to work harder, to push ourselves and to dream bigger than we ever imagined.
TED Stars:
Replace bullet points with pictures
Make the audience laugh
Share personal stories
Make presentations easy to follow
State one headline
Use the rule of three
Promise the audience that they will learn something new
The ability to inspire people to look beyond their circumstances and to imagine worlds that have yet to exist is a gift that should be shared, nurtured and sharpened. One great idea can light the world. Let’s shine a light on yours.
How to Get from Good to Great
People are dying because we can’t communicate in ways that allow us to understand each other. That sounds like an exaggeration, but I dont think it is. - Aland alda
The tool is storytelling and by including tension, conflict and hurdles within a story, you’ll add a little stress that keeps your listener glued. Stories are irresistible because we are wired to think in story, process our world in story and share in story.
Three kinds of stories you can tell
Stories about personal experiences
Stories about real customers or clients
Stories about signature events in the history of a brand or company
An impactful story contains the following elements
It’s a story with a beginning, middle and an end
It’s intriguing - thought provoking, novel, informative, interesting and entertaining
It’s authentic - The characters, settings and challenges must feel true.
It includes details - Small, vivid or important details enhance the authenticity of the story
It reveals a surprise
It introduces empathetic characters - The listeners should be able to see themselves in the shoes or the context of the hero.
It has conflict and tension - An empathetic hero overcoming a meaningful hurdle and succeeding in the end is irresistible.
Persuasion cannot occur in the absense of Pathos, an appeal to audience’s emotion.
Stories are the best linguistic tool we have to build Pathos because humans are wired for it.
The three act story structure
The setup - intro and current state
The confrontation - world turned upside down and obstacles are revealed.
The resolution - The problem is solved and everyone is happy
Stories with an emotional trigger alter our brain chemistry which makes us more trusting and open to ideas.
Deliver the big picture
You have five seconds to grab my attention - Geoff Ralston
Don’t cram all you know on One Slide
Hollywood has a log line of the story
This is the logline of Godfather - The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandesitine empire to his reluctant son
Introduce one big idea within 15 seconds of starting your presentation.
Use simple words
He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary - about Ernest Hemmingway
Use grade school language
Sell your idea in 10 minutes as brain tunes out after 10 minutes.
Download text readability software like the Hemingway app
Edit your work again and again
The computer is a bicycle for our minds
Use analogies and metaphors
Start to keep an eye for analogies and metaphors. You’ll find them everywhere.
To be a master of metaphor is the greatest thing by far… it is a sign of genius
(B) - Book to read - Shortcut: how analogies reveal connections, Spark Innovation, and Sell our greatest ideas.
It’s rare that a fresh idea comes up out of nowhere. More often we put together disparate ideas that nobody has put together - James Patterson
Connect ideas from everywhere
Find your theme song - songs that motivate you
Read more books to become a better speaker
There are very few problems that a new challenges
Reading enhances the leader's ability to create powerful, emotional rhetoric to galvanize a team.
Take a trip to the unfamiliar to spark to new ideas
When planning a presentation to deliver your original ideas, don’t start with the slides. Put yourself in a creative space and think through the elements of the narrative before creating slides or documents. People are not moved by slides, they’re moved by the emotional components of your story.
Conquer the fear that holds you back
Reappraise your experience
Rehearsal - train under pressure
Great communicators are made not born. All of them have overcome stage fright. You can too.
There are two techniques that help. Reappraisal means reframing your experience from negative to positive. Then put in the practice. Repeating a presentation over and over will boost your confidence for the big day.
Find the tune that makes your heart sing.
Words from the heart enter the heart - Jewish Proverb
