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This is The Art of Charm.
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Learn everything you need to know to crush it in business, love, and life.
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The Art of Charm is where ordinary guys become extraordinary men.
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Welcome to The Art of Charm.
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I m Jordan Harbinger.
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The Art of Charm brings together the best thought leaders, teachers, and exceptional individuals to teach you how to be a top performer in life, love, and at work.
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Imagine having a mix of experienced mentors teaching you their expertise, packing decades of research, testing, and tough lessons into a curriculum.
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We may not have all the answers, but we definitely have all the questions.
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Make sure to stay up to date with The Art of Charm and get some great stuff we don t or can t share on the show, like our networking e-book strategy guide, whatever we want to call it, that we gave away earlier, by signing up at theartofcharm.com.
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We ll also email you our Fundamentals Toolkit that covers topics like body language, nonverbal communication, dating, attraction, persuasion,
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networking, a la the above, public speaking, negotiation, and a whole lot more.
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And we ve got our live programs running every week here in Los Angeles.
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In fact, we ve got guys from all over the world, which shows that no matter where you are, you can make it here if you want to learn and grow.
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We re sold out a couple months in advance, so if you re thinking about it a little bit, get in touch ASAP by phone, or just email me, jordanattheartofcharm.com.
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Get some info from us now so you can plan ahead.
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Looking forward to meeting you here at AOC.
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Before I forget, I also want to encourage you to join us in the first Social Capital Challenge.
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Go to theartofcharm.com slash challenge or text CHARMED to 33444 and we ll have you text us your email instead, no spam, and works a lot better when you re not in front of your computer.
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This challenge is about improving your social capital and inspiring more people to develop a personal and professional relationship with you.
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During the first four weeks, we re giving away something special as well, so keep your eyes open for details.
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You will not want to miss out on what we re giving away either.
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This challenge will get progressively more difficult, so if you think it s easy at first, great, and this will make you a better networker and a better connector.
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Oh, and the last thing, if you want to have accountability, please invite your friends to join the challenge as well at theartofcharm.com slash challenge or have them text charmed to 33444 so they can join the challenge too.
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Today we re talking with my dear friend, Amy Mead.
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She is Michael Port s co-founder and director of training for Heroic Public Speaking, which is where I took that badass speaking class.
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She went to Yale School of Drama, and she spent a lot of years acting professionally.
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You know, Jason, she was up for the role of Grace in Will and Grace.
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You remember that show?
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Wow, yeah, that s amazing.
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Yeah, it s kind of cool, right?
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So she s legit.
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Not like Tobias Fuenke in Arrested Development.
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Not like that kind of actor, like a real one.
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And she s great.
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She s a really good teacher.
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She s really good at making people feel comfortable and delivering a skill set.
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And today, we re gonna deliver a storytelling skill set.
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And by we, I mean she, because mostly I just get in the way on this one.
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So enjoy this episode with Amy Mead.
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Tell us what you do in one sentence.
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I teach non-actors primarily the skills that only the highly trained actors know, the people who come out of Yale and NYU and Juilliard and all those other top-notch programs.
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We take the skills that those people learn and we give them away.
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We give them away to the non-actors.
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For money.
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For money.
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We give them away for money.
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And often for free.
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Yes, I know.
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I m just kidding.
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Tons of it is free.
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It s true.
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I mean, we re teaching people how to stop speaking and start performing.
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And the irony of that is when I came out of grad school, I thought I had no translatable skills.
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I thought if I ever stop acting, I have no idea what I will do and I will end up as a librarian or something like that.
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And what I found is that the skills that I got in drama school, the skills that I got earning my MFA are the skills that other people want.
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It s fabulous.
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Yeah, it s not the usual outcome, because usually when you tell your parents you re going to go learn to act, they re like, nope.
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It reminds me of Dr. Tobias Funke on Arrested Development when he says, I want to be an actor.
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Actor.
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Actor.
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Right.
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Exactly.
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And they say, what s your backup plan?
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And you say, barista.
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No.
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I think it s it is interesting because I thought the same thing like acting whatever whoever studies that what a knucklehead.
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You re not going to get a job.
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You re going to be totally out of luck.
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You have to be delusional going into it thinking you re going to be famous, but the skills are very useful.
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I mean the stuff that we learned when you and Michael were coaching us were super super useful.
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And I want to focus today on storytelling because most people are so bad at it that it becomes literally painful to watch because you contort your body into such a tight cringe while the other person is doing it that you need to like go to yoga afterwards.
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Well, and yoga s not a bad thing.
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I don t want to knock the yoga.
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But it s true.
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I mean, we have that instruction that so many people who speak in public in any way get, which is, well, tell stories.
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And so many of us think, well, we re just great storytellers naturally because if we re telling a story that happened to us, then we know it and somehow the story should be good.
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But that, of course, is not the case.
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We see bad storytellers of
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of so many different kinds.
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There are some people who just go on and on and on with a million details that have nothing to do with the point.
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We see people who do the, well, I m just going to make this a long story short, and you totally miss the point of the story altogether.
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And then there are the stories that just have no stakes to them.
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There s nothing on the line, there s nothing interesting.
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It s stories about the most mundane things that come along.
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And if we re gonna tell a story, A, they need to be good stories, and B, they need to be stories that give the people who are listening a deeper understanding of what it is we re presenting on.
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I think you re right.
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I think they just figure, look, this happened to me.
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So I m going to tell the story.
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And I find that when I m with people or even if I m not with people, sometimes it s kind of awkward because in my circle of friends, not everybody, but some of them are really bad storytellers.
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And so they ll tell the story and it ll take like 40 minutes over dinner and we re dying, you know, and and Jenny s like, OK, and then what happened?
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So we ll hear the story.
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And then when it gets time to tell it to our other friends, they re like, Jordan, you tell the story.
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And I wasn t even there.
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Yeah, well, part of it is knowing how to sculpt a story.
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So going back to Aristotle, if I can, he developed what he called the three-act structure.
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And it s there being three parts to a story.
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And you need all three of them or the story just doesn t work.
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The first act is the exposition.
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And basically, it s the details.
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It s, well, what do I need to know for the story to even make sense?
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Well, I need to know the people.
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I need to know a little bit of the context, a little bit about the relationships.
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Sometimes you need to know time and place, but it s what you see in the beginning of any movie or any play, any bit of theater.
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We have to know enough about what s going on in the world we re in for it to make sense.
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If we jump into a story that has us in huge conflict, but we don t know who the heck the people are or why we should care, then it doesn t matter.
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So that s the first part.
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We say the first act in the three act structure is it s the exposition.
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And so is that what happens going sort of bringing it back to the bad storyteller?
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Is the exposition missing when we we have there s no stakes?
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Is that what that means?
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It s missing or it s too long.
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You know, if I move into the story, let s say about how it s in the front of my brain, about how Michael proposed to me, and I tell, I say, oh, I m gonna tell you how Michael proposed, but I spent 40 minutes telling you about us developing the business together and how we got to know each other and our relationship as business partners.
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Everybody s going, wait a minute, I thought you were gonna tell us about the proposal.
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Right, like wake me up when you talk about proposal.
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Wake me up when you talk about something interesting, please.
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The long story short guy, is he just not confident enough to tell the whole story?
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So he just says, well, you know, it s funny because Michael and I have been working together for a while.
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And long story short, we re engaged now.
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And you re like, that sucks.
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Exactly.
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You go, well, where s the story in that?
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Where s the interest?
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Where is there a build to it or an arc to it?
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We as audience members or somebody listening to a story, sitting at a dinner table, want to be taken on a journey.
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We want there to be some kind of an emotional arc.
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And if we have the setup, we know the exposition, we know the basics, then we can get to the conflict, which is the second act in the three-act structure.
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It s where everything goes wrong.
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And that should be the heart of every story.
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story.
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Sometimes it s one big conflict and sometimes it s conflict after conflict after conflict.
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It s things not working out the way the people involved want them to or something dramatic happening that screws everybody up.
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You know, again, coming back to that event, if it was
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And then he asked me if I would marry him, and I said yes.
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Well, there s no problem there.
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There s no conflict.
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There s nothing that keeps us wanting to listen.
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So first you need the setup, and then you need the whole conflict, everything that goes wrong.
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If there is no conflict, then we don t care, and there are no stakes.
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If there s nothing that we risk, if there s nothing that we might potentially miss out on, then there are no stakes, and that s not interesting either.
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Right, so what do we mean by stakes?
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The stakes are the problem that we overcome, or the hurdles.
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The stakes is why does it matter?
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What if it s just a funny story?
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And also, later on, what s a funny story?
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But, no pressure, but what if it s just a funny story?
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Now that s been set up for you.
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What if it s just funny?
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I think people are going to be at home going, do I tell stories with steaks?
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I don t know.
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Well, largely things are funny because there are steaks.
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Things are funny when they re absurd.
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Things are funny because we care about them.
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You know, if you think about, think about Seinfeld, right?
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You had that ridiculous, whacked out character, Kramer.
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Right.
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And if you think about how he responded to the littlest things going wrong, his whole body got insane.
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Right, like spastically reacting.
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Spastically reactive.
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Everything about him was in this super high stakes mode all the time.
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And that s what made it funny.
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Now, there are lots of kinds of humor, but that kind of absolute absurd reaction to seemingly normal circumstances like the shower pressure not being strong enough, you know, like the kind of mundane things that he would react as if a volcano had just erupted, that s funny.
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Absurdity is funny.
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What causes people to tell the not funny stories?
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Because we ve all sort of encountered this guy slash girl, the, oh my God, hold on, this is hilarious.
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And then you re like, where s the funny part?
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Not getting, this isn t funny to anyone.
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Well, part of it is understanding timing.
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If we don t understand timing, then it s very difficult to be funny or to make a story work.
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Those of you out there who have done any work with Michael and I have inevitably heard us talk about beats.
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It s knowing what to pause for.
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And it is not funny.
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It won t be funny if we don t allow a pause for the audience to laugh.
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So sometimes things aren t funny just because people don t understand the timing or can t work the timing.
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But another piece of it is, do you own the room?
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Meaning, when you re telling the story, do you have the attention of the people in the room?
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So that when the time comes to pause, which allows the audience to digest and laugh, if it s funny, you want to make sure that no one else is going to jump into that space.
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If you don t own the room, you don t own the timing.
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Does that make sense?
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It does.
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Yeah.
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And so it sort of gives us a little window because I think a lot of folks, including myself, before I took the training that we re talking about here, I didn t really think of storytelling very much as part of another skill set, which is performance.
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I just thought of structure.
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Where I just thought of you got to have something funny and then the story kind of takes care of itself.
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I didn t really think of a hold on.
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You ve got to be able to keep people engaged.
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You ve got to be able to sort of hold court a little bit and then you ve got to be able to project so everyone can hear you and you ve got to pause so that people are like and then what happened and not pause and then people are like is this guy done already and I want to eat.
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You gotta be able to figure all that stuff out and some of it came intuitively from telling a lot of stories and doing the show.
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But I know that it s not intuitive for pretty much anyone because it s it s a manufactured structure.
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That s right, and it can come through doing a lot of it, having a lot of experience telling stories, but we can jumpstart that whole process for anybody by understanding how to work the structure.
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So we talked about exposition, we talked about conflict.
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There has to be a resolution.
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Often you see, oh, I wanna say foreign films that have no resolution.
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I don t know why I wanna say that because I ve seen so many great foreign films too that end beautifully.
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On the flip side of it, you see all the Hollywood films where everything wraps up so neat and clean at the end.
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And sometimes in foreign films, things are left much more open.
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But for a story to work, we do need there to be a resolution of some kind.
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It doesn t have to be a happy ending, right?
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It doesn t have to be neat and clean.
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It doesn t have to be Hollywood, and often we don t want it to be, but some kind of pulling together of the loose ends.
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It s deeply unsatisfying when we see a film or a play or listen to a friend telling a story, and it kind of peters off where there isn t a wrapping up of the loose ends.
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Which is kind of like a punchline situation, if it s funny.
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Sure, sure.
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So yeah, if you don t have one of these elements, you re totally screwed.
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But if you haven t studied this, you might not know they exist.
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You just know that your stories are stinkers.
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It s like a cheat sheet.
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The three-act structure is like a cheat sheet on how to tell a good story.
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Give it the three parts.
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Make sure that they are there in balance, meaning that the exposition s not too long, that the conflict is the major part of the story, and that there is a resolution.
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Where do we begin if we know we re not great storytellers, or we just think maybe we re okay and we need to improve?
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Well, I think first you start with that three-act structure we were just talking about.
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Right, okay.
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And I think you get in touch with, well, why do I want to tell this story in the first place?
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Oh right, like what s the point of the story?
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What s the point?
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Does it serve anything that I m doing?
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We talk with many people who are public speakers about this because stories are so, they re so great for providing contrast.
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If someone is presenting a keynote or a webinar or a live stream class or something like that, if we just deliver curriculum, it can get really dry.
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And so we look to bring in stories to bring in some contrast, to bring in a different tone, to bring in something playful.
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And we want to make sure that the stories we re telling serve a purpose, right?
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So finding the right stories that serve the intention of whatever it is you re trying to gain, that piece is crucial.
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You know, sometimes we talk about
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Performance as in, oh, everyday life.
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Performance as in a first date.
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Performance as in a job interview.
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Performance as in meeting your future mother-in-law.
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That all of these circumstances are opportunities where, in some way, the spotlight is on us.
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and people are watching and listening.
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How we bring a story into those circumstances is sometimes a challenge, right?
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Because you would tell a different story on a first date than you might to your future mother-in-law.
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Very, yeah, definitely.
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At least I hope you would.
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Yeah.
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All right, back to Amy Mead.
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I m still walking on some eggshells, depending on the story with the future mother-in-law.
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Yeah, so we do have a technique for sourcing the stories.
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And one of the things I want to say here is, you know, this may take a little time, but it s so worth it and can be so much fun.
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So often when people are presenting, it s done with very little preparation.
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We go, oh, I know how to talk.
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I ll just get up and talk.
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But a little bit of preparation here goes a very long way.
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And part of that is because in public speaking, the bar is actually quite low.
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There s not a lot of great kick-ass public speaking going on generally.
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Now, that s not to say I haven t seen great speakers, phenomenal speakers, I ve seen a lot of them too, but a little preparation and a little work, it just brings the quality up comparatively so quickly.
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This technique for sourcing stories, fun to do with somebody else.
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Start off with just bringing to mind certain people in your life.
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So Jordan, if I say to you, your second grade teacher,
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Who comes to mind?
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God, who was that?
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Oh yeah, Mrs. Orova.
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Mrs. Orova, what do you remember about her?
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She was so anal.
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And she always used to say, now you re cooking with gas when you get it right.
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So in this technique, you would simply write down under people, write Mrs. Oroba, now you re cooking with gas, right?
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Because there is a story in there.
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If I think of my second grade teacher, I think of Miss Hagestad, who we used to call Miss Egg Salad Sandwich, which we thought was absolutely hysterical, and I got in trouble so badly for kissing my second grade boyfriend.
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Really?
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Right?
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So this, yeah.
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These are not fully fleshed out stories.
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Does Michael know about this?
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We met very, very young, Michael and I. These are not fully fleshed out stories, but you just start to list them, right?
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So you might have a column of stories for different people.
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Your first roommate in college, the first
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boss you ever had, the first person who ever fired you, if you ve ever been fired, and the stories that come along with them.
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And you just make a list.
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And then you go on to places.
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So let s say a vacation spot from your childhood, Jordan.
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Oh, man, my cottage up north.
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I freaking hate that place, though.
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It s so boring.
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No stories.
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Nothing happened there.
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Yeah, I got burned by my neighbor Tracy.
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She put a stick in the fire because we used to play with fire constantly because we were so bored.
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It s all rednecks up there.
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So Tracy shoved a stick in the fire and then pulled it out and wasn t paying attention and burned my arm with it.
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I still have a little scar.
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See, you have a story in the places where we go, oh, that s totally boring.
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There are stories.
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It s amazing how, however many years we ve lived, how many stories there are in there.
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Now, not all of these stories are gonna be used in every speech, but we start to make this list.
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If I think of a vacation spot,
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What s popping to mind right now is going to, boy, it s all about boyfriends today for me.
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I think of my college boyfriend and going with his family to Lake Winnipesaukee and yeah.
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I have a story there that s inappropriate for airtime.
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Yeah, I was gonna say, it sounds like you just censored yourself big time.
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I did just censor myself big time.
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And that s okay, too.
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There are stories that are appropriate in different circumstances.
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But I think of this little cabin on the lake, and there are stories that go with that, and I would jot them down.
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So we have people, and we have places, and then we have times.
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So how about your college graduation?
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I didn t go.
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You didn t go?
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I didn t go to my college graduation, my high school graduation, or my law school graduation.
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Why?
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I don t know.
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It s not interesting.
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I was already done.
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I didn t feel like there was anything to celebrate because I hadn t done anything.
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I get it.
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So do you remember what you did instead?
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High school graduation, I was in Germany because I was an exchange student.
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And then when I was in my college graduation, I went overseas like right away.
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And same thing with law school.
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As soon as classes were over, I just bounced.
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I had tickets, books, flew out, started exploring some other place.
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So it s kind of a metaphor for my attention span.
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You know, once this is done, I m on to the next thing.
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I don t need to sit around waiting for everybody to get their crap together so we can read speeches.
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No thanks.
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Yeah, good.
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See, you write it down.
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That tells us something about you.
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And that could be useful.
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When I think of my college graduation, I think of I think of the fact that I wore a 1940s vintage nightgown that I had under my my graduation robe.
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I went to Oberlin and lots of people didn t wear the whole do the whole cap and gown thing.
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And so I kind of walked the middle line by wearing a 1940s nightgown under the
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Under the robe, that was my little bit of rebellion.
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Huh, nice.
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You sound like, that doesn t sound very rebellious.
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I m just gonna.
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You re just gonna put that out there?
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Throw that out there, yeah.
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Well, the black robe and hat came off at some point.
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Okay.
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You rebel.
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Boy, there s an interesting tone to this.
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Yeah.
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Events, people, places, times, and events.
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The first time you met your current love.
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I remember this.
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I don t know if I can, I mean, it was like,
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a nondescript spring day in West LA.
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Where did you meet?
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At a sushi bar.
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Just keeps getting more exciting, right?
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See, but these sort of things, you just write them down.
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Now, as we go through these, you and I haven t prepared this ahead of time.
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I don t have these stories in my head ahead of time.
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It s a messy process.
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It s meant to be a messy process where we re just,
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harvesting stories from our memories and jotting them down.
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Because at some point, if we re presenting, if we re cultivating a keynote, if we re preparing for a first date, whatever it might be, you can sit down and go through the list of stories and go, okay, in what way are any of these stories from my memory pertinent to the through line of what it is I m presenting on?
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What s the through line?
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The through line, so it is,
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Sometimes we say the big idea.
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Right?
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Whatever you re presenting on, what s your big idea?
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It doesn t have to be unique.
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It doesn t have to be your little bit of genius, but what matters?
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What s the idea?
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The through line is how we stay connected to that the whole way through.
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So apparently for me today, the through line is boyfriends because every story that I come up with has to do with a boyfriend, whether it s second grade or college or, or Michael, the love of my life.
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What s the big idea in that?
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Well, maybe just that there are stories that we tell that have to do with what is most important to us and that those are the things that pop for us.
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A lot of people seem to not be able to keep track of or identify that through line.
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And so then their stories are just kind of all over the place.
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It s like.
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It s like a cable car without a cable.
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I love the metaphor.
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Part of it is if we re just telling stories off the top of our head, rather than knowing that they serve a purpose, that they serve an overall purpose in our presentations.
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So another piece of that is rehearsing.
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Now, so often we don t rehearse our stories as we talked about earlier, because we think, oh, well, I lived this, I don t need to rehearse it.
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But if we don t rehearse it, then we haven t sculpted it.
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And that s that piece that we were talking about using the three-act structure of making sure you have the exposition and the conflict and the resolution.
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But the thing that most of us don t know is actually how to rehearse.
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I had a student say to me the other day when I said, well, go back and rehearse that.
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And they said, how do I do that?
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That s a good question.
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How do I do that?
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And only people who are trained in performance know how to rehearse.
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We were talking about actually saying the words out loud.
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as if there is an audience in front of you.
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And we speak differently when we are speaking to people than when we are walking around muttering to ourselves.
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And often in preparation, that s what people do.
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They ll pace in a hotel room and kind of half do it in their heads and half do it out loud.
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But that s very different from speaking to another human
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being or a group of thousands of human beings.
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The rehearsal is going through and working it bit by bit by bit out loud on your feet as if you are up in front of people.
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Terrifying.
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No, but it can t it s it s the thing that I procrastinated on doing the most during the coaching process and the thing that everybody There were mornings where we would just talk about like the business of speaking or being better on camera And I remember more than one person being like I m so glad we didn t have to rehearse before lunch
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Oh, because it s painful.
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It s painful.
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It can be painful.
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And even now, it s like, I m okay at it now, but I m like, I should rehearse.
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But I don t know, I m really tired and I m hungry and breaking bad is on.
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I don t know.
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I think it s painful because it s being in the process of the presentation, not being where we want it to be yet.
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Yeah.
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When we rehearse, we get to see, oh, wow, I m not as good as I want to be at this yet.
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This story isn t where I want it to be yet.
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We see what isn t working.
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If we don t rehearse at all, we kind of sit down and sketch out some notes and then go present.
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Well, adrenaline has kicked in at that point.
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You don t even remember what happened on stage.
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Yeah, that s a good point.
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It s just a big adrenaline rush.
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And so we don t really know how it was.
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And most of the time, the audience will applaud anyway, and we come off going, well, yeah, I think maybe I was okay.
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If we rehearse, then we re taking our work seriously enough to say, I m gonna master this craft.
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I m gonna put the time, the energy in, and the bravery of going, wow, you know what?
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I suck right now.
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It s not nearly as good as I want it to be, and I m gonna take the time to change that.
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both for personal reasons and professional reasons, and as a way of honoring the audience, because they are giving us their time.
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Even if it s a friend across the table, they are giving us their time and their energy.
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And so it s honoring of them, it s of service to them, as well as being a benefit to us.
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Another piece that makes a huge difference is loving telling our stories.
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It doesn t mean that they have to be easy stories to tell.
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Sometimes we re talking about excruciatingly painful things, but having that drive behind the story, like we have to tell it, we have to share it, bringing that kind of excitement and delight to it.
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that energy helps plug the audience into it as well.
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Because if we feel kind of like meh about our story, so will they.
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And that s a given.
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So if there s one big piece of advice that I have, and albeit I have a lot of them, it s make sure that you are driven to tell the story that you re telling.
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Now, another thing that we see, though, that s a problem is when people get up and say, I wanna tell you a story.
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Or, can I tell you a story?
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Just tell the frickin  story.
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Just get into it.
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Because we hear stories told all the time, and there s no way to say no to that question.
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There s no way to say, no, no, no, I don t wanna hear a story.
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Can I tell you a story?
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No, I m not really in the mood for a story right now, thanks.
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Right.
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Right.
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And it s so much more delightful when all of a sudden we find ourselves as audience members in the midst of a story without knowing that it was coming.
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Right.
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It s kind of like, can I kiss you right now?
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And you re like, well, you could have.
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But now I just feel like you just blew it.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Nice.
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You don t even have to say apropos that.
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Right.
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You can just start talking.
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I feel if you ve got the three acts, just start telling the story.
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That s it.
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Now, in the context of this particular interview, that s gonna be really tricky because we re talking about storytelling.
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Right.
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Back to Amy Mead.
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But what happens now?
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I feel like if I ask you to tell a story, I ruin it.
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But if you don t start telling a story, we could sit here for a long time.
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Okay, so here I go.
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Ah, I ve ruined it.
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Go ahead.
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I have to tell the story that we touched on earlier, which was the proposal story.
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Michael and I obviously both knew that we were headed toward a proposal, but I was sitting there on a Friday night.
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We were getting ready to head out to the boat and spend the weekend on the boat.
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We didn t have any of our children with us that weekend.
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And we re sitting in the kitchen.
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with our new assistant who says, oh, Michael, on the dining room table, there are some ring boxes that came in the mail today.
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Oh, man.
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And I m going, I just started laughing.
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I said, really?
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Ring boxes?
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She said, yeah, they re really cool.
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You open them up and a little light shines down on where the ring would sit.
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And I said, oh, interesting, Michael.
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And he says, there s no ring in it.
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There s no ring in it.
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I m just shopping for boxes.
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I m just shopping for boxes, right?
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And then she realizes, he looks at her and she realizes, and going through my mind is, oh shit, I should have pretended I didn t hear.
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I just totally screwed up whatever proposal plan he had.
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Now, he for months had been saying, you know, if the time comes when I propose,
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I know you re not into material things, so we ll just do like some little Cracker Jack ring or something like that, okay?
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We ll just do like a bread twist tie, because I know you don t really care. 
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And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don t really care, you know?
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It s about the relationship, it s not about the ring.
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So we re going to the boat the next morning, we get in the car, and we were leaving really early, and he pulls out a box of Cracker Jack and hands it to me and says, I know you didn t have any breakfast, do you want some Cracker Jack?
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And I m looking at him going, you want me to eat this Cracker Jack?
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Am I supposed to eat this Cracker Jack?
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Do you want me to?
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Do you want?
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And of course it s open.
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And he says, Amy, I m never going to be the kind of person who will tell you what to do.
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Make your own decision about whether or not you want to eat the Cracker Jack.
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And I m just looking at him going, I know this man well enough to know that he wouldn t take a beautiful ring and stick it down in some nasty, sticky, crummy Cracker Jack.
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And so I bet the horse that there was no ring in there.
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And he says, okay then, and he takes it back.
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So we stopped for breakfast and we are walking into the breakfast joint and he s bringing the box of Cracker Jack and says to me, are you sure you don t want this?
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Are you sure you don t want it?
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I just looked at him and he held it out over a public garbage can and dropped it in.
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Oh, my gosh.
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At which point I m going, I just blew proposal number two.
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But then he thought he threw it away.
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So nothing was in there.
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Well, we walk into the breakfast joint.
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I m going, OK, there must not have been anything in there.
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We walk into the breakfast joint.
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He says, will you order me a plain bagel with cream cheese?
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I m like, yeah.
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He says, I ll be right back.
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And he goes back outside and he gets the box out of the trash, at which point I m going, I did just screw up proposal number two.
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We get to the boat.
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We re out on the water.
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We re meeting up with some friends.
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We raft up against our friend s boat.
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And they say, Hey, Amy, do you want a glass of champagne?
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I wish when I m going, okay, everybody knows something I don t.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s noon.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s 8.30 in the morning.
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Yeah, exactly.
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It s noon and they re offering me champagne.
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And I, of course, look at Michael and he goes, yeah, you should have a glass of champagne.
3
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And I m going, okay.
3
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And I drink the champagne and nothing happens.
3
SPEAKER_00
So at this point I m going, okay, we re not getting engaged this weekend.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s not happening.
3
SPEAKER_00
We had the ring box, that blew it.
3
SPEAKER_00
We had the Cracker Jack box, I blew it there.
3
SPEAKER_00
And if there was something that was supposed to happen before the champagne, it certainly didn t.
3
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And so then he says to me, let s go off and go up to this other creek.
3
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And we ll stay by ourselves tonight.
3
SPEAKER_00
We ll join up with the other people tomorrow.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I m going, sure, let s do that.
3
SPEAKER_00
Cool.
3
SPEAKER_00
I totally blew this whole weekend.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we re in the boat and we re moving along.
3
SPEAKER_00
And all of a sudden, one of the engines cuts out.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s a really windy day.
3
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There are all of these waves were rocking all over the place.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he s and this engine went out.
3
SPEAKER_00
He says, here, we re going to go over a little closer to the shoreline.
3
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We ll put the anchor down and then I ll go down below and check out what s what s going on.
3
SPEAKER_00
So we head on over to the shoreline.
3
SPEAKER_00
Later I found out it s this place called Love Point.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we go down, I go down on the bow, we anchor, and he says, just stay there.
3
SPEAKER_00
He comes down onto the bow of the boat, and he says to me,
3
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there s no problem with the boat.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he gets down on one knee, at which point in all the waves, the boat pitches, and I practically get thrown over the edge of the boat.
3
SPEAKER_00
So he grabs me and has me sit down, asked me to marry him, and opens up this beautiful ring box with this ring that you know about, Jordan, because you were part of the plot.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
3
SPEAKER_00
But he says to me,
3
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I designed this ring myself.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was important that it be substantial because you are, and that it be delicate because you are, and that it be
4
SPEAKER_00
lit up with light because you are.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he totally slayed me.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it was the moment that I didn t expect it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I, of course, said yes.
4
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, that s that.
4
SPEAKER_00
But part of the reason I tell this story as my example is all of the conflict along the way.
4
SPEAKER_00
If it was, oh, he invited me out onto the bow of the boat and said, will you marry me?
4
SPEAKER_00
And I said yes.
4
SPEAKER_00
Then we go, oh, and that s it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Who cares?
4
SPEAKER_00
But for us, and for me, and what we hope is when we tell it, is that it s, oh, she blew it once, she blew it, or the assistant blew it, then Amy blew it, we have no idea what happened the third time, and then we get to the resolution that makes some kind of sense.
4
SPEAKER_01
I love that you blew it so many times.
4
SPEAKER_01
That makes it even better, because I heard about him digging through the trash.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because he sort of brought something like that up before and I was like you better be careful that you don t get a phone call or like you re trying to make a left turn and she like chucks the box or downs all of it.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know and like goofing around puts it all in her mouth and swallows it.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean you re gonna be in trouble.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, there were a million things in any circumstance that is high stakes like that, like asking somebody to marry you.
4
SPEAKER_00
There are a million things that could go wrong.
4
SPEAKER_00
The waves out there were big enough that easily we could have been thrown over the side of the boat.
4
SPEAKER_00
And as the rest of the evening went on, it s a much longer story, actually, because we grounded the boat.
4
SPEAKER_00
I heard about that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
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We had a small boat near us when we were grounded that had 15 completely intoxicated people and they, something was wrong with their boat and they didn t drop their anchor.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re totally drunk and their boat is drifting toward us like it s going to crash into us.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then at some point, a couple of the guys got off the boat and swam over to us and tried to get us to give
4
SPEAKER_00
them are battery from the boat, and Michael s just like, go inside, Amy, go inside, hide your ring.
4
SPEAKER_00
These 15 drunk guys are approaching the boat.
4
SPEAKER_00
So it s a story that goes on and on with more conflict, but there is just that first loop of it.
4
SPEAKER_00
The stakes are high because it s about something that for many of us matters, that moment of proposing or being proposed to.
4
SPEAKER_01
Can you, yeah, buy a gun if you own the boat is the lesson Jason says.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, he said to me later, I didn t think about the flare gun.
4
SPEAKER_00
I should ve had that.
4
SPEAKER_01
I should ve gotten that out.
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I mean, great story, but there s a handful of people who are like, I don t know who these people are, I don t care.
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Totally, and how does it apply to me?
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How do I make it useful?
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Right, I m already married, I don t need this.
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Yeah, so the exposition is that I knew that there was a proposal coming, right?
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There s me, there s Michael,
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As many couples do, we knew there was a proposal coming, but the question was when.
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The conflict is the ring box being revealed, the Cracker Jack box in the trash, the champagne, and then the boat seemingly breaking down, right?
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Like everything that could go wrong seeming to go wrong.
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And then the resolution to the story is the actual proposal and the actual yes.
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If any of those pieces weren t there, the story doesn t work in the same way.
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If I started off the story by saying, Michael and I were in the car going to the boat and he handed me a box of Cracker Jack and I didn t know what to do with it.
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If we don t know that I am thinking there may be a proposal that weekend and that he had been setting me up with Cracker Jack jokes for five months, then it doesn t work.
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If there s no conflict, if it s just
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and he asked me to marry him, then it doesn t work.
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If you don t get the resolution that there actually did end up being a proposal and a yes, then it doesn t work.
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We need all three parts.
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We need the setup of the expectations, the hopes and dreams, if you will, that we might ve had, the problems getting there, and then the resolution.
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Awesome, I love this.
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Because if we have stories we tell all the time, or if we have, how do we kind of work with these on the fly?
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Do we write down the structure, plug the events in as they go, and then sort of practice telling it even in our own head?
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Because a lot, most people aren t going to be like, alright, I need to dedicate an hour this week to my storytelling that I m going to use at the bar on Friday.
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They just kind of need the structure, right?
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Yeah, they need the structure.
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So, you know, you can do this in the shower.
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You can do this when you re driving your car.
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If there are stories that you typically tell or that are your favorite go to stories, just start to think through them.
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OK, well, do I set it up well?
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Is there a setup?
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Enough details, but not too many, please.
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And then is there a conflict that actually matters, that has some stakes to it?
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And does it resolve?
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And then one of the things I really suggest people do, and you can do this on the fly, is go, does every detail matter?
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Everything that I m including, does it actually matter?
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Because often when we ve experienced it, we often go off on tangents like, well, you know, it was actually my brother s sister, Susie, who was there with me at the time, but that doesn t really matter.
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If it doesn t matter, don t say it.
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And as you re cutting the details that don t matter, you can also enhance the details that do.
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And, you know, there s always an interesting debate here, and it depends what you re using your stories for.
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But if you are, let s say, in performance, my point of view, and Michael and I have talked about this a great deal, is that as long as you re not lying, it s perfectly fine to enhance details.
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The boat was tossing us back and forth.
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I had to catch the handrail.
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That s absolutely true.
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Saying I could have been thrown overboard, well, maybe that s a little bit of a push.
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He got me sitting down pretty darn fast.
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But when I m telling the story, you know, I might say, and then the boat pitched and I had to grab the edge of the handrail and he quick pulled me down onto the bow pad and then got on one knee.
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The way we use the details have to matter to either accentuate the story and raise the stakes of it or connect to the through line.
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But don t include the details that really don t matter to anyone but you.
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Perfect storytelling framework.
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Three act structure, go through the stories, check, do the details matter?
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If not, cut them.
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If they do, maybe buff them up a little bit, polish them.
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I want to take it back a notch real quick though.
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How do we source story?
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Because a lot of people go, I don t have good stories.
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In fact, when I first started teaching social skills way back in the day,
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Like eight years ago now, we had a client who said, I m not really good at telling stories.
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I don t really have any stories.
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And he thought he needed stories.
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And we re like, well, most people do.
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And you don t have to have them.
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But just out of curiosity, what do you do?
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And he s like, I m a truck driver.
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And I m like, well, you must have seen something interesting along your career.
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Where are you a truck driver?
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And he said, Iraq.
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and Afghanistan and I said, well, what kind of trucks are you driving in Iraq and Afghanistan?
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It s already interesting.
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And he goes, fuel trucks.
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And I said, so you re driving a fuel truck in a country that s in the middle of a war with like the Taliban and insurgents and things like that.
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Has anything ever happened?
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Oh yeah.
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One time, well, a few times actually, we were driving in a convoy and like the Humvee in front of us, there s an IED and they re shooting rocket propelled grenades at this fuel truck that I m driving.
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This is a pretty big truck and there s grenades flying at it.
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and exploding everywhere and you know we just step on the gas and blow through because if they hit the fuel truck it s gonna go up big time and we re all in trouble, we re all dead and I said, so what do you do?
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How do you get out of there?
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He goes, well we turn up the volume on our iPod and step on the gas and I was like, okay, you have stories.
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Yes, that s brilliant.
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I love it.
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And we have so many more stories than we think we do.
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So in this circumstance, you take a little time to write down your stories.
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And these are the things we went through earlier of places and events and times and people.
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You can go back to that little notebook or that little list and go
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specifically looking for the stories that will work on that first date, that will work at the bar, that depict you in the way you want to be depicted or help you achieve your goal, whatever that is.
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And go back to that list and then start cultivating them, start sculpting them, and yes, rehearse them.
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Now, often people go and they ll, they ll go to rehearse them in a mirror, I do, I really strongly suggest that you do not rehearse in front of a mirror.
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It s one of the worst pieces of advice out there.
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Because when you are rehearsing in a mirror, it s only going to make you self conscious.
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It s like watching yourself on video.
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The first time we watch ourselves on video, all we see is what is horrible.
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All we see is the things that we can be critical of.
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And that can happen in the mirror too.
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So do it in the car or do it in the shower.
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Work on your stories in a way where you re working on how you tell them, not how you judge yourself to be seen.
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Perfect, right, because you can t really do that in real time.
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It s probably too hard.
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No, if we re looking in the mirror, we re just in judgment mode rather than performing mode.
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Stay creative, stay in that performing mode.
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And I mean that in the best possible way, because when we perform, we re looking to bring out certain aspects of our personalities, certain aspects of ourselves that will get the job done.
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That doesn t mean all of the aspects of our personalities, but we have to be focused on how we re delivering.
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I suggest be focused on how you re delivering rather than watching and judging yourself as you do.
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Excellent.
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Thank you so much, Amy.
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Is there anything else that you want to deliver that we have not asked you yet?
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Just have fun telling your stories.
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That s the piece, is when you ve done this work, then love telling it, relish telling them.
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And your enthusiasm, your love for the story will pour over to your audience.
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Thank you so much.
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And congratulations on your engagement.
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Thank you.
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And we ll see you at the wedding.
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Yeah, you will.
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Jason, I like it.
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Storytelling.
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It s amazing.
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The three-act structure.
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I mean, that s the basis of all good stories.
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And it s funny, because we all know good storytellers that do this, and they probably don t know the three-act structure, at least not academically.
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They just kind of do it.
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And they ve also told enough crap stories to know when they really nail it.
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And the good stories follow a certain structure, and they just kind of follow that.
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But if you know, if you can see the matrix, if you ve got the code in front of you, like Amy just taught us,
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You can make your stories good and compete with these loudmouths like me who ve told, you know, a thousand stories because they love the sound of their own voice.
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Show feedback and guest suggestions.
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The show is a fanarchy.
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That means it s run by you.
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We rely on you to help keep our finger on the pulse, so if you know someone who s a good fit for the show, like Amy, let us know.
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Guests at theartofcharm.com.
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If you enjoyed this one, don t forget to say hello on Twitter.
5
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I m at theartofcharm on Twitter.
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I have no idea if Amy s on Twitter.
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I would be surprised.
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She doesn t seem like the Twitter type.
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Does she, Jason?
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No, she s too busy being on the stage.
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I think so.
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I think so.
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Anyway, I post a lot of crap on Twitter.
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Emphasis on crap.
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But some of it s funny.
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At The Art of Charm.
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And bootcamp details?
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bootcamp.theartofcharm.com.
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Remember,
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We re sold out a few months in advance, so if you re thinking about it a little bit, it s an itch in the back of your brain, get in touch now, get some info from us so you can plan ahead.
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Subscribe at iTunes, write us a nice review, we ll love you forever.
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Jason will give you a little back rub.
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And when you write us a review, it makes us feel good and gets us above the riffraff like Michael Port in iTunes.
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He s got a new show, too.
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Just kidding, Michael, love you.
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Special thanks to the Jasons for their help in production of the Art of Charm podcast.
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Go ahead, tell your friends, because the greatest compliment you can give us is a referral to someone else, either in person or shared on the web.
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Now have a great week, and leave everything and everyone better than you found them.
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Thanks for listening to the Art of Charm.
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Get more confidence, relationship skills, life hacks, and everything for the extraordinary man at theartofcharmpodcast.com.