This is Cam Barber and you're listening
to What's Your Message? a podcast where
we chat about two things. Firstly how
messaging is used in our society to
bring attention to ideas products causes
politics and to leadership in general.
And secondly we're going to ask people
about their challenges and their
breakthroughs as they develop their
public speaking skills.
Welcome to the What's Your Message?
podcasts I'm Cam Barber and I'm here with
Craig Bruce, hello -- Hello. And you might be
wondering where we're recording from
well we're recording from Stanford
University mmm beautiful place you know
halfway in between sort of San Francisco
and San Jose right, right in and around
Silicon Valley, and look at the light
here mate isn't it incredible? -- It's just
tremendous isn't it there's something
about Californian Sun it's unbelievable.
-- It's beautiful look there's green grass
here so there's a wonderful beautiful
University and we're here because even
though we're talking about structuring
ideas for presentations and speeches
what we call the chunk structure we're
gonna lead into the most watched speech
of all time which is Steve Jobs Stanford
commencement speech
delivered at Stanford University in 2005.
mmm How many used to don't actually have?
-- Well there's there's three or four
YouTube recordings, so I estimate
about 200 million. One's got
sixty one's got eighty and so on.
So yeah the most-watched speech of all
time. -- Why was it so good? -- Well we'll talk
about that when we get into chunks. Before
we do I've got to tell you a little bit
about our location here at Stanford
University this is what I call an
imaginary location. Yes. -- So we may or may
not actually be in Stanford but the
reason I'm bringing this up and I'm
gonna I think I'm gonna do this if Craig
doesn't talk me out of it. At the start
of each podcast because the location is
engaging and interesting and helps
listeners, you register what's happening
in your mind it's more engaging it's
easy to remember because we've got these
physical triggers these physical
locations. And one of the reasons that
I thought this would be a good idea is
that Jerry Seinfeld was talking about TV
and he was being interviewed on a
few things he you talked about watching
Larry King. -- Oh okay --
Yeah he used to say yeah. With the dots
behind him -- Yeah, well he just said 9
o'clock I'd switch on Larry King and
whoever was interviewing, said I just
really loved Larry King, not really
but it was just the place you know it's
just the location that same setting he's
sitting on the desk he's got the
suspenders on. -- Yes -- You know so I liked it
he said that's my theory about great TV
it's the location. -- Okay-- And the guy was
interviewing laughed and he said what
are you talking about he thought he said
if you're if you like the place you're
gonna more likely enjoy the program.
Right -- And then I realized Craig
what's Jerry Seinfeld doing now apart
from some sold-out great sold-out shows?
-- Coffee and cars -- Comedians in cars. --Yep.
Drinking coffee how specific is that? and
how visual is that? Yep-- And so I've been
watching these and I didn't realize
until he pointed this out that I'm dying
to know what car he chose. -- Yeah-- And
and they zoom in and they talk about it.
And then so a few things happen every
time there's a car, a different car, we
get a profile of the car we get told why
that car matches this comedians, -- They're all his cars as well though -- I don't think so.
-- Aren't they? He's a car collector he has many many cars.
Well he certainly collects Porsches. He
has like as many as a man worth 800
million dollars should have. -- How many is that?
But he's been collecting Porsches
for years.
I see. Yeah... Well he's obviously a car guy
right actually as a diversion here I do
remember when he did Jim Carrey and he
rolled up in some great older car you
know, he's like vroom vroom and Jim Carrey's
environmentally focused you know looking
for an electric car, -- oh right-- Right,
and he brings this up Jerry didn't
realize. He's like no, I just love cars.
Right
and so Jim Carrey sort of says something
about the fumes and he goes ah naw those
electric cars they don't have the same
feel to them. (laughs) In your balls it's not good.
And um Jim goes okay well I guess we
love what you're spewing out. -- Yep-- Anyway what do we get
every time we switch on comedians in
cars getting coffee? We get a few
locations. So we get the car we get an
explanation of why that car matches that
comedian. Then they pick them up so
there's always, you stop outside of their
place sorry, there's a phone...  there's a phone
call within the car where Jerry says hey
you ready and the person's on the other
end of the phone says yeah yeah come and
pick me up. You know whatever, so that
always happens
consistency then you see that the 
camera of them walking out of their
house or close to the house into
the car. Then getting into the car and
then they do what half the show
driving around in the car and then they
stop at a coffee place and then you get
you get camera zooming on that barista
that piece of coffee you know that the
sort of that grinder. The zoom in on which is
having espresso at a flat white or
whatever it is yeah and they sit in that
cafe which is a different location. So he
convinced me that he knows what he's
doing
he's got more Porsches than I do at the
moment and we should take his genius and
say yeah let's do it.
Look, when the budget improves. I'll tell you what when
we get Apple sponsoring the What's Your
Message? podcast -- We'll end up there-- We'll end up wherever we need to be yeah But
at the moment we're doing more of an
imaginary location. -- In the minds eye we are in Stanford--
At Stanford, and I hope you don't feel
cheated by that listeners. So the chunk
theory-- Right-- We're going to talk about
it in the context of the Steve Jobs
presentation at Stanford in 2005. So what
is the chunk theory? is that your idea or
is it your concept? -- I guess the chunks
structure is my idea and if you look
at the book, my books called What's
Your Message? you don't even have to do that
the book's What's Your Message? sorry
let's not let that hang. You could go to
speechoutline.com and have a look at
the chunk structure so there's an app or
web app that we've created which is free
that allows you to pull post-it notes
across this chunk structure. So it's
basically two three or four columns or
chunks.
There's a there's a start and an end to
each chunk and then you have some
preamble or introduction to a speech and
then your message at the end so top and
bottom-- Right, so why do you need a chunk
structure if you've presenting? -- I'll come
back and I'll still answer your question
because I think it's important. So we
developed the chunk structure but it was
built off the chunking principle which
is has been studied for decades and
still is studied in university. the
original paper I think most people
credit is Professor George Miller the
magical number seven plus or minus two
Harvard review 1956. So in this paper
seventy or so pages Professor Miller
talks about a number of things talks
about the human mind and in the basic
idea the basic message is, that the human
mind becomes overwhelmed incredibly
easily and it's basically a filtering
mechanism and it will forget just about
everything unless there is some sort of
mechanism to help it remember. So that
might be a visual trigger but the most
common one and he talked about the
chunking principle is breaking things
into chunks. And then when I was in
marketing back in Radio days so Craig if
you know the story was on-air and then
later as program director and I was in
sales. So I was a suit and he used to
wear flip-flops and shorts on nothing
has changed. So we studied marketing and
we learned basic concepts around that
chunking principle helped us market
better. So we know that people can only
remember some two to five things easily
in their mind. So if you're in a caddy
you let's say running shoes and we know
that what's the top of that category for
most people Nike -- Nike-- probably it's
changed over the years over market but
what did we have? Nike, Reebok,
Addidas, Puma that sort of stuff.
So what we learnt is if you say wanted
to get into marketing running shoes the
budget required for you to try and get
into the mind and displace a Reebok
or an Adidas or Nike would be
messy you just can't do it.
So what you do is you start a new chunk
or a new category
and this was done very successfully many
times. So Converse said we're
competing in a new category not running
shoes that's too broad, we're basketball.
So now people go, the mind the human mind
can say, ohh  basketball, yeah I can
remember two or three or four things in
the basketball --Right-- category so yeah if
I want basketball I'll get the
Converse or whatever and then in
Reebok in fact started off as the
aerobics shoe. So it was only that they
had such success there that they were
able to move into the broad category of
running shoes. --So Lululemon started in
yoga. --Correct-- Moving now towards
lifestyle clothing,.-- Yep-- So the chunking principle
is existed for many years and it's about
the amount of information the human mind
can process or retain. and so as a
speaker of making a presentation or
anyone really wanting to persuade. You
need to understand this the human mind
becomes overwhelmed incredibly easily
and if you're not using some sort of
mechanism to simplify it or to structure
it you lose their attention --Right-- So we
use this very powerful but very simple
chunk structure. --So and it kind of
mirrors the basics of storytelling
doesn't it? you know beginning middle end.
--Sure-- And you know from a from an acting
perspective act 1 act 2 act 3. -- yep-- You
know the moral of the story is at the
end of Act three-- Yeah-- So it you've seen
it in lots of different forms of
communication don't you? Oh yeah we haven't
invented that you know basic outline of
an essay or a three act play or
screenplay something that's existed for
many many years. All we did was was
put it into this visual look with the
columns and the yellow post-it notes for
the start of the chunk, white for the
detail yellow post-it note for the end.
So yes, I can't show it to you on
radio on podcast but yeah there's a
visual look to it that for many people
not for everybody but for many people in
tens of thousands of clients we've
worked with it just makes it easier to
process as a visual set of chunks rather
than just a chunked idea. --Yeah and
I've used the plenty of times and that's
exactly what it does. Does the length
of the presentation because a lot of the
examples that you have had
has one two and three and with
a you know a moral to the story at the
end essentially in acting pallets does
the length of the presentation determine
how many chunks you need? I mean are
let's say I'm doing an hour long speech
versus a 20-minute speech? Do I need, am I 
extending past three chunks five chunks
or what how does that work? -- Yeah, that's a great question that's a question that
comes up very quickly every time we
start talking about chunking. The answer
is no and the simple reason for that is
whether you're speaking for five minutes
or an hour the capacity of the human
mind that you're in your audience
doesn't change. So give an example of
this if you ask people to remember three
things there's a chance they'll do it.
Who are the three Stooges yep Larry Moe
and Curly. I mean we don't hear much
about the three Stooges anymore but if you
said you know who the three you could
remember that.
Whereas if someone said there are seven
things can you remember those seven
things from Craig's presentation last
week? No way, there's is virtually
no way unless some certain device or
song or technique or whatever was used
to hook that in your mind because seven
is too many things. And I've tested this
many times I've said to audiences you
have to pick one person you can't do it
as a group you pick one person and I
even asked who knows the names of the
seven dwarfs? so only asking people that
say they know not I'm not just picking a
random person right. So virtually every
time a person who says I know that I
know the Seven Dwarfs I said great tell
us who they are and about five dwarfs, then
I sort of roll up to the left and to the
right and they go hey did I already say
sneezing? no, hang on. So it's just a simple little
analogy or a little story that shows you
that about five things. --Yep-- Is too much
for us to process yeah and the phone
number is an example. You know most
countries in the world and this is
changing unfortunately now because we
don't even remember numbers, phone
numbers they're all in our smartphone
but a phone number. Let's take the United
States is a seven digit number
broken into two parts and the different
sizes so there's one two three four five
six seven that's not an accident now
that was design
that way so that people could remember
phone numbers they knew that if you
didn't have any spaces or pauses in that
people couldn't remember them right and
and then you might say oh hang on what
about the area code for the state of the
location I mean well guess what that's
in brackets it's in parenthesis which
shows that it's a separate chunk. So if
you say how many numbers can you
remember well three or four or five hang
on, what if I chunk them? and use
different formatting for different
chunks I can probably remember fifteen.
Yeah-- UK I want to call the UK so I go I
get out of my country whatever that is I
can just press plus now. Then like the UK
to get into the UK's 44 I can remember
that 44 UK 44 no problem and then
there's an area code that's two or three
digits 721
I can remember 721 and it's separate to the
country because the it's a separate
chunk and then all I have to do is
remember the six or seven digit phone
number. Right-- So now what's that that's
let's say seven plus four plus two is 13
yeah. So now I can remember 13 numbers
really quite easily because I've used
the chunking principle -Right--
you don't really want to change the
number of chunks so what you're going to
change if you go from a five-minute
presentation to a one-hour presentation
is the amount of detail within the chunk.
--So the start of every chunk is a
premise?-- I wouldn't call it a premise
it's a label-- it's a label --so the way the
best way to think about it is that if
you were saying hey I'm about to give a
talk and I'm going to cover these three
chunks. So then you state what they're
called so it's not necessary premises
okay we're going to talk about what
happened last year the challenges for
this year and the things to focus on
going forward. --Yeah-- So it's just what is
the best label for what's in the chunk?
Here's what Steve Jobs did he opened his
presentation and said today I want to
tell you three stories from my life no
big deal, just three stories. So you see
what he's done there he's beautifully
said this is going to be easy. Do you
think that he thought about the
presentation in chunks? --Absolutely. Do you think so? We've seen in so many of his
presentations. We'll talked about
more of them and buy the book it's called
What your Message? by Cam Barber
public speaking with twice the impact
using half the effort, and there's about
four Steve Jobs examples alone.-- How do
you make something sound you know
natural and authentic and real
whilst you're also thinking about this
this chunk structure and how do you how
do you turn that into a natural
conversation? because it didn't sound
like I was being presented anything in
chunks by Steve Jobs whenever I see that
speech. --Yeah that's a great question
because you're right and I forget this
having been exposed to for so long that
if you say the word structure to people
it sounds robotic doesn't it? It doesn't
sound like it's going to give you the
freedom to relax and be yourself it
sounds like it's gonna force you into a
box but the truth is it does the
opposite of forcing you into a box it gives
you the freedom to be yourself because
instead of starting a speech that's a
long winding path through a jungle that
doesn't end for 19 and a half minutes
you have these shorter paths these
shorter journeys that have an ending. So
get, what I say before? so we're gonna
hang on? Well let's go to Steve Jobs yeah
so what were the names of
his three chunks? He said I am going to tell you three
stories the first one is about
connecting the dots. So you go I don't
quite know what that means but it would
probably become clear. And so now even
though he had a 15 minute speech this is
a three minute or four minute chunk
where he tells a story and he shows you
how connecting the dots ties in and the
basic point there is, that he says you
can't connect the dots about your
decisions until later so you should
trust your decisions. All right and he uses
a great example of how he studied
calligraphy at University where he was
certain there was no practical
application whatsoever but he was Steve
F-ing Jobs and he can do whatever he wants-- yep-- And he thought it was beautiful. So he studied
calligraphy and that the way letters are
formed and spacing and kerning and take
three hours to write one this little A4 you know letter page sign
because he thought it was beautiful. And
then 10 years later he was developing
the Macintosh computer, the first
computer that ever had flexible fonts
--Right-- or even legible fonts really a
prior to that
there was one ugly computer font that
didn't really have any spacing or
kerning and he explained that you know
this experience with calligraphy was
invaluable. So he says you can't connect
the dots, so there's the point so he set it
up
this story's about connecting the dots
he tells a four-minute story then he
wraps it up at the end. right sure. Start
a chunk, go through the details of chunk,
or wrap it up at the end. --Yeah-- And the
wrap-up was you can't tell if it's gonna
connect so trust your judgment more. --Yep--
Thanks Steve.
--And what was his second? --Second story
I'm not looking at these, at notes by the way I'm trying I'm gonna remember the yeah I
guess I've talked about him a couple of
times but there's only three so it's not
that hard
second story is about love and loss
mm-hmm... The story within that is that he
got he started Apple when he was 20 and
got sacked when he was 30. So basically
he went through this embarrassing public
awkward would kicking and screaming
sacking from the board. --Yeah
humiliation-- The humiliation of the
company that he founded. And he said you
know he was sure he had a lot of money
he had a hundred million dollars from
the shares that he sold which is great
and he said look I thought I could do
art I could go to Japan I could study in
Europe but then he sat down he said you
know I love tech I reckon I've got
another computer in me even though it's
a bit embarrassing when a stay in
Silicon Valley and I'm gonna try again.
And so this was a 10-year period where
if you looked, spoke to him
and you looked at it for that 10 years
it looked like everything was going bad.
mm-hmm-- So he started a company called
next N.E.X.T. computers many of you won't
have heard of it because it didn't go
that well. They made black computers. They
stopped making computers after fees
because they weren't make enough money
and they said well their software is
really good though our operating system
is great let's see when just offer that
and have that go on a Mac or a PC or
so on because it's the best software. And
they kept going for a few few more years
I'll come back to the end of that story
in a second. So that was one thing that
was costing him money so he had 100 million
bucks basically every quarter he put his
hand in his pocket and paid to keep
these businesses running they were
running at a loss. --Right-- The other
business was he that he bought from
Industrial Light and Magic was a
rendering software.
So this is rendering graphics which was
hard work and computer intensive back in
I don't know 1985 or something and again
he thought this had potential but it was
making a loss every month every quarter.
So he was he was basically working
through his fortune. Publicly it
looked like well Steve Jobs he did do
well at Apple but nothing's really
firing. And so that rendering software
didn't sell and then they said, well
we've got the technology why don't we
start doing the rendering ourselves
maybe we could make animation, computer
animation. It hasn't been done I think
we're the leaders in that and of course.
So what happened with these two
businesses one became Pixar which he
sold to Disney for 4.5 billion dollars
and the other the software from N.E.X.T. was
purchased by Apple whose software hadn't
grown since he left hadn't been improved
and that's what and they made enough
money he made five hundred million or
something under to pay the costs and
make a bit of a profit and that's
what brought him back to apples for it's
second huge Renaissance. And he also adds
that he in that ten-year period of love
and loss he met his wife.
So talked about the fact that he was a
kind of guy he might not have got
married because he was so intense and he
had kids and that was just a wonderful
thing so again he finishes that with, if
you don't love what you do you probably
won't do great work and I made some
decisions that were really difficult but
I stuck with what I loved and it ended
up working out .--Right-- And by the way as
I'm as I'm sort of delivering these
messages and telling the story of this
speech remember who his audience is. It's
University students bunch of college
people who are basically what's the
question they're asking the mind if you
want to be a good persuader gets good at
asking what is the question or what are
the issues in the mind of your listener.
And they're thinking I haven't been
to work yet, I've got a degree, I'm about to
get a degree. Steve Jobs seems to have
done pretty well, what's he got for me?
what should I think about? how
should I act? what's the wisdom you can
give me as I go out into the world. --Yeah--
And all of these points and stories...
tightly targeted to that perspective. --Do
you have to have a brilliant story in
the middle of the beginning and the
end? --No,
because that kind of, I'm wondering what
the Steve Jobs speech would have been
like if he didn't have those those three
chapters of his life and those amazing
stories that he brought to that
speech because that illuminated the
points didn't it. You know I'm gonna
make a point but I'm gonna tell it
through a story. --Absolutely-- Which is a
bit different - To I'm gonna make a point
and now I'm going to talk about the
black and white figure here is a bunch
of budgets and he's he's some you know
HR yeah you know decisions we need to
make. --It helps to have a story yeah it
certainly doesn't hurt you don't need it
though. Necessarily so sometimes the
story works but see he could have gotten
quotes from somebody else he could have
referred to a movie scene he could
there's many things he could have done
that didn't have to pull from his own
experience it might not have worked in
this situation because that's what he's
there for they're there for his - life
yeah but your question is for everybody
else do we always need to have a story
in between the chunks? the answer's no
it's nice if you can do it. Storytelling
is one of in fact in my book one of the
nine things that you can do to further
engage your audience so it's great, it's
not required. What's required is that
however your chunk ends, that the
content I call it the detail within the
chunk has to prove that. So let's say
your chunk ends with a claim. What I do
today, who was I with today. The claim is
that we negotiate better deals for you
we're a buying group and we negotiate
better deals for you. --mm-hmm-- That's how
it ends that's the point of the first
chunk. So you're just got to go back and
go okay how do we prove that that's true
because the skeptical mind says I'm
pretty good at negotiating you know I
like running my own show why do I want
to lose some autonomy and join a buying
group. So all it needs is enough evidence
or examples of case studies or proof
that claim is true.
Public Speaking has evolved and most
people haven't caught up. Fortunately
there is a book to guide you the book
is called, What's your Message? by Cam Barber
it's available in paperback ebook and
audio formats and it dispels the myths
of the traditional approach to public
speaking and gives you a simple
three-part method for success.
What's your Message? helps you dissolve
public speaking anxiety and promises to
give you twice the impact with half the
effort. What's Your Message? by Cam Barber
available at Amazon and all good
bookstores. --You talked about liking the
way something sounds so through the
rehearsal process we'll get to chunk
three of Steve Jobs as the presentation
to do that next week thanks for listening sign-up for the next one to hear how that 
speech ends. --I'm liking the way something
sounds so through the rehearsal process
you're encouraging people to speak out
aloud and to hear the words and how they
they come together why is that important?
--It's important because of the closeness
problem now the closest problem you can
probably guess what I'm talking about
and I've spoken about this and written a
couple of articles and that's because
it's in the book as well.
The closest problem is that the closer
we are as human beings the closer we are
to a subject the more experience we have
the more we care about it the more
exposure we have to it the harder it
becomes to see the perspective of
somebody else. And I use the example of
giving directions so I've just done this
so many times it works with every
audience in every country I say has
anyone ever used these words when giving
directions bla bla bla bla bla you can't
miss it. Virtually everybody laughs and
smiles and goes you know those idiots
they all do it. Well you know what, if
everybody else does, it that means you
and I do it too. -- Yep-- And that is the
closeness problem. So the closeness problem
in this case with giving directions is
if I say the words yeah and when you get
to that point
it's just around the corner. Well I've
got the closeness problem because I know
what that kind of looks like. In fact
I've got a picture in my head of that
exact corner and the shop that's on the
left and so on. So your experience though
it might be I see four corners here
there's usually three other corners
pretty close right? yeah-- And you haven't
really made it clear which one I should
be focusing on, oh and by the way when
you say just around as Cam uses the
rabbit ears in the air when you say just
around the corners at five steps or 500
steps so the closeness problem is very
important to understand because a lot of
us think we're clear but we're not. And
when you recognize the closeness problem
exists you go you
automatically get better at being
objective and and clarifying ideas for
your audience better. But the speaking it
out loud is very helpful in breaking
through that closeness problem a lot of
people will write down their notes for
speech they'll use an outline for
example one of the common outlines
for preparing a speech says write a purpose
statement or write your objectives
statement for this speech.-- mmm-- Well
that's not a bad starting point but when
is that converted to the actual words
you're going to say right
in many cases never. So you know in
your mind I want to get them to sign up
for this program but you actually
haven't worked out the words you're
going to use to show them that this is
the greatest program and these are the
benefits and there should sign up. So a
lot of people will write out their our
line look at it, read it, read it again
and never say it out loud. So the-- Really?
--Absolutely Craig.-- I find that 
 hard to believe. --Well I it
happens a lot. So then the first time
you're really stating these important
points is when you're in front of the
audience under the pressure of the
spotlight. --Wow-- I'm not thinking okay so
let's call it a sliding scale let's say
some people never test it out loud and
some people test it out loud a lot, well
the more you do it the more effortless
it will be the more certainty you'll
have. But I think your question is more
of a testing situation I'm suggesting
you should say this out loud. To test
whether it actually conveys what you
wanted to convey and you get to sort of
you hear it object a little bit more
objectively you have a gut reaction and
an intellectual reaction. And so yes,
testing it just this outline not the
whole speech yeah
testing the outline out loud is
incredibly valuable.-- Because you've
talked about the one-minute rehearsal
which I guess ties into that as well
what does that open it sounds
like what it is, which is you know you
can you can work your way through a 20
minute presentation in a minute how does
it work in practice? --Well you got to
speak really quickly (laughs)--No, you don't do
that. The one minute rehearsal is amazing
I mean
just the best thing ever how good is it?
I mean you and I've worked on this and
you've done it before so you know what's.
The one minute rehearsal says that
wonderfully a full rehearsal where you
practice every word of say a 20 minute
speech. --Yep --Is not as effective as doing
a slow calm one-minute version where you
blah blah blah you ignore the detail. So
the one-minute rehearsal, says how you're
gonna start let's get the words right
exactly on how you're gonna start. Well
we've got the chunk structure to help
but so you go hey little preamble today
we're here to talk about X Y Z we're
gonna we're gonna focus on three stories.
You know what is it connecting the dots
second stories about love and loss the
third story is about death. So that's the
rhythm of a good start it's also a major
part of your chunk structure and it
takes 20 seconds to test. So do that test
it see if it flows modify it change it. I
mean you you can just make it three
times sharper and clearer and more
comfortable in your own language. I don't
if we finished that whole you know it
makes you feel robotic this is this is
the reason why a structure helps you be
more relaxed and more natural than not
having one. Cause you know what I'm
gonna do the the opening the opening
it's got the title today were here to
talk about X Y Z it's done. I can relax.
That bits done --Yeah -- The next bit
introducing those chunks what are they
are well there's three chunks we're
going to talk about a story with
connecting the dots, then there's
another one of love and loss and other one
about death. Hey you know what I just
finished the overview oh this is great
alright why don't I get into that first
chunk you know there's and then you just
go through it. So it doesn't force you to
be robotic it gives you a chance to rest
to gather your thoughts and from the
audience's perspective not to trainwreck
all these ideas into one long 20 minutes
sentence. --yep yep-- And the the chunk Theory
can also work from a from a day to day
meeting perspective if you're, I mean
this is how I would use it in my
previous work. Where I'd have a lot of
meetings I would take that chunk theory
and then if you know if I've got a
session with a breakfast show having
worked in radio and
there's some key messages that I wanted
to get away and I really needed to think
my way through it I would use that chunk
theory for a one-one meeting or
a one in five meeting or a you know
small group session. --- Your right, look you can forget
calling it the chunk theory. I mean that
just that helps me visually work it but
basically we're saying what's gonna be
covered yeah and and please sir don't
make it 28 things.--Yeah-- Right are there
two to four things that we should cover
that are priorities. And maybe there's a
list of details that need to be covered
well let's put them into one one heading.
--Yeah-- You know the the extra details and
that's gonna help me prepare it's gonna
keep people engaged
I mean how unproductive are meetings? Most
meetings if you're sitting in the
meeting you're not sure how long it goes
for you're not sure why you're there. You
know yes it's incredibly valuable in
doing that. You know I've got my 12-year-old
son. I think since about the age of 8 so
I tell him these things and I every now
now don't lecture him or I don't think I
do, but he's got into the habit of
speaking like this to me and it's
hilarious. (laughs) Dad I think we should go to
the snow! and am like Oh mate I
I'd love to - too oh I don't know if we got some time it
Dad there's two reasons why we should
go and it stops me in my tracks. I'm like what the
kid knows what he's talking about I've
better listen to these two reasons.
--Yeah-- So it's very powerful-- Right do you
need to have a idea behind the
presentation or or you know if you're
doing 15 20 minutes what comes first?
That I'm assuming the idea the central
idea that the central message needs to
be the starting point and in that the
the chunks after that what how does that
normally play out?-- There's the perfect
world and if you follow our process
the vivid method will suggest that's
right you start by working where your
message is. It's like, it's like a
destination. It's like saying hey I'm
gonna get in the car and I'm gonna go
driving. Oh where you going? Oh I am not sure. (laughs)
Well you know I've got a car and I've
got gas in the car, it's full of petrol so
I'm gonna go. And I could go any I could
go to New York or I could turn left and
go to Pittsburgh or maybe go down to
Washington DC. So that's a little bit how
people prepare presentations. The message
is your destination. --Right. Where you
headed?
--Yep. So it's going to be a lot easier
if you go we go to New York. --Yeah. Okay oh
that cuts out a lot of Detail doesn't, and we
don't have to look at the map over there
in Pittsburgh, we don't, we just focus on
what gets us to New York and what
are the signposts and so on.
So yes optimally you go what's my
message what is this idea I want to put
into their head this message that
they're after they leave stays they can
recall and repeat. Once you've got that
working out the chunk structure from
that point is easier but I will say you
do whatever works.
--So stay hungry. --You might have a
presentation that's already ready that's
all you know I've got a client I'm
working with in Houston in three days.
They have 70 slides done and they're
full their chockas is Australian term
here you ready chocka. --Chocka block--
Chock-a-block with detail all 70 slides.
And so they're like you know yeah well
we have you got any tips for us? Well
yeah the first thing is this, where's the
structure. So we're going to apply
retrospectively this chunk structure
over the top right as best we can and
work from there. So yeah it's not a rigid
format there's that there's a best
practice and there's how much time have
we got and what are we dealing with them
what's the best way to get it structure.
--I mean it's hard to answer this question
because you won't know for sure, but do
you think Steve Jobs started with the
central idea of staying hungry stay
foolish? --Okay so we're jumping to the end
here. So let's what. --Can you see what I've
done am now wrapping up your podcast I'm
a good student. So yeah, do you think that
he had that as the... cause I don't... I
mean I've seen the... lots of people have
seen the presentation and I remember
moments but I but I... until today when
I had a quick look at it... again
the stay hungry stay foolish part. I
didn't really that didn't stick with me.
Connecting the dots did. --Yeah. The you
know and everyone has a different
reaction to presentations. Yeah, I'm just
wondering whether he started with
that idea and then work back from there
in terms of the way he presented it. --I
don't know yeah what do you think being
a message expert? --I mean there's an
interesting story within the biography, that big fat white biography that was
published a few years ago. --Yep --Where they
talked about that speech and there's a
good story to it. I'll tell you the story
so I'll make my guess, but I'll tell
you why I'm making that guess. --Yeah --So
Steve didn't make many of these
speeches and he accepted it, partly
because he'd had a health scare mmm and
and he'd come out of it and he was okay
and any thought you know maybe I should
do some giving back. So he agreed to make
the speech I think he had three or four
months before he had to do it. And so he
owned Pixar and he had contacts in the
film industry
obviously and he found a scriptwriter
and he said hey can you help me I want
to write a speech if I'm Steve Jobs I'm
gonna make a great it's gonna be a great
speech so can you help me and I'm busy
being CEO of these other two companies
and so on. So this script posted sure and
they spoke over the phone and gave him a
briefing, he said okay I'll come back to
you know three weeks with a draft
and we can work for it and Steve Jobs
said great, thank you. A month goes by
don't hear back from him. Steve's like where is that
guy. I'll give him a call
gives him a follow-up call no response.
Another month goes by and he's like holy
cow this guy's not getting back to me.
I've got a month to go and I think I was
at about two weeks before where he sat
down at his kitchen table. Cause he
lived in... you might... you know he had a
kitchen he lived in a suburban house. And
he said to his wife I think I'm gonna
have to write this myself and he sat
down with his wife and they wrote it
together on the kitchen table. --Is that
right? --Yeah so and you know that Steve
has used structure before so he's just I
assume he's just fallen back to what he
knows.
Basic structure how many key
things are there? and what's the message?
--Now. --And who's my audience?-- Of course who's my audience.
So absolutely, so did he craft the
message first and then the stories? I
don't know it's hard to guess. I think
what happens here is that... --The reason I
um the reason I'm sticking to that point
is because I think in everyday life the
the starting point for most people when
they're thinking about a presentation is
well... I mean sometimes it you know your
give in a brief which is we need to talk
about X or we're talking about your
department. But normally and maybe it's
just a something that I offend but I
tend to want to be able to start with
and okay where's the angle what's
what's the central idea here? --Yeah. --And
then work back from there and I don't
know I mean it doesn't matter in the end
because the presentation was so amazing
but I mean I'm just wondering whether he
had that as the as the end point or
whether that came to him. --Don't know
we're speculating but let's make it
interesting and call back to something
we just talked about which is testing it
out loud. --hmm
--So there's a possibility that he's got
his draft and they test it out loud and
there's maybe five messages that are
beautiful yep and that's too long oh
that one fits at the bottom of the the
connecting the dots one and so it may
have changed. --Yeah sure. --You know I think
that you can see by the fact that all
three stories, the key points for all
three stories and the stay hungry stay
foolish, all follow the same basic idea
so he would have been very clear on this
you know this key focus which is I get
this audience you're looking for some
wisdom I've just gone through a
university I'm going out into the world
what should I care about what should I
focus on. And his basic message is trust
your own judgment. --Yeah and the
simplicity of it which essentially
everything Jobs made was was simple and
beautiful and then you look at and you
just did there was nothing clouded there
wasn't a single word out of place just
everything worked didn't it? -- It did, as we've
said, what are the messages? find what you
love. Don't follow other people's
thinking, you call that dogma. Stay hungry
stay foolish, that implies you know this
is the the second chunk love and loss,
you know you can make mistakes. --Yeah.
--Right you can make mistakes but if you
focus back on what you love it might end
up working out and failures not failure
it's just a guidance you know and so on.
So yeah that's why I can't I don't want
to put too many thoughts in make too
many projections. I did actually write
a letter to Steve Jobs many years ago I
had some ideas for his marketing. The
terrible bloke. --Did you really? --Yeah, he didn't respond, 
but his marketing manager did. --Okay. --Guy
Kawasaki said thanks Cam.  --Really Guy
kawasaki? --Yeah, yeah. --Okay yeah, what a great guy. What did he
say to you? --Let's see what was the letter?
 I was saying that umm. --He's unbelievable. --He's a super guru.
amazing yeah you know he's written three
or four books he's fantastic. He just
said... I said I think
it's got to be more about how easy it is
to use, I'm not hearing that. I know you
guys think the Mac is easy to use but
the fact that it's easy to use means you
actually get more done and I'm not
hearing that and what I'm hearing in the
marketing is you know think different
and so on. And he basically very politely
said I think we got this Cam. (laughs) Thank You for your
comments we are okay. --Right do you think
he typed that back to you or not? --I feel like he did, just the letter I got, it was a short letter but who knows. he responded and then.
Brilliant okay so the third chapter in
the Stanford story was was about death?
--Yes, so the story at the time was he was
diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which
he was basically said this is a 95
percent mortality. And so he tells a
story where for 24 hours he thought that
he was going to die. --Yeah. --Within weeks
went and got a biopsy the next day and
they said this is in the 5% where we
think we can operate which they did and
it looked like he came out of it
unscathed. Yes, he did die what eight or
eight or nine years later but possibly
from complications of other things. So at
the point that he made this speech he
was basically saying this brush with
death was really useful because it made
me realize we're all going to die.
Sometime you're going to die. So you
might as well live your own life with
your own mistakes then following someone
else's thinking. --Yeah, what did he say
about waking up in the morning and
knowing that it could be the last day at
some point that day is gonna come. --Yeah,
no, no. I think... I wish I had the quote. I
thought it was something like umm.. --If you leave.
--If I love ya.. --Do I love what I'm doing
today. --Yeah. --I look in the mirror do I
love what I'm doing today? and if the
answer's no, for I don't know what how
long it was. -For a few days in a row. --From a period,
then change it. --Yep
yeah good line. So then he did a
preamble when you look at this he can
google this actually I've written an
article on this. So if you write... if
you google the Stanford's Steve Jobs
Stanford speech or maybe Steve Jobs
Stanford structure, you'll find the article
which sort of breaks this down and
shows you the visual chunk structure
--yeah-- and then shows you the full script
--yeah-- full text of his speech. And so what
I've done in, is that I've got a
fourth chunk which I'm calling a wrap up.
So his message basically had a preamble
so he finishes three chunks and then he
said let me tell you story about this
thing that happen when I was a kid and
but it was basically that that story led
to stay hungry stay foolish which he
then repeated. So he said, so my message
to you is actually that message that I
got from the back of that catalog that I
used to love so as you go out. And so the
final message in exact words is as you
go out to begin your lives anew I wish
you the same
stay hungry, stay foolish, yeah.
So there's a little bit repetition that
he used there which worked well.
--Yeah which does work, it does work
generally in terms of you know...---Sure it helps, if
 you plan or something you can. --But just
like anyone you know you might go do you
know that that second part of the third
chunk that's what resonated with me oh
my god you know at this age whatever age
I am now that's the one that spoke to me
oh my so I remember that. --Yeah --And not
necessarily the final message or the
earlier chunks that's of course gonna
happen same as what we said before
everybody watches a different movie. --Yeah.
--Even I watch a different movie, when I'm
15-years-old, versus 35-years-old, versus
a parent at 45-years-old. So yes we still
might remember different highlights. --So
what do you want this audience to
remember from this podcast today? --Yeah so
we were talking before we started this
should I have a catch cry, there's gotta
be a catch cry doesn't there and it has
to be What's Your Message? So let me see
if I can deliver this with any
gravitas. So thanks for listening to the
podcast this is Craig Bruce. I'm Cam Barber,
and if you want to persuade,  if you want to persuade...
the question you need to answer is What's Your Message?
If you enjoyed the What's Your Message?
podcast please take a moment to give us
a rating on iTunes. Ratings are the best
way to help share these ideas and we
would be most grateful for your help. My
book is called What's Your Message? and
it really is fantastic it shows you how
to speak with twice the impact using
half the effort. It's available in
paperback ebook and audiobook formats on
Amazon and at all good bookstores. For
information on training options and
coaching products please go to vividmethod.com that's vividmethod.com
this is Cam Barber and remember
persuasion is built on message recall so
What's Your Message?
