TED Talkin’: Will Storr’s take on the science of storytelling and everyone’s search for “Eudaemonic happiness”

164 TED Talkin' - Will Storr

Mikey: [00:00:00] God bless you, Molly, and welcome back to Presentation Thinking, AKA, the Storyteller Study Club. Is it allergy season? Molly?

Molly: It is. I know. I'm sniffling.

Mikey: Oh boy. I'm all,

Molly: yeah, that's my, um, consistent, uh, issue here on the cast. But yeah, presentation Nation, you guys are an understanding bunch.

Mikey: Welcome back, gang.

We are, uh, as you know, Molly and I, storytelling nerds, presentation nerds. We also just watched, what was it, Sorkin's Masterclass Molly, where he tells us to be a diagnostician, right? And he is like, alright, if you watch a movie and you hate it, don't just be snarky. Push yourself, figure out why. [00:01:00] What rules did they break?

Why didn't it work? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Same. If you like something, why don't you reverse engineer and see, see which rules it adhered to in, in terms of the story and all that. And so we've, we've always taken that to heart. What we like to do, Molly, since we are hoping to become better presenters ourselves, and for our fellow listeners to kind of follow along, we like to watch a TED talk every once in a while and break it down.

So today we're gonna break down. A TED Talk by a fellow, a journalist, an author named Will Storr, S-T-O-R-R, what is it called? The Science of Storytelling. Right? Like maybe after his, his really popular book.

Molly: Science of Storytelling. Yeah. Our story, our Students of Storytelling Journey is really continuing strong in these last couple weeks after, after the masterclass, and we've talked to Elliot Rainer, who has also given talks called The Science of Storytelling.

So this one caught our eye. 2018 TED Talk, I believe, from TEDx Manchester. It's especially timely, Mikey. 'cause this guy, I think you had his book, the [00:02:00] Science of Storytelling, just aptly name. I think Elliot recommended it to us and then Will store's most recent book A story is a deal just came out this past February.

So it's a perfect timing to kind of, yeah. Stir some of Will's content back up and it's always interesting to see people's different iterations because people have so much different backgrounds of a science of storytelling. Yeah. You hear that a lot when you're kind of going down this rabbit hole. So a lot of fun callbacks, some things I recognize and a lot of things I never really heard before from from Will.

So it's, yeah, this is kind of fun. Yeah, I like it. This is a Ted talking episode. People it.

Mikey: Take a second. Hit the show notes, hit the link. Or Google will store TEDx Manchester. We'll give you 15 minutes. Editor Will, if you would. Okay, and welcome back. Thanks. All right. Now we're ready to talk. Everyone's caught up.

Yeah. Molly, what'd you think?

Molly: Everyone's inspired, loved listening to Will's voice. Very just one British, perfect British accent for this one. I [00:03:00] really like this. It took me, I know we both said this, Mikey, we watched this, uh, we do this with most TED Talks, but we had to watch it a couple times 'cause it was denser than we anticipated a bit.

And he comes from this interesting journalistic psychology background. I. And it was like it was all about, yeah, how your brain is this incredible machine. I would love to see on the word count.

Music: Yeah.

Molly: How many times he says device or machine calls you your brain, a device or machine that's able to understand the world around you.

And thus stories because the whole world around you is full of stories basically. And so it was dense, but I, but I really, especially upon the second and third like iteration. We ultimately walk away with six like milestones of what your brain does, uh, and how it absorbs the world around you in stories and why we do that.

Like, as a people, a lot of evolution kind of chit chat of coming from a hunter gatherer perspective. So I liked it. Yeah. What about you, Mikey?

Mikey: Yeah, same, same deal. And I, I recently cracked the book, like I've had it on my shelf.

Molly: [00:04:00] Yeah,

Mikey: yeah. Two years maybe in preparation for this. A recent keynote I did. I was, I was digging into it and I freaking love it.

I haven't, I haven't finished it yet, so I feel like it looks like that came out in 2021. And so he was obviously like deep in his research here. Did you say 2018? Was this Ted? Yeah. Today. Mm-hmm.

Music: Mm-hmm.

Mikey: He starts out, I kind of forget like the exact hook. Oh yeah. Even he's like, he jokes, he's like, you can tell I've watched a lot of Ted talks.

Right. But he,

Molly: yeah. Yeah. No, I liked his actual opening, his first line. He says, if you wanna become a great storyteller, I have good news for you because you already are one and everyone's kind of, so it's like a fun turn and nothing too crazy. And then he kind of immediately kind of has like funny humor about himself.

This is like kind of, you know, this is kind of, he takes this super seriously, but he's also laughing about it. He's like, I know what you're thinking. And this guy's watched fucking too many Ted Talks. So he still kinda, he SSEs in the first

Mikey: minute, which I respect. Yeah, yeah. Totally respect. So he, he establishes credibility as well, right up front.

I'm a journalist, I'm a writer. I'm a [00:05:00] teacher. Mm-hmm. And he talks about. How he started. He was trying to write a book. Yeah. And he got stuck. So he was trying to write a book on the psychology of like why we believe certain things. So he was interviewing and studying psychology. Got stuck on the writing.

So he started reading more about like storytelling. 'cause he needed a, a kick in the pants there. Yeah. And he's like, Ooh, you know, breakthrough. It's kind of fun when we, we have these like Venn diagram things, Molly, and we, of course, we, we find something in common, but he said the scientists, these like psychologists and these storytelling gurus started in different places, but they ended up in the exact same place, which is like what he sets us up for, which is.

Story is like what our brain is wired for.

Molly: Yeah. Oh, just the same thing that the storytellers were telling me about. Stories were the same things that the psychologist, how were telling me about how we experience our everyday lives. And he was kind of like not expecting that, you know? Yeah. And he has a great line here.

This is where he is more, you know, story guru guy. He says, story [00:06:00] emerges as simply. As effortlessly from the human brain as breath from the lips.

Mikey: Whoa. I was like, wow. Okay. He is a, he is a storyteller. I wrote

Molly: that down. Yeah, yeah,

Mikey: yeah. So he is like, look, assuming you have like a, a relatively intact brain, like your brain, like these things work for story.

And so by interrogating the brain, like figuring out a little bit of the science, like why it does what it does and how a little bit mm-hmm. There's some clues and some hacks to become a better storyteller. Mm-hmm. Which in turn, you know, helps you become. Someone who could conquer life basically.

Molly: That just, yeah, totally.

Right. Got we're. We will, we, we'll get to that at the end. The gone moment that he shares that. So,

Mikey: all right, so he, he said a after three minutes of, uh, exposition.

Music: Yeah. So it's kind of

Mikey: the setup here. He is like, okay, six tips I'm gonna cover to help you figure this thing out's, get into it. And yeah. The first one is change.

Our brains are obsessed with change. And this one, Molly, is like the chapter of his book, I almost couldn't get through 'cause it. [00:07:00] It just blew my mind.

Music: Mm-hmm.

Mikey: But he, he, he talks to psychologists and they, they say like, we as humans, we'll go about our day. Like we think our, our sensory system is like so incredible.

But if all things are just going, going well, our sensory system is just kind of chilling. And it's not until we're walking down the street, you know, we're lost in thought and we hear like a bang, you know, that we stop and, and our, our brain. Tries to figure out like, what was that?

Molly: Yeah, yeah,

Mikey: yeah, yeah. He

Molly: goes, he has some interesting scientific elements to share with each, with each module, but this was interesting.

It was about like your line of sight. You can only see however many centimeters in front of you, and then your brain is performing. These things called cades. I've never heard of this. Where they, you know, you're constantly evaluating like, what's changing, what's happening around you and that, you know, think about your peripheral site that's always working and that's a lot that your brain is constantly monitoring for change.

Like if someone's Yeah. Gonna walk into you, if you're gonna walk into [00:08:00] something if like the door's opening, whatever. So it's a million things that could be happening. And you're wired for that.

Mikey: Yeah, because like why? And that is because of our like. Early man you are like, it was literally to save our lives.

Right? Molly is sort of like a defense is Yeah. Pick up on dangers so that your body can like get the heck outta the way of some running tyrannosaurus wrecks or whatever. Of

Molly: course. Yeah, of course. And this added, Mikey, I don't know if you, if you thought of this, but we've talked about how a lot of story structures certainly.

Mark Andrews and um, the product marketing alliance storytelling training, we did.

Music: Yeah.

Molly: Huge emphasis on starting a story with naming a big change in the world. Yeah. Andy Raskin. Andy too, right? Andy? Yeah. The big shift. Andy Raskin. Yeah. Sorry. I almost discredited that and. That this applied like a new element of science that I hadn't considered.

Yeah. Where it's like, of course you start with that with, and he has some great examples to follow up with this, where it's like the door opened and that's the story starting, right? Yeah. Or like, you know, he [00:09:00] has these examples from both childhood books like Spot going missing to like, you know, Harry Potter.

The first line of every story really holds a lot. And you look at some of these like classics and greats from the past, and you're like, yeah, sure enough, every line has, he says like, is pregnant with the threat of change. Right? What's the Moby Dick one was like, Marley was dead at first. Oh yeah. Yeah.

That's, uh, you know, I've, you know, it's been years since I've read that, but I was like, oh, damn, that's, that's a, that's a banger.

Mikey: It is, gosh.

Molly: And then next,

Mikey: no, sorry. Like I was looking at this. No, I love it. Yeah. In the hero's quest too, there's like, yeah, you cross, what do you, you, you don't cross the chasm, but you leave like the before world and you get into the after world.

Yeah. But like if you think about a big change,

Molly: the known into the unknown world.

Mikey: Yeah. You naturally. There's a before the change and an after the change and mm-hmm. I think, right. Even there in itself, Molly is like, that is the premise of a story. It's the foundation, surely. And so he talks about Absolutely.

Yeah. Our brain, you know, has that like orienting response and if [00:10:00] you wanna be a storyteller, the way to hook people back into the story is introducing those changes and a lot of those Good. Yeah. The fiction, any good story. Even like Harry Potter. Mm-hmm. Mr. And Mrs. Darley of number four PRI Drive. We're proud to say that they're perfectly normal.

Thank you very much. You know he's, yeah. He says like, uhoh something's about to happen. So maybe

Molly: a before what? Yeah.

Mikey: The one that is in his book that he didn't mention in this was, do you know, how do you know the first couple words of Charlotte's web, Molly?

Molly: Oh no. It's kind of gnarly. Yeah. Something about the pig, like pig being, yeah,

Mikey: it's uh, Fern says, where's Papa going with that ax?

Molly: Oh, right. And your mind is like,

Mikey: so like our minds then. Yeah. The second point is like, we seek cause and effect. Like Yeah. And so we, we wanna know like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. Um, and in the book, he calls these like mystery boxes. Uh, I guess like is a JJ Abrams kind of tool, but Yeah. But like the human brain wants to figure this thing out.

Mm-hmm. And so is introducing [00:11:00] something with that dramatic change. Naturally, your readers are gonna lean in and be like, okay, I gotta see this. Exactly.

Molly: Which leads us to the next, um, kind of tip and module. He has milestone within storytelling, which is that cause and effect are super important. So after you've like established, there's gonna be a change.

There's something that's going on. There's a sequencing of things like, be this happened because this X, Y, Z. There starts to be like a sequencing to the story and he really equates this with gossip. Like our, like all storytelling emerges from gossip and hundred gatherer tribes. Like there's, or he said there was like some interesting studies of like this gossip being just so integral, like, 'cause it's information, you're swaping information with people that need to know it might not.

Might not always be labeled as gossip. I think maybe that's changed maybe in the more modern world, but it's essentially information that you need that Is he helpful for someone, you know, in Hunter gatherer for survival? Yeah. Later on, just for information and, and drama. And he is like, that's the reason you keep, you're gonna wanna [00:12:00] keep turning the page.

Like if you don't have that kind of like sequencing of like, well then what's next?

Mikey: Right? We need

Molly: something next.

Mikey: And they gossiped to save each other's lives. They're like, yo, that tribe over there do not go over there. Right, right. It can be, that's gossip. Right? A little

Molly: bit of tribal propaganda. Totally.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's what, that makes sense.

Mikey: And then, okay, if we, if the human brain was like whatever, then that wouldn't matter. But the human brain is, third point is something called moral outrage. Mm-hmm. So whenever we hear a gossipy story, we're actually motivated to step in. We want to. As he says, like, we wanna see this transgressor get dealt with, right?

Like Yeah,

Music: yeah.

Mikey: Naturally we, we find a hero, uhhuh and a villain. And the villain generally he says, is like selfish. The hero is, is selfless. We want sort of like we want that villain to be dealt with while the hero rises up. We're kind of like, our brains are rooting to overcome this, like this moral outrage.

Molly: Yeah. You know what I thought of with this was, um, I think this is a very literal, gossipy example, but the movie mean Girls [00:13:00] embodies. These gossipy stories so well, because you want to see regime to Georgia get taken down, but then the hero that you're rooting for the whole time kind of becomes the villain in the end.

Right? So it's such a good, it's a good pendulum swing of like that hero being selfless until they're not. And it's kind of like the tr and the tribe of, they even do that, like the, the. Make all these like animal sounds when the whole school is like out outraged and fighting each other and stuff. Yeah. So I think that's a proof that was really in my mind when he was going through the moral outrage.

Yeah. But it's true that you want, there's inherently a way that people are viewing something that's. Good or bad when you're watching it and you can, or, or in totally in taking any media and you're, you can, uh, write that accordingly. You know, it's kind of, yeah.

Mikey: To me it has a little to do with stakes too.

Like you want, I don't know, there's like a, a good and a bad sort of. Yeah,

Molly: yeah. Definitely side to, and, and I'm thinking of like, for the presentation thinkers here, like in a pitch deck or something that's kinda like. Do you wanna be stuck behind? Like, yeah, [00:14:00] did you wanna lose all this money by not implementing this like software?

Do you wanna like, it's kind of like this impetus like yeah, of like, you're gonna be. I don't know left behind, comes to mind with like tech, of course. But

Mikey: yeah,

Molly: there's lots of ways you can frame it.

Mikey: Show how bad the villain is.

Molly: Yeah. Mm-hmm. And now a message from our sponsors.

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And then, but the hero has, so like number four, I think he says effectiveness.

Molly: He does, yeah.

Mikey: Okay. Where like, it's almost like the hero has to be able to do something about it. Right. Molly? I think you said like they have to have some agency and they have to like take an action.

Molly: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Even if that action is like the first, or like fails the first time, but something has to happen so that the selfless or vulnerable person can address the change that's happening in the world too.

So that's again, kind of, kind of like with the cause and effect, it's like you, well you have to put that, manifest that effectiveness onto the character or like the main part of the story itself, so that something can continue to happen. Yep. And yeah, it might be a failure, but it has to, there has to be an effort.

Yep. And I think, I mean, yeah, in a presentation it like. You know, I'm like, well, yeah, we're trying to do this. This is what we're trying to do. I think that's almost where the introduction, I'm thinking in that pitch deck form again. Yeah. The introduction of yourself as a product or service comes there.

We're like, so here's us trying to do this [00:16:00] thing, trying to address this change. Trying to be the good guys in, uh, in the face of some like, you know, evil AI or something.

Mikey: Yeah. Right. And then, or

Molly: or hero area, ai.

Mikey: So Molly, we, from the top right, we've got these six. The it is change, change, cause and effect, moral outrage, effectiveness.

And then number five is what he calls monic happiness. E New Word alerts. I for me, ONIC. Yeah. Yeah.

Molly: New

Mikey: word alert was. Crazy word, you know? Okay. I Googled it. Yeah. Monic is pursuing happiness by finding meaning and purpose. Self-fulfillment, self-improvement, both contribute to this form of happiness. It's an attempt to pursue more lasting and meaningful happiness.

Music: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mikey: It's just like almost a higher calling, like a higher like sort of the self-actualization, but like it's all about purpose here. Like that is what will help. It'll kind of push the hero to, to overcome all those things in the way, right. If they, they have this greater purpose.

Molly: [00:17:00] Yeah.

Mikey: Moana will, you know, she'll get pushed away from that volcano monster, but she'll, oh, yes, thank you.

She'll, she sees the bigger picture, she gets right back on that boat, does it again. You know, so it's, it's, it's overcoming that struggle.

Molly: Yeah, totally. And that's where it's like the, that's the reason. So you're kind of, if, even if you're questioning like, well, why would that person do that? It was like.

It's the pursuit of happiness, dare I say? Yeah. And he quotes a few studies, and I don't know, I would love to know a little bit more detail of how they measure this, but people with senses of purpose do tend to live longer. People with this, you know, if there's no direction, there's no apathy if you don't see yourself, he has some like little anecdote of like, if you miss the train and you're standing there on the platform with your coffee and like you, you're gonna be late to your meeting or whatever it is.

And you're like a hero that's struggling against something. Right? And if you're just kind of like, if you're not caring, then it doesn't, then it doesn't matter. Like no one else would be watching that story. Right?

Music: Yeah.

Molly: So it's like you have to, you have to have some sense of like purpose because we are inherently built for that [00:18:00] story.

Yeah. And when we struggle against odds, we see ourselves in a story and, and you would go home and you'd be like, oh my God, I missed the train. And so then I had to do this and this. This all becomes a story immediately. So it's more like you don't have to necessarily see yourself as a hero. It's just like you are inherently a character in a story at all times.

Mikey: And I do see crossover there. Like it makes a ton of sense that I, you probably see a lot of the crossover with like Christopher Booker's Seven Plots, right? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Like the, the call that the hero just cannot refuse, you know, it's like. It would be impossible for this person to hear what they heard and not take action.

It's like mm-hmm. It's sort of that installation of here's that purpose. Mm-hmm. This is not gonna leave you until the damn thing is done. Right. Yeah. And so

Molly: it's the reason that Bill believes the shire, you know?

Mikey: Exactly.

Molly: Absolutely. And then he arrives, which leads number six. Yeah, exactly. The God moment.

The God moment. Yeah. Totally. And this aligns, yeah. It's like, ha, this aligns with the hero's journey so much in that like. A of analysis of the hero's journey involves people being a [00:19:00] Christlike figure, a godlike figure, someone that's able to potentially sacrifice themselves for the greater good by taking action.

Taking complete control. Their inner world transformation will manifest into the outer world. They've learned something from that change. They've gone through a series of like cause and effect and probably some obstacles they've learned from the moral outrage and now that like with their sense of purpose, they have to apply it and whether or not, yeah, that amounts to like sometimes of course the heroes die in the end.

Sometimes they are successful, but that doesn't matter. Yeah. It's what matters is the fact that it happens and that they arrive at that. Like aha moment. He has another, I was looking at some of his other content and he, similar to Andy Raskin of like, get them to the Utopia. He says, your story should bring people closer to their heaven.

Like the boom, like, and it doesn't have to be in this like,

Mikey: yeah, yeah, yeah,

Molly: yeah. Religious Christian view. It's more of like this, what is the ideal world after that, you know?

Mikey: Right. And again, everyone who's ever guru about storytelling from like [00:20:00] Nancy Duarte's New Bliss to Andy Raskin's Promised Land, you know, it always.

Everything in the seven plots. Yeah. There's always that, again, the before, the after the status quo. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And the new, the new reality, the promised land. So,

Molly: and he, he very lightly wraps this up by, after six moments, he says, well, and you know, why does any of this matter, like the ultimate change we're all facing is that we will all die in the end.

So in the face of that like harrowing truth. Stories are our way of making sense of it. He calls them rollercoasters. He's like, they're not built of nuts and bolts, but they're built of change cause and effect. Moral outrage, effectiveness, onic, happiness, the God moment. Oh my God. Imagine saying that. It's crazy haiku.

Crazy haiku. But yeah, I think it was a new take on the science of storytelling. I hadn't really heard yet. So I, um,

Mikey: yeah,

Molly: I really enjoyed it.

Mikey: Yeah. So the book for sure. Mm-hmm. The Science of Storytelling. I wanna get, I think it, it is interesting. [00:21:00] These noble like journalists write a really interesting book and then their follow up is a business book because I bet, so the new one is called this, A Story Is a Deal.

And I bet what happens is his book got so popular and then all these business, you know Yeah. Like CMOs and marketers are like, Hey, how can we, uh, use this for, uh, totally what we do? And so he wrote looks

Molly: like marketing

Mikey: version. Mm-hmm. A very applicable, and that's, I think we gotta get into both of those, Molly, but mm-hmm.

The new one. Yeah. It sounds very. Like it's, it's meant for business people who wanna tell better stories and turn that into money.

Molly: Mm-hmm. It says, and indeed the subtitle says, how to Use the Science of Storytelling to Lead, motivate, and Persuade. So change people's Mind to cause an effect. There it is.

Mikey: Soft skills, pay bills, soft skills, pay

Molly: bills. Yeah. Mikey, we always analyze with these TED talks, if this is your first time joining a TED Talking episode, we always take a look at the story screen and stage elements of a talk, which is. Bit self-explanatory, but yeah. What did you think of his storytelling [00:22:00] abilities?

Will stores? Yeah. Science of storytelling story abilities.

Mikey: Kinda a loved it. It was, it was packed. Like I did not find the transcript, but it felt like a pretty quick cadence. So I think he packed a ton in here.

Music: Mm-hmm.

Mikey: Smart guy. You can tell he is just like been in research mode. He is got a lot. He just knows so much about this stuff.

So yeah, I had to watch it twice and I recommend most of these. Watch it once like passively and then mm-hmm. The second watch is where we start to really like analyze.

Music: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that's where things click. And you can kind of see, you can see the bones. Yeah. The second pass was better

Mikey: for me. Yeah.

Because I was like, I. I dunno. I, I think it was like sort of a 3 0 1 level, but you know, I don't think, mm-hmm. This was some beginner shit, Molly.

Molly: Totally. I almost, yeah, I was not, yeah, I was dense in the science way. I almost would've liked a little more of like, we had these six milestones and getting through six milestones in, in 10 minutes.

It can be tough. That's a quick cadence. So my only. Thought is maybe there's like a even simplified version of it. Yeah. To like sift through it a little simply. Maybe have a, I loved his [00:23:00] continuous examples of books that he would bring in, of quotes and examples that were really well known from kids' books to like classics.

Yeah. And that was really helpful to apply. But I think maybe like having, he says rollercoaster a lot for his story and I would love like, I don't know, maybe a big, a big metaphor the whole time. I would, I. Maybe I'm just craving that, that, uh, kind of almost childlike visual, but a big metaphor throughout what, what a hit could be.

Yeah. We would've loved

Mikey: to work on his slides. Yeah. But yeah, they were screen

Molly: stuff

Mikey: one call out mm-hmm. To, to anyone who's speaking like at a bigger, darker, like ballroom or a huge, a big, huge like keynote stage if it's really dark inside, uh, just a bright white screen can be kind of blinding and you could, you could see how it didn't really pick up very well on video either.

Molly: We couldn't read all those visuals, but it just kind of standard white

Mikey: slides with like text.

Molly: Mm-hmm. Nice and simple.

Mikey: Yeah. But I couldn't see 'em. Mm-hmm. But maybe people in the stage, you know, is a little better, but yeah. No, no real [00:24:00] visual storytelling.

Molly: Yeah. We have covered before in like death by PowerPoint and some visual advice it makes.

A lot of times if you have that, if you have the capacity to do instead of dark background and then have your text be lighter, it's much easier for people to absorb in different environments. It's easier on the eyes and easier for them to see and take in. Yeah. And to look at it longer, which is interesting.

So love to the simple visuals, but there and there really wasn't anything different other than like white background, black text. So I think he could have potentially benefited from some like creative rollercoaster visuals. I don't know. Yeah. Some goofy, goofy stuff like that. But I think overall nice and simple.

'cause he was busy getting through all of his content. Right. So I think it was smart of him to not busy himself up too much with

Mikey: with her. All right. How about the third S stage presence? What do you think, Molly?

Molly: Presence? Oh, I mean that was, that was, I think maybe his best. His best of the three, I think it's so clear.

He's a professional speaker. So clear. He knows his shit and is funny and delivers [00:25:00] in a, in a relatable, great way, great cadence. Like, yeah, probably, probably a little fast, maybe a little above average with delivery, but I think his ability to go through these difficult or kind of dense topics was really apparent.

Mikey: Yeah, I liked it too. He was just himself, he wasn't trying to be anybody else. He's. Very authentic again. Yeah. He wasn't like frantically pacing, but he was moving around and I think he was great.

Molly: Yeah, definitely.

Mikey: I liked it. I would watch I'd, I'd go see him live. That'd be awesome. Yeah.

Molly: Thank you. Will store.

Yeah. Story screaming stage. We loved it.

Mikey: Yeah.

Molly: Excited to dig into the book. I think Mikey, we find ourselves in the spice cabinet at this point.

Mikey: We are safely there. Yeah. Shall

Molly: we open it up? We will go ahead and plug all of will's, you know where to find him, follow him and some more. Some more content that he's like been producing, like on the regular, looks like he has a podcast as well.

And of course his, his books that you can buy anywhere. Books are sold, I think.

Mikey: Awesome. Did you have a walkout song pegged for Mr Store?

Molly: [00:26:00] I have, you know, I gave it a brief thought. Got as I was watching, and it occurred to me at the, uh, fifth milestone that he shares, which is EU Demonic Happiness Uhhuh. So I'm gonna go with Kid Cuddy's Pursuit of Happiness.

What a fun throwback, Molly.

Mikey: Really well done. It's funny that you said that.

Molly: Is that what you saw?

Mikey: Well, I picked out li's cover. L-I-S-S-I-E of the Kid, Cudi Pursuit of Happiness. 'cause that one oh is also really good.

Music: Perfect.

Molly: Oh, per, I don't think I've heard it. Amazing. Oh yeah, yeah. Fun. Okay. Wait. But you also thought of pursuit of happiness.

Mikey: Okay. What I really thought of is Nas from Illmatic, life's a bitch and then you die.[00:27:00]

Molly: The God moment, if there ever was

Mikey: one and life's a bitch, then you. And that's why we get high. So, yeah, because you never know when you're gonna go Molly. So. Geez. On that note, we've got the most explicit business college podcast. This has presentation thinking. I think we just got canceled, Molly. But, um, this has been great and yeah, so fun presenters, you can learn so much if we study, study the greats, and even if you give a, let's say a colleague gives a presentation and you're like, don't, just don't just like zone out.

Maybe just maybe lean in and help 'em figure out how it could have gone better. Yeah, totally. Once you study these rules of what's. What's great storytelling? What's a great presentation and a stage presence, all that. Those are all the things that make up presentation thinking, right, ma

Molly: think. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. Become the student. You know, don't just, don't. Just tune out. If you've got a favorite TED Talk that, or even like one where you're like, man, I can't believe this person made on the TED stage. We might have to be careful about that, but, but send it our way, Molly. I go strange.com. We're always taking [00:28:00] suggestions for these TED talking episodes, but thank you for joining.

Awesome. Yeah, love it.

Mikey: Hey, this is a pleasure, and Molly, until we talk again, everybody. On.