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[00:00:00]

Dan Manning: It should be slightly scary. If it's not scary, it's not vulnerable at all.

And if it's terrifying, it's too much.


If you don't have change, you don't have a story, a story, especially a great story is not what happened, it's what changed.

Welcome to Superpowered with me, Rob d Willis. Each week I talk to people who've mastered their skills in the most demanding situations. They share what actually works. So you don't have to learn everything the hard way. For anyone who is new here, please make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

We have amazing guests every week, and today I'm talking to Dan Manning about crafting stories that drive decisions. Dan has a fascinating background that's uniquely prepared him for this work.

He's a former, a 10 fighter pilot who became a military diplomat in Central Asia and a speech writer for Senior Air Force officials. He even ran the hotline between US and Russian forces during operations [00:01:00] in Syria. Now as the founder of Build the Story, he helps founders and executives create compelling narratives that get results.

His clients have used his storytelling framework to secure investments, land executive positions, and drive business growth. Dan, welcome to the show

Dan Manning: the show.

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Rob D. Willis: Thank you for being here. You're a fellow storytelling nut just like me, and you specialize in helping people tell stories that drive decisions, and I really like that framing. You've also got a fascinating story yourself, which I want to dig into today.

But for listeners who don't know you, could you just give us a bit of a, a brief introduction, what you do

and how you help people?

Dan Manning: Absolutely. So I'm Dan and I'm a storyteller and I focus only on real life storytelling. I don't have a novel, I don't have a, a screenplay in a drawer somewhere. I focus on telling real life stories that move people to action and help them to make decisions. So [00:02:00] I work often with founders, I work with, um, with executives who are looking for their next position or trying to be more influential in their business, or people who speak on a, on a stage and just need to help people change their mind and see the world from a slightly different perspective.

Rob D. Willis: Great stuff, and you've got a particular structure, the story triangle, which I think is very much the basis of your work.

So could you just.

As a little introduction to your work, just tell us a little bit about what that structure is and what the essential

elements of a story are in your mind.

Dan Manning: Yeah, absolutely. So in the past three years or so, I've done about 800 stories for, for founders, for executives, for, sometimes they're on LinkedIn, sometimes they're delivered on podcasts, sometimes they're delivered in, um, you know, investment presentations, sometimes in sales presentations. But every one of those stories has followed the same structure. And the structure that I use is one that is the easiest for my [00:03:00] audience to receive. I want to make it as easy as possible for my audience to understand what it is that I'm talking about, so that they essentially have the cognitive resources to be able to make a decision at the end of that. The, the triangle itself isn't something that I came up with, um, just on my own. In fact, it was first developed in, I think, 1863 in Germany by, uh, fre. Who's a, uh, a novelist and a playwright and people who study, you know, um, drama. We'll be familiar with Fre Talk's pyramid. Essentially, it's the same type of shape that now I've adapted and made it more specific for very short real life stories. You know, he, he studied, uh, he wrote novels and he wrote plays things that take a lot of time for people to be able to, to receive and they can be very complex. And when people are receiving those, they're just sitting and taking in a story. But in real life, we don't have, you know, two hours and, you know, a thousand pages To deliver our story.

We need to be. Short, concise, and very [00:04:00] applicable to, to our audience. So I've sort of condensed it a little bit, but I would start by saying that the key element of any story is change. If you don't have change, you don't have a story, you might have a list of things that happened, but a story, especially a great story is not what happened, it's what changed.

So change is at the center of that sort of the peak of the triangle and everything else is built around it. So in every story that I tell, there are. Generally seven parts. There is this fuse. It's an introduction that brings people in to a story in real life. It lets people know that they're about to receive a story. It sort of gets their brain ready to, um, start, um, thinking about and following the logic of the story. Then there's a before, how life was before this change happened. I talk about next about the challenges. What are the things that were separating the character from their goal, whether it was it was sales or, um. You know, overcoming whatever the challenges were in their business and they have these problems [00:05:00] until something changes. After the change, those challenges go away. There's a new after or there's a new normal that is the after. And then at the very end I deliver the meaning. I don't want to, uh, you leave it to chance that people are going to see exactly what it's I'm talking about.

So I hit it, you know, one last time with that meaning, and just, you know, one or two sentences so that they can understand and I can be sure that they've understood what it is that I'm trying to communicate.

Rob D. Willis: Love it. Simple, short, sharp, and as you say, the way that we want to hear this information, and I love how open you are about your, your source of this guag.

In the end though, for all of us working in storytelling, we

can all go back to, to Aristotle,

can't we?

Dan Manning: Absolutely. So, so did he Right. Talk also, you know, uh, built on Aristotle's work. So there's, uh, storytelling's been around for a long time.

Rob D. Willis: So then tell me a bit about what people are typically coming to you with because, um, you say the stories come from real life.

Dan Manning: real life.[00:06:00]

Rob D. Willis: What's missing? What do they have and what's not there when they come to

work with you?

Dan Manning: Most of the time, the problem isn't what's missing, the problem is, is that they have too much in what they want to say. So, uh, I often work with, with founders, and one of the very first, um, professional stories that I wrote was, um, a guy who was a founder who was building a new platform that would help to solve the, the tech recruitment problems in, in America, helping more people to get jobs in in tech. And honestly, I had talked to him for a few hours outside of more of a business consulting type thing rather than storytelling. And I still didn't understand what it was that he was doing. Um, and he asked me, he said, well, can I just hire you to help me to write a story for me? I was like, okay, yeah, I can, I can do that.

And I'd never done it before. At that point, he said, how much would you charge? I said, 50 bucks. He said, okay, let's do it. So I interviewed him for for an hour. [00:07:00] Um, in that hour I was able to ask him questions that really got to the heart of what it was that he was doing, and I started stripping away all those other things that were clouding my understanding of his business. By the end, I had a story that I could deliver to him. A week later, he said that, uh, he sent me a text and said, I used the story for the first time in an investor meeting, and not only. Did they for the first time understand what it was that I was doing, but they also gave me my biggest check ever. He, uh, essentially 200 Xed his $50 investment in about a week. So I knew that one, I needed to raise my prices and two, like this works. It works that we can take something complex. We distill it down inside a story and then make it something that's easy for an audience to receive and they can move to action and they can make the decisions that they need to make.

Rob D. Willis: Absolutely. Can you tell me about the kinds of questions you were asking to understand, because I'm guessing it wasn't just what do you

do because that wasn't clear.

Dan Manning: No, it's not. So there's only a few like, set questions that I, that I [00:08:00] use. The, the very first questions are always going to be about the audience. If I'm trying to move an audience to action, I need to understand that audience really, really well. I need to understand, um, what is the pain that they are experiencing, like the literal pain, often with, you know, with a business.

Um. A little bit about things maybe that they have tried before, but I'm also looking to understand what are the stories that are probably already in their brain that are going to, um, influence how they receive the story that I'm telling. Right, so we don't speak into an empty vessel. When I am talking to you, you have tons of stories that you're using to interpret everything that I'm saying. Sometimes those stories can be very helpful for a message. Sometimes they can be a disaster for the message that we're trying to deliver, so I need to get some idea about the types of stories that are in their mind. Once I understand the audience though, there's only two set questions that I use. The first one is, what do you want this audience to do after they consume [00:09:00] this story? Maybe you want them to invest. I. Uh, they're probably not going to go straight from a story to an investment, so we'll back that up a little bit. Maybe you wanna get to the next meeting, or if it's a customer, maybe you do want them to buy, or maybe you want them to sign up for your list, or maybe you want them to agree to a demo, whatever that is, let's be clear on what the thing is that we want them to do. And then the second question is, what do you want them to feel? And I ask this question to get my client in the mindset that it's not only the words that they're communicating, that they're also communicating some feelings and some emotions, and getting them to start, um, as we're having this conversation to begin empathizing with their audience and thinking about how they feel about the, the product, the service, the idea that they're delivering after that. I just go where the, where the answers take me and I follow you. I listen closely. I ask follow up questions, and then get to the information that we need to be able to build a story.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah, it does take a little bit of back and forth to get to the, the interesting stuff. We had a guest on [00:10:00] this show, uh, Alex Smith, who said that almost always, it doesn't matter how interesting your first question is, people will contort themselves to give a boring answer. So you need to dig a little bit deeper to find that, that interesting stuff.

Uh, I also like your point about. Feel because it is of feelings that drive decisions As much as we would like to think otherwise, it is emotion that drives the decision and logic which backs up the decision. So once you've got this clear overview and you've spoken, you've gone backwards and boards, you found some cool answers.

When is it, do you know that the story's working? Like is it just a feeling or are there particular things you need to see? How do you know

that it's, it's dumb, basically.

Dan Manning: So in, in the interview, the thing that I spend the most time looking for is the [00:11:00] right moment of change, right? Every story is a story of change, and I'm looking for this moment of change. Which will essentially, which will resolve the pain that the audience is facing. So it could be that the, the person I'm working with is a founder and maybe they had a problem themselves in the past. They developed some solution for that to solve their own problem, and now they've turned that into a business. So we can tell, we can tell that story,

and the moment of change is probably going to be at the place where their pain went away when they made this discovery or this invention, or whatever this thing was that solved their pain. Other times we'll tell a story, which is essentially like a customer success story. It's someone very much like the story I told just a minute ago about the, uh, the first story that I wrote where someone worked with me and I was able to create some change in them. I took him in that case from not being understood to being understood. Most of the interview is looking for this moment of change for the right one, and sometimes we have to hunt around a little bit to [00:12:00] find it. But typically when we do find it, it is, it's unmistakable. Um, in some cases for some very powerful stories. We know it because both the client and I get tears in our eyes because we have finally done what I say is we've struck truth. We've ducked down through all those things that we've covered up, and then we've finally found like this moment when things really mattered. And other stories, it's not as dramatic, but it, but if I keep asking around, we find this place where it, it just all comes together and clicks and makes sense and then I know that I have a story that I can build around that moment of change.

Rob D. Willis: Thinking back to.

your. More difficult clients, the ones that took a bit longer to find that change. What do you think was holding them back from being able to find the story?

Dan Manning: So when, and this happens in the, the community that I run, it's this like a storytelling apprenticeship. And there'll be people who come in there and they're writing kind of a [00:13:00] full story for the first time and they, they write a lot. And I

see inside this big ball of a story that there is this golden thread that's hidden inside of there, and it's hidden by all these other things that were important to them at the time that this story was happening to them. But it's not important to this story. Right. So, um, I work with, uh, a woman who invented some, uh, some sensory toys for people who have dementia and her mom had dementia, and that's how she came up with this idea. And when she tells that story in the beginning, it was very hard for her to communicate. I. The story in a very clear way because she had so many different emotions and things that were going on for her and things that were important to her and her life at the same time that she was inventing it. That that story just gets all cluttered and it's hard for the audience to see precisely the before the change and the after. And this, you know, beginning and middle and end of the story. So I [00:14:00] spend a lot of time helping them to cut those things away. Like ruthlessly editing, not just the words, but the ideas.

So all we're left with is that perfect golden thread that is unmistakable to our audience. All those other pieces, those might be good for other stories, but they're not important to this story right now.

Rob D. Willis: It makes total sense. It's very much like bringing in focus. Essentially the story. The story's there, but it's just blurry and it's masked by other things. Um,

Maybe thinking a little bit differently.

Some stories are not necessarily

good news or a good opportunity or a,

a pitch for a wonderful product.

Sometimes we are having to drive action with something which the audience is not gonna like. So let's say you. A senior leader in a company or your work in the military as well,

there's gonna be [00:15:00] times where you need to be able to engage people and get them to do something which they're very resistant to doing.

They don't see how it's of any benefit to them.

Dan Manning: to them.

Rob D. Willis: How do you

approach those kinds of situations?

Dan Manning: Well, one, I, I start there, right? I start with what is the benefit to them. Um, in some cases, the. You know, in some cases it takes some work to really understand like, what are they up against right now? Most people in an organization want that organization to succeed. They want to be a part of something, something greater. Um, I need to understand them so that I can connect what I want to say to something that they are already interested in. Um, I did some work with. A person actually from the community who is works in, uh, in, in Nestle in, uh, the Middle East. He works in supply chain and he wanted to present some ideas about some research that he had had done, but he wanted his presentation to not be something that was, that was [00:16:00] super boring.

I. He wanted it to be engaging to the people that he was talking to. So we started by saying, why would, why would this audience want to know this? Not why do you want them to know it, but why do they already want to know what you're talking about? And after we had a, a little bit of a conversation, he's, because if my, my. If my ideas work, it's going to mean less work for them. It's gonna mean less distraction because they don't have to solve these other problems that he was, that he was solving, and they can stay focused on the work that they want to do. Even though it's a change in their process, the outcome will be something that they are already interested in doing. So once we tailor the story. In tuned his story in to what the audience already wanted. It became much easier for him to convey and he, you know, sent me a note the next day saying it worked out great. People were talking to him afterwards and really, um, en enjoyed and appreciated the work that he was doing.

Rob D. Willis: Uh, that's great. Um, I, you remind me very much of a comment I heard by. Amy Gallo, I believe on the Tim Ferriss [00:17:00] podcast or something, and she was talking about conflict actually, and how one can prepare for a difficult conversation. And the two things one does is

first of all,

question the story in your head

and try and see it from their point of view, even if they're wrong, just for a minute, suspend belief and just think about how do they see this situation.

And the second thing is reflect on your shared values. Even if it's as you said, like we just want the company to do well, or we want a better world or peace, or you know, whatever it is. Even if you have to zoom out a lot, where are you both trying to get to? And I think there are two things that this does.

First of all, it means you detail your content to something which is gonna be interesting. But also makes you more open to what they might might have to say. I stories are, can be, um, really are collaborative in these environments and we go [00:18:00] into an interaction with our best guess of what the right answer is.

And we need to get feedback from those with whom we want to work, be the investors or our team or whatever.

When

people have got their story and they're going out into the real world,

Dan Manning: world,

Rob D. Willis: do you feel, how do they best prepare to deliver it? Do you think that it's something that just flows, or do they

need to do anything in particular?

Dan Manning: So they definitely need to practice. Um, so

what I deliver to my clients is a, a Google doc that has the story that is, um, that is written out in words that I have carefully chosen, and I give them like an audio recording of me reading that story so they can understand how I intended for it to be delivered so they can understand the pacing and the pauses and those, the intonation and those types of things. But then I remind them that your job is not to try to memorize the story. You're not trying to recite the story. And I go back to the work of, uh, Dr. Yuri [00:19:00] Hassan, who is a, a neuroscientist, and he. Studied people as they were telling stories. He would put a, a person into an MRI measure the blood flow in in their brain as they spontaneously told a story.

They weren't reciting a story, they weren't reading it. They were spontaneously telling it, and he measured their brain activity. He recorded that story. Then he put someone else into an MRI, I guess they only had one. I available. So he put someone else into an MRI and played the recording back for them and then measured their brain activity.

And what he saw was that the brain activity synced up. He called it neural coupling, where the story, the storyteller and the audience's brain, he. Lit up in the same areas as the story was being told. But what he also said was that this only happened when the story was allowed to rise and burn in the living immediacy. I love that quote, when the story was allowed to rise and burn in the living immediacy where it feels like, like we're having this conversation now. It feels like I am spontaneously creating, [00:20:00] you know, my words and my story, my communication, and delivering it to you. But you'll also notice that as we're having this conversation, there'll be a few places where I pause and I think, or maybe I, I say a word twice just like I just did, right?

I say a word twice as my brain is trying to keep up, but you know that this isn't a, a rehearsed pitch. This isn't something that I've memorized and that I'm reciting to you that it's live and it's being delivered to you. And that's what people need to do when they're delivering their stories as well. I've given them sort of the ideal that they're thinking towards, but. The words are less important than hitting each of those parts of the story that we talked about and having this deep clarity about what it is that you want to communicate. And when they practice and they hit all those beats, they're gonna be a better storyteller than, you know, 90% of the people on the planet.

And after they do it a few times, they'll start to bring in some of those words or they'll start to change them to something that's even more natural for them. And when they deliver it, it feels to the audience like it is being created just for them in this [00:21:00] moment. And that is what holds our attention and creates this vivid imagery in our minds.

Rob D. Willis: This is something. I've heard actors have to perfect. It's not so much res remembering their lines, it's tuning into the emotion of a scene and being able to tap into that themselves.

In thinking about your own stories and when you are trying to engage in audience, how do you tap into that yourself?

Dan Manning: yourself. So I, I mean, so generally I try to go like one step closer than most people do. So rather than saying. You know, here is certainly, rather than saying Here is what happened, I'm always focused on what changed and what changed is almost always like inside me. It is what changed is something that you can't see. It's my, maybe my opinion, it's my thought, it's my mindset, it's my beliefs and I need to um, I need to [00:22:00] bring you inside my mind. To let you know about even those doubts or those, uh, those fears or those worries or those things that were holding me back from what I wanted to do and then let you know what changed to take those away. Most of the stories that I tell are not, are not things that are visible to the outside. They're things that I have to allow you to see inside my mind. Not because you're interested in me, but because you're interested in you and you want to sort of try on that change for yourself to see if it would be beneficial for for you as well.

Rob D. Willis: This reminds me of a a point I heard a guy called Con O'Neal Make, who is a lecturer in II in Barcelona, and he writes on on LinkedIn the whole time, but he was talking about

how. Imagine you go and see someone who's climbed Everest,

it's very unlikely that they would have a piece of rock from the top of Everest with them and they'd show the rock to everyone.

'cause at the [00:23:00] end of the day, we don't really care about Everest. We care about what it took for that person to achieve this particular feat, because we want to see if we can do the same thing to change in the same way.

This is something which I must confess, I've always held back slightly from, maybe it's the British thing, it's the kind of exposing yourself.

How have you been able to tap into that vulnerability? Uh, maybe it's

something you've ever struggled with, but.

Dan Manning: No. So. Honestly, the, the first time that I really started thinking about it was after watching a Ted Talk from a Paul Zack, uh, on the role of oxytocin and trust. And Paul Zack is a, um, you know, he's a neuro economist. He later goes on to study stories and the way that stories work in our brains. But what he found in his research around oxytocin and how that drove people to. Act in a trusting way. The end of that research was that the fastest way to build [00:24:00] trust with someone is to treat them as if they are trustworthy. When you treat someone as if they are trustworthy, they get oxytocin in their brain that says, you know what? I should trust Dan. He trusts me. He's a good judge of character, so I should trust him. When I can build that vulnerability into a story, I'm able to do that at scale. So, especially if I'm leading a workshop or if I'm leading certainly a multi-day event with, uh, with a client, I will begin with a story that requires some vulnerability on my part. It should be slightly scary. If it's not scary, it's not vulnerable at all.

And if it's terrifying, it's too much. It should be slightly scary. And when I do that, my audience responds. By being worthy of the trust that I put in them. And at the same time, everyone else in the audience sees that people are not throwing tomatoes at me. They're not saying, what? Who is this guy?

They're actually responding in a way that validates the trust that I put in them, and it makes it safe for them to speak up as well. So what I learned is when I begin doing that, I get a different reaction from my audience, [00:25:00] whether it's on Zoom or it's in person, that I am rewarded with that trust. What he found in his research was that 95% of the time. When you treat someone as if they're trustworthy, they respond by validating that trustworthiness. In any bet that I would win 95% of the time, I would be a fool not to be making it over and over and over again.

Rob D. Willis: When your workshops, when you're teaching this stuff, is that something you consciously

draw attention to afterwards?

Dan Manning: I don't have to draw attention to it, I just do it right. And I, I'm, I'm conscious as I

build the story about building that in and making sure that I, that I deliver that, but it's not something that I have to draw the attention of the audience to. I want the story to do that work, and they end up in the place that I, where I want them to be, but not because I've told them, here's where I want you to be, but because this story. Has driven them to make the choice, maybe even this unconscious decision to act in a way that validates the trust that was put in them.

Rob D. Willis: IWI meant more. I heard, uh, [00:26:00] Sean Callahan, who wrote a book called Putting Stories to Work. He was mentioning that in his workshops, he'll tell a story at the beginning of the workshop. Similar to what you're saying, but then much later in the day, he will refer back to that story and ask the audience, how did that shape your image of me?

And I think that can open up some interesting reflections on how story affects

us in the, in the, discussion.

I mean.

Dan Manning: Oh, absolutely. If so, in our, like in the storytelling apprenticeship program that I run, that's a much longer program. Some people have been in there for, uh, you know, for two years because they enjoy the community and they enjoy what they do. And we will have those very deep discussions about sort of the meta level of storytelling. For most of the people that I'm working with at a workshop, they. They don't need to understand it that deeply, right? They need structure to start out with, and we'll start out with that, but the effect is, um, is undeniable and they get different results. It's scary to them. It is [00:27:00] scary, and it's supposed to be, if it's not scary, it's not vulnerable. But if I can get them to take that risk and to do it, the rewards that they get are undeniable to them, and it's so much easier for them to do it the next time.

Rob D. Willis: Oh, that's awesome. Let, let's stick, uh, stick with the structure though, because I, I love that development of, uh, Gustav fry tag's, triangle that you've got.

Did you have any other prototypes that you tried out or is this something you pretty much arrived

at quite quickly?

Dan Manning: So I, I mean, I read pretty much every pop culture you storytelling book that was, uh, that was out there. And most of the books that I read. At the, I would get to the end of it. I was like, Hey, this is, this sounds great.

I wanna write a great story. And I would go to start writing this story. But nothing in the book actually helped me to write a story over and over and over again. I'm like, I get it. I want to do this. But there was nothing that was actionable for me to, I. To, to actually do, to [00:28:00] build the story that I needed to build. So then I started experimenting with like fre tag's, uh, pyramid, and said, all right, what if we, let's take away the idea that it's, this isn't a play or in a novel and make it real life. The center of his pyramid is also climax, which is really the, the change. And now I said, if change is the real center of the story, like what can I do to, to emphasize that and to really drill in.

So I start by thinking about first, what is the transformation that I'm trying to communicate in this story? And this is, I call it the nano story. It's simply from blank to blank, from struggle to success, from fear to confidence, from, um, ignorance to knowledge. And that it, that will begin shaping my mind about here's the transformation that I'm talking about.

I don't want to add others to it. I want just this one transformation. And then I go to that next level, which is purely, you know, at the core of every story you have essentially the before the change and [00:29:00] the after. Like before things were like this until this thing changed, and now they're like that. So how do I. Represent that for the story that I want to tell. What is the one sentence before? The one sentence of change? The one sentence of after, and now I start building the scaffolding that keeps me from putting in all those other things that aren't important to this story because I am laser focused on the change and the transformation I'm trying to communicate.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah, it's like, 'cause um, Kurt saying you need to start as a story should start as close to the end as possible, so you're not bringing in all of this random,

extra context that's not needed.

Dan Manning: And it is, I mean, there is a chronological, um, you, you. The, when he talks about it, he talks about it often like this chronological way, but there's also this like emotional and very human way as well. And if we talk about getting as close as possible, and I use this terminology all the time when I'm coaching people, like bring me [00:30:00] closer.

Like bring me one step closer to what you were thinking, what was actually going on in your mind? Because all of us all day are looking around asking ourselves. Am I normal? Am I a normal person? And when you get to hear someone else's story that takes you inside their mind, it gives you a chance to check yourself against their thinking.

Like, would I have done the same thing? Would I have felt those same things? And what you see over and over again is that we're all, we're all abnormal in our own, uh, our own unique ways, but we're more, um, alike than different. And stories give us that window to let us, uh, see them.

Rob D. Willis: Before you did this, you were writing stories and speeches rather for

senior, like Air Force officials. Is that right? Yeah.

Dan Manning: that right? So I, I've done, I've done a lot of things right? I was a fighter pilot in the Air Force for, um, for about 10 or 12 years. I was a speech writer. I was also a military diplomat in, um, in, uh, central Asia, in Kyrgyzstan. And then I negotiated with the Russians for, uh, a year as I was leading the day-to-day air [00:31:00] operations against isis. Um, I ran the hotline between our headquarters and Qatar and the Russian headquarters in Syria.

Rob D. Willis: And I understand that there is a story of a Russian General and some.

Dan Manning: Oh, so, um, there's, there's a, I have a couple of stories about, uh, Russian generals and, uh, and vats. Um, one of them actually was a Ukrainian, uh, general that, um, he, he ran when I was studying, uh, Russian, I went to Ukraine and lived with a Russian speaking family so that I could, uh, practice and. There was a, the, the last commander of the last Ukrainian, um, nuclear missile base still lived at the base and it turned the base into a little museum. I'm not sure it was even like an authorized thing or if he was just doing it. Uh, but we went there for, uh, for a trip and it was very interesting to see what was happening there.

And as he was giving his presentation, he said, you know, I don't want to offend anyone, but, you know, our targets were places like, you know, Washington, DC and Houston or [00:32:00] you know, uh, Dallas, uh, Texas. It reminded me when I was growing up of, you know, during the Cold War, we were always worried and afraid that the Russians were going to launch this big nuclear attack on us.

And here I was much later in my life, standing in the place where that attack would've been launched, talking to the person who would've given the order. I. After his presentation, um, he invited me back into like his quarters and we stood there and we, we drank vodka and ate, ate pickles and spoke Russian.

And it was just a, a, a complete like full circle life story that I will value for, for the rest of my life.

Rob D. Willis: I imagine there's, I mean, it's an amazing story. There were probably some more high tense, very tense moments though when you were in these sorts of situations. So what do you think the value is of, of storytelling in

those kinds of moments?

Dan Manning: So actually I would go back to something you mentioned earlier. So when I was running the hotline with the Russians, we were, um, our forces were [00:33:00] very, very close to one another, right? Syria's not a very large place. And you had, you know, many people that were fighting in a very tight area. And, um, we needed to make sure that we were deconflicted and we weren't, um, attacking each other if, unless that was something that each nation made a, uh, a choice to do. But. Uh, I was pretty effective in that role, but primarily because of perspective taking, because I was able to put myself into their shoes and to take the words that they were saying at face value and to find some shared values. And there were some shared values around, you know. Myself and my interlocutors were, you know, military in this case.

We were, you know, all men in this, um, in this conversation. And there's a certain value that the Russians attached to being in the military and to, to masculinity. And I needed to speak to them in a way that that resonated with what they were saying. But also I needed to be very clear [00:34:00] in how I was communicating. I needed to have deep empathy with them and the way that they were thinking, not because I wanted to be friends with them, they were doing some atrocious acts in Syria, but I needed to have deep empathy so that I could ensure that my message was received in a way that they could act on and they could make a decision to do what ultimately I, and, you know, the coalition you wanted them to do. And I took some criticism for that. People would say, oh, you're, you're too nice to them. I'm like, well, I'm not being nice to them because we're planning to drink vodka later. I'm being nice to them because they need them to listen to me. No one is persuaded by someone that they dislike. Um, and I need to be able to communicate to them in a way that gives them the information they need and the opportunity to say yes to the thing that I am, uh, suggesting or that I need them to do.

Rob D. Willis: Chris Voss has this wonderful term tactical empathy that even when you are dealing with someone who you deeply disagree with, you need to understand where they're coming from or you can't [00:35:00] engage with them. I

dunno how much you can tell us about this, but is there a particular moment where you can tell us about how.

Taking this tactical empathy really helped

you out of a situation.

Dan Manning: so I'll say mostly, um. When it often came up, like in discussions, was actually in discussions on, like, on the US side, when someone would say, well, you just need to, to call the Russians up and tell them, here's what we're going to do. We're gonna, for instance, we're we're gonna send a drone over to this area because it's in our interest.

I said, okay, I, I could do that. But we need to think two steps ahead in this story. Uh, the one step is what if they say no? You have to be willing already before I ask the question to, to believe that they might say no. And even when they say no, and even when they say, if you do it, we will shoot it down. You have to do it anyway before I make that call. You have [00:36:00] to be committed to the risk that. That this drone is going to be shot down if we send it over there. If, if you aren't, then I'm going to say we're going to do it. They're going to say that we'll shoot it down, and then we back down. We have incentivized this behavior forever, so driving people to, um, on the, you know, on our side to. Um, through me be able to have some empathy in what are they thinking and how are they going to make their decisions so then you can reevaluate what it is that you're actually asking. Became very powerful and we never, um, did anything that was sort of in that forceful way because nobody was willing to, to take that risk in the beginning.

But being able to understand the person that you're working with, even if it was through me, gave them the perspective they needed to, I believe, make better decisions.

Rob D. Willis: And when you were writing speeches for Senior Air Force officials, what are the kind of unique challenges you face in

that situation?

Dan Manning: So I wrote primarily for the [00:37:00] undersecretary of the Air Force.

So she was the second highest ranking civilian in the, in the Air Force. And she was incredibly smart and incredibly insightful, but she was not a comfortable public speaker. She didn't relish giving a, you know, an onstage behind the podium presentation. And she would get nervous like lots of people before they would speak. So a lot of what I needed to do was. Um, give her stories that she could understand and that were easy to tell and could make sense to the audience to convey her points and then coach her to be able to, to deliver those, um, by, by. Using stories in the, in her presentations rather than just presenting a list of, of facts that can often be dry.

And if she looks out into the audience, everyone's faces are, are glazed over, that's a real confidence, um, de-motivator. But if she tells a story and she sees, you know, eyes that are bright, open and people leaning forward and people nodding at the appropriate times, it was able. Um, she was able to have the confidence to continue to [00:38:00] speak, to continue to deliver her message and be very effective at, um, when she did need to speak and did need to convey important messages for a variety of audiences.

Rob D. Willis: Last point on your own history. I, I know you were, you were a fighter pilot for a while. That must have taught you some lessons about communication under, under high

pressure. Yeah.

Dan Manning: Yes, so I was uh, you know, an instructor in pilot training. So I taught the brand new students how to fly and then I flew a single seat aircraft, you know, the A 10 and I was an instructor in the A 10 as well. And whe whether I'm communicating to a student on the ground or I'm talking to, you know, my wingman in the air communication needs to be very clear. Um. Unambiguous, short and crisp, and I think that that has bled over into way that I, that I talk and the way that I write. I say that my storytelling style is brutalist. I want my point to be brutally clear. I want there to be no question in my mind that [00:39:00] I have given you what you need to understand what it is I'm trying to communicate, and if I have put anything in there to cloud it, that is my problem and I need to take that out so that I can do service to my audience.

Rob D. Willis: You definitely strike me as someone who's able to be incredibly concise,

and I'm wondering how you developed that. Was there anything you had to consciously do here or is that

just came naturally to you?

Dan Manning: So I think part of that does come from. At my, at my roots, like I'm an introvert. I do my thinking on the inside and I spend a lot of time, deeply thinking about or deeply deciding what I think. And I typically don't speak until I've decided what that thing is or, or what I, what I think about that thing.

And now I can communicate in a very clean and and crisp way. I don't, I didn't do anything to become an introvert. It's the way that I was born and and raised, but it's a skill that I've been able to leverage to be a better communicator.

Rob D. Willis: If you were to write a business book [00:40:00] about this journey, fighter, pilot, speech writer, negotiator, and now storyteller, what do you think you'd

call that book? I.

Dan Manning: so probably it would be moments of change. When I, when I talk about story and storytelling, what we're always looking for is this moment of change. Matthew Dix, in his book Story Worthy, he talks about this, you know, five to seven second moment of change. But my clients and the people that I teach, I try to get even closer.

I try to get to the instant when things change. The closer we can get to that instant, the more powerful and more impactful the story is. And I've spent, you know, some time looking back at, at my life and, you know, thinking about what are those points in my life where. Essentially there was maybe unknown to me at the time, but there was a fork and I could, you know, go this way or go that way.

And this moment made that decision that then shaped everything that comes after that. And I think really getting tight on what those moments were could, well, certainly would give me more insight into who I am, but also give, um, you know, [00:41:00] readers some insight into how these small moments have, you know, rippling effects through the rest of our lives.

Rob D. Willis: Moments of change. You gotta write it down for sure.

Dan Manning: Yeah.

Rob D. Willis: Uh, let's move on to some rapid fire. Quick questions, short answers. Favorite

book about storytelling?

Dan Manning: storytelling? Uh, story worthy, the only one that I recommend, well, only one of two books that I recommend to people about storytelling.

Rob D. Willis: What's the other one

I have? I have to

Dan Manning: The other one is,

uh, six Second Stories by Rain Bennett. It's very short. Um, rain Bennett is, uh, he's on LinkedIn as well, and absolutely worth a follow.

Rob D. Willis: A podcast you've discovered recently.

Dan Manning: So I've been listening to a lot of Lenny's podcast. So, uh, he, it's a podcast mostly about product but also and product, and product design often for the, for the tech space. But there's a lot of great lessons about business and about thinking and about relating to customers inside that podcast.

Rob D. Willis: Best practice for collecting [00:42:00] stories.

Dan Manning: So the practice that I use the most is the notes app on my phone. I will go on a walk and I'll, I'll say, I need to think about a story that does this type of thing, and I get these ideas and I write them down in my notes app because the biggest, one of the biggest lies that I tell myself is I will never forget that, but as soon as I make it back to my office, that ideas long gone.

So I've gotta record it at the time that it comes up, and then I can use it later.

Rob D. Willis: And do you store it in your

notes app as well, or do you have

Dan Manning: Oh, absolutely. No, it's not the best system?

I'm sure I recommend that, but it's, they're all through my, uh, my notes app. But I do regularly go back and I scroll through those and find, oh, here's a, a story I haven't told, and, uh, would be great for this occasion.

Rob D. Willis: Have you got, uh, maybe we kind of touched on it already, but the quickest way to know if a

Dan Manning: If this

Rob D. Willis: story

isn't working.

Dan Manning: working, it's the questions that come at the end. Are people asking what I call clarifying questions? That is they're asking me something that I was sure that I had said, [00:43:00] or are they asking me questions that, that take my idea and expand it? Are are they saying, oh, I understand what you're saying there.

Could you also do this? And now they're making the story bigger. That means they got it. If they're saying, oh, wait, wait. What is it? What are you talking about? Then I know that it didn't work.

Rob D. Willis: Awesome. Let's move on to the listener challenge. So in this part of the pod, we give listeners an exercise or a ritual that they can try out over the next week to get a bit of your superpower.

Dan, what do you have for us?

Dan Manning: do you have? Thoughts? So what I would do is something that I teach inside my, uh, my storytelling apprenticeship, uh, program. And it's another one of these story trapping, um, techniques. And it's asking myself the question, why do I blank? So why do I live here in Alabama? And. I, I go back and now I think about the story.

What is the story that leads to this moment of change? 'cause I was living in Virginia near the Pentagon and my last assignment there, we made the [00:44:00] decision to move back to Alabama where I'm from. But what is the moment when that happened, when that switch flipped? I. And it takes some time because the first answer is going to be something that's very superficial and, oh, well, I decided to move back closer to family.

Yeah, yeah. But let's get closer. Let's get closer. And what I am able to do when I think about that particular thing, is I go back to this dispute that I had with my, my HOA, the, the Homeowners Association there that really soured me on that neighborhood. And, and we decided we were going to move back to Alabama.

Um, after that. But I can use the same type of question. Not only why do I live here, but why do I work here? Why do I drive the car that I drive? Why do I buy this brand of, of drink? But asking myself these why questions begs for a story. And the answer.

Rob D. Willis: That's a fantastic exercise. Thank you very much, Dan.

Where can people go to find out more about you?

Dan Manning: The best place is on

LinkedIn. I post about stories and storytelling, uh, many times a week on LinkedIn. And it's, uh, the place where you can get most of my content and stay in contact.

Rob D. Willis: Awesome. I'll be sure to link to

that in the show notes. Dan, [00:45:00] Thank you very much.

Dan Manning: much. Thank you so much. It's great talking to

you

[00:46:00]