236 Tell Your Story and Steal the Show with Michael Port

“We can be critics or we can be performers.” - Michael Port If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/236 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 236 with New York Times bestselling author, Michael Port. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to this podcast episode with my man, Michael Port. And the top five things you're going to learn today are all about how to become a better performer, which includes stopping to criticize. Also, how to tell if you should include a certain story in your performance. The power of using contrast in your speech patterns and in body language in your daily life. Why not to curse at the beginning of your performance? The five key components in every speech. Plus, how to steal the show in every moment of your life and always get a standing ovation. I'm very excited about this. Michael Port has become a good friend of mine. He's a New York Times bestselling author.

• 1:16Lewis Howes?

  He's written six books, including Book Yourself Solid, The Think Big Manifesto, and the brand new book out today, Steal the Show. He's also probably the only New York Times bestselling business book author to have also been a successful professional actor. Guest starring on shows like Sex and the City, Law and Order, Third Watch, All My Children, and other movies as well. He is a great human being. I've had the pleasure of working with him to teach me how to enhance some of my speaking opportunities and performances. And after working with him, I noticed an incredible shift in my performances. And if you're looking to be a better speaker, if you're looking to give better presentations, if you're looking to do better sales pitches, to get a better job interview, whatever it may be,

• 2:02Lewis Howes?

  or to even have a better date with someone in a first date, then this is the episode for you, and I'm super pumped for you to dive in. And without further ado, let's go ahead and dive into this episode with the one and only, Michael Port.

• 2:21Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. Very excited about my guest today. His name is Michael Port. Michael, how's it going?

• 2:29Speaker 01

  It's going great. How are you doing?

• 2:31Lewis Howes?

  Hi, I'm doing great, man. We've got some things we're working on together that I'm excited about. So it's good to have you on the show. This is the first time you've been on the show. So I'm sure there's lots of fans that already know about you.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  So I can say, I can say longtime listener, first time guest?

• 2:46Lewis Howes?

  There you go, exactly. And there's a, there's a bunch of things I want to cover today because you are the storytelling master, the speaker master on stage, and you helped me with the big talk that I did at World Domination Summit recently, which I really feel like your feedback and suggestions and advice helped me craft a better story, which created a deeper experience for people. And I think that we have an opportunity every time we get in front of an audience, whether it's on a stage or one-on-one with anyone walking down the street, we have that opportunity to move people into a specific direction in their lives. And that's a gift. And it's our duty to cultivate that gift to the maximum,

• 3:31Lewis Howes?

  to literally make people better, make the world a better experience, and make our lives better. So I'm excited to dive in about how we can all do this better because for me, I know it's an ongoing process for mastering the art of speaking, pitching, enrolling people in my vision. And I'm excited to hear from the master himself. So thanks for being here.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, happy to be here.

• 3:55Lewis Howes?

  And you've got a new book called Steal the Show. From speeches to job interviews to deal closing pitches, how to guarantee a standing ovation for all the performances in your life, which I'm really pumped about. I've got the copy right here in my hands. I want to make sure everyone go pick up a copy. It's out right now everywhere. You can go buy a book, go buy a copy. We'll have it linked up here on the show notes. I'm curious, first off, before we kind of get into how everyone can be better storytellers and enroll people in our visions on a daily basis, why did you feel like this was the book you wanted to come out with right now? And what really inspired you to do this?

• 4:33Speaker 01

  This is the book that I've always wanted to write. I started my career as an actor and I had a modicum of success. I have an MFA, a master's, from the Graduate Acting Program at NYU. And then I worked on shows like Sex and the City, Third Watch, All My Children, Law and Order, Another World, and I did some films. I did The Pelican Brief, Down to Earth, The Believer, Last Call, but I did a lot of voice-overs. That was my bread and butter. So for brands like AT&T, Coors, Braun, Pizza Hut, MTV, I used to do the tag for the Box Music Network. Remember that one? All music, all the time. You know, that was, that was my thing.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  And, you know, I left the business because I was immature. I really wasn't willing to wait for success. I wanted what I wanted when I wanted it. And I would have to go into the room and, and prate and prance around to try to get somebody else to give me a job. And at that time, I'd just, it wasn't tenable. So I thought, well, I'll go into business and I'll make something of myself. And I did. I went into the fitness industry on the business side and I had a modicum of success. And then after about five years, I went out on my own and started writing and Book Yourself Solid came out in 2006. And I was fortunate that that did very well.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  And then here we are about, almost 10 years later, and I'm back focusing on performance in public speaking because when I look at the accomplishments that I had when I left acting in business and then as an entrepreneur, I can, I can pretty much, I can pretty much say that most of my professional success has come as a result of me being able to perform when the stakes are high. Because think about life for a second. Our life is made up of lots of different moments. And how we perform during life's high stakes situations often determines the quality of our life.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  So if we fall flat during those high stakes situations, then we play a small game. But if we can steal the show when the spotlight is on us, well, then we get to do whatever we want to do. And that's why I wrote this book because, you know, performance is not just about speaking on a stage. It's about all of these situations, even meeting your future in-laws is a performance. Now, I want to make something really, really clear. Sometimes people hear the word performance and they think.

• 7:19Lewis Howes?

  Fake.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. And that is absolutely true for some people. There are definitely people who are out there who will manipulate, who will pretend, who are fake. But if somebody says to me, Michael, I'm, I don't, I don't want to be a performer because that means, won't that mean I'm going to be phony? So then I would ask, are you phony? And they say, no, no, of course not. I'm not phony. I say, well, then you don't have to worry about it.

• 7:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Because you're not going to be phony. The best performers in the world are the most authentic performers in the world. And, and I want us, this is chapter three in Steal the Show is about playing the right role in any given situation and not letting anybody else cast you in a role. You choose the role you want to play. And if you want to play a leading role, then play that role.

• 8:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  But we can play lots of different roles in our life and we don't have to get stuck in one style of behavior, one role.

• 8:14Lewis Howes?

  So essentially our whole life is a performance is what you're saying. And unless we're performing in a powerful way, then we're probably not living a powerful life.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  I, yeah, I think so. And, you know, part of it, you know, for some people may just be, you know, sort of moving, shifting the way they think about this word performance. I mean, Shakespeare said, all the world's a stage. And, and to a certain extent, you know, I think, I think he had it, you know? I mean, look. I don't, you know, I don't think this will give you an explicit rating on your show, but even when you're making love, there are elements of performance in there. So, all aspects of life have an element of performance, and that's why I wrote this book, because so many people are scared. And why are we scared? We're scared because we don't want to get rejected.

• 9:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's perfectly normal. I don't want to get rejected, do you?

• 9:08Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  No, of course not. So, so then what happens is, we spend a lot of time going for approval, rather than results. And anytime we focus on approval, we're gonna pander, we're gonna water ourselves down, we're gonna behave in the way that we think somebody else wants us to behave, and then we will not have a voice.

• 9:29Lewis Howes?

  So how do we shift out of that approval mindset to results mindset?

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Well, I think it's a question of what's important to you. I mean, how important is it for you to produce the results that you think you want to produce? And what's driving you to produce those results? Is it, you know, some, you know, some need to prove your parents wrong? Is it some need to, you know, be better than your neighbor? Or is it driven by a deep desire to be in service? So, here's something, one of my clients called me up in a bit of a panic, because she got an interview on one of the big network broadcast morning shows.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  And she had been trying to get this interview, but yet she was freaking out.

• 10:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  So, "Oh my God, I don't know what to do. I, I, I just want to be really good. What should I do, Mike?" I said, "Well, you cannot be good. It's not possible." And I, there's just silence. Yeah, and I think she fell off her chair, because, because she, she got really upset. And I said, "No, it's not that. It's not that you're not good, but you can't go into a situation trying to be good. You can go in there trying to be helpful, and then, if you are, you will be perceived as good. But your, your job is not to try to be good, your job is to try to be helpful." So, in every single presentation, every single speech, every single pitch, there's a promise. And when we make a promise to an individual sitting across the table from us,

• 11:06Speaker 01

  or a theater with a thousand people in it, our job is to deliver on that promise. So it no longer becomes us. It's not about us. It's never been about us. It's always about them. So people often ask, well, how do I overcome, you know, stage fright? I get really nervous. What should I do? And so the assumption is, well, maybe I should focus on my breath, my breathing, or meditate, or do jumping jacks. And all of those things are fine. But ultimately, we need to take the focus off of ourselves.

• 11:38Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, because you know, the more you think about yourselves, the more obsessed you get, and the more, you know, obsessed you get, the more neurotic you get. And then, next thing you know, you all you can think about is, did my hair look good? And, oh no, I wore the wrong pants, and are these shoes, you know, and it's not about your shoes, your pants, or your hair, unless of course, you're a man and your pants are pulled up way too high, you don't want to do that.

• 11:58Lewis Howes?

  Right. Okay.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  I mean, I do actually dedicate a part of one of the chapters to, to wardrobe. You know, it's the choice of clothing, because they are costumes, aren't they? You know, you, you have, you either have great style naturally, or you have a great stylist, because, you know, the, the, when I see pictures of you online, you, no, you, you look really great, and it's part of your brand identity, but it's a representation, representation of who you are, your style, your playfulness.

• 12:29Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  And, and that's a, that's a costume, and it's a choice.

• 12:33Lewis Howes?

  Interesting, yeah.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:35Lewis Howes?

  I've got a pretty good stylist.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  You're not wearing, what'd you say?

• 12:38Lewis Howes?

  I've got a pretty good stylist who hopes to be up for those, yeah.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  There you go, but it's, it's, you know, that's exactly right, because it, there's a performance element to it, but you're a super authentic guy, so you're able to balance both of those things, and that's one of the things that makes you very successful.

• 12:51Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, yeah. I like that. Uh, I'm curious, you know, what was opening up for me is, what about all the introverts in the world who feel like performing, or just like getting up to perform on a day-to-day basis? It's hard for them, because they're much more introverted than, you know, someone who's, who's willing to go out there and put themselves out there constantly.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Sure. So, I'm not an ex-expert on the introvert-extrovert concept, but it's often used, this term introvert is often used Um, to suggest shyness.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  And I don't necessarily think they're one and the same. Someone who's an introvert might also be shy. But I am very introverted in my nature. I don't do well in crowds. Like, I don't like going to concerts when there's too many people around. I often get overwhelmed and I need to go spend some time by myself. You know, I spend a lot of time on my boat out in the middle of the bay. There's nobody around. So, but people might not assume that because they think, oh, well, he's a performer. He's gregarious.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  And, and that means it's just how he is all the time. But it's actually not how I am all the time. When I'm sitting around at a table for, you know, a dinner with six people that I don't know, I'm not the life of the party. I'm not the, the one that's entertaining everybody. I can do it if I know that that's my role because I think about how do you play that role? But it's not how I am normally. So I just wanna, I wanna try to separate these two things because introvert, extrovert doesn't necessarily make you a better performer one way or the other. But if you are very shy, if you, or you label, you label yourself as shy, um, and you don't like people watching you, maybe that's something else. And that's okay. That's not a bad thing.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  You don't, you don't have to change yourself and, and all of a sudden start, um, you know, uh, uh, having this big, huge personality. That's definitely not necessary because ultimately performing is about connecting. That's what it's about. And all of us can connect with one person or 1,000 people. So when I coach, one of the things that is really important to me in, uh, all of our heroic public speaking training programs is that you will never see one of our speakers look like another speaker. Like, nobody would, would watch anyone that I've trained and say, ah, that's a Michael Port method teacher, speaker. It's just not gonna happen because. Because it's an art. It's an art.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Performance is an art and each one of us is an individual. And what, what I do with the books, deal, the show and in all of our training is find the individual and give you an opportunity to express yourself as an individual. So, one performer may move a lot on stage and that's the way that we're going to direct them and coach them and they use their physicality in really extreme ways and it works very well for them. But another, we may have them very still for most of their presentation because that is a much more powerful place for them to be. So, there is not a one size fits all approach to any kind of performance.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Performance is an art and often the performer's job is to break the rules, not necessarily to be controversial or just to break the rules, but to try to create something better in its place. And to that end, I think we have two options. We can be critics or we can be performers, but I don't think we can be both.

• 16:25Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean critics?

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Well, I think that there's a place for people who are professional critics, you know, someone who in the New York Times, they review movies and plays and I think there's a place for that. But if you spend any time on Facebook these days, many people have a lot of very strong opinions about what other people do or don't do. And I think one of the reasons that we're so afraid of performance is because we're afraid of being criticized. And if we spend our time criticizing others, how are we going to get up there in front of others and take any risks?

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  So you're saying that people that do criticize a lot of the time usually aren't the ones taking the risks themselves and?

• 17:13Speaker 01

  No. All right, let me ask, let me ask you a question. When's the last time you wrote a negative review about somebody's podcast, book or anything else? Have you ever done that?

• 17:22Lewis Howes?

  I don't know if I ever have.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly right. And when I ask all my colleagues, and I really, I very rarely use absolutes, but every colleague at a high level that I've asked the same question to, they've said, Hmm, no, I've never done that.

• 17:35Lewis Howes?

  Too busy creating.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 17:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Exactly right. So, one of our students called up Amy and he was really upset because somebody blasted his video. You know, "Oh, you're like Joel Osteen and blah, blah, blah." And I don't, you know, I don't know why the guy hates Joel Osteen, but, you know, for whatever reason, this guy just blasted him. And his video is fantastic and he's a wonderful speaker. But rarely will everybody like what you do.

• 18:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  But he took it so personally. And I asked him, "Who's the guy?" He's like, "Well, I don't really know him that well." I said, "Okay, what does he have to do with what you do for a living?" "Nothing." "What does he have to do with the people that you're trying to serve?" "Nothing." But yet it's still so powerful when other people criticize us. And, look, there are, there are two types of critics. There's the external critic. And then there's the critic in your own head.

• 18:26Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  And when you criticize yourself, you tend to hear the external critics even more.

• 18:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, you know, those are the, like, I always call them the people in the cheap seats who like to push other people down to lift themselves up. Yeah. Yeah, so we don't really have any time for that. That's not interesting to us. We're trying to make things, because anybody can break things. The question is, can you build something better in its place? And that's what we're focused on. But if you can work on silencing those voices of judgment in your head, the ones that tell you you're not enough, you don't know enough, you'll never be enough, what do I have to say that already hasn't been said? If you can quiet those down, then you won't hear those voices out in the cheap seats quite as much. And you don't need to be different to make a difference. In our world, and when I say world, I mean our industry,

• 19:17Speaker 01

  often, there's this real strong push to try to be different than other people. And somehow, the idea of being different has been, is conflated with being unique, yourself. As if, as if that's what you're supposed to do. Be different, be different, be different. And, and I don't think trying to be different is a way of finding your voice. Trying to be more honest is a way of finding your voice.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  And if we focus on being different, then we will feel either like a fraud or we'll feel insignificant because we don't feel that different.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  You know, you and I and the 250,000 people or a million people that are listening to this particular podcast, we're all more similar than we are different. Now, you are 6'5", you know, you're brawny and manly, and I'm 5'10" and bald.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  But we're so similar, we're looking for meaning, we're looking for love, we're looking for peace, we're looking for respect, we're looking for all of these important things. And the people who are listening are looking for the same things too. So why are we criticizing so much? And I just think it's very hard to be a performer if we spend a lot of time criticizing.

• 20:45Lewis Howes?

  I love that. I love that. So stop criticizing if you want to perform better. That's step one. Would you say that having a normal conversation with someone on a day-to-day basis or going to ask your girl out or going for a job interview, any of these daily conversations, would you say there's a same three to five-part structure or act, whatever you call it, as there is in a speech? Is the performance very similar or are they different? Giving a speech in front of a thousand people to talking with one person about something?

• 21:21Speaker 01

  There are some things that are very similar. And I'll give you an example. When you create any kind of content for a speech, and you can apply this to any kind of writing that you do or any other type of information product, so to speak, you need to have a big idea. There's got to be something that drives you. There's a reason that you're bringing this topic to bear. And as I said before, the big idea doesn't have to be different to make a difference. If you think about Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, you know, his big idea was that all men and women are created equal. Well, that wasn't exactly different.

• 22:04Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  That was in the Constitution. But the problem was, it didn't actually exist.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  So that was what made it so important and so pressing and that it had to be addressed, but it wasn't different. And so that's, that's important to remember. The big idea is something that you care about, that you feel needs to be addressed. And then if you have a big idea, you can make a promise. And that promise is what you deliver. And it's got to be, of course, incredibly relevant to the person on the other end of the promise. Number three, you need to be, make sure that you can demonstrate how the world, that you know how the world looks to the person on the other end of that conversation.

• 22:50Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean by that?

• 22:51Speaker 01

  Well, you know, if I, if, if I'm speaking about, say, public speaking performance and I say, "Look, it's easy. Any dummy can do it." I mean, come on. You know, and you know what? Being funny is just easy. Any dummy can do it. Well, I'm gonna have, I'll say, three people will listen to me. That's about it. Because they'll go, "This guy's so out of touch. He, he doesn't understand how I feel."

• 23:16Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  And so, and so even if-

• 23:18Lewis Howes?

  If you started out saying, "Listen, I get it. Public speaking is-

• 23:23Speaker 01

  It's notoriously difficult.

• 23:24Lewis Howes?

  And it's rated as like, one of the top three things that people are afraid of the most.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:29Lewis Howes?

  You know, people are paralyzed by this. It can consume their entire mindset. Like, and I've been there before. I get it." Then you'll be able to connect with 98% of the room.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Exactly right. As long as it's true. You know, we can't pretend. You know, like, I, I can't, I, I, I wouldn't want to make up an origin story that says, "Well, I was once

• 23:47Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  A young man who never spoke."

• 23:49Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  And, and, you know, like, "And I was given an opportunity to go in front of my town council, and I froze." You know, that's just, it's just made up. So you, you need to be honest about, you know, how you are, and they won't mind if you have some talents that they don't think they do, as long as you understand how they feel. That's what's important. So that's number three. Number four is being able to demonstrate the consequences of not adopting this worldview or not adhering to this big idea, not going after this promise, because- You know, if we don't feel some pain around a change, we may not be willing to move forward.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  And then, of course, number five is being able to demonstrate the rewards of realizing this promise. But if we introduce the rewards first, they may not be enough because people may see, you know what, I mean, that would be so great to have or so great to do, but it's just, it's so far off. It's not possible, you know?

• 24:54Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  But if you can, if you can really push them, you know, to realize the negative consequences of not making a change, then they might be more willing to get into action, then eventually see that those rewards are actually possible. And this is true for a speech and it's true for, say, an interviewer, for example. And I'll give you an example, I'll give you a specific example. When, when I was trying to get my very first job after, after leaving acting, I was a little bit nervous because I had just been an actor. And my undergrad, my undergraduate degree from Tulane was in theater and psychology. And then my graduate degree was in acting.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  So it's not like I had a long resume that would suggest I should be hired to do some high-power stuff in the business world. But I was able to get an interview for a mid-level job in the fitness industry as a manager, as a manager of the group exercise department for one very high-end luxury health club. And I had taught one spinning class. That's, that's how I knew them. That was my connection to them. Cause I used to race bikes and so I teach, take a spin, teach a spinning class in the winter during the off-season. And I said to them, "Look, here's the thing. I don't have any of the qualifications that you think

• 26:14Speaker 01

  the person who you hire is supposed to have."

• 26:18Speaker 01

  So I was already demonstrating that I was honest. You see? Okay, so that's that's number one. And I I introduced and I said, but here's why I think you should consider me. And I introduced my big idea. My big idea was, I think that you are promoting people who are very talented at the performance side of group exercise, but they don't have the requisite skill set or talents for managing and business development. So that was my big idea. Then I had to go about making a promise. So my promise is if you are a if you hire me, here's what I can produce for you. And I said, and if you don't, here's what I think will continue to happen,

• 27:02Speaker 01

  because this is what I've seen. And then, of course, the rewards would be X, Y, and Z. So in that situation, I have to be bold, but I have to do it with grace and with a little bit of charm and respect. Because if you don't do the respect, then you come in there and you seem very arrogant.

• 27:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, right.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  But but but, you know, if they weren't a serious company and they didn't take their future serious, they might have, you know, said, I'm not listening to you. You don't know what you're talking about. But they did. They said, you know what? I'm going to consider this because we really care about moving forward. So I got the job. And then I cleaned up that department. Three weeks later, they another one of the clubs in the same company called me and said, listen, we want you to come and run our department also. It's really messed up over here. The woman who was running it is is disappeared for three days. Then she showed up and we got to get somebody else in here. I said, great. And I said, what are you going to pay me? And they said, $5,000 more than you get now. And I'm going, hold on, I'm sorry. I did maybe I didn't hear this correctly. Because that that math doesn't really add up.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  You want me to have two clubs instead of one, but you want to just give me $5,000 more? And they said, yeah, it's a real honor to have two clubs. And I said, I really appreciate that. I'm not doing this for the honor of it. You know, this is a job, right? And I want to produce. So I said, I'll tell you what, I'll make you a deal. You tell me the top three most important things for you to accomplish in that department realistically within the next three months. And if I achieve those, you'll give me this salary. And if I don't, I'll take the five and I'll do it as if I got the big salary.

• 28:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  And they snickered and laughed a little bit. And then they told me the three things. And they thought those three things were just impossible.

• 28:42Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Okay, 90 days later, what happens?

• 28:45Lewis Howes?

  You achieve them.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Of course. And I sat down with my boss and I said, okay, so we did it. Let's get my comp package, you know, reorganized. She said, what do you mean? I said, you remember the promise you made? And she said, no. And her assistant looked up from her desk and goes, yeah, Chris, you told them you were gonna do that. She goes, oh, my God, I don't even have that in the budget. We're gonna have to figure something out. So.

• 29:08Lewis Howes?

  But they do.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, they did. It's actually interesting. What we did is, so we paid all these instructors per hour. And so we had, you know, hundreds of them. And we had me teaching classes that I didn't teach to supplement the part of the salary that wasn't in the budget assigned for this managerial position. And then, of course, when the corporate office found out that they were doing that, because they tried, they gave me another promotion to another job, which was a, which the salary I thought wasn't really enough. And I said, well, because I'm making more than that now. And they said, how the hell you're making more than that now? I said, well, here's what's happening. So the point is, is that you've got to take some risks and raise the stakes and take chances. And that's what the performer does. That is, you know, in, in, in part two of Steal the Show, I outlined six performance

• 29:55Speaker 01

  principles. And if you adhere to those principles, you can, you can take that kind of action. You can, you can take those kind of risks. You can make those kind of promises. And the majority of the time, you'll deliver on them.

• 30:07Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, I love that. What do you, I mean, the thing that used to get me really hung up on speeches, and sometimes still today, is

• 30:18Lewis Howes?

  The opening, in the beginning, it's kind of like, how do I get it started? Where I get the nerves out and hook people to really the big idea. So that I feel like I can speak for the next thirty to sixty minutes. And keep them connected, you know, and then it's like, how do you keep them connected and constantly in through the stories you tell? How do you tell better stories, you know, can you speak on some of those things?

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Sure, and, and there are many, many elements and there's a big, big conversation around that throughout the whole speech. But if you focus just on the opening. Often when you read an article about public speaking, they'll suggest you tell stories or open with a joke.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  And that may work very well for some people, but telling jokes is a particular art. It is a craft as well. And it's not always very easy. And if you go out there and open with a joke and it bombs.

• 31:13Lewis Howes?

  That's not good.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  It's not a great feeling, you know, it's not a great feeling. Now, if you open with a story. And it's not a really compelling story that blows them out of the water. Same thing, they may have felt like, oh, well, there was a ubiquitous opening story from the speaker. I think they read the article about telling a story at the beginning. Because all stories that you tell need to be directly related to the promise. And supported by the big idea. Or else they shouldn't be told. Or else they just seem like filler.

• 31:54Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  And so you're using stories, of course, to illustrate points. But not just stories to tell stories. So if you feel like you have a story that nails the big idea. And gets them really fired up about it, you use that. And you need to craft it, and we should talk about how to craft stories because it's an essential component of public speaking.

• 32:15Lewis Howes?

  How, how do we do that?

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, let me, well, let's get to that in a second, I just want to give a couple more things about the opening.

• 32:20Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  So that's good, and if you have got a joke that works all the time, you know, go for it. If you can get a little bit of a laugh, great, no problem. But you could also not put as much pressure on yourself as you're currently doing.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Thinking the opening has to be a fireworks display. And just go out there and make the promise. Seamless, easy, light, and then build. Because a great speech has an arc. And that arc, it starts. Say, if you look at a graph, it starts toward the bottom of the graph. And then it goes up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. Until the climax. And that's the end of the speech. So sometimes if you start a speech, say, if, uh, on a scale of one to 10, if you start it as a 10, where do you have to go from there?

• 33:15Lewis Howes?

  To stay at a 10.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, and that's, that's, and you also, you want a lot of contrast in a speech. And audiences like to get to know you in the beginning. So I often start my speeches very easy, very conversational. And then I build into it from there. Because sometimes it takes an audience a little time to get used to you. They're not used to the way you move. They're not used to your voice. Just like a, a, a mother or father can understand their three-year-old perfectly. But if we heard the three-year-old, we'd have to ask for a translation. Because we're not used to the way that they speak. And the same thing is true for the first time you hear a speaker. You have to get used to them.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  So that ease is very, very important.

• 34:03Lewis Howes?

  So how about if you're doing, uh, you know, if you're talking about public speaking, how to give a great, great presentation if you're giving a speech on that? Which I'm assuming you have that speech. What would an opening look like for you? If you wanted to, if you wanted to give that?

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Well, there are two different things. So there are, there are four different speeches that I give. One is the Think Big Revolution. And that's a show, feels more like a show. Uh, people can see that, a 16-minute excerpt of that. If you just go to YouTube or you go to MichaelPort.com, you can see Think Big Revolution. You'll see it there. And then I do, of course, a Book Yourself Solid speech, which is, which is a curriculum-based speech, based on the book. Uh, and then, uh, Amy and I do a keynote in one act, which is something that we've written and is quite fun with two characters. I play myself, she plays, uh, a woman named Amy, who's not actually Amy. Uh, and Amy, for the record, is my business partner and my fiance. And actually, maybe people will be hearing this later and she'll be my wife by then.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  If I'm lucky and she shows up. Alter. So, so that's something else entirely and we don't expect anybody to do that kind of thing. It takes place on an airplane. It has lots of sound effects and props. It's, it's a show. But then what I do is I do something that I call heroic public speaking unscripted. Because when I give a speech on speaking, I want them to see people just like them transform in front of their eyes. Because if they see me giving a speech and they go, "Well, he's the expert. Of course, he can do that." They don't necessarily see themselves.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  So I do it unscripted and I do it, I, I come out with an opening that's very easy to relax them, to calm them down because when it comes to public speaking, people get nervous and I tell them, "Look, I don't think there's any one way to do anything. I'm gonna show you a particular methodology. I'm gonna introduce you to my way of seeing the world. And hopefully, you'll resonate with it and you might resonate with some parts more than others. And that's okay." Yeah, so really easy, really, really, really like calm and I tell them, "Here's what's gonna happen.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  I'm actually going to take a few of you out of the audience and put you on the stage. But it's your choice. I am not gonna force anyone up here." Because, and I, I'll tell you, I'm not telling them this, I'm telling you this, because all audience interaction needs to be proportionate to the amount of trust that you've earned.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  That's critical. And sometimes you'll see somebody start a speech and, and they'll say, "Okay, so raise your hand if you are in debt."

• 36:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  I'm not sure people want to put their hand up in the audience about, or raise your hand if you're an alcoholic, you know, it's just, I'm not so sure that's what people want to share with an audience that, of people that they don't know. And so we need to make sure that we have enough trust in order to ask, you know, people for things like that. And so if you're going to bring somebody up on stage, they need to volunteer and want to be there. And then I spend the time actually working on their speeches in front of everybody. And it's, I mean, you're going to see it when we do our event together. It's, it's cool. It's, it's pretty, uh, it's pretty spectacular.

• 37:29Lewis Howes?

  Okay. Well, what about?

• 37:31Speaker 01

  I'll give you another one, though. You want another one?

• 37:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Okay. I have lots of different openings and I will adjust them depending on the audience. I mean, that's what's really, really important is that.

• 37:40Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  You need to be so well-prepared that you can be improvisational. It's different than winging it.

• 37:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  And a lot of natural communicators wing it.

• 37:50Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Because they go, well, you know what? I know my stuff. I'm quick on my feet. I'm charming. You know, I can, I can woo an audience. So I'll wing it. And what happens is they come off the stage and they're not exactly sure how they did. And they feel like, you know what? I know I could do better. I just don't know how.

• 38:07Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  And that's where rehearsal comes in. And I think most people need a lot more rehearsal than they realize. And the better rehearsed you are, the more spontaneous you can be.

• 38:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Because you'll always get right back to where you were. And that makes you very comfortable. And the more comfortable you are, the more in the moment you are. And the more in the moment you are, the more connected you are. And of course, the better your timing is. And timing is such a key component of any kind of performance. So one of the things that I will sometimes do when I open the book yourself, Solid Speech, especially at a conference where they've heard a lot of speakers on the same topic, is I'll say, listen, guys, I've got a secret. And I want to tell it to you, but I don't want the other authors to hear this. And of course, it's tongue-in-cheek, you know, they're cool with it. They, they, you know, may have heard me say it before. I say, listen,

• 39:01Speaker 01

  so what I want you to do is lean in, just lean in. So I'm not going to say it very loudly. And so the first interaction we have is they're leaning toward me. And I'm not working hard to try to get to them. I'm actually talking more quietly.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  And that is an important dynamic that gets set up pretty quickly. Now, there may be one or two people in the back who don't lean in. And they're always guys, by the way. And it's like, yo, dude.

• 39:28Lewis Howes?

  Cross your arms, lean back.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And so I say, and I say, yeah, even you, come on, come on, buddy. And, you know, I'll play with a little bit now. Rarely have I have ever had anybody that won't do it. And, and if I feel that, you know, they really don't want to do it. There's some reason they can't do it. You know, then I'll just let them go, of course. But if you ask an audience to do something, you want to make sure that everybody in that audience does it. Cause you've asked them to do something and then you, they don't really do it. And then you kind of just move on, then you've lost the room.

• 39:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  You are no longer in charge of that room. And then, of course, group dynamics really help reduce the neurosis that an individual inside that group presents. So then the whole group starts looking at that person is like, come on, lean in, we're waiting. Okay, good. So I said, so how can we tell how much BS, I don't curse at the beginning, how much BS exists in any one particular field or industry? And I pause, pause, pause, cause timing is critical and power is in the pause. And then I, I lean back, cause I'm leaning down, you know, with my hands on my knees, leaning toward them, they're leaning toward me.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  I stand up, which immediately has them sit up, cause they follow my physical energy. And I say, count the number of books written about it. And I've written six. So what does that tell you? And, and they always laugh. And the reason that I do it is because my bio pumps me up as pretty impressive. And again, they may feel like, oh, here's comes the guy who's super impressive and, you know, he's got all the answers and he's New York Times this, and he's, you know, Google this and all that stuff. And I think, you know, some of those things should be in a bio because they need to know that you know what they want to know and that you've done what they want to do. Uh, but they love that. They always, it just, they always love it. It's just always.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Then I say, and guys, look, my promise to you is there's, I'm not going to BS you at all. Um, you know, I'm not going to make any outsized promises. Uh, I'm going to be straight up with you. And again, I always do that. I don't think there's one way to do anything. I'm going to offer you this particular perspective and then we're off.

• 41:42Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, I like that. That's great. I love that. And, and.

• 41:47Lewis Howes?

  The challenge is, is how much, you know, you talked about this as being critical as preparation and really crafting a speech, but what if you don't even know how to craft it? You're like, okay, I know I want to talk about this, but I have no clue really what to do, what stories to put in, where, when to add these effects or elements, when to make the call to action. Uh, so what's the process for preparing yourself crafting? Let's say a 15, a 30 minute presentation, whether it's a big speech or five people.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's a big, big, big issue. And that's why we usually get stuck because it seems like a monumental endeavor. And if you're actually going to prepare a big speech, it's like writing a book. It's, it's, it takes as much work. So, you know, if you really want to do this in a really big way, you've got to put in a lot of work. So here's what you do.

• 42:41Lewis Howes?

  That's the thing. It's a lot of work. That's what people should know. It's not like this easy process where it just flows out of your mouth and you can wing it. If you really want to make an impact, you got to do the work.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  You got to do the work. That's exactly right. Just like, you know, when you go see a Broadway show, you don't, you don't expect that they just read the play that day and went up and did it. You're not going to pay $250 a ticket for that. Uh, so why should it be the same way if, you know, if, uh, if, if you have in your audience 3,000 people at an event, that's a lot of people. So in any event, so that's really important. That's my soapbox and I, I teach a rehearsal process inside Steel the Show. That's very important, uh, to work through so that you're prepared for those kinds of situations. The content development, so we talked about this, the five key components that are in every speech. We talked about the big idea, the promise, the demonstration that you know how the world looks to them,

• 43:34Speaker 01

  the consequences of not adopting this promise, uh, and of course the rewards that come with achieving it, realizing it. So we have that in place. Then we can start to look at frameworks and often there really isn't a massive difference between.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  People, some people who are perceived to be experts and novices. The big difference is often that the perceived to be expert, their information is better organized. So if you can organize information very well and present it in a way that's easy to consume, well, then you are perceived as an expert because you've delivered on your promise. And that's what, you know, makes you an expert. So we want to look at the different frameworks we can use to organize our information. The first framework you could use is the numerical framework. It's very popular. You know, let's use some books as an example, as examples, because most people have read the same books, but not necessarily seen the same speeches.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  So Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Seven, seven habits. It's very straightforward. And one of the reasons that it's an excellent framework to use is because it's a, it's a pretty straightforward way of you organizing your ideas and constraining them. One of the big problems that many people have is they put way too much in a speech. Way too much. Too much plane, not enough runway. So often we do a lot less in a speech, or we should do a lot less in a speech than we think. And one of the reasons we put so much in there is because we want everybody to think we're really smart. Like, look how much I know. I'm really delivering a lot. But it ends up being complete, you know, wash over them because it's too much. So that's a great framework to constrain you,

• 45:24Speaker 01

  to organize your ideas. It's a, it's a great framework for them to be able to consume those ideas. And it also makes it easier, easier for you to remember when you're delivering it. Because it's very, it's very linear. Because consumption is king. Content is very important, of course. But the greatest content in the world unconsumed

• 45:47Lewis Howes?

  Doesn't matter.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  Doesn't matter.

• 45:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  So that's what our job is, trying to get them to consume it. So that's one, one framework. A second framework is the chronological framework. And this, of course, is a step-by-step type process. First this, then this, then this. And it's, of course, numerical as well because there are a number of steps. But you can't pull the steps out necessarily. You know, you can't really start with three and four unless you have one and two, which is different than numerical, where you could just teach, you know, keys three and four. Or you could teach just key three. Or you could teach from seven to one or one to seven. It doesn't matter because they are each independent. So chronological is very, very effective for a number of different types of of curriculum-based speeches. And then there's the problem-solution framework.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  And the problem-solution framework is wonderful because you can identify a number of problems and just offer a simple solution. Here are 10 problems that I see, you know, that every mother has, you know, with a newborn, and here are 10 ways to solve it. It's really straightforward. And the audience appreciates that. Easy way for you to organize your ideas, easy way to remember it, easy way to deliver it. And then, a compare-and-contract framework. Good to Great by Jim Collins used this, and he uses it when he gives his speeches. Here are 10 companies that are good, here are 10 companies that are great, and here's the difference. Oh, okay, well, I should probably make sure that I have all of the elements in the great companies in place, because now I see what makes a difference.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  Good, I have something to do, I can go and act on that when I leave the presentation. And then, the modular framework. And I use this a lot, because my books are very comprehensive. And so, what it does is it allows you to break up lots of different ideas and organize them around particular themes. So Book Yourself Solid was like this, Steal the Show is like this. You can, I call them parts in Steal the Show, and modules in Book Yourself Solid. So there are three parts in Steal the Show, and then what I do is, inside each of those parts, I use different frameworks. So, in one chapter, there may be four different frameworks at play. In the speech, I may use nine, 10, 15 different frameworks inside one large framework.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  And what it does is it creates a lot of contrast, because the audience is more engaged when there's a lot of contrast. The same note, over and over and over, gets bored, even if it's the most beautiful note. Even if it's the most beautiful note you've ever heard on a violin, 10 minutes into it, you're like, "I can't listen to this thing anymore." Right. Right? So, the contrast is what's exciting. And that's, these frameworks you can use to organize your information, and that's one of the ways in, one of the ways that I introduce, among others, that you can use to get into the content development. And then... Let's talk about stories. I think that might be a good place to start to close up because we all want to be better storytellers.

• 48:38Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, this is, we dream of being the one at the table who comes in with the great story that just crushes it and everybody goes, "Oh, my God, that was fantastic." Oh, the life of the, you know, we want to be able to tell that story. And just because we lived a story doesn't necessarily mean that we're ready to tell it. We need to mold it, we need to sculpt it, craft it. And it's different. It's much easier to tell a story to one person. Like, I can tell you a story here without doing hours and hours and hours and hours of work on it. It's very different than telling an audience in a theater or in a conference room a story that you've never rehearsed. It just changes, the dynamic changes.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  It's almost, it's almost hard to explain why, but we know that it does. So, here's what we need to do. We need to make sure that we know the three-act structure. And we sculpt our stories using the three-act structure. And the three-act structure was Aristotle's three-act structure. Most plays, most films, most TV shows rely on this structure for the overall story of the production. And inside, there are lots and lots of three-act structures used in each story that's told. And the first act is the given circumstances.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  So if you're telling the story of when you got hurt as a, as a football player, there are certain given circumstances that are important for us to know. The time, the setting, the place. If we don't know that you were a professional football player, the story doesn't have as much weight. And if we don't know, you know, what your dreams were, it doesn't have that much weight. So, all of those are very, very important. However, if when you're giving us that story, you start talking about, you know, uh, three years of stats from Pee Wee League. We're like, "What? Huh? It's too much." So, we need, we need just enough exposition to understand what's about to happen.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  If we have too much, the audience gets a little frustrated and they want us to keep going, keep moving on. Let's go, let's go, let's go. And if not enough, then we're confused. We're like, "Wait, what's happening? He was a, he was a astronaut? No, he's a cricket player." "Wait, no, what?" So, we need to know some really critical details. And then act two, that's the conflict. That's when there's an inciting incident. Something happened, something goes wrong that creates tension. And of course, in your case, you get, you get hit, right? You go down and boom, you have this, you know, major injury. Okay, well, that then fuels some kind of action, which then might create another problem or another conflict.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  You know, puts another obstacle in your way, which then spurs you into action again, which then puts another obstacle in your way. And the second act is the meaty part of a story. That's where, you know, the, the audience is getting really, really engaged and, "Oh, my God, that happened, then that happened, then that happened." And it's all working toward the resolution. And the resolution is what we're waiting for. And it's gotta be worth waiting for. So, if your resolution to the story about your injury is, "Oh, and I ended up, um, you know, uh, working in a cubicle, uh, you know, nine hours a day and, uh, you know, you'd just be like, "What? That, that's, that's it?" But the resolution is really quite impressive.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  And that's one of the things that makes it a wonderful story, and that's your origin story. And it is an important part of your life and it's an important part of, of your work and it means a lot to people. And so, we want to sculpt our story, want to craft our story around that three-act structure. Now, one of the problems that people have is they say, "Well, I don't know what stories to tell."

• 52:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  There's a, there's a prompting methodology that you can use to source your stories. So I want to play this game with you if you don't mind. Can we do that?

• 52:37Lewis Howes?

  Let's do it.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Okay, so what we do is take out a piece of paper and we'll just do one or two. The people when they do this at home should do this and come up with five, 10, 15. And it's great to do with a friend. You'll see how much more fun it is to do with somebody else than to do by yourself. Your brain fires up a lot more when you're doing this with somebody else. So I'm gonna ask you to think of a person. And then I just want you to just randomly free associate and think about a story that comes to mind. You don't have to tell us the whole story, but just like, oh, the time when that happened.

• 53:09Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  So I want you to think about like the first girl that got away.

• 53:15Lewis Howes?

  Uh, first girl that got away. Tell the story about it?

• 53:18Speaker 01

  Well, just what story comes to mind, like from that particular?

• 53:22Lewis Howes?

  Oh, the first girl that got away, what comes to mind is heartache, uh, leaving high school, going to college and being really sad that I wasn't with my, my, my girlfriend anymore and it breaking up.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  That's right. So there's a particular instance, a particular situation, like a conversation that you had or some action that occurred that is sharp in your mind when you?

• 53:46Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, there's a story in that. And so what you do is you write down breaking up with so and so, you know, um, you know, in the summer of whatever year at my parents' house. Okay. You just write that down. You don't go in, you don't have to tell the story. You don't go deeper into it, but there's a story there. And there's a, there's a, there's a lesson there, a message there. Now, we don't know what we're gonna do with that yet. We don't know where it's gonna go in our speech, but now we've got something. And then we do it with, okay, so, um, the, the worst, the worst coach you ever had?

• 54:19Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man, worst coach.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, don't say it.

• 54:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, worst coach. I've got a story there.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Okay, exactly. I mean, you know, like I remember I had a football coach. I I I went down, I came up, my pinky was pointing out the side. You know, like it wasn't straight anymore.

• 54:37Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  And he just took it, pulled it and popped it back. And now you've got this. And that was the guy, I think he was drunk, you know, he was one of those guys, you know, rub some dirt on it and go back out there. I'm like, no, but I'm just a little kid, you know?

• 54:48Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  So in any event, there's some story that will come to mind and and this finger thing I hadn't thought about in, you know, probably thirty years, but when I asked you about it, it it reminds me. So that's why we do it with our friends.

• 55:01Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. Okay, I like that.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  Right. So you keep going through people, then you go to places, all right? So we're gonna think of a place. Was there a particular place that you that you went to in the summers when you were younger that had meaning to you?

• 55:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I went to summer camp.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Okay. Any particular memory from summer camp come to mind?

• 55:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, fishing, rope swinging into a lake, water slides, girls.

• 55:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. All of the above. And there are probably some stories. I mean, I imagine there's there's a there's a fear, maybe you were nervous on the rope swing and you challenged yourself to to do it or go farther than you had before. And, you know, Tommy was really pushing you and you were scared. You know, there's probably something there.

• 55:50Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so that's what we do. So people, places, now we look at things. Okay, so maybe your first car. Think of a memory that's your first car.

• 56:01Lewis Howes?

  Nineteen eighty-three Honda Prelude.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:05Lewis Howes?

  It was amazing.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  Wait, no, I'm sorry. How did you fit into a Honda Prelude?

• 56:08Lewis Howes?

  You know, it was a two, it was a two, two-door as well. The reason I liked it is because the seat went all the way back to the backseat. I was able to fit, but no one could fit in the backseat.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  Exactly right. So it was a, it was not a family car, that's for sure. So did anything ever happen in that car to that car?

• 56:27Lewis Howes?

  Man, I think it just died after about a couple of years because I got like a thousand bucks. But, you know, I would drive friends to school in the morning, you know, and, you know, it was a good time driving around.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  So, right, like something like that, like nothing particular came to mind right away. But for somebody else, maybe something right away came to mind. Like I thought of the time that my high school girlfriend poured a strawberry milkshake down the radiator of my car.

• 56:53Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow. Okay. Good stories.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And now she's on a reality TV show. So go figure.

• 56:59Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  So, you know, so we keep doing this until we find things to think about a piece of jewelry or a gift that you got and then places. So, for example, maybe the first time that you went to Nationals for handball. You know, the location, you know, what pops to mind?

• 57:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, being with the team, being in a crummy hotel.

• 57:22Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 57:22Lewis Howes?

  Uh, you know, feeling like it was bush league, you know, unorganized, but it was in Vegas. So it was a fun time.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. So then we start to look at what, you know, whether the specifics and you start to, you start to tell your friend about the experience and go, oh, my God, I totally forgot that that happened. You know, Johnny went to the, to the jukebox. He put in 20 bucks. He pulled it and out a thousand. You know, you

• 57:46Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  These stories start to come back to you. So this is how you source your stories.

• 57:49Lewis Howes?

  I love it.

• 57:50Speaker 01

  Then you start to sculpt them.

• 57:51Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Um, this is powerful. I feel like we could go on because you have some way more, I have like 30 more questions here that I wrote up that I want to ask you, but, uh, and, and I really want to ask you how to get a standing ovation every time. But I want to wait because that's the last part of the book. So I want people to go get the book and learn how you can get a standing ovation every single time you do a presentation, uh, because I think it's going to be really powerful for you guys to get this. So make sure to pick up a copy. Steal the show. You can get it right now. You can go to Barnes and Noble or you can get it online on Amazon or you can go to steal the show.com, I believe. Is that right?

• 58:27Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 58:28Lewis Howes?

  And check it out. Follow Michael everywhere. This is powerful information. Whether you want to be a professional speaker, speak in front of thousands or not, it's going to be important for you to enhance your life and the relationships in your life by how you show up. And this is going to support you showing up in a bigger way. So I highly recommend getting this.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  And if I may, Lewis, if people are interested in going deeper into these topics, they should go listen to my Steal the Show podcast because I do short episodes where I go deep into the technical how to's related to the topics at hand.

• 59:08Lewis Howes?

  There you go. Perfect. New and noteworthy on iTunes right now. Steal the Show. We'll have it all linked up here in a second. I want to ask you two final questions. Before I do, I want to acknowledge you, Michael. Thank you for coming on and acknowledge you for your professionalism. When I think of you, I think of professional, I think of prepared, grounded. I look at you as like an anchor for so many people of helping them see the light of where they need to go in their lives. And you provide such context for them to create content that gets them to their next level. So I want to acknowledge you for being that anchor for so many people, for grounding us and being better presenters, storytellers,

• 59:51Lewis Howes?

  and performers in our own lives. So thank you for all that you do.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  That means the world to me. It really does, Lewis. Thank you.

• 59:58Lewis Howes?

  My pleasure. Two final questions. One is with everything you've written and everything you've learned, if it could boil down to three truths that you know to be true about your experience in this world, that you could leave with people, and this is the last thing that you could leave behind, what would these three truths be?

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  Continue to increase the amount of responsibility that you can handle. Because as you get older and as you play a bigger game, your responsibility increases. And I think your success is in large part directly related to how much responsibility you can handle at any one given time. Number two, I would say that our reputations are in large part based on our ability to make commitments and fulfill them. And if we don't make commitments, then, you know, I don't think, nobody really wants to play with us because there's nothing to do. And if we make commitments and then we don't fulfill them, nobody wants to play with us again.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  So I think this is a really important part of reputation building. And then number three, I would say, love, love, love. And just remember that, you know, the person next to you is probably going through something that you don't realize, and just a hand on their shoulder, you know, a hug, a kind smile is so much more important than anything you can, you know, think of to, you know, solve the world's biggest problems. If we just touch one person at a time, we can really make a difference. And I could go on for this, like gratitude, I mean, you know, there's just so many things that are so important for all of us. But, but yeah, love and gratitude are really important to me.

• 1:01:45Lewis Howes?

  I love that. And final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  For me, it's actually peace. If I can feel peaceful and that I have enough, then I feel that I've achieved a level of greatness. And for me, that's particular. You see, I don't have a hard time thinking big. I don't have a hard time, you know, going out and pursuing tough objectives. You know, for me, it's, it's, sometimes I have a hard time just settling in, you know, and just saying, you know what? I've got enough. It's all good. And feeling a deep sense of peace. So for me, that would be great.

• 1:02:32Lewis Howes?

  Michael Port, Steel the Show. Thanks so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom. I appreciate it.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  It's my pleasure. I never take it for granted. Thank you.

• 1:02:43Lewis Howes?

  And there you have it guys, I hope you found this useful and helpful and supportive for your professional speaking and daily performance needs. If you did find it useful, then make sure to share this with your friends. Send them an email and say, "Hey, go check out this episode that my friend Lewis Howes did with this guy Michael Port." LewisHowes.com/236. Just send it over in an email to a few of your friends right now. Or you can click, if you're over on iTunes or your iPhone, you can click on this podcast and there's a little button that'll allow you to share this out on Twitter, on Facebook. Just click on your phone right now and push to share over to Twitter or Facebook and let people know they should check this out and listen right now as well. I hope you enjoyed this.

• 1:03:26Lewis Howes?

  Make sure to check out the show notes, again, LewisHowes.com/236, where you can get the book with Michael, how you can connect with him. If you're looking to take your speaking performance to the next level, how you can connect with him there for what he offers as well. I've seen it in action, it's incredible and you probably want to sign up for some of his stuff. I appreciate you guys so much. So much good has happened in my life lately. There's been some other things that have been mixed feelings and some emotional lows as well, but I also look at them as great lessons. You know, the pain and the suffering that we go through sometimes, the emotional uncertainties with relationships that we may go through at times. Sometimes I think about not understanding why it's all happening.

• 1:04:10Lewis Howes?

  But I always look back on it as some of the greatest lessons and growth periods of my life. So if you're experiencing that right now, then I'm with you. I appreciate you, I'm looking out for you, I got your back. Hit me up online, @LewisHowes. Let's connect. And you guys know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.