Brian Miller (2:24)

That's what we do.

Chris Do (2:25)

I think that's worth diving and diving deep into and Spending the next hour or so talking about. Because we have friends that are experts, we have friends that are speakers. Sometimes they're not experts, and some of our experts aren't speakers. So let's figure out where they overlap. But let's start with the definition. Like, how do we define thought leadership? That's not fluffy.

Brian Miller (2:46)

Thought leadership. I wish we had a better term. I think, just like you do, I think many people wish we had a better term for that. But as you noted, expert is not the same thing. And personal brand is not the same thing. You know, personal brands, thought leadership, they're related, they intertwine, but they're not the same thing. We can do personal branding real quick. I can give you my vantage on that real quick to distinguish it from thought leadership, because I know you talk about personal branding a lot.

Chris Do (3:10)

I do.

Brian Miller (3:11)

So for me, a personal brand, everybody has one. Whether you like it or not. Obviously it's it. There's nothing you can do to not have one. The question is, are you intentional about it or not?

Chris Do (3:21)

Right.

Brian Miller (3:22)

And for me, a personal brand is the promises you make and the expectations you create. That's it. Really simple, really easy. Promises you make and the expectations you create. Do you make promises and fulfill them? Do you create expectations and live up to them? So we think of people with great personal brands. I don't know Brene Brown. It doesn't matter if she's on X or making a LinkedIn post or on stage speaking or doing a TED talk or on a podcast. You know, it's her. Because there's promises she makes and she upholds them. There's expectations she creates. She lives up to them every time. So that's Bernie Brown. Right? So that's a personal brand. Not everybody who has a personal brand, which is everybody, is a thought leader. And thought leaders are, of course, people who pave the way they lead with their thoughts. But. But I think of it very, very specifically. There are three things that you have to do to be a thought leader, and you have to do them publicly and consistently. First, you must make assertions. Second, you must make judgments. And third, you must make predictions. Assertions, judgments, predictions. Publicly and consistently. So we can go into any of that. Start anywhere you like if you want to.

Chris Do (4:32)

Well, that seems pretty clear. As I'm absorbing this, I'm going to map it to other things in my mind to see if it passed the test in terms of how I've been thinking about it and who I see. So if my brain is kind of like grinding away at something Else, because that's literally what I'm doing. Let's go through each one of these things then. Okay. It seems pretty fair. You have to say something that's an assertion, Right? You have to have a point of view, and you have to figure out what side of that fence you want to be on. So I think there's some judgment going on there. And then you kind of have to lead, I think, by forecasting what's going to happen. Happen. Right. So there we go. Let's break it down then. Assertions. How do you want to talk about that?

Brian Miller (5:10)

Yeah. So it's funny. All three of these things scare people. It's not like there's any. It's not like you go, oh, one of these things scares people more than others. I've worked with, you know, many of our own clients. The one, the first time I. I pitched this to them, I go, assertions, judgments, predictions. All three of those words make them go.

Chris Do (5:29)

It's.

Brian Miller (5:29)

It's very scary. So assertion is saying, this is true. I believe this. Right. It's a statement of fact. And they usually come out as beliefs or values. Right? So for me, in the space of human connection as a speaker, I believe everyone deserves to feel heard, understood, and valued. That is just. I plant my flag in the ground and I go, I believe that. And instantly, you know a lot about me. You don't have to know me personally. You just know a lot about me. Right? And so people get really, really nervous to do this. What happens most of the time is they use hedging language. I think maybe sometimes in certain circumstances, and like, nuance is important, obviously, in life and in discussion. But the problem with, if you want to be a thought leader, if you want to lead the way, people are very nervous to follow someone who doesn't sound sure of themselves or sure of where they're going or sure of what they believe in. You got to just. Just say the thing. You got to say it. You know, there's a reason that Malcolm Gladwell is famous and not the hundreds of scientists and researchers on which he has built his work, right? Because the scientists and researchers who have to do this, they have to say, this was true this one day for 12 people in this room while the moon was in retrograde. They have to. That's what science is. But you'll never hear of them. Nobody will ever read those papers. But Malcolm Gladwell reads all that stuff, puts it into a book. Probably 50% of it is wrong, if not more of it. Some cases, like he's on an apology tour right now for stuff he said In a book 20 years ago, the one that made him famous. But he starts the conversation and the culture, people still talking about 10,000 hours. It's been debunked a billion times, doesn't matter. The idea has permeated the culture. Because he was wanting to go, I think this, he just made the assertion.

Chris Do (7:23)

Okay, let's unpack this. Because everybody has beliefs they believe to be true, but it's probably connected to the other two, which is they say things that are true and usually universally accepted to be true. So I want to see if there's a perspective on that. For example, they'll say things like, I believe in justice, I believe in fairness. I'm sure there's some people who don't believe that, but the vast majority of us already believe that. So is it a condition of your assertion that it needs to be something that not everybody believes to be true?

Brian Miller (8:01)

Okay, so it's not a condition of it. But if you're only saying things that everybody believes and you haven't said anything. Right. I mean, there's just, there's, there's no point in only saying things. Every, even what I said, everyone believe, everyone deserves to feel heard, understood and valued.

Chris Do (8:16)

Right?

Brian Miller (8:16)

That's to meet people like me and you. You're like, well, obviously I gotta tell you something. I work with a lot of executives who do not believe that this is true. I talk to a lot of, like a lot of organizations broken on purpose. Right. Not by accident. So you would think everyone believes this, but I think more often than, I mean, our worldviews are so shattered these days and so siloed that when you actually state it outright and not. And you don't do the. You can get a nuance later. Yeah, right. But first, lead the way. Bring people in, engage. And if people debate with you, that's still good you. Because that's, that's leadership. That's bringing people into a conversation.

Chris Do (8:56)

So those people, those executives, those leaders that you're thinking about that might disagree with you, would they ever openly disagree with you?

Brian Miller (9:06)

That's a great question. Would they ever openly disagree with me? So I'm at a point now, I think when people see the work I do in human connection, they think, wow, you must work with terrible companies, people who need to bring in someone to talk about human connection.

Chris Do (9:21)

Right.

Brian Miller (9:22)

And it's like, no, they self select out.

Chris Do (9:24)

Yeah.

Brian Miller (9:24)

So what happens is, because I put my stake in the ground, the people who get on my discovery calls and talk about their events. They have world class cultures, they're already the best of the best. And what they're doing is bringing in someone like me to just share a different perspective on the thing they're already good at, they already believe in. But the reason they know that I can come in and do that is because I state outright the belief that they associate with. So it does help us. It's a very kind of Seth Godin, like, not everybody's for you and that's okay. Right. You need to be able to look people in the eye and just say, I'm not for you. And this is one of the ways we do it.

Chris Do (9:59)

Yeah. Okay. It's interesting. Okay, so in my mind, I'm thinking an assertion is to just say something kind of boldly, to not only say what we all believe, but to say something that's a little bit different than what we all believe. And that way it's like, wait a minute, you stand for that. That's kind of interesting. And then usually a fight ensues and people, you know, I was on an interview yesterday and somebody's like, Chris, you're a very controversial person. You're polarizing. I'm like, I don't think I'm controversial at all. I don't think I'm polarizing. You couldn't tell from the comments because that's what they come at me for. I just believe what I believe and I'm not afraid to say it. And it turns out to be things that people have issues with.

Brian Miller (10:40)

Well, doesn't that happen at scale though? Right. So if you're only talking, it happens more than more people. I mean, I heard you. I was watching a video you just uploaded the other day at Adobe Max, whatever it was, and you were talking about, you know, what, the videos that initially went viral, the, the reels, and suddenly you're in front of 40 million people and those aren't all your people.

Chris Do (11:01)

Right.

Brian Miller (11:01)

So of course, once you get outside of your immediate community, you're gonna get more pushback, but you will also find more followers, more interested people.

Chris Do (11:10)

Yeah. Okay, so let's add that to the conversation. To say that you can say things and the, the circle, the size of the circle, people who hear that message will also kind of determine how many people disagree with you. Because first it's like friends, friends and family, you know, and then friends of friends and family. And then it's not friends and then haters. And eventually you get there. Hopefully, you know.

Brian Miller (11:33)

Yeah, exactly, hopefully. And, and that's, you know, I Was a magician for 10 years. And so haters just come with territory. It was. It was best training ever for the world of business, was being a magician. It just, you know, you. You walk up to a group of people, cold strangers, and you have to convince them to not only stop the conversation and the laughter that they're already having, fully focus on you, and then you have to lie and deceive. Lie to them and deceive them for a few minutes and walk away where they think, boy, I'm so glad he interrupted us and lied to me. That was so much fun. Right? So it's just like, yeah, haters. You know, I hesitate with the term haters because there's a big difference between people who are genuinely engaging with your ideas and have a different viewpoint, which is. It's. But it's hard to tell on the Internet when all the comments look the same, right?

Chris Do (12:19)

Oh, yeah.

Brian Miller (12:20)

Like it's one of the problems.

Chris Do (12:21)

Yeah, I've had my share. So I can tell the difference between I know. You know, and somebody who's like, hey, I want to have an intellectually stimulating conversation with you about this, because I just disagree. They don't usually say that because they're not great communicators. And sometimes they're just leading with emotion. And I think I can sift through.

Brian Miller (12:38)

That, you know, I'm sure you can.

Chris Do (12:41)

All right, so we have to say this is what we believe.

Brian Miller (12:44)

Yeah.

Chris Do (12:44)

Okay, now let's move to the. To the judgment part.

Brian Miller (12:48)

Yeah, this. This is a word that scares people. Again, judgment scares people, I think, and probably for good reason. Right. You're taught. Most of us are taught as kids by either a parental guardian, a teacher. Somebody says, hey, don't judge. Right? Don't. Don't judge people. It's not polite. And I think that's right. We shouldn't judge people. But goddamn, we should judge ideas. Like we should judge ideas and actions and intentions. Like we should. What I mean by judge, though, is. I mean it in more of a clinical sense. I mean it as discernment. They don't have to sound hateful. They just have to sound like what, you know, what is over, what's been overlooked, what's been overblown, what is not being talked about enough. How do I feel about this based on the unique perspective and experience that I have? And that's. It's really valuable for people when someone that is an expert in their topic, like, you do this all the time. It's one of the reasons that you've blown up. Right. I mean, because you are very discerning, and that's really useful for creatives trying to build a career and a business. So I think judge away. I don't know.

Chris Do (14:01)

I think this episode's gonna help a lot of people. All right, so if you're. If you're listening and you're like, whoa, maybe. Maybe I'm being called out right now. Maybe you are. I don't know. I don't know. But I think it's kind of important to have common definitions of shared language that we're not all saying different. Same things. So that we're not saying the same things, but meaning different things altogether. Totally.

Brian Miller (14:24)

Yes. I'm. Language is. I'm obsessed with language. It's. Before becoming a magician, I was starting a PhD track in Philosophy of language, contemporary analytic metaphysics. And then, I mean, who knows what my life would have been like if I had spent seven more years doing that. I did have to call home and say to my parents, who are computer scientists and PhDs, a whole family of intellectuals, you know, mom, dad, I'm not going to do the PhD. I am going to do card tricks for a living.

Chris Do (14:55)

I'm going to do.

Brian Miller (14:55)

That one was tough. It all worked out in the end.

Chris Do (14:58)

Yeah, it did.

Brian Miller (15:00)

Yeah. Obsessed with language, though. Yeah. Common definitions are important. So many times we get into arguments with people not because we actually disagree, but because you're using the same words to mean different things.

Chris Do (15:09)

Yes, absolutely. Okay. It sounds to me like versus I. I have to have a point of view.

Brian Miller (15:17)

Yeah.

Chris Do (15:17)

And then the second one is like, I have to have a point of view on my point of view.

Brian Miller (15:23)

That's so great. I love that.

Chris Do (15:24)

Yeah. Okay.

Brian Miller (15:25)

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Do (15:26)

So this scares a lot of people, though.

Brian Miller (15:28)

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Do (15:29)

They're. They're unwilling to say things because they're so afraid of the blowback, the criticism, the hate, or whatever it is they're going to get because we're so much extrinsically motivated. We're so concerned about the number of likes and engagement and nice commentary and the pats on the back virtually. So we won't say anything. Okay. All right. We have to have a point of view. Everybody, let's move into predictions.

Brian Miller (15:57)

Yeah. And this one scares people for one more different reason.

Chris Do (16:00)

Okay, Right.

Brian Miller (16:00)

And this is. There's the obvious reason that predictions scare people. So, of course, predictions, you know, we may as well have some kind of definition. It's saying what you think is likely to happen. Right. Okay. So I think we all kind of agree to that. It's Predictions scare people for the basic reason that they go, well, what if I'm wrong? Right? I'm making this publicly. What if I'm wrong? I go, what if you are? And there's usually nothing. They, they don't know what to say after that, right? And here's, here's the truth. If I heard somebody say this once, I cannot take credit for, for the phrasing of what I'm about to say, but I, I just wish I knew who said it. If you are actually the expert you claim to be, you should be right more often than you're wrong. And you should be right to a greater extent than you are wrong when you're right. Okay? So first, if you find yourself making predictions frequently and you're just always wrong, probably go revisit the topic you think you're an expert in. But if you are the expert, and many people are, they're afraid to make predictions because what if I'm wrong? It's like, okay, so two things can happen. You make the prediction publicly, you turn out to be right three months later, three years later, beautiful. You go back and you share it. You remind people that you called this. And the amount of authority and trust that you gain from that is tremendous. I mean, on my website, as a human connection speaker, we have like, on the homepage of the website, one of my favorite sections, just like, just like personally is in. It says something. The copy is something like, in 2023, the Surgeon General declared a loneliness epidemic. But Brian Miller has been talking about the human connection emergency since 2015, right? It's like, hi, I've been talking about this forever publicly. I have 400 blog posts about this, which is why a lot of companies are willing to listen to me, right? Even though I have no credentials in that space at all. So what happens if you're wrong? If you're wrong, also share it, share it. Remind people that you made this prediction, you got it wrong. And then judge yourself, not yourself. Judge the idea, judge the prediction. You go, okay, what might I have gotten wrong? What didn't I see coming? What can we learn from this? And then make a new prediction based on the new insights that you have. And you should actually get better at making predictions the more often you evaluate your failed predictions. And I think people really like seeing thinking in action too.

Chris Do (18:24)

Okay, very good. So when you make predictions, as an expert, you should be more right than you're wrong by not just a little bit, by a good margin, I would think so. Right? And when you're right and you called it really early. Don't be shy to point this out again.

Brian Miller (18:39)

Yeah.

Chris Do (18:39)

Okay. This is where I found it real interesting. When you're like. And when you're wrong, I thought you're gonna say, delete all your posts.

Brian Miller (18:45)

Yeah, delete them all. Yeah, that's what a lot of other.

Chris Do (18:48)

People say, but I like that. So that was kind of like a zig or a zag, you know, when I've heard so many people say, make lots of predictions and just delete all the ones where you're wrong. If you care so much about being wrong. But I like that you say, just own it and say, here's what I learned from it, and here's where I read the data incorrectly. I'm human. I'm not saying I'm always right. And I think that is actually how you become more of a thought leader.

Brian Miller (19:12)

I agree. I think that we trust people more when they're not Superman. There's a reason Superman's always had kind of a. They've had so many troubles bringing Superman back, but no trouble bringing Iron Man. Right. I mean, Iron Man's flawed. He's on a journey. Superman's perfect. They had to try to make him flawed to make him interesting. And nobody bought it. Right. It's really hard to do. So. Yeah. I think when people can see you not only admit that you were wrong, but not admit it as an apology, say, hey, I got this wrong. Here's. To the extent I got it wrong, here's actually something I still think I'm right about, but we just haven't seen it play out yet. Or, here's what would make this possible. Like, whatever it is you give your evaluation, you judge the idea, then you make a new prediction. And I think people really appreciate, and they like seeing an expert's gears turning and seeing, oh, this is how someone at that level thinks through ideas. You know, I. I love it when I. I bring guests, you know, into. Into my. My groups, you know, of clients sometimes and watching. We just did it yesterday watching an expert on content distribution. This guy was a Jedi. He was on a level I thought I knew understood the world. No, I knew nothing. This guy got into stuff. And we were. And he was fast and flying through and showing us ideas and giving out 90 minutes of insanity. And we. We were all like this. And part of it was watching him think through and then disagree with himself and then move past that idea. And it was like, oh, this is how someone who really knows what they're doing thinks through problems. I want More of that. I want to follow this guy everywhere now.

Chris Do (20:52)

Okay, so we need to have a point of view. We need to have a point of view on our point of view. And our point of view is so clear that we're going to tell you what our point of view is going to be in the future.

Brian Miller (21:03)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something like that. Yeah, exactly. Publicly and consistently.

Chris Do (21:09)

Yes. To the bigger. The bigger the audience, the better.

Brian Miller (21:13)

So that it's interesting. Right, Because I heard you talk about that. Of course, you. More people is typically better, but always with the caveat of more of the right people. Right. Who, who, okay, who are you trying to make an impact for? Right. You know, it's where that term vanity metrics, you know, comes from. Right. It's like. I know. I'm sure you do too. I know people personally with millions of subscribers and no money.

Chris Do (21:37)

Yeah.

Brian Miller (21:38)

It's just there, there's. They're not the right people. I know people with 500 people on their email list and they're making a fortune. So I think more people can be very good. And if you're trying to make an impact and spread ideas through the world, the more people who hear your ideas, the better. It was better than my TEDx talk got three and a half million views than if it had 300 views, of course. But. Yes.

Chris Do (21:59)

Well, it's hard to be a leader of one.

Brian Miller (22:02)

It's hard to be a leader of one, but you can be a leader for. I mean, what is it we mentioned, Seth, earlier? I know you're a set fan, like the smallest viable audience.

Chris Do (22:09)

Right.

Brian Miller (22:10)

Find the smallest group of people that you need to do your work. Not the largest possible, but the smallest viable and start there and then let them carry the ideas through. I've always liked that idea because it doesn't have to be small. Maybe the smallest viable audience is 100,000 people.

Chris Do (22:26)

Right.

Brian Miller (22:26)

But of a certain kind of person.

Chris Do (22:28)

The reason why I say that is because we have friends who are afraid. And so they make their predictions and their discernment and they have their belief statements, but they only say it in closed communities. And yeah, like what? If you want to influence folks, if you want to change the trajectory of the human, where we're heading in the arc of humanity, then you need to share your ideas with as many people as possible. Even the TED slogan was ideas worth sharing. And that's the platform, the stage that they promise you. If your ideas are good, people will share it and they'll see it and you can actually make a dent in the universe.

Brian Miller (23:06)

Totally Tell more people. And honestly, I actually think, you know, I learned this as an entertainer. Sometimes your worst audience is the friends and family. I wouldn't start there. They know you too well. They know. They remember that dumbass thing you did when you were, you know, 12 years old and that stupid thing you said when you were 17. Whatever.

Chris Do (23:23)

Yeah.

Brian Miller (23:23)

Those are harder people to take you seriously. If you're going to start engaging with the world, if you're going to start smashing ideas into the world like this, you probably skip the friends and family first and. And go to people that you think could really benefit from it. Yeah, that's what I would do.

Chris Do (23:40)

So we'll tie that to your whole personal brand thing, because their frame of your personal brand has been stuck since, like, the sixth grade, whereas strangers have no frame for you. So they're more likely less biased and can hear what you're going to say. And that'll be their new frame. And hopefully you're right.

Brian Miller (23:57)

Yeah.

Chris Do (23:57)

And that's where you build that relationship. Wonderful.

Brian Miller (24:00)

Yeah.

Chris Do (24:00)

Now, I want to do a side side quest with you and just geek out on Superman for a second.

Brian Miller (24:05)

Okay.

Chris Do (24:05)

Okay. Because you're studying philosophy, you're a magician, and now you're a communications connection person, and you help to coach experts to be speakers.

Brian Miller (24:16)

Okay.

Chris Do (24:17)

Side side note, Superman. And you're like, well, Superman has no problems, and that's why he's so unrelatable, and that's why they're having a really hard time building a franchise around his character. And you're absolutely right, because the time in which he was created. Do you know much about the origin of Superman, like, why he was created?

Brian Miller (24:35)

I know enough to use that example without fearing what's about what you're about to say. But. But I'm not Superman. You're like either, so go ahead. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Do (24:46)

It's dangerous territory. Let me just tiptoe on this. Otherwise, Chris is going to put me on blast, and the judgment is coming. All right. Superman was created as a character, as a reaction to what was happening in Nazi Germany. They needed a character, a strong, iconic American who could take on everything. And so they build into him. No weaknesses except for one. It's a minor weakness. Kryptonite. Right. A piece from his home planet, I believe. Now, the challenge with Superman is if you're like, how do I get into Superman? How do we do this? Right. Superman doesn't have a problem like Brian Miller or Christo has. Superman has a problem of a God, and God has problems, and God can be relatable. Because God lets the fire happen and destroy lives and homes and livelihoods. God has problems, too, because God can't save everybody, because every time God interacts, God changes the course of human direction. And so when Superman's stories are written that way, they become super fascinating. It becomes way more philosophical.

Brian Miller (25:49)

Really interesting that you say that, because I enjoyed man of Steel, and I was most excited about the climax of the movie when he just snapped Zod's neck.

Chris Do (26:03)

Yeah.

Brian Miller (26:03)

And I was excited about that because I was like, oh, we have a flaw. He hasn't figured. That's. That's a real. That's a. I haven't figured out who I am yet. And that was so much more interesting than Kryptonite, because Kryptonite feels like a, you know, a. A writer was like, wait a second. We need to have at least one thing. Like, let's just make this glowing green thing the thing. But no, like. I agree. I think that that direction is much more interesting.

Chris Do (26:33)

I. I think the other thing that they explored, which I thought was successful but didn't fully capitalize on this, is that he is an alien. And we're dealing with issues of aliens and people who are immigrating to the United States or wherever. And there's some issues with nativism. And so you can see, like, how is this person who's like a really benevolent person who's trying to do as much good as possible now, the people turn on them, and you can't kill the people. It's an idea. It's a sentiment. So those are more interesting themes or threads to pull on, which I. I wish they. They went deeper down, but.

Brian Miller (27:09)

Yeah, it is what it is. I often wish Hollywood would go deeper down the interesting themes, but there seems to be a huge resistance to that as of late.

Chris Do (27:18)

Yeah. And I think a lot of it is because they underestimate the intelligence of people. And as moviegoers and fans become much more mature, and they're not just teenage boys who are like, yeah, punch something. Shoot something with your eyes. Right. They're underestimating the appetite for, like, deeper concepts.

Brian Miller (27:38)

Yes, but. And, And. And that. Oh, so what a great point. That was one of the earliest lessons I learned in magic from one of my mentors as a magician. One of the biggest mistakes that young magicians or newer magicians, you have to be young, but newer magicians make is assuming that their audience is stupid. Right. These people aren't smart. I can get away with anything. It's like, no, you can't assume they're really smart. The most interesting magic comes from when you actually assume the audience is really smart. Like, and you can, like, you know, have you ever seen a magician and you're like, it's obviously in his other hand. You know, what is like, how are we still. Do you know, how are magicians still doing that? No, no. Assume the audience is smart and that they might think it might be in your other hand. Let's come up with a different way. You'll do more interesting magic.

Chris Do (28:24)

Oh, I like that take on this. And we probably should get it back on track. And experts becoming speakers. But I think the way to do that is if that is a good assumption to make, that the audience is smart and they think is in this hand. Like, when you do one of these things and you go like this, and then you actually show them the hand that they think it's in, and then that'll blow their mind.

Brian Miller (28:46)

What you just described is how I discovered part of our messaging framework that I now use with speakers, which is pretty. I learned almost everything I learned as a magician and then applied it to the world of speaking and communication, um, because it was such a fascinating world.

Chris Do (28:59)

Okay, so let's. What is this framework? Lay it on us. Yeah.

Brian Miller (29:02)

So, okay, so we do core messaging. Core messaging is a practice. It's not a framework. It's something like inbound marketing is a practice, but everybody who practices it does it differently. They have their own frameworks. So core messaging is a practice. We have a core message triad. Three things. The filter, the story hook, and the argument. These are the three pieces of messaging that we build for everybody, no matter what they're going to do. It's our starting point. Day one. Doesn't matter if we're building a keynote speech, web copy, you know, a presentation, whatever it is prepping you for casual conversations, for networking events. Doesn't matter. Filter, story, hook, argument. I'll go to the other two in a second, but I want to talk about the argument. The argument is a rational sequence of thoughts that bring someone from where they are to where you'd like them to go. Where you're hoping that they will go. Right where you're trying to get them to go. It's the thing that's missing in almost all messaging. A filter. So I'll come back to the argument in a second, but let me spread it out. The filter is what you might think of as a big idea statement. One sentence, a single sentence that states what you do, who it's for, and why it matters. This I learned from coaching dozens of TED talks. Because you have to be able to state your idea in one sentence or you can't even answer the first question on a TEDx application. Right? So we use the filter for. We call it a filter for two reasons. One, because it keeps you on track. Once you have a single sentence where you can explain what you do, who it's for, and why it matters, you always know what you should and shouldn't be talking about. And so, okay, I'm a human connection speaker. So I work with organizations and educators to build connected cultures where everyone feels heard, understood, and valued. There's my filter statement. So if I'm ever think, if I'm ever in a conversation with a prospect, if I'm ever working on a keynote speech, if I'm chatting with the people who saw me speak earlier at the thing, if I'm about to say something that does not immediately and obviously support. I work with organizations and educators to build connected cultures where everyone feels hard understood and valued. I'm off track. I need to stay on message. So it's a filter. And because it's a filter for me, it also keeps the audience on track, right? They know where I am and where I'm going. They know what the boundaries are. So that's our filter. Once we have that, we're going to go to a story hook. I'm not going to dive into story. You talk about story all the time. We consider the story hook something that does two things. It does understanding and authority. So you tell a story, a literal story, not a metaphor, but a literal story that tells the audience, I understand the problem you have or the worldview you're in or the struggle you have or the thing that you want. I understand you, and I'm qualified to solve it, or I'm qualified to help you solve it, or I'm qualified to guide you to solve it, right? So a story hook is understanding and authority. And the authority part's really important. We miss it in story all the time. People tell stories all the time that do understanding, that do empathy, right? And they forget that authority matters, too. If you go to your doctor and you're like, doc, my shoulder's killing me. I can't raise it up. I'm in all this pain. I can't even play with my kid anymore. And the doctor's like, tell me about it. My shoulder's been killing me. I can't play with my kids. It's the worst. And you just stare at each other. And you'd be like, I'd love to get a beer and talk about that sometime, but in the meantime, can you find me someone who can fix my shoulder? Right. Authority matters. Okay, so we've got a filter. We've got story hook to engage people emotionally. What's missing? What's missing is a rational argument, a case for why they should adopt your idea that hits the rational part of the brain, not just the emotional stories. Everyone says story is. You know, it's the thing, right? And it's true. Story is important. I've got a storytelling specialist on my team. Story matters. Story engages, it does not persuade. We need a story, and then we need an argument. People need to justify rationally to themselves. Why? To adopt your idea beyond their emotional engagement. So that was just the framing to get us back to the question that you asked me, which was, what did you learn from Magic? Where you're talking about you put a thing in one hand and then you show them, oh, it's actually not in the hand you think it is. So where does it come from? This comes from our argument framework. So if you're going to build a persuasive argument, I'm going to give you another framework. There's a lot of frameworks out loud, so I'm going to give you another framework. The argument is premise, status quo, paradigm shift, success, action.

Chris Do (33:58)

Just a few months, we're going to hit our 400th episode of this podcast, and before we get there, we want to take a moment to really listen to you, our loyal listeners. If you're open to chatting with my producer, Rich Cardona, or someone on his team, we'd love to hear from you. Just fill out the short form in the show notes. It takes less than 20 seconds.

Brian Miller (34:18)

So this idea from Magic that you asked me about is the status quo. The status quo is how do people typically try to solve the problem that you're talking about? And why doesn't it work? Some people do this instinctively. Almost everybody skips it. Like, very few people think to talk about this. What you see in most communication, in most keynote speeches, in most TED talks, you see people, if they even start with a premise, and they hardly ever do, they start with a premise, which is something like, what does the audience want? What are they struggling with? What do they fear? What do they believe? It's something they already hold true. So premise, it's a foundation, right? You go, hey, we all want to feel connected to others, and everybody nods. Great. That means we've got a premise, we have foundation. We can start this conversation. What happens Is after that, almost everybody skips to the paradigm shift. They skip to their solution. They go, and here's how we're going to do it. And what happens is you present this unique, special thing that you do, Whatever your thing is, your uniqueness, your solution, you. And people sit there with all these objections in their head. They're like, that sounds hard. It's going to take a long time. I already think I know how to solve that. I've already heard about other ways that sound easier, all that stuff. They can't listen to you. They can't hear you. The status quo is when you systematically talk them through each of the ways that you might try to solve it, or we have historically tried to solve it, or people tend to try to solve this problem and why they don't work or don't work as well as they could. You have to dismantle them. What's this got to do with magic? This is how I learned it as a magician. If I ask you to choose a card, I go like this. You choose a card. You look at it. It's the seven of diamonds, whatever it is. And then if you put it back in the deck and I pull the seven of diamonds out of my pocket, you might go, ah. But then immediately your brain goes, I wonder if there's a second seven of diamonds. Maybe he's got one in the deck and one in his pocket. So the magic's gone. There's no magic. Okay? So that's not what magicians do. You, here, go. Here, go choose a card. They pull it out, seven diamonds. I hand you a sharpie marker. So you draw your name on it. You draw your name on it. It goes in to the deck. I pull it out of my pocket, you go, ah. And then you go, wait, no, maybe he's got a second one. No, he can't have a second one because it's got a sharpie mark. I wrote my name on it. But then they go, but I wonder if he held it in his hand secretly. Still no magic. Because they've got a way to think through it. What do we really do? Choose a card. Seven diamonds. Here's a marker. Write your name on it. It goes back in. You hand them the cards. They shuffle, you show them your hands are empty, you reach into your pocket, you pull it out. So what magicians have learned to do instinctively is before I get to the climax, I have to remove, one by one, all of the other possible ways you could think it happens. So you get to the moment of magic, and the audience goes, ah, well, it could be. No, because he could have been. No, because he. No, it could have been. And when they get through all of them, their brain explodes, they have no options left. And that's when magic happens. Same approach for communicators. If you remove all the possible ways someone could solve this problem and show them that they don't work, they're in worse shape than the beginning of the speech because they still have the problem and now they have no ways to solve it. They have to listen to your solution, which is then when you can go into a paradigm shift, that's excellent.

Chris Do (37:52)

So when magicians show you all the ways that you think it can be done, it just makes the reveal even more powerful because I guess in sales terminology you're handling all the objections. Yeah, upfront. And the better you are being magician, the better you are going to demonstrate how it can't be.

Brian Miller (38:16)

Right. And then the paradigm shift is the mind blown. Right. So I say paradigm shift and not, you heard me say solution a bunch just for the sake of ease of conversation. But I don't like the word solution. Solution implies tactics. Typically a lot of people, when they're especially speakers, I work with a lot of keynote speakers, they want to offer solutions, but solutions tend to be do this thing, this really specific thing, and tactics don't. Tactics tend to be industry specific, for one thing, and they tend to be like medium specific. Like a tactic only works on LinkedIn and it only works today until they change the algorithm. But a paradigm shift is a different way of seeing the problem, a different way of thinking through the problem. Paradigm shifts tend to carry across industries. It doesn't matter if I'm talking to healthcare professionals or accountants. The same paradigm shift will help them in their world think through their problem differently. Like help them think through their problem differently, but the same as another industry could think through it. And I usually say if you're a, if you're looking to be a paid professional speaker, the highest, the biggest paychecks go to the largest paradigm shifts. Basically that once you're dealing with getting paid as a speaker, the folks who can afford to bring you in at those kind of fees, the 10, 15, 20,000 or above fees that non celebrity paid professional speakers are getting, the executives and folks bringing you in, they're not looking for tactics. Tactics are easy to come by. They're looking for, can I get my entire organization to think differently? Because that's tremendously valuable to them as.

Chris Do (39:47)

We understand the word paradigm and a paradigm shift. It's really big. Humanity used to do it this way and they no longer do it that way. It's something we don't go backwards. Like a paradigm shift is, I think the invention of the Internet. A paradigm shift is the invention of AI, probably as some people have described. The greatest human invention ever.

Brian Miller (40:05)

Yep.

Chris Do (40:06)

Right. The splitting of the atom. That's a big one.

Brian Miller (40:10)

Yeah.

Chris Do (40:10)

So those are like, we cannot go backwards. So a solution could just be a really small little thing that you've done and here you now use this thing.

Brian Miller (40:17)

Yeah. And you should give people solutions too. But it's like the solution should fit within the paradigm shift. It's like, first let me get you to think differently about this, then we can talk about ways to tackle it today. But that might change by next week.

Chris Do (40:31)

Let's plug this into probably one of the most viewed, if not the top viewed TED Talk ever, Simon Sinek. Start with why I believe the big idea that he's saying in this one talk, the golden circle. Or start with why is he goes, people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Is that the big idea? The filter?

Brian Miller (40:50)

Yeah. I mean, it's not how I would actually put it on the page, but yes, it's essentially the big idea. The framework we use for the filter is something like two actions so that impact. That if we want to achieve this impact, we must do this action. Right. So two actions so that impact. The action is, what do you do? What do you want people to do, Think or rethink as a result of your talk? Or if you're thinking about your business and you're not thinking about it as a speaker, the action is what does your business do? Right. What do you do? Not at the granular, but at the 20,000 foot level. So Simon's might be to start with why? So that our ideas carry through the marketplace. Right. Something like that. I see that's not a super sexy way to put it on the page, but something like that. Yeah.

Chris Do (41:45)

But then we understand exactly what we're saying at that point then.

Brian Miller (41:48)

Right. And so does everybody else. And instantly.

Chris Do (41:50)

And then I see the argument, the rational sequence of thoughts that's easy to follow, that he starts to talk about Martin Luther King Jr. The Wright brothers, Apple. So we understand like what they're doing and how they're doing things differently. So it's building up this thing like how they challenge the status quo. There's a paradigm shift and then they have success. What I didn't get from his talk was his literal story how he Understands a problem and how he's in authority.

Brian Miller (42:19)

Yeah. So he. He snuck it in. So he snuck it in there. And my guess is as soon as I say it, you'll remember it. But it's not the most memorable part of.

Chris Do (42:26)

Is it right at the beginning, he just slips it in and.

Brian Miller (42:29)

Yeah, it's right at the beginning. He basically indicates. And I don't remember exactly how far. And it's been a long time since I've actually watched the. By the way, if you haven't watched the original, start with why Talk? First of all, that's not even the title of it. And. And it was How Great Leaders Inspire action. His story Hook, is something like. He was in marketing, he was in advertising, he was getting burnt out of the corporate world. He. But he had this inkling, he started sharing it with his friends, bringing people over to his, you know, just to his apartment and just giving them presentations about the Golden Circle, you know, in his living room. That was his. And then he started seeing it work and people started getting the idea. And that was his story Hook. It was the. How do I understand this idea? I was in the world of marketing, advertising. I saw this problem, I started to feel this burnout thing and why am I qualified to solve it? I developed this system, I started showing it to people. They got it, they used it with their companies. I started getting invited to speak about it. That's a story hook.

Chris Do (43:25)

Now I'm going to have to rewatch because I've watched it many times. I believe I watched the original and they changed titles because as it got bigger, they changed. It used to be called the Golden Circle or something weird that people are like, eh, nobody's searching for that. Nobody understands that. And I think it was TedX Portland. It wasn't Ted the Main.

Brian Miller (43:40)

No, it was a tiny little TedX talk in a half empty room. I mean it was okay. Yeah, it was wild. If you go watch that.

Chris Do (43:48)

So I haven't seen that one, but the one that has the gazillion million views, it's still pretty crap in its production. I mean they're not known as the best video production team on earth. Right, but you're saying like, despite flawed production and bad audio and video quality, if the idea is really good and you, you use frameworks that people have used throughout history, you can change whole groups of people, you can change how humanity perceives a problem.

Brian Miller (44:15)

Francisco, my kind of lead story consultant, he. He says a story is a real life example. That makes a point. He's like, don't get too crazy about stories, people get too nuts, they get two in their heads about story. It's just a real life example that makes a point. So there's different types of stories you need. You might need a value story, a story that, that through the course of telling them, essentially a case study. Why your idea, your topic, your product, your service is valuable, right? There's mentor stories. Why am I the person to guide you along this journey? There's lots of different types of stories. We call this the story hook because every communicator, thought leader, expert, anybody speaking professionally needs one story that they can tell over and over and over again. Anytime somebody asks that answers the question, why am I listening to you? It's the why you question, okay? The filter answers the question. How is this going to be relevant to me?

Chris Do (45:13)

Right?

Brian Miller (45:14)

The story hook answer is, okay, this idea is relevant to me, but why shouldn't I just go Google this? Chatgpt it, look up the best expert on YouTube why listen to you about it? Story hook tells them your unique perspective and why you're qualified. And then the argument answers the question, so how do I do it if I want to do it? So, yeah, the way that I build kind of communication frameworks, and in particularly speaking frameworks is every part of your speech or your communication is an answer to a question the audience is asking. And we have to answer those questions in the order they think the questions to themselves. I say a lot, the right ideas in the wrong order are the wrong ideas. It's one of the most common problems with speaking is all the right ideas were in that presentation, but they were in all the wrong order. And so nobody got it.

Chris Do (46:04)

I started to see the overlap between a bunch of different things in terms of conceptual advertising, storytelling and magic and joke telling. And it all came down to one thing, misdirection. So the magician wants you to look at something because the real trick is happening somewhere else. And their ability to hide and misdirect you is the power of magic. The same thing about the comedian. The comedian sets up the premise of the joke, but if you can see it coming, the punchline, then it's not very good. And Dave Chappelle is probably the master magician of story of joke telling. Because I don't know where this joke is going. Then he lands and like, oh, my God, in a million years I didn't know. But when you land it like that, I see he's so good that he tells you the punchline up front, tells the story, and then he lands the punchline. And by the time he's ready to land the punchline, you forgot what it was because he's so good at it. I'm curious about your thoughts on misdirection and its role in storytelling.

Brian Miller (47:05)

I'm so thrilled you asked me this question, because I so rarely get to flex the philosophy of magic kind of muscle anymore, because I'm not. I used to just spend my whole life with magicians, and it was just nothing but these kind of conversations. So everything you said I 100% agree with, except for the terminology, which I think gets people very confused.

Chris Do (47:28)

All right.

Brian Miller (47:29)

And misdirection is just a bad. It's. It's the word that magicians use. It's a bad word. It's a word that means to look away from something. Right. I want to distract you from something.

Chris Do (47:43)

Mm.

Brian Miller (47:44)

The problem with that is if I want to hide one of these guitars that's on the wall here, I kind of have two options. Like, if you and I were in the room together, I can stand in front of it like this and talk to you the whole time, hoping that you don't see it. But that's super suspicious. At some point, you're gonna be like, what the hell is he hiding? Right. Because I'm trying to get you not to look at something. It's going to bring your attention to that thing. Or I could just stand over there on the other side of the room. You would be standing here with your back. You would never see the guitars, even though they're in full view. If I'm having an interesting conversation with you, you've got something to look at in that direction. You never. I don't. I don't need to hide the guitars. You can't see them. You'll never will. So direction is the right term, not misdirection. What magicians. If I'm trying to hide that something's not in this hand, I'm just going to. My energy is all on the hand I'm hiding, right? I'm like, don't look at this hand. Don't look at this hand. It's like, what do. You're going to look at the hand? It's like, don't think of a pink elephant. Oops, there it is. Right? So instead, what I want to do is not hide that something's in this hand. I want to show you something much more interesting in this hand. I think that's the same thing that storytellers do, and that's the same thing that comedians do. They don't hide the punchline. They tell you a setup that is so interesting, you don't even notice the twist that's coming. If they actually started. If it's storytellers, classic mistake. The setup has to be interesting. A lot of times people make the setup is boring because they think, oh, these are just the details. I just got to get the details so that they understand. It's like, no, no, no. Make the context, the setup really engaging, really interesting. That matters because then whatever the transformation is. So story. We would say something like context, transformation, result. Right. The transformation, the pow is going to come out of nowhere. And it's because you were so engaged in the context. So I would just say that the word is direction. You want to lead people to look at something, to pay attention to something that's really interesting, not try to get them to not notice something that you don't want them to see.

Chris Do (49:52)

Well, I'm not going to have a magician on the show and argue with the magician about the term misdirection. I just see a little differently. Yeah, but, you know, it's the art of misdirection. And so I think the amateur, like, don't look at this.

Brian Miller (50:06)

Yeah.

Chris Do (50:07)

The ones that we care about are like, I didn't even know I was not supposed to look at that because.

Brian Miller (50:11)

Exactly.

Chris Do (50:12)

I'm making this really interesting.

Brian Miller (50:13)

And I think that's. That's the point, though, is that the. The masters of it are doing something so interesting that it would never even occur to you to look at the place they don't want you to look at. They're not focused on the place they don't want you to look at.

Chris Do (50:25)

One last geek out on. On magic here. We've seen magicians, I guess, reveal how certain tricks are done, and it's fascinating to watch that too, because they'll show you the trick and they're like, the masked magician will like, here's how it's done. And I guess it's like it went against all the magician's code of conduct. You're not supposed to reveal the trick. It breaks the illusion. And now those magicians can't do those tricks anymore because people are going to say, no, I know how it's done. Yeah. The ones that they haven't really shown are how mentalism works. Now, I know it's not real, but they're doing a freaking pretty good job of making it look real. And I'll tell you one, and you tell me how it's done. If you can break the code, is that all?

Brian Miller (51:06)

Right, Listen, I'm not going to reveal something that would give any professional magicians trouble mentalists trouble with their act, but I have no issue, I think, I have no issue with revealing magic tricks. I think it's. I think people mostly, it's very hard to appreciate something if you don't understand anything about it. It's like we like the behind the scenes in movies for a reason. So go ahead.

Chris Do (51:27)

Okay. So I set it up and I think it's an evolution of different kinds of magic tricks. And they're all, they're all magic and illusion. But the way they make you think about it is like, I can read your mind or I can manipulate you with verbal cues and then you're going to do exactly what I want. At least I think that's the premise. So the trick is this thing. Think of a card and a suit and you think of something, right? And you say it out loud. What is it? We'll use your same example, seven of diamonds. And then they're like, okay. And then they open up the deck and they pick any card, but don't look at it yet. And they draw the card and then they should put in your pocket or whatever. And then they put the other deck away or whatever. They're holding the deck. And then they're like, okay, go ahead and reveal to everyone what your card is. And they hold it out and it's a seven of diamonds, but it's handwritten with a marker. And while the deck is still in plain view, it's never disappeared. They're like, okay, would you like to see another card? Pick another card. And it's a white card. It's a white card and the whole deck is white. So not only did they know the card you're going to pick, they hand wrote it with a Sharpie and they put it in the one place where you're going to pick it. And then they show you that all the other cards are blank. And I'm like, what the F happened here? That's a good trick.

Brian Miller (52:38)

That's a really good trick.

Chris Do (52:40)

What can you share with us how these things are done?

Brian Miller (52:43)

So what I can share with you is it's precisely all the things that we already talked about, which is one, just your memory of the trick, the way you described it tells me a lot about what the magician did. Okay. Because the way you described it is, it was in full view the whole time. As soon as you said that, I'm like, there's no way that's true. And it's funny. Because magicians learn the difference between impossible and actually impossible. Right. And so no way to do that. The deck was in full view, which means whenever the deck got switched out, which, you know, intellectually, that had to have happened at some point.

Chris Do (53:19)

Right.

Brian Miller (53:19)

You didn't even notice that and would have never occurred to you because you were looking at something much more interesting. You were engaged in something fully at that moment.

Chris Do (53:28)

Right.

Brian Miller (53:28)

But also you are having trouble processing even how it might have been done, which means any of the potential solutions were things that magician must have removed along the way. Right, right, right. And so what I can tell you about how the trick is done, I mean, I can personally think of 10 different ways to do that right now. But can you think of any way that you would do that? Like, if you had to do that, you had to create that trick knowing nothing about magic, what would you do? That is how. Now, you're not say that out loud right now, but that is what I would say.

Chris Do (53:59)

I like this. So I'm not a magician, so I accidentally guess it. It would just be like a random guess. Okay. So my guess is that whole deck was handwritten for all the suits and things. And somehow they had to figure out. And the magicians can do this. When you pick the card, somehow they slip the card underneath it. So the card you grab isn't the one that you think you grabbed, and it's the one that you said. So that's the biggest part of the trick. Somewhere along the way, they swap out that full deck for a blank deck. And then the trick becomes even crazier. And now we forget that even about the. How did you make me pick that one card and say that card that you wanted me say, thoughts on that, Brian?

Brian Miller (54:38)

My thoughts are that would be one way to do it. And what I usually say to people is, does that change what you just did? Does that change your experience of the trick?

Chris Do (54:47)

I don't know.

Brian Miller (54:48)

Not at all. So that means you were in the hands of a master magician. So for me, a really masterful magician, just like a storyteller, a filmmaker, anything else is if you know how it works or you think, oh, I kind of get it, but you still enjoyed it. That was art, right? Yeah. That's the difference between a trick and art.

Chris Do (55:11)

So here's the thing. I think magicians feared that we're going to reveal how these tricks are done. So there was a code, and you don't reveal the tricks. And then somebody decided they're going to do it under a mask. And then all Kinds of people are doing it and then they realize people still want to see magic.

Brian Miller (55:26)

I revealed the secret to a magic trick in my TEDx talk that went viral. I revealed the secret and magicians were so upset. They were so upset. And I'm like, I guarantee you of the three and a half million people that watch that video, any non magician, if I ask them, do you remember how the trick works? They don't. They remember the story surrounding the trick. They'll tell me all about, oh my God, that story about the blind guy in the restaurant and how you created magic for him. That was so meaningful to the blah, blah, blah, blah. No one in 10 years since that talk at YouTube has ever said to me, kind of ruined the trick for me though that has never happened.

Chris Do (56:00)

Yeah. Let me ask you this question while we're on the topic of this viral TED Talk that you did. What do you think you did that connected with the audiences that led to so many views?

Brian Miller (56:12)

That's a great question. I've had 10 years to think about that because it's like coming up on the 10 year anniversary of that. It's kind of crazy now. You know, the little talk changed my life. So mostly luck. And I'm going to qualify that. Which is not to say I didn't work my ass off. I didn't have the right to be there. It wasn't a great talk, all that stuff. Pre pandemic, I was halfway through writing my next book which was going to be a book about the role of luck and success. Cause I really get tired of really, really successful people ignoring the role of luck and just inventing heroes, journeys in reverse and kind of things. So it was mostly luck. But here's where the luck happened. 1. The title of the talk was Stroke of Genius and it was my wife who came up with the title. The work that we do. We are known now for helping our clients create phenomenal titles for their talks. We have a process. I was just a magician. I was not a speaker. I was a full time magician. When I got invited to this TEDx talk, having no dreams of being a speaker, hoping that my TEDx talk would get 5,000 views and we can increase my corporate event rate from 1500 to $2000. That was the dream. It was a dream. Hey, I was, I was supporting me and I was putting my wife through her masters and supporting both of us doing card tricks for a living. I was very happy and much less stressed than I am now running a consulting firm. I don't know what happened. I Should go back, but. So the title was how to Magically Connect with Anyone. I didn't come up with it. I went through 25 different variations of like magical making connections, all those words. I couldn't get it. And I was like tearing my hair out. And my then fiance at the time, she said, give me the, Give me your legal pad. You know, I had this yellow legal pad. She goes, leave me alone for an hour. And she just like disappeared. And she came back in a little bit with how to Magically Connect with Anyone. And I was like, that's it. So that title, if you now go to Headline Analyzers and stuff like that today, like the AI systems, it's like gangbusters. So that was luck that my wife came up with that. And it happened to be this phenomenal title, luck of the YouTube thumbnail. Ted doesn't let TEDx speakers choose the thumbnail. TED doesn't even choose them because there's too many TEDx talks. There's 220,000 of them on the TEDx YouTube channel now. So it's just whatever. At that time, it was just whatever YouTube decided was the thumbnail and the thumbnail. Chris happened to be me holding two pieces of rope like this because I was in the middle of one of the only magic tricks I did in the whole talk with the title how to Magically Connect with Anyone. Now, who is this fedora wearing goofball in a suit holding ropes talking about connections? It's just weird. This, the, the, the weird factor, the what is this? The curiosity factor is, is enough. And it was 2015. The luck of it happening to be that year. What was happening that year? We remember it was right before 2016 in the US this was a big year. This was the year that everything started becoming more divisive, more polarized, more disconnected. It was the year leading up to a big election that changed the course of American history. We're all feeling it again right now. So it was talking about making connections in a world that was rapidly becoming more divisive, more politicized. I was wearing a fedora for some reason and a suit for some reason with two ropes. And the title of the talk was how to Magically Connect with Anyone. Now what is that all by you? That buys you the click. So the luck, all that bought me the clicks. The work was. It was a great talk and I worked really hard for many months and called in a mentor of mine who was a professor, a renowned professor at Yale who had helped me write the talk. And I didn't know how to write a talk. I wasn't a speaker then. So how did it get 3 1/2 million views? Lot of luck. A good talk. And then down to the practical stuff. I've had people ask me, how did you make it go viral? You'll make videos. Go viral. You'll make. I didn't make it. I sent it to everyone I'd met in my entire life in the first two hours. When it hit YouTube got 800 views and it stalled. You know, that was it. It was dead for two weeks, I thought. Climbed like a thousand views and that was it. Somebody somewhere saw it and put it in the Reddit, the subreddit, for communication skills. And it went to a hundred thousand views in a month, a million views in six months, 2 million in the first year, and then climbed to three or whatever, three and a half million after that. So lot of luck. But it was a good talk. So it earned the luck, I guess.

Chris Do (60:52)

Well, thanks for breaking that down. I'd like to think luck plays a role in things and timing. So luck in timing. You're unlucky with your magic because you said it was uncool. And, you know, 2015, YouTube's just becoming a thing.

Brian Miller (61:11)

Yeah.

Chris Do (61:11)

It's starting to catch attention of non. Like, not kids and amateurs. It's starting to hit a more professional audience. Also, in 2015, Ted meant a lot more than it does today.

Brian Miller (61:23)

Correct.

Chris Do (61:23)

When it's 200,000 talks later to TED. Unfortunately, the TED brand doesn't care much weight and distribution of content. Good content comes for free. Now, you don't need TED to anoint you. You just make a really good video and you follow best practices and you might have some of that luck. I don't think you're that lucky that your fiance is like, let me think on this and I'll tell you why. Okay? Because you had this march to find a really smart woman and you had the. You didn't have a big enough ego to say, like, I'm not going to ask for help. And you grinded on this. And so you gave her something to work with. And then with fresh eyes and without the attachment of what you're going through, she can look at it and it's like, yeah, it probably should be this. Not saying, like, we know we're like geniuses. We know how to do titles, but it's simple, it's elegant, and it's clear.

Brian Miller (62:15)

No, I mean, totally. And my wife and her name's Lindsay, she was paramount in this talk. Not just the title what was that was another quote, unquote lucky thing. I mean, she at the time was in her master's. She was in her final year of her master's to become a licensed marriage and family therapist, which. Which she's been doing ever since. And so she was actively studying, taking classes all day studying psychology, studying therapy. And I was going to talk about my intuitions from being a magician about human connection, but I didn't have the words or the terminology or the history, any of the academia to support it. It was just what I learned. And so I started taking her to dinner once a week, or whatever it was, for months, every other week, whatever it was, for like months leading up to the TEDx. And I would. We would talk over dinner and I would tell her about what I was trying to say and she would tell me what the terms were and she would go, oh, that's actually called perspective taking. It's perspective taking. Well, now I'm 10 years, I'm famous for that. Like, I. That's what I talk about. People think I'm an expert in perspective taking. It's like, I wasn't. I just had this intuition. She said, there's a term for this. And so I bought all the books about it because she said that. So she was paramount. So the luck of having a fiance that happened to be studying the psychology side of what I wanted to talk about was nuts. But then the work was doing the conversations and then following up and reading the book. So there's always. It's like, it's. Oh, it's like talent. Yes. Work. Yes. Luck also. Yes. It's like, just don't forget to talk about luck. That's how I feel when I listen to really successful people.

Chris Do (63:55)

Yeah. I think from a person who makes a lot of YouTube content, who I try to engineer some of that luck, is there three things that you needed to do really well for that to happen? And I think you were pointed out. So let me share with our audience really quickly. Number one is you have to make something that's easy to find. The title and the thumbnail are paramount to that. You call it something else and then no one finds it. So it doesn't matter how good your video is, it's not going to be seen by anybody. Number two is once they find it, then you have to deliver on the goods. Maybe this is the big idea, the story, hook and argument all in play in a YouTube story here. So you have to deliver the goods. The last component of it is it needs to be pushed out to a platform where other people can find it more easily. So this is where you're like some stranger somewhere says, hey, this is a masterclass on communication or human connection. Check it out. And whenever videos go off like that, from. From a zero audience to something like that, it's because someone else has intervened. Because you did the first two parts, you made it easy to find and you delivered on the goods. And we'd like to live in this idea. I think of meritocracy, where the best things will. The cream rises to the top, but you have to help it a little bit. You don't just say, here, I hope it works out.

Brian Miller (65:07)

There's. Man, I can't agree with that more. There's a slide in my presentations I do on message clarity, which is the one slide that everybody takes their phones out and takes a photo of. And it's the dumbest, simplest slide. It says the best ideas don't win. The clearest ideas win. And I just believe that through and through more every single day, as the world becomes noisier and less trusting. Clearest ideas win. You have to say the thing. Just say the thing.

Chris Do (65:38)

I think the meta conversation here is that you've done a really good job of telling a story of why you, you shared real life examples of what you did and you made it in a way that we, we can understand that you've gone through this and then you proven your authority here. So this is one of those, like, inception things where we go inside the circle and we're like, oh my God. So I think it's like these inception things, like we're inside the dream of the dream and we just kind of pull back. It's like, here's a person who's demonstrating the concepts while telling you the concept. It's like you're telling us what the trick's going to be and we're still engaged. And you have proven to me that you've spent enough time thinking about this, working on this, that you know what you're talking about. Okay, so let's do a really quick recap and then let's add any final thoughts on this before we wrap up. Okay. You, what you do, Brian, is you help people who are experts become speakers, and there's a difference there. And hopefully to then to become a thought leader. You've. You drawn the distinction between a personal brand because everyone has one. I agree. Not everyone has a good one. Not everyone has a real one. Yeah, but they do have one. We have an impression of you, their expectations and promises. We get that, but you're talking about doing something different, like doing three things. An assertion, judgments, and predictions to do this publicly and consistently. And the way that you help people is using this triangular framework, your core messaging thing that you have to have a filter, a story hook, and an argument. If you follow those things, you're going to do really well. Now, those words mean different things, so be sure you listen, of course, to the entire podcast again, now that you're at the end, because sometimes people phase in and out of attention, and you probably need to go back because how you explained is different than how I initially interpreted. And this is very important. What else do they do they need to know before we direct them on how to find out more about you?

Brian Miller (67:38)

I mean, I. I think the big thing to know in 2025, moving forward, whenever you're listening to this is we now live in a world of low trust and high noise, right? There's never been more people and more things shouting at us, trying to get our attention. And the average person has never been less trusting of anybody. People do gooders, nonprofit organizers, you know, politicians, educators, healthcare professionals. Doesn't matter. Low trust, high noise. If you have an idea that you care about, that you're trying to put into the world, you need people to share it. You need people to spread it, which means first they need to understand it. If people do not know how to talk about what you do, they will not talk about what you do. They don't have the mental capacity. So I'll kind of leave you with a metaphor, which is the marble elephant. There is an old engineering riddle. How do you carve an elephant out of a block of marble? The answer is, you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant. Sounds simple, but almost nobody knows how to do this. So what happens to us in the idea space is, I have an idea, and I know how beautiful it is. I know what it looks like, I know who it's for and how it would benefit them. I have a marble elephant in my head, but I'm holding a block of marble, and I hand it to somebody. I go, look, an elephant, and they don't see the elephant. They're holding a block of marble. They have no idea why you've handed it to them, what it's for, what they're supposed to do with it. It's heavy, it's cumbersome, it's sharp. What do they do? They either hand it back, they put it down, they throw it out, and then they walk away and they walk until they find somebody who hands them a marble elephant. Because that's what they're looking for and they need to see it immediately and obviously as what they're looking for. And that is what we need to do with our ideas.

Chris Do (69:30)

It's been a real pleasure talking to you, Brian. I'm fascinated. I've learned a couple new things and I can't wait to apply this to my own talks and try to be that thought leader that I aspire to become. Now, how do people work with you? Do you do, do you have like a signature keynote that you do on stage? And I know there's a program or something that you do on a consultative basis. How do people work with you?

Brian Miller (69:50)

Yeah, I appreciate that. So I do give keynote presentations on message, clarity, change, communication, all these frameworks. I do workshops for teams, leadership. Break them down. You can go to our site, clarityupconsulting.com clarityupconsulting.com so that's the speaking side of things. If you're interested in you yourself becoming a top communicator, especially as a keynote speaker. Actually right now, halfway through the actual next book, which will hopefully be out late this year, maybe early 2026, it is my framework for how to design a world class keynote that gets you booked, rebooked and referred. So you had Robert Fitzpatrick on once and he wrote the book on workshops. Yeah, I'm writing that on keynotes because that book is phenomenal for people needing to give a workshop and that book does not exist for keynote speakers. So I obviously need to finish this now before this podcast comes out, so before someone else writes it and gets in there before I do. But here's where you can go. You can go to keynotedesignbook.com keynotedesignbook.com it's built on score app. You can toss your name and email and answer a couple questions and just basically say I'm interested in this book when it comes out. That's the easiest way into our world right now.

Chris Do (71:03)

When is the targeted completion? Publishing shift date likely?

Brian Miller (71:09)

December, January, you know, 2020, very late 2025, early 2026, depending on how fast I think it's going. So no, you're, you're going to have this out way before that.

Chris Do (71:19)

I was going to ask you, you want me stalling this? I just have this.

Brian Miller (71:23)

Put it out, Put it out. No, don't stall. But you can.

Chris Do (71:26)

Just like that. Come on.

Brian Miller (71:28)

But, but I, I have a, you know, I have a membership community, I'm on LinkedIn, I have all those things. So if you, if you go there, toss your emails in and you click the box that says yes, I'd like to hear about some of your programs. We'll say, hey, here's our community, here's my LinkedIn, all that jazz. So you can stay in touch. I publish constantly about this stuff.

Chris Do (71:46)

Before we get out of here, I want to thank you once again and you shared a very personal story about, like our connection point. And I'd like to just acknowledge this person who kind of connected us. Do you want to say something to them? They may or may not be able to hear this, but I'd like to send that energy into the world.

Brian Miller (72:03)

Yeah, I appreciate that. So my lifelong best friend, Adam Krutinger, if you know him on the Internet and some of your listeners might, because he's a maker, he's in the creator world. He runs the YouTube channel Puppet Nerd. He's a world renowned puppet builder. We've been best friends since childhood. He introduced me to the Future podcast and Chris's work probably, I mean, really like a decade ago, like probably early days of the YouTube stuff and everything. And we've always discussed it as one of our regular podcasts and talked about the episodes. A couple years ago, Adam unfortunately found out that he has stage four brain cancer. They did all the surgeries, did all the treatments, and we're kind of out of things now. It's. We don't know what's going on, but there's no more treatments being done. So when Chris invited me on the show a couple of months ago, I was able to go tell Adam that I was going to be able to go on the Future and talk to Chris. And he was just so excited for me and we had this moment and it was beautiful. And so that was a great gift I was able to give to him. It was a great gift to me. So I deeply appreciate that. And if you're interested in puppets or makers, Adam's got books out and he's got puppet, you know, his puppet Nerd channel. All that stuff is unbelievable. You'll never see anything like it.

Chris Do (73:22)

That's such a touching story and it's just a reminder to me and all those people out there. Maybe you being a thought leader isn't about being successful or famous, but it's just that you can reach and touch people in ways that you just don't even know. And it's, it's. I mean, I've not had anybody share that kind of story, so I just really appreciate you doing that. And Adam, if you can hear this. Thank you so much for doing what you've done and sharing your gift with the world.

Brian Miller (73:50)

Thanks for doing that, Chris.