The Story Hook Method with Guest Brigham Blackham

A story can make people lean in or tune out, and the difference is rarely talent. It’s structure, intention, and the courage to share something real. I sit down with Brigham Blackham, communication specialist and author of The Story Hook Method, to get practical about how to become more engaging, more trusted, and more unforgettable without turning your message into a performance.

We dig into the moment that pushed Brigham to systemize storytelling, then go deeper into the ideas that actually change how you live and lead. We talk about false beliefs and why they can do real damage, how “truth” becomes something you can put weight on, and why perfectionism often blocks progress. Brigham also reframes “perfect” through a Mandarin lens as “complete and beautiful”, which turns shipping your work into a skill, not a stress test. If you’ve ever felt stuck, compared your progress to others, or struggled to finish what you start, this part will land.

Then we bring it into the modern world: AI writing tools, LinkedIn posts that feel oddly lifeless, and how to use AI as an editor without letting it steal your voice. We also get tactical about concise communication, focusing on the significant details, and leaving people with one clear call to action. Finally, we borrow from negotiation psychology (including Chris Voss’s “no”) to show how boundaries create safety and make “yes” more honest. If you care about communication skills, leadership, storytelling, public speaking, persuasion, and building trust fast, you’ll get a lot out of this conversation.

Subscribe for more practical communication strategies, share this with someone who wants to communicate with more impact, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s one message you want to make clearer this week?

Get to know Brigham Blackham

International "Who's Who" of Storytelling Speakers

Amazon top-selling author Buy his book here: https://www.amazon.com/Story-Hook-Method-confident-unforgettable/dp/B0GL4FFHGD

Founder of international podcast, Levelin’ Up 

Fluent in Mandarin & Spanish 

Interviewed on hundreds of Radio, TV talk shows and global podcasts

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOJqHEhS1CtX3A4nztIBzdA
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LinkedIn :https://www.linkedin.com/company/80960291/
Website : theuncommoncommunicator.com 

Transcript

Welcome And Conversation Ownership

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to the Uncommon Communicator Podcast. I am your host, James Gable, and this is where we bring enlightenment to the topic of communication. Are you ready to take ownership of your conversations? Are you looking to possess the skills to navigate and facilitate conversations to a mutual understanding? Then grab your growth mindset and let's go. Well, welcome to the Uncommon Communicator Podcast. I am extremely excited to have Brigham Blackham with me today. Brigham, tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Oh, thank you so much. James, first, just having the opportunity to be here is such a pleasure. We met last year and I am just very impressed with you and the hard work that you do. So a little bit about me, guys. I'm a communication specialist. I wrote a book called The Story Hook Method. We're going to talk about that. And one of the biggest things you're going to learn from this whole experience is how to create more compelling communication. What that means is I help people that want to be able to communicate more effectively, be able to do so. And not just in a simple way, but in a way that allows them to make deep, real connections with others, makes it so they can be more confident, engaging, and unforgettable all through the power of storytelling. What that does for you is it makes it easier to understand you, makes it easier to want to know, like, and trust you. And then eventually those conversations can turn into cash, they can turn into opportunities, amazing experiences. And I'm really excited to be here. Thanks for having me, James.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Yeah, absolutely. You know, when I went through the book, look, I did like it, I tabbed it a bunch. Uh what I liked about it, like when you talk to a lot of people who, especially like yourself, do a lot of public speaking, you're given public speaking tips, right? And there's some in here, but this is about communication. And that's the thing that really hooked me. Uh, and we'll have an opportunity to kind of talk about some of the key parts of the book. Uh, we'll have let the listeners give an opportunity to go purchase it and really read it. But there's some there's some great things that uh you really poured yourself into this book. Uh so I'm curious about like what inspired you to do this and write it in the way that you did that shared such personal stories.

Building Compelling Stories That Connect

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Absolutely. Two years ago, I was on stage with Sharon Lecter. She's someone that wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad. You've probably heard those series with Robert Kiyosaki. Like 12 books in that series with him. I was on stage with her, and we had this heart-to-heart connection. And she said, You're such a compelling storyteller. Why don't you systemize this so that other people can do what you do? And I thought about it and I was like, Well, there's no reason why I couldn't teach this in a way that allows others to imitate what I can do. And I took that and I said, How do I make this happen? And I basically brain-dumped everything that I could possibly think about from my experience as a theater teacher, as a linguist, because I speak Mandarin and a little bit of French and some ASL. And all of these different experiences, the through line that made all of the difference was storytelling. I said, Well, if I can help people unlock attention, wrap it in a story, and then help them know how to package it in a way that allows them to be more engaging, compelling, that will shift fundamentally how they communicate with others. And that's what I did. It took me 14 months to compress all of these decades of experiences into a usable method that others can duplicate. And that's where the story hook method really became something that others can experience. And when Sharon Lecter, she was one of the first people that got to read the book. When she read it, she's like, Wow, you you made this so simple and in a way that other people can can do this. You don't just teach people how to tell stories, you help them get into action to take real meaningful movement in their life. And I thought that was such a great review. I put her right at the front of the book. So I was like, Thank you for the nice words about it. I love it. So that's a little bit about how this came to be. We could go a whole lot deeper, but yeah, let's what came to mind with you on that, James? What do you want to know more about?

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Yeah, I can tell you're a podcaster, you're asking me the questions. All right. Well, one thing that I noticed in your introduction, I want to read this quote from Debbie Fields. It says, The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failures to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it. Why did you start the book with that quote?

SPEAKER_00 4:23

This one's a really meaningful quote for me. You think about being the best version of yourself. If you ask someone, what does your best look like? It is going to be different for every single person. We all want innately to be our very best, to achieve our full potential. A lot of the times we don't give ourselves the credit and the opportunities to step into that version of ourselves. We almost have to slay our old version of who we were to be able to say, you know what, I'm going to shed that skin, I'm going to step into who I want to be. What I want to do with this specific methodology is give people permission to accept who their next version of themselves is and give people opportunities to say, I can do this. This is something that is possible and something that I want to do at the core level. So I'm willing to do the work to make it happen. And that's what I'm so excited about with this. So thanks for letting me share a little bit about that first thing. Because this is definitely a mindset shift. If you don't accept that you can be better, if you think, oh, I'm I'm there, I've already achieved the peak. Why are you reading a book about getting better? Right. If you have that idea of, you know what, I can learn from anybody, I can do this in a way that will be meaningful for myself and others, and you frame your experiences in a way that can benefit other people, suddenly you communicate in a much deeper level. And that's what this book's all about.

False Beliefs And The Cost

SPEAKER_02 5:48

You know, and I what I heard in there too was just the idea of taking a chance. And I'll guarantee you, I have missed 100% of all the chances that I've never taken. And you know, you've made some big steps, and so you make some uh huge uh chances that you've taken, and I admire you a lot for that. What I want to do, we're there's just things in the book that we're gonna draw out. Now, certainly the listeners can get the book, learn, and we're gonna talk a little bit, however, we can about hook and story and the three acts and and all of that are important things, but but there's deeper stuff in here that I really want to talk about, and we're gonna dive into it deep. Now, there you have this really I want to say heart-wrenching story about uh have you ever been burned by false belief? And the thing that struck me with that is, and you also give a little bit of a warning there as well, too, in the book, uh, which is fair because it it does go pretty deep. I'd like you to tell that story. And the reason it really impacted me is when your mom chose to tell you that story, not once, but many times. When you hear something that many times, there's an important lesson in that. Would would you mind sharing a little bit about that whole story and really what that meant to you?

SPEAKER_00 6:57

So, this is a story that is very dear to my heart, and it's one that I've probably heard a hundred plus times from my mom. When she was a little girl, she had these cute little twin brothers, and they were Ron and John. And one summer they were playing with matches in the backyard. You're striking matches and playing with it, and it was just so exciting for them because they could play with fire. They knew they weren't supposed to do that. Their mother had said, Hey, don't play with fire, this is not good. But they're in the backyard in the shed, and they were striking matches, and then they felt like it was time to go inside. So Ron took a canister that he thought was full of water and he poured it on it. And what happened was it just exploded and it ended up being gasoline, got all over him, and he ended up having singed hair, third-degree burns, had to get rushed to the hospital. They were barely able to get the flames out, uh, so it didn't burn down the whole shed. But he ended up passing away from that experience. And what that experience taught not just my mom, but my grandmother, and now me, and I've even told my kids this story. And now anyone that's ever read the book will have this is that false beliefs can really hurt you, and at times they can literally kill you, like it did for my uncle Ron. He lost, I talked to John about this, my uncle. He he lost his twin brother. You think about that feels like a second half of who you are because of a false belief. Now, if that had been water, wouldn't have been a story. But because he thought it was something that it wasn't, it ended up impacting him so profoundly that he didn't make it through that. All of us have these false beliefs. At times we don't really know what's the truth, but as soon as we understand what the truth is, we can rely on it. There's an interesting expression in Mandarin. It's k-ko, it means to trust. Trust is something you can literally lean on. That's the way that Chinese people think about this. And what I learned from this story, and what you can take away from this, is if it is the truth, not something that's might be true, but it is the truth, it is something you can lean on, something you can truly put weight on. And when you have the truth, it will set you free. You've heard that in the Bible. We need to check our beliefs often.

Perfection As Completion And Progress

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Yeah, it's so deeply profound. And the other thing I got from that, I mean, obviously, you started that early on in the book, and the point that I got from it is we all have like a story, and and you do a great job of helping people kind of find those stories because a lot of times we don't know them, right? They're buried in there, and you and it takes a process to be able to find them. But stories like that not only have impact and not only have the ability to connect with people, but they also have lessons in there that for you and for your family, like that was repeated so many times. You know, I would I would wager that you didn't play with matches, right? I did not play with matches. That's true. Yeah, so there's so many lessons that we can when we learn to tell stories and relate them to our to our kids, to our friends. Uh, you know, I'm in construction. Uh I I'm I'm the old dog, so I'm sharing stories of construction to try to make sure that we're helping that next generation. And that's exactly what you did is drew out such an impactful story. Now you mentioned a word in Mandarin. There's a the next thing I wanted to talk about, this was so interesting to me, is the word perfect in Mandarin, which means complete and beautiful. There's this in our society, the idea of you know perfection. You know, within my organization, we don't shoot for perfection, we shoot for excellence. But the Mandarin definition of of perfect perfect is is slightly different and a little more nuanced. Do you want to tell me a little bit more about that word?

SPEAKER_00 10:56

One may is how you say that word. Okay. One is complete to finish, to be done with it. And then may is beautiful. It's beautiful because it's completed. That's one of the things I I take away from this. In Greek, teleos is a word that's also very similar. It means to be completed. That's what perfect means. Both of those are very similar in their definition. And if you think about the word complete, that is what perfect means. You completed what you set out to do. And if you complete something, that in a Chinese mind is perfection. That doesn't mean that it's without error. It doesn't mean that it's imperfect or doesn't have faults. It's perfect because you finished it. And I think that's something you look at like a book like this, I don't remember exactly who said it, but he said a book is technically never finished, it's just published. A movie is never finished, you just abandon it. Eventually, you have to publish and release what it is that you do. One of the things I talk about are the three R's of story mining. And the last R in there is to release it. If you don't release your work, if you don't publish it in some format, whether that is in an email, in a letter, a physical book, or some way that you can get your message out to the world, even if it's in a keynote speech, that story will live inside you and most likely die. You have to have a way that others can interact with it and then use it. So, this is one of the ways that I'm publishing and releasing my experiences is through your podcast. This is a channel of communication that's beautiful. I podcast as well, and mine's called Leveling Up, and I absolutely love doing this stuff. So talking is one of my favorite things. But anyway, I hope that answers your question. One day is a beautiful way to think about perfection. And I think it's more helpful if you figure out how do I complete or close the loop on whatever it is I want to achieve.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

Yeah, yeah. Well, I just want to make a note. We'll make sure everybody gets a link to your podcast because it's uh it's leveling up, right? Is that the full name of it?

SPEAKER_00 13:09

You don't you drop the G, leveling up because I grew up in Utah, and that's that's what you do is you just drop the G, and I feel like I have that as part of my language. So I just leaned into it. That's part of my branding.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Right, I love it. I know somebody owns another podcast where he added a G back in there because people told him to. But, anyways, it's uh I love it. Now, one thing, like specifically in Eastern uh philosophy, I I study a lot of stoic philosophy, and I've got a friend that's really into Eastern philosophy. I spend a lot of time in lean construction, which uses a lot of Japanese words, principles, thoughts, stuff like that. And that's what really drew me into that Mandarin word of perfect, because in the Western world, we've created this idea of perfectionism. And truly, when you look at uh also like Kaizen, which is Japanese for continuous improvement or get better, right? Yeah, and when you look in when I looked at this word, it caught me as well, too. Is it's not about having it exactly perfect, and it's that mindset that really is um, I don't know, it's it was it just it it said it in a way that I wish we could embrace it because it brings a lot less uh stress, I think, into our lives to try to shoot for perfectionism.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Think about it, done is better than perfect. You've heard that from lots of different leaders. It's very true. If you are not able to complete what you start, that incomplete will start to feel like you're getting depleted with your energy. But as soon as you say, you know what, I'm gonna finish this, even if it's not great, I did it, and now you can say, Well, I could iterate that, I could make it better, but I have to finish what I start, otherwise, I don't have a version one. There's no volume two if I don't publish volume one.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

Right, right. Nobody wants to watch uh the fourth movie of a Star Wars series when there's three more ahead of it, right?

unknown 15:01

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Well, you think about this. Okay, we're gonna go geeky for a little bit. Iron Man. I watch my little boy loves this. Okay, he's a little two-year-old, and he just geeks out at how fun Iron Man is. There had to be a Mach 1, the very first suit. There had to be flaws in it. There had to be things that he could learn from it. He had to fail, he had to get the flight suit and hit off the ceiling. Sometimes your first version will suck and it's okay. And then your second version might also not be great, but you'll learn and then you'll fail forward and you'll fail forward and you'll fail forward. And just like you said, kaizen in Japanese or guyshan in Mandarin, guy is to change, shan is for the better. You're changing slightly, like incrementally, so that you can be better. That's the idea of progress over perfection. There's another idea, bujinza toy. If you're not progressing, you're digressing. That's one of my favorite expressions in Mandarin. Wait, say that again. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, no, say that again. Bujinza toi. If you're not progressing, you're digressing.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Yeah, because I I've loved the principle, and I've said this with almost shocked eyes from people is if you're not getting better, you're getting worse, which is an exact uh representation of that in Mandarin. And how true is that? Uh you know, you share quite a few uh different uh failures that you had. And I think that that's one thing, like, and and I I am a recovering perfectionist, by the way. Uh, and that's not a good thing. Like, people think if you're a recovering perfectionist, you're used to getting everything perfect, and it's truly not. Like from the recovery side, for me, is you don't see anything right. Like it, it's this whole different mindset. But when I looked at like I there's a time when I wouldn't share my failures because uh that that wasn't right, right? I didn't want to express it. But learning to do that and learning to share them is really where 90, what 90% of the learning happens in things that you've uh made mistakes on, back to your Iron Man scenario. I actually when you said that I pictured that scene because he was he was iterating that all of that, but you shared quite a few just different things that really kind of changed your life. Is there a story that stands out that uh in particular that uh you went in with one mindset, tried it one way, and then uh you know, learned from that uh mistake?

Failure, Comparison, And Learning Faster

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Absolutely. This was in a cold winter of 2008. I had just started learning Mandarin Chinese, and one of the things with Mandarin is I didn't have much experience with learning languages. I had failed really poorly, or actually failed excellently in high school learning Spanish. And I didn't have a whole lot of confidence that I'd be able to do it, but I knew that I had the right mindset because I said I was going to do this not for me, but for somebody else. And I hit this wall about a month in, and I had this moment where I felt like I was banging my head against the keyboard because we're learning from this computer. I was like, I'm just not getting it. It feels like every word you throw at me, it's bouncing off a wall, that great wall of Chinese and just falling to the floor. I was very stuck and I was frustrated. Yep, just like my poster falling down. Sorry, I just tell them. But I was so frustrated and I had this moment. I was like, why am I so frustrated? And I had to step back and ask myself, what is it about this situation that's so frustrating? I'm not progressing as quickly as I thought I needed to. And I started comparing myself and my progress to other missionaries. And I looked at a lot of the things that they were doing, and they seemed to be progressing faster than me. And I, as I was comparing myself to others, I felt like I was robbing my joy out of learning the language. And the failure there was I stayed in that moment for way too long. It was a couple weeks I was in that woe is me, throwing a plomb party, which is a poor little old me party. And that one moment where I was at that keyboard, I put my head on my on my keyboards. I'm sure that's just lines going across with different words. But I said a little prayer and said, Heavenly Father, please help me know that I'm doing the right thing. Help me know that I can learn this and I can actually get this language. And I felt like the skies open for a moment. And Heavenly Father spoke directly to my heart and he said, You can do this. I called you here and I know that you're gonna be able to do this, but you have to stop comparing your progress to anybody else's. And you have to be willing to look at yourself and say, How did I progress from yesterday? Am I better today than I was yesterday? Did I learn more words today than I did yesterday? Am I retaining things based on me comparing myself to myself? And I felt like a weight was lifted off of me because it wasn't about progressing so that I could say, Hey, I I'm learning more words than you, or I'm getting better than this person. It had nothing to do with how any other missionary was doing things or anyone else that was learning the language. It was all how can I be a little bit better than I was yesterday? And that made all the difference for me.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

Wow. Those are the moments that when when you're in them, they're uncomfortable, right? Like those are the you don't know that that moment's gonna come. One thing that kind of struck me, like like it really hit you as a moment when you felt like God was speaking to you, like you gained some clarity in that. A lot of times we have moments that aren't that crystal clear. Yet another quote in the book, this ties perfectly into uh what I had read here is like significant turning points in your life or business do not always look significant in the moment. Uh, how how can you how can we help ourselves find those moments when truly they are significant?

SPEAKER_00 20:54

So I what he's referencing here is this idea of significance is the very first step to understanding where a turning point is in your life. Sometimes a turning point can be, I am no longer doing that, I'm doing this. That little decision cuts off your previous life and says this is where I am now. I think the real question here is how do I identify the points where I need to make a decision and do it? Because part of this is not just looking back. It there is a lot of value in looking back at your old life. The real value in this book is how to make better decisions and make them faster. You use your experiences as proof that if you make a quick decision that is good, that it will be better than the best decision made too late. You say, This is what I want to accomplish. It's true to what I really want. I'm going to decide and then do something about it. If it's a significant part of your life and you say, That's what I want, go after it. And if something is a distraction to that, can say oh that's not helping me do this i actually talked about this in my chinese course uh i i call this an iron man principle you you know iron man that people are are running biking and swimming if you have something that comes in and it doesn't help you run faster or bike faster or swim faster and that's what your goal is is you say this is what I want to do I want to be the very most competitive Iron Man person that I possibly can if it doesn't help you do that let's say that you have a piece of cake and you're like oh is this going to help me run faster is going to help me bike faster it makes the decision a lot easier oh that's not going to serve me I will pass but if you say oh eating this egg white and doing this specific exercise is going to help me run faster I'm gonna do that because that helps me achieve what I want and then you made significant progress. When I talk about significance it is cutting out the things that don't matter and not that the world they will say hey you need to care about this and you need to care about this and you care about this. When it's talking about real significance, you are actually leaning into the things that matter the most to you and to what you want to accomplish in life. And if you can frame your stories and your ideas in a way that not just helps you but benefits those that you serve like me sharing these things I'm sharing from my heart so that you can learn from my experience. You can learn from others' experiences. And then because of that you can make a shift and you can create a decision to be a little bit better today than you were yesterday. And that can make all the difference.

AI Tools Without Losing Your Voice

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Yeah that's what significance is all about I love that I'm gonna we're gonna take a little bit of a bent I didn't plan on just when you're sharing these heartfill stories and we're making connections I'm big on on making audience connections I mean some of what you talked about was knowing your audience and connecting with audience and really having the passion that's coming from your heart really does translate into and you and you've done a lot of public speaking you know that you can connect with an audience of one 200 people uh just like you can you and I have a conversation like there's there's an amazing power that happened there's a mind meld it's just it's amazing to do that but having that type of um connection is something that humans do. Now one thing I'm seeing a lot of in LinkedIn and a lot of like posts online I can see them now. I can I can I I I don't want to say I can feel it I can say I can unfeel it you can see where people are having AI Claude all of these uh AIs writing their stuff for them and putting some stories in and I can I'm I'm seeing the repeated styles that I feel like is making a disconnect with that human connection what are your thoughts on uh how how we are as a society turning to an AI to try to express ourselves and I guess how have you approached the whole AI uh influence the thing that comes to mind is when you are dealing with a tool you don't have the tail wag the dog you have to be the one that is the input or prompt artist all the creativity all of your story comes from you if you rely and say 90% of the story is going to be on Claude or on Chat GPT they are not prompt engineers it is a language model and if you don't put good inputs you will not get good outputs.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

If you put bad stuff in a blender let's say you put a shoe in a blender and you put a chicken nugget in a blender and you're like I'm gonna make a green smoothie so you put some spinach in there and then some protein powder you're like you blend that up guys what's gonna come out is crappy stuff. You're not gonna want to eat that you put bad stuff in you're gonna get bad stuff out. If you put okay material in you might get okay material out but if you put really excellent thought in you can get excellent thoughts out it is a tool and it's supposed to actually help you expedite your creativity. I utilize it all the time. I literally yesterday I was writing about two I got 2800 words done for my my next book that's an iteration on this that has to do with implementing story hook method to learn faster and to apply it to language learning. And one of the things that I did was I spent about oh an hour writing a really great prompt and say this is what I need you to do. This is how I need it to be and then I engineered a handful of different examples and before I let them give me feedback I said this is what I need you to make sure you understand first. I gave them an example and I gave a lot of really great input and then what came out of it was like oh this is sound like me well that doesn't sound like me and I used it as an editing tool not as a prompt generator very different experience. It's kind of like a few years ago there was this thing called a typewriter and it had to be physically touched every single time you wanted to write something and before that they had to write with pens and pencils and different things of that nature. It is a tool to expedite your creativity it is not something that is your creativity for you. You put good inputs in you get good inputs out as you do your best to package your ideas and you put boundaries on the AI saying I don't want you to tell me things that I think are cute. I want you to be as effective as possible stop sugarcoating me. If this is a bad idea I need you to let me know but here's what I need you to do and then you direct it like a tool and it can be a super amazing very effective tool for you.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

Yeah I'm excited where it goes I I I use a lot of a lot of different they all do different things right so I use them a lot for research uh love generating pictures now uh they they there's a lot of images that you can get that are not branded that you can use I mean there's just some great stuff that's out there but I was just curious on your take because at the end of the day like I hear people you know make it sound like make it say in this you know the manner of a coach and all those things are taking out I think that human element that when you and I look you know eye to eye and have a conversation there's a connection that happens. But uh yeah no thank you for your take on that you know one thing and this kind of ties right into it is uh when you talk about um uh even using AI one thing I've really liked like I initially I've got a podcast when we dove into chat GPT for the first time like uh when it became free I think it was chat GPT one I mean it was whatever the first version was you'd ask a question and it would type faster than you could possibly ever think. But what I found was for me, it was thinking like I was thinking bullet points it was giving clear examples but the biggest thing was it was concise. And and you even you talk a little bit about that in here when you talk about um uh having and and really I mean you know how hard it is to take a big message and and you know make it really truly concise do you have any tricks on on really how to be concise in your communication?

SPEAKER_00 29:23

I have a bunch of them the easiest thing here is saying what will be of extreme value to the person listening what's the simplest thing that I can share that will get the point across because if you speak less and you say this is what you're going to get from it what this means for you is you're gonna get XYZ and you deliver that those one or two sentences that you delivered will be more valuable than if you spent five minutes explaining or mansplaining those five or six things.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

That makes sense yeah because that's one of the things that maybe it's where I'm at in my life like I used to be a better listener. Now I do a lot of talking uh so I try to listen better but I often got struck by people who just those stories would never end. They weren't good communicators and I was such a good listener that you know I actually learned and practiced some tricks on how to get out of it respectfully and also I realized how valuable my time was and the lesson I learned was they don't know how to clearly uh tell a story they're just here to you know have themselves be heard uh so there's definitely some tricks on how to to get out of that can I give you one more tip on that? No, please do.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

When you are framing a story this is one of the biggest reasons that I talk about story hook method. You want to make sure that you focus on the significant elements the things that matter the most you translate it so that the audience understands why it matters for them and then you have one clear objective saying this is what we want to accomplish during this experience. And then as you're sharing the story you relive it you go there and you can actually use a whole lot less words if you physically embody the story. And then at the very end instead of giving them five or six or 10 different things to do which a lot of speakers do and they think they're being valuable but they're actually confusing people give them one clear concise call to action something that they can say yes I want that because it you understood how to create value for them and you did it in such a way that they can take action on that experience.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

Yeah I love that uh that's one thing we we actually do on the Uncommon communicator and I'm gonna ask you that question later because that that is truly important like people will listen for an hour and and I've asked this at some trainings and I'm at I'm like okay what's the what's the most important thing here and they struggled with well you got to do all of these different things had to do with like a CRM uh program that we were learning we're getting trained in like there's I'm I'm not gonna leave with all of this information what's the most important uh part that you leave with that's really important I think in any communication that we have and so kind of uh near near the end of the book I I would be remiss without bringing up you did quote Chris Voss now Chris Voss was the start of my podcast like I read his book because his his book which you know is uh never split the difference uh is really it it's not just about hostage negotiation it was truly about listening like how to listen how to listen better and then how to ask questions and and I'm and I know you quoted that I I used a lot of that at the beginning of of this podcast but you definitely quoted him specifically in the um the the getting somebody to say no which uh I I do as well too like how have you used that in uh in your communication and in starting with that idea of no no is an extremely powerful word it gives a perceived feeling of control when you allow someone to say no to something but the thing is the way to a yes is to figure out where those boundaries are if you don't discover where their no is then you'll just keep going and going and going and going and then you'll be off in a field somewhere like why how did we get here?

SPEAKER_00 33:12

It's because you didn't say no to the things once you figure out no I'm not gonna go there okay cool. How about this? Oh and we figure out the no's there. Now we know where we're playing if you never find out where the barriers are where those boundaries go it's unsafe here's a simple example to illustrate imagine you have a child I've got little kids I've got four kids you've got a little child and you're on this beautiful park it's a really nice gorgeous park there's a cute play set there's a nice pond you've got butterflies flying it's just delightful kids are playing everywhere but there are no fences around the park and there are busy streets on all four sides where is it safe to let the kid play without supervision nowhere. You literally cannot take your eye off of them however if you are at the exact same park and they have a fence on all of the sides except for one entrance where is it safe to take your eyes off the kid everywhere except for right at the entrance. Now you can be close to the entrance and you can be doing almost anything else and the child can be safe. That's one of the reasons you go for no in sales and in communication you set the boundaries you figure out what is it you're trying to accomplish here you figure out where you don't want to go and then you figure out well within this zone this is the value we can create if your value is not in their zone you can give a referral to someone that can help them but if your value that you're creating is able to help them with something that they want to accomplish you're just saying well here's a solution I provide it's within what we're talking about. Does this price and cost work for you? Yeah let's do it then that's just simple sales that's one of the ways you make more money you build market impact because people do what you ask them to do and then you create more influence because as they get good results more people will come to you and you'll be attracting those people because you you guarded the yes by going through the no.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

Yeah there's a lot of brain science I think that goes in with that and and I appreciated you bringing that up because that's one thing I I I use it a lot too it's like hey is this a bad time it's as easy as that when you call somebody to give them the freedom to decide you know is this a bad time for me or not you know and I I don't know if uh maybe everybody's turned off to this you probably have a little more um experience at this but you know when you when you get that phone call hey do you like clean fresh water hey you know when you start asking those questions to drive to the yes you're like you it almost makes your your skin crawl a little bit because you know where they're heading right but if they said you know asked that a different way it might uh make you uh think differently so I appreciated you throwing that in uh yeah those are leading questions right we're used to those sales because sometimes you get those leading questions you're like I know where this is going I I don't want to have this conversation though but I can't really say no to this so you're out of the the sale yeah you're you've already checked out do you uh as we kind of wrap up here uh we'll we'll give a link to to purchase your book but is there anything we you want to cover that you want to talk about that's really on top of mind when we talk about the story hook method and then we'll go into some other questions at the end. What do you have?

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Communication skills are the biggest thing to impact your impact uh your influence your income and your impact one of the things that I want you to take away from this is as you do this even if it's imperfectly you gain attention you wrap your experiences in a story and then you gift them because you perfectly packaged and reput this together for an audience or for a specific person you're talking to this will fundamentally shift the way that you think because anytime you're sharing an experience it's not about you. Your story is about you but it's not for you the things that you share with others if it's truly of value it means you solved a true problem that somebody else is willing to pay for or they will pay with their attention. And if you can share something of value you solve true problems others will think of you as someone that creates value. And that's what I hope to do in my leveling up podcast consistently through the books that I write through the connections that I make through the mentoring that I do my masterclass teaching people in Mandarin all these different ways that you apply the story hook method it is to help impact your personal life your professional life your health and your vitality all different walks of life because if you can almost like a quiver pull out an arrow as an experience and say you know what I haven't done everything but this is my experience and this is how it helped me oh you can shoot it you slayed that problem and they might not have the exact same experience they might not have the same skill set tool set and mindset as you so they can't necessarily do it the exact same way but those ideas can free people to go take action and if you can communicate in that type of way it makes it so much more enjoyable to communicate with you because you will start to be interested in how other people do this not just interesting there's a lot of curiosity in there right creates that that curiosity well and I would say this yeah it is what a fantastic time I really I really appreciate you taking this time with me today.

SPEAKER_02 38:40

I'm gonna encourage everybody to get the book the the story that's an acronym that you use hook you use in there as well too there's some other very easy acronyms hooks that uh that are in the book that almost back to like you know keeping it concise like is it really that easy like this is it and and then you realize that it really does work and you can remember it. You know and I would always encourage you know all the listeners to you know take one of them try it you know put it in practice for a day. But I've got two more questions but before we get to them how can the listeners get a hold of you and uh how can they reach out and find uh Brigham?

Where To Start And One Takeaway

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Absolutely well if you are wanting me to speak in your stage just go to brigham B.com. You'll be able to see I have a speaking section and that would be wonderful to talk to you if you're an event organizer would love to share this message with your audience. As far as being able to connect with me personally and I want to give more value to you at the bottom of the screen you'll see three reasons stage fright costs and why or how to fix it. This is a free version of the introduction of this book it is a way that you can start to see you know what I may not stand on stage but I do have some things that's really valuable to say and sometimes I struggle to be able to say it. And sometimes I struggle to say it in a concise way. That's what this book does for you is it helps you be more concise, understand how to overcome those fears that hold you back from speaking and then it opens you up to new opportunities. And then at the end of that book you'll be introduced to the story hook method how it can break down to help you build more impact influence and income and I would love for you to connect with me that way. So start with brighamby.com forward slash three that is the free download for you you'll see that in the show notes as well and that's where you're gonna start getting value from me and I'm very happy to help you in any way that I can thank you.

SPEAKER_02 40:31

Yeah I appreciate that what I like is you didn't talk about this but you got a free ticket at the end of your book. I'm gonna talk about that. So you get through the book you get to the end of it and you write a review on Amazon then you will get an hour with you. I mean that's pretty amazing to kind of throw that and I love it it's like oh you made it to the back of the book did you like not everybody sometimes we jump there right at the end but I didn't uh but there is a free ticket for some uh an hour with you at the end uh when you buy the book I think that was just kind of another brilliant hook that you had thrown in there.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

You think about it the reason that you write a book is not just for you you think how can I have this be the start of a relationship not the end. Right. It's not just a fiction novel that's kind of entertaining. There is a lot of entertainment value to this but it's actually how do I help this to start a relationship. Yeah so James and I have a deeper relationship because he read my book and now we've been able to do this podcast. We will fundamentally be different than if we hadn't if he hadn't read the book we hadn't done the podcast. That's what I hope to do with anyone that buys the book is to connect deeper with you and see how I can help you get what you want out of life to develop those core desires and say well if this is truly what you want you said you wanted this this is what real significant progress looks like let me help you figure out how I can help you get closer to that.

SPEAKER_02 41:47

Yeah. So I've got two questions I'm gonna finish up with first one is and this one's maybe not easy we'll see uh what what does the world get wrong about Brigham Blackham does the world get wrong a lot of times people put me in the boxes oh you're just a teacher you're just a a dad or you're just a missionary whenever you look at a portion of your life and you put just uh in front of it you are diminishing your value but if you can say you're right I was a missionary and I am I am a father I am an author nobody else in your life can say I am for you you are the only person that can do that I learned that from Ron Williams one of my great mentors who's a Mr.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

Olympia he's on my podcast and when you think of the I am statements how you talk about you is much more important than how anybody else does. And if you can be internally motivated saying this is what I want to accomplish in life this is who I am and you identify those things you say this is what I want to accomplish nobody can stop you except for you. It doesn't matter what the world says it doesn't matter what the news says it doesn't matter what other people think about you you can show up and say this is who I am and this is how I'm going to prove it here's example after example after example how I want to provide value and how I want to serve the world and however other people think about you if you provide them ridiculous amounts of proof because of your example it's undeniable. And if you want to be someone of value that's what I hope you do and that's what I hope others take from me. But whether or not they think of me as valuable I'm still going to show up and I'm going to do my best to inspire others to step and walk in confidence and to be able to be more engaging, to be able to elevate language in a way that allows others to see you know what, this is worth it to improve your storytelling abilities because when you can communicate with a story, it changes fundamentally the way people remember you. And they will see you with different eyes than just sharing experiences that are all charts and no heart. You've got to put the heart in the chart and you do that with a story.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

I like that. You're not just a and we do that with people, don't we? We we put them in a box. I mean that's just a great uh example of how not to have that kind of bias in there. And I appreciate you sharing your heart on that one. And then the last one is this is all part of the UC uh what the uncommon communicator moment is look we've been talking for over 40 minutes. Like what what is one thing that the listeners can walk away with uh today that they can apply right now. Beautiful from our conversation today.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

From our conversation today we talked about Gaishan which is to improve incrementally. Wherever you are on your storytelling or communication journey there is one thing that you can do. You can look back at the way that you've communicated and said am I sharing things that are of value for others? And if you just ask that one question, is this of value to somebody else? You can use that as a filter. If you are someone that often will data dump and just say oh these random things if it's not of value to somebody else why are you opening your mouth? If it's not something that will help them why are you saying it every story has a point and every point has a story. And if you truly have an objective that you're trying to accomplish and then say is this going to help you or hinder you? Is it going to help you get closer to your goal or farther? If you ask those questions and you say is this of value to somebody else and you actually do that you're going to be fundamentally different. And that's one of the biggest reasons I wrote that three reasons states write a cost and how to fix it. It's because this is how to start to change the way that you communicate it's not about you. Your story is about you but it's not for you it's for those that listen. And that means there's going to be some details that you cut out because it won't be relevant. And there will be some things that you say I need to make sure I really dial this in and distill this to the essence so that they get value out of it. You do just that one thing your life will be different forever I love it.

Closing And Share The Show

SPEAKER_02 46:23

Is this is what I say a value to anybody else that's a mic drop thanks so much Brigham and that's all we've got on this week's uh episode of the Uncommon Communicator see you bye congratulations you made it all the way to the end you're officially a one percenter. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Uncommon Communicator with me, your host James Gable make sure you like and share this episode this helps spread the message of communication to the world. Check out our website the Uncommon Communicator for more and connect with me on LinkedIn to keep building those communication skills.