The School of Greatness - 350 Use Stories, Symbols, & Ceremonies to Lead Others with Nancy Duarte

Episode Date: July 6, 2016

"Being a leader is getting people to go to an alternate future." - Nancy Duarte If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/350

Episode number 350 with Nancy Duarte. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness podcast.

And today we're talking about how to ignite change through speeches, stories, ceremonies, and symbols. That's right. We've got the one and only Nancy Duarte in the house. And she is a communication expert who's been featured on major platforms like Forbes, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and on CNN. And her firm, Duarte Inc., has created more than a quarter of a million presentations for the world's most influential businesses, institutions, causes, and authors.

And Nancy has won several prestigious awards for communications and entrepreneurship and teaches classes at Stanford University several times a year. Also, her firm has influenced how the world perceives some of the most important brands, including Apple, Facebook, GE, Google, and TED. She is also the author of three award-winning books and just came out with a new one called Illuminate. And in this episode, we dive in on how to cultivate a dream state to allow yourself to dream big.

We also talk about why using speeches, stories, and symbols is so helpful for leaders and organizations. And we give some great case studies of using all of these throughout this interview. The reason most small businesses fail within the first four to five years and how to overcome that, how to feel empathy for your audience, and really why a lot of big leaders aren't successful long term when they don't embrace using empathy. The difference between enlisting and enrolling people into your vision and into your leadership and so much more. I thought this was fascinating.

I could have gone a lot longer with Nancy because for me, it's all about how we connect our ideas with others around us to support us in making those ideas come to life. And we all have great ideas at some point in our life. But if we can't get other people to support that idea, it's really hard to build anything inspiring or create any lasting change. So for me, anything inspiring or create any lasting change. So for me, this is the key. This is what it's all about. If you can enroll people and inspire people through using ceremony, symbols, stories, speeches, then you can create whatever you want in your life. This is what it's all about. So I hope you guys enjoy this one with the one, the only Nancy Duarte. Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness podcast. Very excited about our guest, Nancy Duarte in the house.

Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. You've got a new book out called Illuminate. Ignite change through speeches, stories, ceremonies, and symbols. And I first was connected to you through your other book. You have other books, but the other one was Slideology, which our content editor, Christine, read your book, and she actually used the stuff to connect with me and got the job through some of your teaching.

So thanks for bringing me a great podcast editor. Yeah, she's lovely. She's amazing. And I'm curious, when I first learned about you, you were teaching people about storytelling and presentations, right? To kind of connect and get your message out there to the world to inspire change or to inspire someone to take action, I'm assuming, correct? Right. So why go from storytelling to illuminate, which is still speeches, storytelling, ceremonies, and symbols? Why take it to this level? Yeah, what's interesting is I think people were a little surprised to get a leadership

book from us, but storytelling is an amazing leadership tool. So if you look at the structure of a story, it's always about this protagonist who goes through something really difficult and is changed in the process. And as leaders, that's what we do every day, right? We can see a more ideal future and we are to drive, we call them travelers, we're to drive our travelers there. And it's hard. And we're asking them to go through hardships on behalf of the company or the organization. And so using speeches, stories, ceremonies, and symbols is a way to create longing inside your travelers to help them want to go there with you.

And that's the biggest barrier is most of the time your travelers will resist. They'll look at the sacrifice and say, this isn't worth the reward that they're offering, and they'll opt out of your journey. And you don't want that, right? You want the right people with you along the way because leaders don't get there by themselves. You get there because of the people that come with you. And that's why it's really important to use these tools and have them in your toolkit. Who do you think is the most inspiring leader who is able to use all the tools necessary to bring his or her travelers on the journey? Yeah, I mean, I think it's so funny because there's kind of the classic.

You've got Dr. King on the cause side. I think Steve Jobs on the corporate side. I think they both used all of those speeches, stories, ceremonies, and symbols every day along the way. Really? Yeah, and when they communicated, yeah. How many speeches, let's say you're an entrepreneur with less than 50 employees. How many speeches do you typically need to give? And what does a speech include? Yeah.

Yeah. That's a good, you know, one good speech for the year to bring everyone along all the hardships of everything that's going to happen. Is it a weekly speech? Is it a, sometimes I,

you know, sometimes we consider a speech, a designed conversation. Like if you're having a really critical conversation, so it just depends on, yeah. Even though an audience of one, you may need to do an impassioned plea, but it depends.

Like for you, you're a thought leader, so you're giving speeches all the time too, but you're also having to rally the people who are kind of coming alongside you. So one of the reasons we called them travelers in the book, we didn't say employees or teams is because it could be your consumers. It could be your listeners. It could be any number of people that aren't necessarily considered a follower. They're people that you want to have bumble along with you into the future to this unknown place. Some crazy vision you have. Exactly. It's like westward expansion almost, right? There's going to be scary things. There's going to be motivating things and just incredible unknowns. And that's what being a leader is, is getting people to go to an alternate future. Okay. How often do you feel like you're doing this for your company and your journey?

Right. So it's funny because we featured a case study that's only partially done, a story about my own company and the leading that I've had to do. And this January, our vision meeting- Because you've had your company for like how many years now? 30, almost 30 years. 30 years. Married for 35, right?

28 years we've had that. Yeah, we've married for 35 years. That's a long time to have a company these days. It is. It is. And what's interesting is my own firm has been through, we're in our eighth reinvention. Wow. So we actually reinvent ourselves about every four years.

And if you look at the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, it says that most small businesses fail between about four and five years. So it is interesting. They just, the partnerships fall apart. They wind up not invigorating their, their, um, company with the right,

you know, things shift so quickly. Everything just changes so quickly. And if you're asleep at the wheel, even for a second, you're not the right balance. Like, look at you,

you could sit and rest on your laurels with just one book. But each time you come up with a new body of work, it shifts the direction of your trajectory for you and your firm and the whole thing. So there isn't like a set amount of speeches a leader should give. But I have to say in my 28 years, I gave the speech of my life. This January, I had stepped back in as president of my own shop. I haven't had to do that for about 10 years. And it was the most important speech I feel like I gave in my life. And it was to my own team.

And it was to just re-energize them, give them this moment of endurance because we had a few more things to complete before we could enter into this new dream. And got a standing ovation. People cried. It was unflipping believable. In January this year. Yeah. Yeah. How long was the speech?

It was just the vision speech. It lasted about 40 minutes. 40 minutes. Mm-hmm. And it was like, I mean, I do the whole thing. I rehearse. That's the most important speech I give every year. Because how well you do that.

You're not just winging it. You're not just like, okay, guys, here's a little bit about me. I let my exec team, they look at the slides. They're really picky about word choices. Like one word choice from someone in a position of power can flip people one way or the other. So you get the full speech slideology style. Full thing. Yeah, I use Resonate, Slideology, Illuminate.

All the tools you could. I've had to pull the little, there's a little pullout in there, a communication toolkit in Illuminate. I've had to pull it out a few times to read my own work, to know how to do my own – talk to my own team. Interesting. Wow. That's really cool. How long did you prepare for that? It took a long time.

So I spend a lot of time. So you have to actually kind of come up with the strategy and the vision talk about the strategy. But I spend at least 100 hours every year on our vision talk. The one speech. It's not important to me to get enough traction because if you screw that up, nobody's rallying all year around what it is you're trying to do. So Monday, a week from yesterday, I'm doing the half-year update to the vision talk. And I've been working on that for a few weeks.

Not solid, but yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy. It seems crazy. And what about your TED Talk speech? How long did it take you to prepare for that? That was interesting because the book was written. So I had to do a subset of that. And the hard part is murdering your own darlings, right?

When you write a really great piece of work, you don't know how to pick what would be the best piece to keep in and what wouldn't. So I rehearsed and rehearsed. And it was like I had a coach. And she'd be like, I think you spent 30 seconds on that. I think you could spend 22 seconds on that. So let's shave eight seconds off that and give those eight seconds over here to this Because you only have 15 minutes. Oh yeah.

Yeah. So literally like I'm the presentation lady. So I, it would be the worst thing to have me get the hook because they literally, once you hit 18 minutes, they come out and they walk you up. Yeah. So you have to come up. You have to kill it. And I remember I was like, thank you very much.

I looked up. I had six seconds left. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, six. I was so relieved. I didn't even know what to do with myself. So, yeah, that was hard. So I rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed.

It was high stakes for me because it was a TEDx. And I thought, you know, if I kill it at a TEDx, I knew a small percent of talks make it onto TED.com. So the talk had about like, I don't know, eight months later, I had like 50,000 views

and I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. So I just tweeted, so happy my TEDx talk has 50,000 views and I copied at TED talks and they call and they're like, hey,

we want to put your talk up on TED.com on Tuesday. So it was all kind of unexpected. And what's, how many numbers or how many views? It's got about a million. If you count YouTube and my talk is one of the few on TED that isn't connected to my YouTube version.

I don't know why. So it's about a million and a half, a million and three quarters or something like that. Cool. Very cool. Yeah, yeah. And what did that do for you with that one speech? Well, it was unexpected quite a bit. The phenomenon, the TED phenomenon that happens afterward.

And we went into a season that I now refer to as catastrophic growth, like the inbound queries, the people who wanted time with Nancy, you must get this all the time. I just want 15 minutes of your time. But it really, we grew fast. So I had two storytellers at the time. Now I have a team of 10, but ramping and finding people qualified and getting the smartest people on the planet, you know, it just took an incredible amount of time. So it just bent us. We didn't break, I mean at all, but it bent us. Yeah. Yeah. Stretched us. Wow. I remember everyone was talking about you for a while and everyone wanted to like,

learn how to use your slide strategies and all that stuff. Yeah. That's pretty cool. But you must have a lot of corporate clients coming in then, right? Yeah. All the big leaders wanted to come and learn those strategies. Yeah. Storytelling is really challenging for people.

Yeah. You know, I went on my own journey through storytelling. So for three years I studied storytelling, story structures. Um, you know, what is a character? How do you develop one? Every Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. And, and that was, you can't be a student of story and not be changed. It really changed me. And stories become a bit of a coping mechanism in life and in business, right? It's like, oh, it's hard today. Oh, I'm in the middle of my story. It'll end soon. It'll have some sort of resolution, whether it's amazing or not. So once I applied storytelling to speech making, that's when I identified the tension and release that the great speech makers have used over time.

And so that's where Resonate came from. I wouldn't have seen those insights if I hadn't gone on a three-year journey through story I wouldn't have been able to identify what great speech makers use from from story what are the parts of a story how many parts are there there's three acts three acts three strikes yes all the way back to Aristotle same thing is true so the three the three acts are you kind of set the stage with the protagonist um that they're a likable hero and then they go through roadblocks there's all these roadblocks thrown at them and you watch them overcome so you root for them the reason they have to be likable in the first act is if they're not likable you're not gonna root for them yeah you're not gonna be like a turd can lose i don't care but they what's interesting is

it's like no sooner do they have like they lose the girl, the alien attacks them, they're impaled in the shoulder, like poor Frodo, right? Half dead. And then they still have to climb out this great big thing. So it's hard. And then at the end, it either ends positively or negatively. And you root. And the thing about a story is that person's changed in the middle. It's messy.

It's ugly. But they change. And for some reason, humans love to observe transformation. They love to watch someone else transform. Because we're like, would I have done that same decision? You compare yourself to them. And then you learn the moral lesson they either did or did not learn. When you're leading change, thinking through it with a story framework in your mind helps you know how to communicate as your little travelers are right in the middle of the story, that messy, hard part.

You have to communicate with them in a really compelling way. You talk about torchbearers. What's a torchbearer? Yeah, it was funny because we didn't want leader and follower. So we have torchbearer and travelers. And the torchbearer is someone who decides to lead. I think everyone's called to lead, but few actually choose to accept it. It's a lot. And it sounds heavy, yeah.

But it's like a mantle. You choose to, you know, Frodo got the ring. He was a ring bearer, right? And he had to choose to go on this journey or not go on. He had a choice. He could have given it to someone else. Yeah, he flipped it over his shoulder and been like, tink. And so it is.

I mean, it sounds kind of heavy, and I wish it sounded more delightful to lead. But it's like you're the bearer of a torch. And we liked the concept because if you think about the places in which you use a torch they're usually a little scary and dark maybe wet cave unknown and a leader what they'll do is cast just enough light to be like oh i can do that right it's just this short-term thing you may have this vision the long view but you have to communicate the short trip in a compelling enough way that makes people want to take those next few steps and get there and so so that's why we chose Torchbearer. Because it also, something about fire and the passing of fire, kind of burns in your belly, right? When you have a vision, it burns inside of you.

Like, you'll do everything you can to make sure that vision's realized. And so that kind of passing of fire and kind of burning in your belly is a big part of it too. It sounds like over 30 years, you've evolved your vision many times every four or five years. What's your current vision? Current vision is to help others lead through change right now, which means my own organization has to be change ready. We have to be agile. We have to be nimble. And so we just have mapped out kind of our vision for the future. And we've got this really delightful work we're doing around storytelling and it applied to business, to everyday life. We're working on a really great body of work

around empathy, which is really fun. We just launched a delivery training, like how to deliver your speech, which is how to use your kind of body as a visual symbol, body language, voice, variety. Sure. I did Toastmasters a number of years ago, and this was all the things that we learned. Every week was a different challenge of vocal variety and tonality and all those things. Props. Yeah, props, the whole thing.

So it's based in empathy and dynamics and how comfortable you are. So we've got this little model that we use. That's cool. So we've got this like vision. Is that a course people sign up for? What is that? Yeah. So I've got the agency, which is services, and then the academy, which is all kinds of

training. They come to us. We go to them. It just depends. We have an e-course, the whole thing. So as we map out, I think empathy is going to be a tool that's very critical for leaders. And that's why storytelling is a critical component of it, too. I think for me, like as a leader, I spend a lot of time in the future.

As a kid, I used it as an escape mechanism because all I knew is I didn't want to be here. So I'd imagine an alternate future for myself. I would imagine this place that was very different than where I was. So I was conditioned to use the future as an escape. And then leaders have to fixate on the future because you've got this entity and these people and these customers, all these people. You have to move en masse to this alternate place in the future.

So leaders obsess quite a bit about the future, which makes you not as present. And to have empathy, you need to be present. I need to have considered, oh, maybe I should or shouldn't say this because that would be dumb for me to do this or say this in this way. But because we don't spend as much time in the present,

it's a skill that has to be learned. I think a lot of leaders don't naturally have empathy. They're so focused on the future. Right. Like, this doesn't matter. Let's a skill that has to be learned. I think they don't, I think a lot of leaders don't naturally have empathy. They're so focused on the future. Like this doesn't matter. Let's go here. Right. Right. Yeah. Why did you go to different worlds as a kid or escape? It was interesting. So I was, I was raised by a narcissist. My mom was a narcissist. And if you look at the definition, it means that she was missing the empathy gene. That's what a narcissist is. And all my life, I thought, she doesn't know I'm here.

She doesn't care. She doesn't root for me. She doesn't know what I do. Like, she just doesn't know me. Therefore, she doesn't love me. Right? And they're somewhat incapable of love because they're so caught up. And when I realized it was a mental illness and not something wrong with me,

my world changed a lot, but that only happened a few years ago. But I think that what happened was I knew what I didn't want because of my upbringing. So we were, you know, emotionally and financially starved as children. And, um, so I knew what I wanted to build for myself and like my play, I didn't play with dolls. I didn't, I found an old abandoned desk in the neighborhood and put it in my room, flat, put papers in it, start filing, started color things, started decor, organize them and catalog them. And I had my little, I had my little business already set up when I was probably in the third grade, man, I knew what I wanted. And so I obsessed over that. I just obsessed over it. And then life doesn't turn out the way you want. My lovely mom abandoned us when I was 16. So I stepped in, I don't know why third in line, I stepped in as kind of the

parental figure, did all the grocery shopping, the cooking, the clothes folding, just everything until I graduated from high school. And then I got married when I was 18. Holy cow. Yeah. My husband and I met when I was 16 and fell in love. Yeah. Still married for 35, August 1st will be 35 years.

And so my whole life has been a quest for empathy. When I was in college, my first year of college, my only year of college, actually, I got a C- in speech communications in college. I got an A- in the visual aids. They didn't have PowerPoint or Keynote or anything. Then you had to make posters and props, to your point. And so I did a good job on the posters and props. So I got an A on that. But I actually got an F in connecting meaningfully with my audience.

So that was my first declaration of a failure of being a failure at empathy. And it's like F, right? And I feel like my whole life I've been clawing at models or mind frames for me to understand empathy. So Resonate, when I made that discovery of the presentation form, it was a model for empathy for me to understand empathy. So Resonate, when I made that discovery of the presentation form, it was a model for empathy for me. And in Illuminate, me being able to understand that as a leader, what my followers are going to feel, that was a model for empathy for me as much as it is for anyone else. So I have to kind of visualize what it looks like. So I pause long enough to feel the empathy.

And that's all. Yeah. That's a tool right there. That was a long answer. That was great. But yeah, they're coping mechanisms for me. Sure, sure. I'm a heartfelt leader.

Yeah. I think naturally, but I'm having to teach myself empathy. Interesting. Yeah. When did you start teaching yourself empathy? I think I've been on the quest for a really long time. So even with Sledology, Resonate, that was when I first ran into empathy. Illuminate's based in empathy.

But now I'm going to do a whole body of work on empathy. That's next up. Yeah. Yeah. So we're doing it on empathy. The other thing we're doing is the first phase of the Venturescape in Illuminate is to dream. And I want to do a book teaching people how to dream. Gosh, I'll tell you what, this is like, glad you said that because

it's something I feel like is a lost art in so many adults. There's so many people that come to me and say, I don't know what I want. I don't know what my passion is. This is like a common question I get every day via email or text or whatever it is from people who are going through this journey of greatness. It's like, they don't even know what they want. They don't even know what makes them come alive. Wow. And it's so frustrating for me. I'm like, how do you not know what you want

or what your dream is? Like, just go sit in nature and don't have any electronics around you and allow yourself to imagine. Just allow yourself to go on a journey. If you could have anything, what would it be? I feel like it shouldn't be that hard, but for some people,

I guess I need to have empathy and understand that. I don't understand it myself. Cause like I, I have people in my life that are like victims. Like life is happening to me. It's like, well, just a tiny percent happens to you.

Most of the situation you're in, it goes to decisions you made or whatever. And I just, you can, it is like the American dream. You can have and be anything you want. Like if I can do it, I'm just a scrappy street smart. I'm not a kid, but I used to be a kid.

Yeah. It's like, it's, you're limiting yourself. And so how do you, how do you do that? And how do you, how do you dream when it's not just your dream, but you have to take all these people with you. You have to enroll people. Yeah. So like in Creativity Inc, I loved Ed Catmull's book. He's the CEO of Pixar. dream, but you have to take all these people with you. You have to enroll people. Yeah.

So like in Creativity, Inc., I loved Ed Catmull's book. He's the CEO of Pixar. And in there, it was just this one little line. It said, George Lucas imagines the future like westward expansion with all the drama and excitement. And I was like, wow. And so I've been interviewing him. How do you see the future? I have another client at Cisco who said ever since he was little, he could just imagine an alternate future and he could actually observe it. He

could lay, he remembers laying in the grass. Yeah. He remembers laying in the grass, just kind of examining it. He could hold it in his hands and kind of examine his own future, which is interesting to me. And how do you, how do you cultivate that? So I did a, uh, Ted this year did Jeffersonian dinners. And so I hosted a team of 10 different people at Ted to talk about prophetic imagination. Is it, are you born with it or can you cultivate it? Because that's a curiosity of mine. How do you, how's it that you know what the next book is you want to write, right? It's like, are you cultivating this curiosity or is it just something you know you want to do? And so how do you dream and how

do you suspend your constraints enough to have a dream that scares even you? I mean, I don't know if you were asking me personally, but just to answer that, I think that a lot of my dreams would come from pain and heartache. Like a lot of pain, emotional pain that I've gone through as a child and growing up is like to get away from the pain. It's like, what do I really want? If I don't want this pain, then what would be like the dream? Yeah. What happens though, when you get it into a pain-free place? Yeah. Right. Then this is the interesting thing. This is the interesting thing. Um, and I don't know if I'll ever be out of pain, but I think when I was aware that like a few years ago, I did a lot of work on emotional intelligence for myself and like realized.

And that's where this new book topic, The Mask of Masculinity, started to come from. It was like, wow, I've been holding on to certain things my whole life. I've been, you know, passive aggressive in certain situations or angry or defensive. When certain things come up, I would have these triggers. And now that I'm aware of them, and sure, things are still painful or frustrating or I get defensive right now and then. I'm aware of it and it doesn't consume me for months like it used to growing up. And I think I'm in a much better place. But I come from a dream of wanting to serve and inspire people so they don't have to feel the pain anymore, as opposed to me

not having to feel the pain anymore. So I think it's just a different shift. As opposed to like, oh, I want to do something to prove people wrong. It's like I want to do something to move people forward. That's awesome. And that's where everything comes from. How weird. Sometimes I wonder if my children have suffered enough, right? What is the role of suffering?

Have you protected them too much? Yeah. Maybe you need to be like your mom. Oh. Because then what type of leader would you really create in the world? Right. If she wasn't like that, she then what type of leader would you really create in the world? Right. Like what? If she wasn't like that, she wasn't a narcissist, would you be so determined to be like on this

mission? I don't think I would. That's the thing, right? That's what's so weird. I mean, my kids, I've always supported them. Like they're both living their dream. Oh my God, they're living their dream. That's great.

But I don't know that they understand something. But they have enough adversity. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. It was funny. I did my talk, my own personal story about empathy and my mom being a narcissist at the last speak-up, which is a storytelling event we do at our own shop. And my son was in the audience.

And he's like, he goes, Mom, I got to tell you, I'm sorry. Because I was telling people our family was dysfunctional. And I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, well, at the dinner table, everyone talks at the same time. I was telling people we were dysfunctional. But when I hear your story, I started from my earliest memory through to knowing that I've broken the cycle because my own daughter is a beautiful mother because I'm a grandma now. So it was this really beautiful arc, right? Because I just stand corrected because I had not remembered how far we've come to think that interrupting each other

at the dinner table is dysfunctional. Yeah. So it was a really beautiful moment. So I was like, that's interesting how kind of protective sometimes. That's cool. So how do we cultivate this dream state then? Yeah. This alternate future. I think it's funny because I think you actually said it. It needs to be on behalf of others, I think. I think we're born to advocate for those less fortunate than us. And once we get to that place, we give ourselves away, right? So the only reason you need self-mastery is so you can give ourselves away, right? So the only reason you need self-mastery

is so you can give it away. I think the happy people do that. The miserable ones don't. So I think that's part of it. It was funny when we were looking at stories for Illuminate, there were these great stories of how business used to be run. Like people don't realize like Watson Senior, the CEO of IBM during the war, he kept producing computers. The world didn't need them.

Didn't need them at all. I mean they were the – you don't even remember what computers were back then. They were more like calculators than they had cards and stuff. Anyway, he just kept making them just to keep the people employed. Now, you wouldn't be able to do that today, right? You have to return so much to shareholders. Kept them employed. And he had to build warehouses to just put these computers in.

He didn't need them. The war was over, and suddenly the U.S. government needed a census. And he had all the computers in stock that they needed, and he made this great big sale right after the war was done. Wow, that's pretty cool. Yeah. Hershey, same thing. Kept all of his team employed during the war doing civic projects. They would build parks.

And he just kept them going. Like, you can't make decisions like that in business, especially not public businesses today. So I think there is this purpose. I think you have to dream with a purpose. There has to be a purpose in mind or your dreams will be blocked. So I do think it's on behalf of us. And it can't be self-centered only, right? Exactly.

You can have self-centered dreams. Right, right. We want to have a better life, make more money or be healthy, whatever it is, but I think it's got to be a greater good. Right. True? Right. Or you won't be happy.

Or you'll be very unfulfilled. This was my life. It was to, I achieved every dream pretty much I wanted, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I kept achieving and achieving and achieving. But then within 15 minutes, I'd be so miserable. I was like, why am I unhappy and unfulfilled after achieving all these lifelong dreams

that I had? And I remember just realizing it's to prove people wrong or to like make myself look better than or whatever. And I was like, this does not feel good, you know? And when I started to shift that and say, how can I do something to, to be a symbol of inspiration or to call people forward and achieve something I want at the same time, it felt a lot more rewarding. You know what I mean?

Yeah. So service became a big thing for me. The biggest dream you can think of, but on behalf of others is energizing. Yeah. It's energizing. It's probably like, you know, Dr. King, it's like, it's probably like you know dr king it's like it wasn't just for him it was for everyone it was liberation so i think there are underlying we spent a lot of time looking at storytelling like why does the protagonist choose to jump in

like why did he choose to fight the aliens there's always an inner journey and an outer journey so the outer journey is fighting the aliens but there's always a heart journey going on and what is that heart journey that makes it so people will keep going? Um, and it's usually altruistic, you know, so it's interesting. Crazy. Yeah. So what are some of the ceremonies and symbols that you create for your business? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, I, I worried a bit about the concept of ceremony because it's new language we're introducing into the business lexicon spiritual yeah it is and i i have a real real um respect and regard for not mixing the sacred and the profane right so i didn't want

it to be um i i walked that line very carefully and so so ceremonies have been around for a long, long time. When you go back anthropologically at the earliest artifacts, we can find they were used in ritual. So there's something about community needing a ritual together to have collective catharsis, to have some sort of emotional release together. And so I was shocked at how much ceremony is in business. It might not look like ceremony to you. You mean we're not like lighting smoke bombs and ringing bells and chanting together? You could do that. Slaying ghosts and drinking the blood together. Not a lot of bloodletting. But there's things like, it's interesting when Steve Jobs reentered Apple, you know the whole story how he was kicked out for a decade.

He was gone and he came back and his primary goal was to get people to move from macOS 9 to 10. He knew that was going to make or break Apple. So every speech he did, every symbol he raised up like the Think Different campaign, all those different things he did were in service of moving them. Well, there was a lot of confusion. They were skeptical, super skeptical, because they'd been jerked around for a decade before Steve showed up. And so he did a ceremony, which is a vow. He pulled out an oversized piece of parchment paper and made a commitment to the developers in the room saying, I'm going to stick with this one single software strategy. So it's a

vow, which is a ceremony. It's a commitment ceremony. Like a document. Yeah, it was a big document. He wrote it down? Yeah, it was. You could see through it. It's kind of typeset. So it's a vow, which is a ceremony. It's a commitment ceremony. Like a document. Yeah. There's a big document. He wrote it down? Yeah. You could see through it. It's kind of typeset. So of course, it's in Apple. What was Apple's Garamond font back then? And then once he had a new dream, he really wanted them done. He was done. He was like, we got to stop talking about Mac OS 9. He's like, we need to really bury this old operating system because we've we've moved on to 10 he had this vision that all your machines will be hooked up

to the central operating system if you look at that speech he prophetically imagined a decade of products in that one speech for 10 years our most beloved apple products came out of that one speech of this vision he had of everything connected to mac os 10 so he was done the developers that hadn't moved from 9 to 10 he was just tired of it so he did a ceremony where he buried the old operating system literally a coffin and smoke came up out of the stage yeah he comes out he has there's an oversized box of mac os 9 in the coffin he does a eulogy. There's stained glass. Yeah. Eerie music playing stained glass. And then he does the eulogy, shuts the lid, puts a red rose on it. It's gone. Mr. Jobs never talked about Mac OS 9 again. It was very clear to the developers that it was over. So ceremony isn't

so much this creepy killing a goat thing. It is a way for the organization to convey to the travelers that one thing has ended so something new can begin. So if you look at the rites of passage like a bar mitzvah or a quinceanera, which is in the Hispanic culture that my husband's from, it really is about passing from the old into the new. And I'll never be a little girl again because I went through this quinceanera and now I'm a woman or I was a student. I've gone through graduation and now I'm a graduate.

Right. So there's this moment. It's just a five minute ceremony. Suddenly you're like different. Suddenly you're a doctor. It's a wedding too. 15 minutes. I was single.

Now I have in-laws. Right. Same thing. So there is something to be said about endings and new beginnings simply because the ceremony happened. And when you're driving really big change and trying to transform a lot of travelers, they hang on to the old. They cling to the past. And the past clings to them.

It's comfortable. It's normal. It's what they're used to. And so you have to kind of almost surgically and ceremonially cut from the past so a new beginning can begin. So a new beginning can begin. What are some of the ceremonies that any business or entrepreneur should be using or having throughout every year? You think like what are some things? You know what? It really is about listening. So that's why the empathy was really important.

Like I can sense the atmosphere. Like it's for like different stages. You need different things. Like there's moments you need a commitment ceremony. There's moments you need to rally them to be brave. There's moments when they need to endure. Like it's in the moments of endurance that CEOs love to pull out cheesy race car metaphors, right? That's like the worst thing you can do. So you need moments of endurance and then they need moments to reflect.

And so you need to know and sense the culture. And then that's when you hardwire the ceremony in. Honor the heroes is a ceremony. In the dream phase, it would be immerse deeply. We were talking about how do you suspend your belief long enough for others to immerse themselves in your dream? I think a great story there was when Howard Schultz took his team to New Orleans. He stepped in as CEO. He stepped back in, and their stock was just tanking fast.

It was just driving in the ground. And he did a super counterintuitive move. He asked for millions and millions of dollars to fly all of the store managers into New Orleans. Now, New Orleans was used as a symbol of disrepair because Katrina had already come through and it was in disrepair. So he asked them to give 10,000 hours of service in a city of disrepair so they would understand what it takes to pull themselves out of disrepair. Total. Yeah, total from all the people. Yeah. Each person. Not that many hours in a day. And then it was really, really cool to serve. So they went there and

they served and then they had a big kind of a galvanizing moment, which is what your travelers need. They need a great galvanizing moment. And they set up these kind of displays. He did a talk and then they walked through their potential future. They could rake. He wanted them to fall in love with coffee again. They could rake beans. They could roast beans. There was this one display where they could pick up a cup and listen to actual audio recordings of the call center of their actual customers to immerse themselves again in the shoes of their customers because he knew if he didn't get the managers of the stores re-engaged with the brand, it was going to fail. And so he put all of his energy into walking in their shoes, getting them to fall in love

with coffee again and again, to understand their role in turning the organization around. And he did it all with a galvanizing moment where he immersed them into an alternate future where Starbucks was going to thrive. It's fascinating. Yeah. And he used speeches, stories, symbols, the whole thing. It was amazing. Yeah.

This is incredible. And you tell all these stories in the book. Yeah, we have, I think, eight case studies in there. Amazing. Amazing. What about your ceremonies? Do you have any specific ones? Yeah, we do.

Can you share maybe one? Yeah. It's a simple one. Well, there's a few things. So some of them feel contrived. If the leaders just host a ceremony and it's not pulled from within the culture itself, it can be cheesy. So for years, we would do this thing called pass the giraffe. One of my employees wanted to have this little stand up at staff meeting and say,

Lewis did such a good job. Yay, I'm going to pass this token. And she happened to have picked up a wooden giraffe at like World Market. And so for years and years and years, we would applaud or celebrate each other through the passing of the giraffe. And I talk about the case study in the book where my team had just gone through this really difficult season of hardship where we had to put systems in place. You get to about 100 people. You have to start putting some bureaucracy in process. And then you have to get an MIS system where everyone's connected and it was just hell. I mean, you bring in process to a creative firm, it's like bringing the devil and they just resisted it like crazy and it was really, really difficult time.

So, we were going through the season and some employees were like, the risk isn't worth the reward. I had some employees peel away too. And that's what happens in the climb phase. And so I was really kind of in this place where I was like, well, what is it? What is a group of giraffes called? What's a herd of giraffes called? Because I thought I need to pull on something that's already in my culture to find strength. And a herd of giraffes is called a tower. And I thought that was fascinating that

this very thing that was already in my culture had so much symbolism. So we elevated the giraffe into our mascot. We have thousands of giraffes at the office because we pass them around so much. So we elevated it into our official mascot. We changed the name to Giraffermations that we pass back and forth. But it was a ceremony that was already there that we kind of amplified and kind of formalized. So it didn't feel so contrived as it would be if you just showed up one day and were like, Hey, everyone, we're having a funeral today. You know? Yeah.

So there's all kinds of stories. But then there's ones that spring up from the hearts of the people. Like in this really difficult season of three years, one of the biggest signs of decay for me in my heart was that for 27 years, my husband started every single Monday morning staff meeting with a blessing. And it wasn't this hyper-religious thing. It was just like you say blessings at Thanksgiving, right? He would say a prayer for their creativity to be unlocked, for favor with our clients, which is lovely. It was kind of the same thing every Monday.

And after 27 years, one of the employees asked it to stop. So for me, that was a sign of decay. So they all had the right. They all knew they had the right, but nobody had in 27 years asked it to stop. Because you can't have, it's a thing where if someone asks you to stop having a prayer at a mandatory meeting, you legally have to. And we knew that. So we knew the day would come someday.

But to me, that was like meaning there was a little breakdown in our culture because that at one time was something that meant a lot to a lot of people. So after I did my January vision talk, I was telling you it was like the talk of my life just this last January. We did a whole lot of little activities all week, little exercises to connect people to the vision. And at the end, we brought in a drum circle for fun. Just like we had this guy. It was like unbelievable because it kind of hits you in the chest, right? So it was all done. And then an employee says, because the prayer had stopped for about a year.

And he said, hey, we want you and Mark to stand in the middle here and hold hands. And we're like, okay. The guy who asked you to stop? No, a different guy. Just an employee. So we stood in the middle and held hands. And every employee whipped out a transcription of what my husband said. And they said.

No way. Oh, my gosh. We were both crying. Everybody was crying. Everyone in the whole thing was crying. Now, that was a ceremony. We were both crying. Everybody was crying. Everyone in the whole thing was crying. Now that was a ceremony. It was a ceremony, but nothing that was contrived, but one that sprung out from their hearts toward us in a way that was unbelievable.

So they've asked us if there's a way, you know, to change it to a wish or, you know, if there's some way that we can like. It could be a gratitude moment. Right. And so that's, so now it was so, so for me, that was a sign that as I stepped in as a leader, that it made a difference. It really made a difference. The hearts of the people had shifted incredibly.

Yeah. So that's a spontaneous one. Less than one that's orchestrated by the organization. I love this stuff. A couple of questions left. I can keep going forever with you, but a few questions left. Why is enrollment so powerful? And what does enrollment mean to you?

Enrollment? Yeah. As a leader. Being enrolling. Yeah. That's interesting. That's interesting language because I don't use that language. Yeah, that's interesting.

That's interesting language because I don't use that language. So I think it's funny because when we first were writing the book, we called the people the troops, you know, instead of the travelers. And it's because, well, they're enlisted. Right, right. And it sounded very leader, follower. Like it sounded too much like you just a troop has to do what they were enlisted to do. Enrollment is very different because the people are self-selecting in, which is very different than being told that they have to. So I think if you have a journey, if you look at Frodo,

his friend Sam, those guys chose to go along. They enrolled. They weren't enlisted, you know, and I think that if you're a good leader, people will want to go where you feel they need to go. They'll know because you convey it in a way that's so beautiful. It'll create longing in them to see your future realized. I love it. Okay. Final three questions then to wrap things up. Now, this is

one of the questions I use at the end for everyone. If at the end of the day, many years from now, all your work has been erased, you have all your friends and family there, and you have a piece of paper and a pen to write down three things that you know to be true, the three truths of your experience in this world that you would pass on to everyone, a ceremony of passing of your message to the world. Passing baton ceremony. Exactly. What would be the three truths that you think you'd want to pass on?

I think one of the truths, and it maybe didn't come up much in this interview, is that when you forgive someone, you actually are setting yourself free. I think sometimes we think our own bitterness is holding them in bondage, but it's only holding ourselves in bondage. That would be one. I think another one is something my husband and I have lived by. And that's if you wake up every day and you follow your passion and you do what brings you peace you'll find your destiny so so many people are like how'd you know how'd you know how old were you when you knew that you loved presentations it's like oh they found me i didn't find them

they found me you know so i let i didn't let life happen but if something really turned my crank and really made me go oh that just feels right It brings me peace. We would do those things. The third thing would have to be that everyone can live the American dream, I think. I think that's, it just seems so obvious, but every single card is stacked against me, right? Really, you know, just poverty to not having a degree to landing in the middle of the Silicon Valley with nothing more than my hand on my hip and read every single book I could to make myself smartest person in the room, walk in a room, tell CEO what to say. Nobody asked me if I had a degree. Nobody said I wasn't qualified nobody questioned questioned that my husband american

born but 100 mexican like we're living la vida loca not because of any reason except we had the hustle right we want we knew what we wanted and everyone can still have that you either you either live off the system or you're contributing to the system. Right. And we wanted, you know, we wanted to be the ones, you know, not living off the system. Right. Right.

That's cool. I like those truths. Those are great. Yeah. Uh, what are you grateful for recently in your life? I'm grateful for my grandson. Of course.

Wow. I'm grateful for my husband, for his health. He's on his third round with prostate cancer. So every day is a new day. So every time, you know, he had should have decades, but we sit down at the dinner table with mortality sitting there with us. Right. And you just have to make sure every day is leveraged to its finest. So

that's what I'm grateful for. That's very cool. Yeah. Uh, want to make sure everyone gets this book called illuminate. You can learn more about how to ignite change through speeches, stories, ceremonies, and symbols. Make sure to pick up a copy of this book. Where should we connect with you online? Where do you hang out? Yeah. Online, there's Duarte.com. I also connect to everyone who connects to me on LinkedIn.

My Twitter is at Nancy Duarte. My co-author is at Patty with an I, San, S-A-N, which is short for Sanchez. Okay. Very cool. And do you hang out on Twitter yourself? Do you connect with people? Yeah. Do you own Instagram as well or not? You know what? I'm not as good at Instagram. Twitter and LinkedIn, you're there. And Facebook somewhat. I'm trying to like, I don't post up pictures of my grandson up there

because I'm like, I don't want any stalkers. I'm trying to figure it out. Okay, cool. Awesome. Well, before I ask the final question, I want to take a moment to acknowledge you, uh, for your ability to turn all your pain into a lot of people's pleasure and ability to be consistent and live your American dream, because it sounds like you had a lot against you and you could have easily allowed the system to support you, but you really contributed in a huge way to more than just the system, but the world and everyone's needs. I mean, you're making an impact on so many people's lives because stories are everything and it's a lost art form and you're allowing businesses, individuals, people who want to build relationships, personal or corporate, to really bring their dreams to life.

Without these stories and these tools and your consistent vision of giving these to people, we wouldn't be where we are. So I want to acknowledge you for that. Well, I love that. And I think you're very much similar, right? I think that pain and the quest for healing it has driven you into super lovely guy. I appreciate it. It's very fun. I appreciate it. My final question is what's your definition of greatness? I think to define greatness, you have to understand leastness. I don't know what the opposite of greatness is, but I think that if you want to

be great, you have to understand the least of these, right? And I think having come from that place, it's easier to recognize, but I think the truly great will help the least find their greatness. And I think that's kind of where you're at, right? You're like going back and trying to pull greatness out of those who feel like they're least. And that to me is greatness. It's so good to meet you. I really admire what you're doing. Thank you. There you have it.

I hope you guys enjoyed this. All about, again, igniting change through speeches, stories, ceremonies, and symbols. If you did, make sure to share this episode. It's lewishouse.com slash 350. Wow. We got to 350 episodes, and it's all because you guys continue to share. You continue to let your friends know about these episodes, and you have built the movement of greatness in inspiring your friends and uplifting yourself to get to the next level.

So thank you guys so very much for all that you do to come back each Monday, Wednesday, Friday when we release new episodes and for sharing them with your friends, telling people about them. That's how we are doing this together. So thank you guys so very much. Check out the full video interview at lewishouse.com slash 350. Also how you can connect with Nancy back on the show notes and all the other things we talked about, including illuminate, get a copy of her book, which we have a link back there for you as well. And all that other good stuff. So thank you guys

so very much. 350 in the books. Wow. It's kind of amazing to think, uh, you know, three and a half years, 350 episodes complete. What a journey. I'm just so very grateful in this moment to see how far we've come. I'm looking at my wall of greatness with all the people that we've interviewed and all the incredible moments. The lessons that I've personally learned over this journey have been incredible. I feel so blessed every single time I get to connect with someone and really dive into their story and learn their strategies and their lessons

and how they became a master of what they do. So for me, it's been an honor and such a privilege to be able to connect with people and then share with you that wisdom. So thank you guys for being here, for continually lifting me up when I'm down and for just making this an incredible experience.

I'm super pumped for the next 350 episodes. So make sure to subscribe if you have yet to subscribe on the podcast app or on iTunes. That's iTunes.com slash School of Greatness and leave a review. If you enjoyed this episode or any episodes, please let me know what you think. Leave a review over on iTunes. It's going to help spread the message even more. It would mean the world to me. So with that, I'll leave you with this. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you.