curiosity Archive - This Moment Counts

Is this the smartest pitch ever made?

The pitch for the original Alien movie is widely considered to be one of the smartest pitches ever made.

Legend has it that it was only 3 words long.

It could have been 3 hours long, explaining in great detail how the story works, detailing the dark mood, forecasting box office sales, introducing the creation team, diving into their track record, …

… and many more aspects that an advisor would recommend you mention in a pitch.

The creators chose to dismiss all of that. They saw two things that made all of it redundant information:

It was shortly after the mega success of Jaws which created a hype for the thriller genre.
It was the dawn of science fiction, with Star Wars just having conquered the world and other films around the corner.

Hollywood wanted thrillers and it wanted science fiction. What it wanted even more was a thriller science fiction movie. And that was all the Alien creators needed to know. Here’s their pitch:

“Jaws in Space”

These three words sparked the producers’ imagination: If we can make a film as thrilling as Jaws but located in Space, box office success would be a no-brainer. The future success felt so present for them, that it made them beg the creators to tell them more.

Now they wanted all the info.

And that’s the perfect moment to give the info. After your audience wants it, not before.

Most leaders do the opposite.

They walk into the room with a 47 slide deck complete with market analysis, implementation plans, background, history, risks, methodology, definitions, roadmap, and more. They have anticipated every possible question and are determined to answer it before a single one has even been asked.

Five minutes in, the audience is already exhausted.

This is a bitter pill to swallow for everyone who’s doing extraordinary work. Because, undoubtedly, the information itself is solid. The logic is sound. The deck makes sense.

The investors should care. But they don’t because it’s simply too exhausting.

I’m not arguing here to delete the detail. The detail was relevant for Jaws. But not until after curiosity kicked in.

The exact same detail that feels exhausting before curiosity feels fascinating after it.

You see the same costly mistake everywhere:

A founder who starts a pitch with TAM calculations before investors care.
A strategy presentation that explains execution details before people understand why the change matters.
A keynote that starts with credentials instead of tension.
A product launch drowning in features before the audience even wants the product.

So many bright minds think the challenge in high-stakes communication is explaining their idea clearly, completely, and in great detail. But clarity and detail only matter to someone who wants it.

The bigger challenge, the one almost nobody prepares for, is therefore creating that want in the first place: “Tell me more!”

When people want the answer, you can say less and land harder.

If you have a pitch coming up and want your audience to desperately want to hear what you’ve got, reach out.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

PS: There’s another fascinating aspect of the Jaws pitch: The way it sparked a complete story in just three words. Issue 14 of What the Best Leaders Say explains how the Story Spark works and how you can find your own spark. If you’re not yet a subscriber, you can find it here.

How curious are you?

How many of you recognize this pattern in your organization?

A bit strange, isn’t it? Everyone loves to persuade while no one likes to be persuaded.

I wonder if that’s the reason why curiosity works so well.
Because it’s so rare …

A leader who shows up genuinely curious.
Who’s not pushing their agenda at all costs.
Or trying to save their face because they feel they can’t show a sign of weakness.

No, simply curious for what’s true.
Where we stand.
What the real assessment of progress is.
What the customers say.
What the quiet person at the back of the room is thinking.

That leader is rare.

But in my experience, if people feel that presence, they open up.

They share their thoughts more openly.
They raise concerns earlier.
They flag issues proactively.

What’s your experience?

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

PS: This is part of a new Perspective series that occasionally builds on my work on “What the Best Leaders Say”. There’s more on this in Issue 1, titled “How You Know You’re One of Them”.

What to say when every stakeholder insists their piece is important

A longtime reader wrote in with this important question:

“I know my message needs to be simpler. But which parts do I cut when every stakeholder insists their piece is important?”

That’s brutal, isn’t it? Everyone thinks their piece is the one that can’t go.

Here’s how I look at it …

Think of your message as the entrance to a building.
It’s not the whole building. It’s job is to make people want to step inside.

That means you don’t need every single room represented in the entrance hall.

You just need enough to make them curious to step in, to make them feel ‘yes, this building is worth entering.’

But if the entrance is cluttered with everything everyone wants to show, people won’t even come in.

That means no one will ever see your room, no matter how brilliant it is (or how important you think it is).

So the job of the message is simple:
make the entrance so clear, so inviting, that people want to step inside.

Then, once they’re in, you can show them around.
That’s when they will be open to exploring the rest.

But again, first they need to get through the door.

So when every stakeholder insists their piece is important, I tell them: Your piece is important for the building, it just doesn’t have to be the entrance.

When they see that, the fight usually stops.

Because now it’s about creating the clearest, most inviting entrance, not cramming the entire building into a single doorway.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

PS: Question shared with permission in a shortened form. If you have a question you’d like me to address, just hit reply to this mail.

New paths

I’m back from three relaxing weeks with my family, the guitar, and some inspiring books.

And a fascinating interview with Paul Simon, recorded shortly after Simon & Garfunkel released Bridge over Troubled Water.

Simon speaks about a crucial moment in the writing process for the song.

It’s a moment you’ve surely experienced yourself.

The moment of being stuck.

Dick Cavett, the interview host, asked him what that meant. Simon’s answer is brilliant (at the 7:15 mark):

Everywhere I went led me where I didn’t wanna be. So I was stuck.

I’m pretty sure you’ve had that feeling. I certainly did. While working on an idea, a project. And certainly while crafting a presentation.

That moment is rarely solved by staring harder at the page. When every path you try leads to places you don’t wanna be, the next step might not be to think harder.

But to step away.

The same inputs produce the same outputs. To get unstuck you often need a spark from the outside.

A story. A sound. A question from someone who sees things differently.

That’s not weakness. It is how new paths appear.

Through the outside. Through Inspiration. And sometimes through the help of others.

How do you get unstuck?

Keep lighting the path!

Doing what you love

I’m going into refresh mode for the next three weeks and I’m going to play the guitar a lot.
Here’s a little piece I recorded yesterday.

When I pick up the guitar, I often just play what comes to mind in the moment.

Often that’s just fragments, a lick here, some chords there.

But sometimes, as I continue to explore, random notes turn into something beautiful.

Hope you enjoy it.

Don’t forget to take a rest at times and simply do what you love, with no need to prove anything to anyone.

Whatever that is for you, enjoy that moment.

Keep lighting the path!

PS: During the 3 weeks, I’ll go silent on this newsletter but the podcast will have new content. Hope you have a good time and see you soon!

The trap of good communication

Have you ever walked out of a meeting where you easily convinced everyone … only to realize later it was the wrong idea?

That’s the trap of good communication.
It feels like success but isn’t.

The trap waits for the moment when you’re so good at presenting your case that others hesitate to challenge it.

→ They don’t ask questions because they assume you’ve already thought it through.

→ They keep their doubts to themselves, worried they’ll look foolish.

→ They hold back their ideas, thinking they can’t match your confidence or eloquence.

Sure, in the moment it feels smooth and effortless (that’s the trap). Over time, though, progress stalls, decisions depend too much on you, and your team’s potential is (at least partly) wasted.

Persuasion gets people to agree.
But it doesn’t get them to think.
(In fact, many persuasion techniques specifically try to shut it down).

The great communicators I’ve met didn’t aim to persuade.
They led with curiosity and created space for the best ideas, not just theirs, to thrive.

You can start with one simple question: What’s being left unsaid?

Keep lighting the path!

How to give a boring talk

The easiest way to bore a smart person is to figure everything out for them, isn’t it?

But it’s exactly what happens in many talks. The speaker shows up as the smart guy who’s got everything figured out, leaving no space for the audience to figure anything out.

But smart people love to do that.

Giving your audience something to figure out, even it’s just a brief moment to think about your statements before you present your conclusion, can have a profound influence on how they engage with your thoughts.

Of course, when there’s nothing else to figure out, people might turn their attention on the argument itself and try to figure out if something could be wrong with it.

Which means that if you don’t leave space for critical (or even just curious) thinking, it could be that this is exactly what triggers it.

So, here’s a thought for your next talk. What if you didn’t show up as the smartest guy in the room but allowed the audience to feel smarter?

The simple truth about storytelling

Contrary to what some storytelling coaches want you to believe, in the end there’s only one thing you need to understand about storytelling.

And it’s this question: “What happens next?”

I mean, of course, you can say a lot more about storytelling. The hero’s journey does work. “Show, don’t tell!” is useful advice. As is the three-act-structure and many other techniques …

But in the end, all of that is optional.

Because the only thing that matters is whether your audience is curious to learn more. If you nail that, it doesn’t matter whether it’s through the hero’s journey or some other fancy framework.

Storytelling really isn’t a mystical art locked behind gates of complexity. At its core, it’s simple, straightforward, and something anyone can absolutely do.

Just tap into your audience’s curiosity!

That’s it.

If your audience wants to know more, you’ve nailed it. Even if you’ve never heard of the hero’s journey or any other storytelling formula … when your story makes people sit up and wonder what’s next, you’re telling a great story.

“What happens next?” is the only questions you need to ask for that. The better you understand your audience’s needs, their desires, their questions, the easier it will become to find a compelling answer to that question.

If it’s using the hero’s journey, that’s totally fine (it means you’re using it right). But if you’ve never heard of it, don’t worry! The more important information is to know your audience.

So, what is your audience dying to know?

Curiosity has joined the party

Confusion’s best mate is Complexity.
Clarity’s best mate is Curiosity.

Luckily, Complexity and Curiosity are friends, too.

When you need to explain a complex idea with clarity, I’d suggest you invite Curiosity to the party, too, as she can help connect Complexity and Clarity.

Do not make the mistake of introducing All-at-once to Complexity, as the two will immediately start nerding so deeply about their expertise that it will lead others to quickly feel overwhelmed. Everyone else will get bored, roll their eyes, and tune out – except for Confusion, of course, who gets a kick out of it.

Curiosity, on the other hand, is a brilliant conversation starter that gets everyone involved. She has such a great intuition for what excites the others that it feels effortless for the group to dive from layer to layer of each and every detail. The deeper the conversation goes, the more Clarity will open up and engage in the discussion.

The best part: Curiosity just never gets tired of parties.

Why not invite her to your party, too? Curiosity would love to introduce Clarity to Complexity for you.

The Creator’s Adventure

Here’s a tightly packed conversation I had with Bryan McAnulty on his podcast “The Creator’s Adventure”.

We discussed

why it’s so hard to focus when you deeply care about something,
how you can gradually lead your audience to follow you deep down into that rabbit hole,
how an effective money-back guarantee can look like,
and so much more …

We also discovered that we share a passion for playing the guitar and found an important business lesson from the way you become better at playing an instrument.

If you’re a creator – or generally have an important story to share – this episode will very likely be worth a listen. You’ll find it on all major podcast platforms (e.g. Spotify or Apple Podcasts) and on YouTube:

Posts in Tag: curiosity