Tension Archive - This Moment Counts

What is your audience dying to know (next)?

That’s everything you need to know about storytelling.

I’m dead serious. Nothing else matters nearly as much. In fact, in a business context, I find most of the storytelling frameworks utterly distracting. The Hero’s Journey, the three act structure. That’s all valid advice. But it simply isn’t needed in a business context.

What is needed is much simpler.

In one word: relevance.
(You could also simply call it empathy.)

Because here’s the thing: You are dying to say what’s important to you. But your audience will only hear it if they’re open to hearing it.

For example, the audience isn’t dying to know: “What are the 7 pillars of our transformation strategy?”

Honestly, they couldn’t care less and it’s easy for them to tune out.

But they are dying to know, and therefore won’t tune out if you speak about:
“What does this mean for me?”
“Can we actually pull this off?”
“Why now?”
“What are we not saying?”
“Is this finally going somewhere?”
“Can I trust this person?”

If you build your talk from these questions, you’ll eventually give them the 7 pillars. But in a way that actually makes sense to them and at a point in time where they actually want it.

In other words, “storytelling” is often solving the wrong problem. It’s used to spice things up, or maybe dress them up. And so, people focus on adding

emotion,
drama,
performance,
humor,
personal anecdotes.

But many deeply boring talks contain all of those things.

Meanwhile, someone calmly explaining a spreadsheet can hold a room hostage if people desperately want to know the info in it.

Tension works exactly counter to what we intuitively think:

The story is not exciting because of the emotion.
There’s emotion because it matters to us.

It doesn’t become relevant because of the drama.
It’s dramatic because it affects us.

In high stakes moments, this tension already exists. The audience enters the room with questions.

Your job is not to make it more dramatic but to figure out where this tension already lives.

Do they care? Do they wanna know?

That is tension. It’s the only thing your audience ever actually needed from you. Not another anecdote. Not a framework. Just the simple, irresistible need to know what comes next.

That question is available to you in any room, before any presentation, before any conversation where the words need to land.

What is my audience dying to know next?
Not: What do I want to say?
But: What are they already wanting to hear that I have not yet given them?

Let’s put it that way: “Dying to know” creates a remarkably effective editing filter for you. For every section of your talk, for every slide, every data point, every detail, every sentence, you can ask a straight question:

“Would they genuinely be dying to know this next?”

If not, then
cut it,
move it,
or rebuild the tension.

(An interesting side note: Surprisingly often, a talk gets stronger when you reveal the ending first. Because now people need to understand how it happened.)

I want to be clear on something here, though. This is not about attention bait. It has nothing to do with what sneaky salespeople do who artificially manufacture tension. You don’t need to create curiosity. When the moment is really high stakes, almost every time the curiosity already exists. The tension already exists.

Your job is to uncover it and align with it. And when you do, all the attributes of a great story (emotion, drama, etc.) are a free by-product.

So, that’s what great business storytelling does. It turns your message into something your audience doesn’t want to miss.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

PS: Interestingly, some of the strongest communicators create exactly this kind of tension without telling a “story” in the traditional sense at all. No long anecdote. No dramatic setup. No five minute detour. Just a tiny spark that triggers a story in the audience’s own mind.

And often, that’s far more powerful. The next issue of What the Best Leaders Say explores why this works, why it’s so easy to miss, and why the best leaders use it far more often than most people realize. Subscribe now to receive it.

The pitch that should have failed

12 years ago, my wife and I landed a surprise hit in the German toy market. As total nobodies in the industry. We ignored every single piece of expert advice. Really, our pitch would fail every single test by every single expert.

It worked out beautifully for us. The reason why is relevant to every pitch and every spotlight moment.

So, what happened?

My wife and I were sitting in our garden, the spring sun shining brightly, when she suddenly said about one of her plush designs: “We should bring these into the hands of many more children. Let’s ask Schmidt Spiele if they want to publish them.”

Schmidt Spiele. One of Germany’s big toy brands.

We had never sold a single toy. We knew nobody in the industry. We had no connections. No industry experience. We were a school teacher and a leadership communication coach.

But still … we sent them an email that afternoon: three paragraphs long with a short video attached.

The next morning, we woke up to a reply asking if we could send prototypes.

A week later, their managing director sat in our living room negotiating a worldwide licensing deal.

I still remember that surreal feeling of sitting there, in our own living room, discussing worldwide licensing rights while prototypes were lying on the table between coffee cups and children’s drawings.

And it all happened because of that tiny video. Do you want to know what was in it? Children playing with the toy. That’s it.

The product was a range of mood-changing plushies. Flip the head and the character transforms. Anxious to cool. Sleepy to party. Angry to happy. We just showed what happened when a child picked it up.

Every expert in the toy industry would have told us our pitch was wrong. We didn’t explain the market opportunity. We didn’t describe how we built it. We didn’t perform our passion for the project or outline our vision for where the brand could go in five years. It contained no market data. No team credentials. No growth forecast. No strategic roadmap. Really, nothing you’d expect from a normal pitch.

So, how on Earth could it work?

The publisher watched that video and saw one thing: their own future. They could see the toy in action. They could see why children would love it. They had enough experience to manufacture it. In other words, they could already see themselves selling it in large amounts.

We didn’t tell them any of that. They saw it.

This is what every great pitch does, whether you’re selling a toy, a strategy, or a vision to your organization. Your audience isn’t asking: are these people smart enough to pull this off? They’re asking one thing: Can I see this working for us? The clearer they can see it, the less you need to persuade.

So, what the video really did was pull the future into the present. It removed the distance between the idea and reality. (In fact, they liked the video so much that they later had an agency re-shoot it and turn it into a professional ad that aired on national TV.)

But there’s one more important detail.

The product itself told exactly one story.

Not twelve. Not five. One.

The toy that changes its mood.

That simple story made the product easy to understand, easy to remember, and easy to pass alonginside meetings. You can almost hear it: “It’s the plushie that changes its mood.”

Done. No explanation needed.

The same principle applies to every strategy you present, every change initiative you propose, every vision you ask people to follow. One clear story, told simply enough that people can clearly pass it along when you’re not in the room.

We used the same two principles (pulling the future into the present and distilling it into a clear pass along message) to land four more deals after that. It became the beginning of an extraordinary chapter in our lives with five consecutive hit products, including The Grumbletroll, Furlocks, Sleepy Caps, and Nuffi, several of them supported by national TV campaigns.

Compare that to the usual dazzling that happens in pitches. You spend months building spectacular decks. Go into incredible detail. Find big words. Overexplain, for example by including the psychology of mood regulation in early childhood.

When the moment counts, that’s exactly the urge. To impress. To make it look a little fancier. To persuade just a little harder.

Rather than find the simple true story that lets your audience experience the future with your idea in it.

The question is: when your moment counts, will your story make the future feel clear and irresistible?

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

Making your messages easy to agree

Why do so many messages get polite applause but don’t change anything at all?

Applause happens when a message is easy to accept.
Action happens when a message is impossible to ignore.

People obsesses over the first but too often neglect the second.

They work hard to make their case as easy to agree as possible.

They predict objections and proactively address them.

They care deeply that the logic holds and people understand it effortlessly.

But understanding is passive.

→ If your audience can agree with you without changing anything, they will.

If you want action, your message needs both:

Logic — so people understand what you’re saying.
Urgency — so they can’t ignore what it means.

The latter means, you need to make them feel something.

Show me the data, but also show me why it matters. Now. For me.

Explain the plan, but also make me feel the cost of ignoring it.

Without that emotional friction, the sense that something’s at stake, agreement is the easy way out.

That’s exactly what we work on in a Clarity Lab. I’ve just opened a few spots in the coming weeks.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

The Conductor

A symphony conductor lifts their baton. The orchestra is ready, the audience falls silent.

But instead of beginning immediately, the conductor pauses.

Just for a second.

In that pause, something remarkable happens:
→ The musicians sharpen their focus.
→ The audience leans in.
→ Anticipation builds.

The silence becomes part of the performance.

.
.
.

Then, the music begins.

Da, da, da, daaaa …

This pause isn’t an empty space. It’s a moment of intensity.

In communication, though, most of us rush to fill that silence. We feel the need to start speaking as soon as possible … as if the silence will make us seem unprepared, unsure, or weak.

But that might break your impact before it even had a chance to unfold. It gets drowned in the rush.

The pause before you begin is just as important as the message itself.
→ You focus.
→ The audience leans in.
→ Anticipation builds.

And when you finally start to speak, it’s in a moment of intensity.

Keep lighting the path!

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?

If all else fails, try humor

You’re in a meeting room, the air is thick with unease, everyone’s on edge. It’s a heated debate and emotions fly high.

Basically, everyone’s waiting for the room to explode.

But then, out of nowhere, someone drops a perfectly timed joke. The kind that’s not just funny, but smart and relevant.
 First, silence.

But suddenly, the room bursts with laughter.

The tension dissipates and what seemed like a dead end becomes a moment of connection.

In high-stress environments, a leader who can lighten the mood is more than just a breath of fresh air. They shift the dynamics and align the team back on the common path.

Humor, when used well, is a tool for engagement. It can release tension and foster a sense of camaraderie.

But here’s the catch: timing and fit are key. A well-timed joke can turn the tide, but a poorly timed one can sink the ship.

It’s also crucial to be respectful. If it’s at the expense of someone in the group, the joke is likely to backfire. But if it’s about yourself, or even “ourself”, it allows the group to look at the heated debate from a distance.

The better you read the room and understand the dynamics, the better you can deliver that punchline at just the right moment.

The person who can break tension with humor isn’t just funny; they’re invaluable. They create an environment where ideas flow freely, where people feel connected, and where the weight of the moment doesn’t feel quite so heavy.

Have you seen humor being used that way?

Hidden gems

Headlines are the handshake before the conversation: We’re agreeing on an exchange of attention and value. You promise me value, I promise you my attention in return.

But.

It’s a 1-to-many contract: One headline, many readers. The better your promise, the more readers you will probably get.

That’s where click-bait enters the game. It’s attractive to promise big as that might lead many more readers to enter the contract.

Here’s the problem: Click-bait has given headlines that create attention such a bad rep that brilliant minds shy away from creating irresistible headlines because they don’t want to be associated with click-bait.

To the architects of “Hidden Gems”, listen up: your brilliance doesn’t belong buried. It’s not enough to be valuable; you have to be visible. Your insight? It’s meant to be seen. Your analysis? It’s there to be appreciated. So, it’s not about being louder; it’s about being clearer.

Your work deserves a marquee, not a footnote.

This isn’t about selling out; it’s about showing up. Don’t be deterred by the stigma of “Click-Bait” That’s not your game. You’re here to make “Impact”. You have something to say that’s worth hearing, so say it in a way that’s impossible to ignore.

Impact without attention can’t happen. So grab that attention. Your audience isn’t waiting for the next empty thrill, but for the content that changes the game. For the kind of value that stays with them long after the tab is closed.

Remember, the world’s most precious gems aren’t hidden; they’re on display for those who recognize their worth. It’s time yours took center stage.

Is this idea crazy?

Recently, Jonathan Stark ran a great exercise to rethink how to start your talk:

… imagine that you simply walk on, write a single word on the board, and then just stand there until people either start asking questions or leave.

One word. To create the tension that opens up a discussion.

Not a word to summarize your talk.
A word to light a path into your talk.

What would be yours?

PS: Hit reply to let me know. If I get more than 30 responses, I’ll share mine.

Jaws in Space – The shortest pitch ever?

The pitch for the original Alien movie is widely considered to be one of the best 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:

First, it was shortly after the mega success of Jaws which created a hype for the thriller genre.

Second, 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.

How can you create the urge for your audience to want the info before you give it to them?

Cliffhangers

Cliffhangers s*ck.

You wanna know so badly what happens next but the show just won’t tell you. You’ll have to come back for the next episode. Which you’ll do.

Is there a moment in your communication where you could do the same? Where you could stop and your audience would be super excited and super frustrated at the same time because they need to know badly how the story unfolds?

If you stopped there, would they come back for the next episode?

If not then what could be a piece of information that does the job?

You don’t actually stop, of course, but you’ll have your audience glued to your lips.

Posts in Tag: Tension