Transcription
Check out this piece of paper. On it is arguably the most important speech ever written for the most powerful job in the world. It's packed with powerful and controversial tactics, including one that no one likes to talk about.
It's how MrBeast became the biggest YouTuber on the planet, how Steve Jobs built Apple, and how Donald Trump became the President of the United States. In this video, I'll show you how to take over the world using simple words, how to write ads that bring in millions of dollars, how to write emails that sell out warehouses full of stock. I'll also be giving you my secret checklist that I have personally used to make over $100 million, and it all comes down to five key pillars.
Starting with Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, the biggest YouTuber on the planet. Jimmy has recently launched a streaming show with Amazon. I'm going to play the intro and pay close attention to see if you can notice anything.
"I am standing on $5 million of real money, the largest grand prize in entertainment history, and competing for this $5 million are these 1,000 contestants."
So on YouTube, what you can do is you can take a video, you can get the transcript, and you can just copy it. So that's exactly what we're going to do. We're going to take this text and we're going to run it through an app called Hemingway App, which shows you the reading level that it's written at. Lo and behold, it is written at a fourth-grade reading level. And it's not just MrBeast. All the biggest YouTubers do this. This is Aris's most popular video. We're going to do the same thing, and you can see it's written at a fifth-grade reading level.
And Jimmy started as nothing more than a kid in his bedroom with a camera. Sometimes the hardest part about being a YouTuber is not knowing what to upload. And the concepts for his videos didn't have these huge elaborate budgets. It was literally him counting to 200,000 live in one take on camera. "136,50... 136,000... 251." These are dead-simple concepts for the viewer to grasp. But even after bringing in all of these views, and as his channel continued to grow, Jimmy still kept things Sesame Street simple. It's got 96 million views. [ __ ] Outrageous. This is the circle. This white line is the outside of the circle. Literally putting people in a circle and just saying the last person to leave this circle gets $10,000.
But this all goes much deeper. Let's take a look at some of the most powerful business titans in the world. Take Jeff Bezos, for example. Always around the top of the list of the richest people in the world. This guy banned PowerPoint presentations at his company. "If you have a PowerPoint presentation or some kind of slideshow, you get very little information that way. You get bullet points. It's kind of easy for the presenter, but difficult for the audience." He actually makes all the leaders in his company write a one-page press release to summarize how their customers would benefit from this new initiative or this new product that they're looking to roll out, because he understands the power of getting people to communicate what the value to their customers are going to be. And even if you look at his own writing over the years, you can see that with his letters to shareholders, which is a letter that he writes every year, the language that he has used over the years has just become more and more simplified.
"My perfect meeting starts with a crisp document. So the document should be written with such clarity that it's like angels singing from on high." All of the meetings that happen at Amazon start with 30 minutes of a silent memo reading. All the communications that follows that is just sharper and a better use of everyone's time. Bezos's rule is to think deeply, write clearly, and then let ideas dominate the conversation.
Now, here are some of the specific questions that I like to ask when I'm writing any piece of copy: What's the number one thing that my audience wants? What keeps them up at night? And how can I solve that problem in a unique way that they haven't heard or seen anywhere before? So that when I put that message together, it is going to come across as novel and new, and it's going to hijack their attention. How will my product or service make them feel? What is the emotion that I want to elicit in all of the messaging that I'm putting together? How will their life improve after taking action? And you want to speak to that end desired outcome more than whatever it is that you've got to sell. What happens if they don't take action? You must assign a cost to that. If the prospect doesn't do what it is that you want them to do, what annoys my prospect more than anything else that's going on in the industry? Most people have tried other solutions to whatever it is that you're selling out in the marketplace, and they haven't gotten the outcome that it is that they want. You must handle all of these things, even if they are unsaid. What will the cynics and skeptics say when they see this? What are they not going to believe? And do I have enough proof to back up all the claims that is that I'm making? So I address all of those little skeptics that are out there in the marketplace that need a little extra nudge to take the action that I'm asking them to. And lastly, one of my favorites is: What is the competition unwilling to do? They're going to be thinking, "I can go and get this somewhere else," or "There are other options out there in the marketplace." And you are selling against all the other alternatives that are present out in the marketplace. So you do not want to leave these objections unanswered. Handle them as specifically as you can, because then they get to the end of the message, and there is nothing else yet for them to do but just to take the action that you want them to.
Next up is arguably one of the most persuasive communicators in business that's ever lived, Steve Jobs. "This is a day I've been looking forward to for two and a half years. 1984, we introduced the Macintosh. It didn't just change Apple, it changed the whole computer industry." And if you had to boil Steve down to one word, it would probably be simplicity. Everything that the guy does, from the way that he dresses, to the types of products that he launches within his companies, to the design of those products, is simplicity. He was very famous for sitting down with his lead designers and just ruthlessly scrutinizing them on how they could remove more buttons to make it be simple. And this is also true when it comes down to his communication style. And he would take the most complex technology and ideas and boil them down to a simple number of words that anybody could understand.
The company was hemorrhaging money, and then he launched the iPod. "This is what's in front of it. Looks like... boom! That's iPod. I haven't one right here in my pocket. Effect... there it is, right there. This amazing little device holds a thousand songs. It goes right in my pocket." He wasn't the first to market with an MP3 player. Very complex technology, beautifully simple design, with a very simple and clear value proposition to the market.
But if there is one presentation, one that stands out as the most memorable, it would have to be the 2007 launch of the iPhone. "In 2001, we introduced the first iPod. It didn't just change the way we all listen to music, it changed the entire music industry." He starts off with a beautiful, simple story. "We're introducing three revolutionary products of this class, and we are calling it iPhone. Today, today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone." Steve Jobs is speaking at a first-grade reading level. This is one of the best product unveils in all of history.
And not only is Steve communicating in a way that is simple to understand, he uses so many beautiful, simplistic language patterns, like the power of three, where he announces: "It is a breakthrough internet device, a widescreen iPod touch with controls, and a revolutionary mobile phone." People in the audience thought, "Wow, that's like three products that he's launching." And he just kept on repeating them, and then they started to get it. "An iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator. An iPod, a phone. Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. This is one device." He was launching a product that were all three of these things.
But unless you master this next point, even the most clear and concise writing will have limited reach. When I was 19 years old, I was living in London, and I had the first iPod, not the iPod Touch, the iPod. I didn't have any songs on my iPod. What I did instead is I went to the quality assurance person on the team of the sales company that I was working for, and I used to give her snacks. And in exchange for these snacks, she used to give me my sales call recordings, because they weren't allowed to go outside the company. And I loaded every single one of those sales calls up on my iPod, and I did not listen to any music for a year. Every single day, on the way to work and on the way back, I would listen to my sales calls, and I would catch every little nuance of what I said, my upward inflection, my downward inflection, the way that I paused, how would I speak when someone hung up on me at the opening of a call versus when they would listen to me. And I hyper-analyzed these speech patterns. So much so that, you know, when you hear your voice, you hate the sound of it. I listened to my voice so much that that feeling went away, and I started to like the sound of my own voice because it became something that was so familiar to me. I was listening to the way that I speak more than I was listening to the voice that was inside my mind. Only after going through that exercise for hours on hours and hours on end was I able to become the number one salesperson at this company. It wasn't something that was just given to me. I had to work my ass off to get that. In fact, in my first sales job, I was the run of the litter. I was the worst salesperson there. I had no advantage.
And it's not something that stopped when I got out of sales and being over the phone doing one-to-one sales. Whenever I do a podcast, or I do a television interview, or I give a speech, I'm going back and I'm watching these things, and I'm seeing what is it that I can improve on? How do I speak here? What do I need to change here? I don't like the way that I stop and thought about what I was going to say on this next point. Constantly and meticulously refining that process. If you go back to the earlier YouTube videos that are on this channel, and you have a look at how I spoke six years ago, you need to actually go out there and go, "I'm realizing that I'm in this place right now. I need to change something." Versus how I speak now. It's not just something by accident. You need to look at game tape footage. Nothing is going to get you better than practicing.
Let's switch gear and look what is the language patterns for the people that are commanding the most important and powerful offices on Earth. Hate him or love him, Trump has a very clear communication style. But before we talk about the masterful communication of Trump, you're gambling with World War I. I want to talk to you about one of the greatest communicators to ever live, and that's Barack Obama. The way that this guy speaks is unforgettable and completely incredible. It was his speaking at this conference ultimately led to his unbelievable support and him getting elected as president. Pay attention to the pausing, the cadence, and the rhythm of what he speaks.
"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible..." He doesn't just rely on only the language in order to make sure that these messages are consumed. He has a very strategical and tactical way of emphasizing pauses and letting the points sink in. "We have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and always will be, the United States of America." He's truly somebody that has spent many, many years mastering this, and it goes on very clear display whenever he has to give a speech. It is a completely different style to Trump, and it is also extremely effective.
Here are the five rules of how to speak like a world leader. The biggest cardinal sins that most people make is "ums" and "ass" and having unnecessary filler words in their sentences. If somebody comes into you and they're like, "Oh, um, I need to speak to you, uh, about this immediately," it's just not as compelling. You need to be very precise in the way that you speak. And again, this is only going to come from practice.
You might be thinking, "Hey, I don't have all these sales calls to listen to." Or, "I'm not on TV, I'm not doing podcasts." It does not matter what it is that you do. There is always a forum for you to look at gameplay. So you might work in an office, you can look at Zoom recordings or meetings that you attend, and you can even set little challenges for yourself, like, "I am going to try and go this entire meeting without saying 'um' and 'ah' only once." You're looking in the mirror and you're seeing the way that you communicate. You can pick up on all the nuances and all the annoying little things that you do. The first time that you do this, it is very painful, and you're like, "Oh my God, I can't watch this. I can't look at this." But the first play to get aware of those things is to simply look at that.
The most simple exercise that you can do is to write down a point that you're passionate about. Whip out your phone, press record. No one's going to see this but you. Without any notes or anything, just articulate to the camera what it is that you want to talk about. If you do nothing more than just do that and review that once per week, in a year, you will be infinitely more convincing with the way that you speak.
Your tone and the pace in which you speak is very, very important. I learned this when I was making 150 cold calls per day, which I've done in many different stages of my life. The last season was when I built King Kong, and I was making 150 cold calls from my bedroom. When you call somebody on a cold call and you say, "Yeah, hi, I just wanted to speak to this person in advertising," and you upward inflect immediately, you sound like a salesperson. Studies have been done where they assess to all of the most successful salespeople across a whole bunch of different companies. If you call somebody up and you have a serious tone, "I was cold calling people and saying, 'Yeah, hi, I need to speak to the person who looks after the Google AdWords account.'" That sounds very serious. It almost sounds like I'm in trouble. By doing so, you're not pattern matching to all the salespeople that upspeak.
And when it comes to your pace and the way that you deliver the words, you want to pay very close attention to the audience that you're delivering to. It's not just about the way that you speak, it is also about the way that they speak. With you're speaking to a younger generation, a Gen Z, they are used to getting information very, very quickly. So much so that they make fun of other generations with things like the "millennial pause," where a millennial will take one to two seconds after they hit record on a camera to deliver their message. They are already delivering the message by the time the record button is hit. And it's just the same if you were to speak to an older generation. If you speak very, very quickly, they're just not going to absorb your message.
Which brings us to the master of persuasive communication, Donald J. Trump. Let's take a look at one of the most important speeches ever written. First off, we have to paint the scene of how this speech was delivered. It was given in New York in 2015, and it's the speech that Donald Trump gave announcing he'd be running for president. This thing is a persuasion masterclass. After his pleasantries and greeting the crowd, he wastes no time and comes straight out of the gate: "Our country is in serious trouble. We don't have victories anymore." Triggering you immediately, because everybody is pays attention to when there's some kind of threat or trouble coming their way. "When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China? This is what people are thinking. ISIS, China, Mexico are all beating us. They are not our friend, believe me." He's hitting each pain point specifically. "Our enemies are getting stronger, and we are getting weaker. It's true." He's not using verbose language to paint these very complex images. He's just coming out with a fifth-grade reading level and addressing these things head-on. He wasn't talking about all this crazy foreign policy. He gave people a visual in their mind of what it is that he was going to do. "Politicians are all talk and no action. They will never be able to fix our country." He knew going into this race that no one of his caliber has ever been elected. He was just an everyday business titan. "All the typical politicians, these people aren't equipped to solve this problem." Taking something that people could be used against him and uses it as a strength. We're simply looking at what is the most effective communication method to get the masses in. And in fact, consumption precedes conversion, and in this instance, the conversion was getting elected into the most powerful office on Earth. And this thing just goes on and on and on. It is so simply written, yet so powerful, that it leaves nothing to interpretation of making sure that his point is hammered home.
And these are the five rules that he used to become a master communicator. When it comes to writing, you need to make sure that your message is easily digestible, and the best way to do that is by using short and sharp sentences. There's nothing more daunting than seeing a big wall of text and like, "Oh my God, I have to consume all of this." If you feed the information to your prospects just with three or four words per sentence, each single sentence is so small and so digestible that it just bites and it just pulls them through the message. And if you look at the transcripts of these world-class communicators, one thing that you'll notice is that they all follow these rules, right? Like, "You speak, I see." So many people get all wrapped up in having very colorful language and trying to say things in clever ways. You want to use lots of transition words, like, "Yeah, okay." Just as you would when you talk. You want to feel in your writing like you are communicating to just one person, and they feel like they can hear your voice in their mind as you write the copy.
You want to use stories. Nothing gives you a flatter retention curve than stories. You can't argue with a story. Stories are a great way to take these complex concepts or theories that you're trying to communicate to the viewer and then wrapping them up in a personal anecdote that you went through. It is a lot easier for someone to walk in that shoes and understand what it is you're trying to communicate through a story than it is you actually verbosely articulating all the things. Really understand the point you're hammering home. And not all of your sentences need to be short and sharp. There's a rhythm to it. It's just like when you talk, you use shorter sentences to hammer home points, and then some might be a little bit longer. And the best way to find out how the rhythm of your copy is is to simply read it aloud. Yes, you can also use AI, but it doesn't quite have the nuance to reading it aloud yourself and finding out where are those snags, where are the things that I need to keep on repeating myself, what is it that is difficult to articulate or understand in what it is that I'm writing.
And most of the work is done in the edit. Once you've written your copy, 80% of the time that you spend on actually getting that thing to a finished piece of copy that you would put out or that you would present to somebody is going to be done in the edit. And it's about just ruthlessly cutting back everything that's in there that doesn't support you bringing that storyline forward and getting your point across. Brands love to talk about like, "Our brand name." Like at King Kong, you do not want to speak like this. You want to say "we" and "I." You want to be speaking from one person to another. You don't want to put up an artificial layer in between you and this person. That is not the way that you would speak to somebody, so it shouldn't be the way that you write to them.
The number one thing that you must have is a swipe file. Swipe files will make you millions and millions of dollars. You want to keep a Google Drive or a Dropbox folder. I don't care what it is. Keep a swipe file. Whenever you're reading copy and you see something that winks at you, that you like, that it makes you giggle or laugh or think, you want to screenshot it, save it, and keep it in a swipe file. And the only way to have a good swipe file is to read a lot, because good writers are good readers. You need to be absorbing information from multiple different sources. One of my favorite places to look at is ads that I've seen running for long periods of time and that companies are putting good amounts of money behind in advertising. And if you see an ad repeatedly popping up over and over again, that means that that ad is profitable for that business to keep on putting money into that machine.
People won't remember what it is that you said, but they will remember how you made them feel. And that is why I believe that this is single-handedly probably the most important speech ever written. And this is a skill that will help you get whatever it is that you want out of life. There's a link in the description below to the checklist. Get it, swipe it, deploy it, and become a better communicator.