Hello.

Welcome to Authors at Google.

So, as you all know, over the past decade,

Steve Jobs has changed the way that we

think about giving presentations by modeling

a new form of interaction types of presentations.

Today, we are going to hear from the man that

taught the world how to be like Steve Jobs.

He has watched hundreds of hours of footage of TED talks,

and today, he's doing it again-- teaching

us all how to talk like TED.

Carmine Gallo.

CARMINE GALLO:All right.

Thanks, Jess.

Good afternoon.

Hello, everyone.

I feel like I have a lot of microphones on me today.

There's multiple streams going on, and that's why the mics.

This is such an honor for me to be speaking at Google.

First of all, thank you for changing the world.

That's astonishing and must be an amazing experience

to work here.

That's what I want to talk to you about today is

world changing ideas.

How many of you have good ideas?

How many of you think you've got a good idea?

OK, most of you.

Your ideas are your currency now.

Your ideas are the currency of the 21st century.

In the information age, the knowledge economy,

you're only as successful as your ability

to communicate your ideas persuasively.

How do you do that?

I believe that there are three fundamental laws

of communications-- laws that I learned after studying hundreds

and hundreds of TED talks and also analyzing and interviewing

some of the most famous TED presenters of our time.

Now, it's not just me who says that communication skills are

so important.

Ben Horowitz is a very well-known local venture

capitalist.

With Andreessen Horowitz, who's behind Facebook and Twitter

and many other companies as well, and obviously many of you

know him as a substantial investor.

He was at South by Southwest and he gave us this quote.

"Storytelling is the most underrated skill

when it comes to entrepreneurship."

he was speaking specifically to entrepreneurs.

Storytelling-- the ability to tell your story convincingly,

persuasively, in a way that really engages me--

that's going to be your value.

That's going to help you stand out in all of the noise

and to stand out and move your brand forward and your careers

forward.

Ben Horowitz believes that.

I certainly believe that.

And this gentleman believes that.

You may have seen him before-- Warren Buffett,

the billionaire.

Listen to this audio clip where he

is telling a group of business students--

I believe this was Columbia University--

he's talking to a group of business students.

Listen to the value that he places

on communication skills and public speaking.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

-Right now I would pay $100,000 for 10%

of the future earnings of any of you.

So if anyone wants to see me after this is over--

[LAUGHTER]

If that's true, if you're a million-dollar asset right now,

right, if 10% of you is worth $100,000?

You could improve-- many of you, and I certainly

could have when I got out, just in terms

of learning communication skills.

It's not something that is taught.

I actually went to a Dale Carnegie course

later on in terms of public speaking.

But if you improve your value 50% by having communication

skills, that's another $500,000 in terms of capital value.

See me after the class and I'll pay you $150,000.

[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]

CARMINE GALLO: Why would he say that?

Because Daniel Pink, a noted author, has recently observed,

"like it or not, we're all in sales now."

That means that you are constantly

selling yourself and selling your ideas internally

and externally.

It's the 21st century.

We have new models of communication, don't we?

We communicate in photos, videos, 140-character tweets.

Well, I believe that a 21st century model of communication

requires 21st century techniques, which

is why I turned my lens from Steve Jobs, who

was one individual-- and in my opinion, the greatest

corporate storyteller we've ever had--

and I turned my focus onto TED, the TED talks.

TED, even though I'm independent, I'm objective,

I'm not affiliated with that conference,

I've worked with many TED speakers.

I've interviewed TED speakers.

I've analyzed 150 hours worth of TED content

and I've categorized it.

And I think I know why the best TED talks go viral.

But more importantly for all of us in the room

is what can we learn from the world's greatest

presenters and speakers that we can apply

to make our message, our pitch, more persuasive, more

convincing?

Especially if you only have-- let's

say you don't have 18 minutes.

You have five minutes to convince your boss

to back your idea.

How do you get it across?

How do you persuade?

That's what we're going to talk about today.

I believe that there are three fundamental components

that all inspirational communication has.

Any time there is a conversation, a presentation,

a pitch that we consider persuasive,

these are the three components that they have.

They are emotional-- that conversation is emotional.

You have to touch my heart before you reach my head.

Those conversations are novel.

They teach me something new.

And finally, they're also memorable.

It doesn't matter.

Your idea doesn't matter if I can't remember what you said.

So we're going to talk about each one one by one.

Let's talk about emotional.

How do we make ideas emotional?

First, passion.

Passion is everything.

You cannot inspire unless you're inspired yourself.

It's also important for your career.

Dr. Larry Smith gave a very famous TEDx event.

He is a University of Waterloo economics professor.

He's been studying passion and entrepreneurship for decades.

And he says passion is the thing, the thing that

will help you create the highest expression of your talent.

I asked him after his TED talk, I asked Dr. Smith,

how do you identify passion?

This all sounds good, and I agree with it.

But how do you identify it?

What is it when we say, that person

is passionate about something?

I want to follow my passion.

That sounds so cliche.

What exactly does that mean.

He pointed me to an excerpt from his now-famous TED talk,

and here's what he says about what passion means.

Probably the best definition I've heard.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

-Passion is your greatest love.

Passion is the thing that will help you create the highest

expression of your talent.

Passion, interest, it's not the same thing.

Are you really going to go to your sweetie

and say, marry me, if you're interested?

Won't happen.

Won't happen, and you will die alone.

What you want.

What you want.

What you want is passion.

It is beyond interest.

You need 20 interests, and then one of them, one of them

might grab you.

One of them may engage you more than anything else,

and then you may have found your greatest love in comparison

to all the other things that interest you.

And that's what passion is.

[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]

CARMINE GALLO: OK, your greatest love.

By the way, he's really passionate, isn't he?

He's worked up.

And I asked him, Dr. Smith, you're going nuts on this.

What's happening?

He said, Carmine, what you have seen

is 40 years of pent-up frustration,

of telling people that they need to follow

their passion in order to create the highest

expression of their talent.

And he said, Carmine, wasted talent is a waste I cannot

stand, which is why passion is so important to him.

But I love that definition-- your greatest love.

How does that relate to us?

How does that relate to, say, entrepreneurship?

I write for "Forbes," also the books that I write.

I have this amazing opportunity to interview and spend time

with some of the great leaders of our time.

Let's talk about this idea of your greatest love,

and what does that mean to follow your passion?

Here's a photograph of me and Richard Branson.

Richard Branson always seems to be smiling.

I think when you've got five billion reasons to smile,

you're always happy.

He's always happy.

But when I asked him, what's your greatest love?

It's not-- it's not getting people from point A

to point B on an airplane.

That's not his greatest love.

His greatest love is disrupting the status quo.

It's elevating the customer experience.

Some of you are familiar with Zappos, I'm sure.

Tony Hsieh, who's sort of elevated the customer

experience, speaking of that.

I've interviewed Tony Hsieh.

His greatest love is not the shoes,

which is very interesting.

He sells shoes online, but he wears old shoes

till they're worn out.

When I asked him, what's your greatest love?

He never mentioned shoes.

He says it's delivering happiness.

How can I deliver happiness to my customers and my employees?

Which is why he's created that great culture at Zappos,

a culture like many of you have experienced here at Google.

The point is, he's always thinking.

The most inspiring communicators and entrepreneurs

don't really pitch their product as much

as they pitch what the product means

for the lives of their customers.

Big difference.

Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks-- actually,

they he's the founder.

No, he's the CEO of Starbucks, and he's

going to explain in a video clip I'm going to show.

But Howard Schultz, when I interviewed him,

completely changed the way I look at communication skills.

This was several years ago for one of my books.

He spent two hours with me and not

once did he talk about coffee.

I was the one who brought up coffee.

That's because that's not what he's selling.

He's selling a better customer experience.

He is selling a workplace that treats people

with dignity and respect.

He's selling community and the romance of coffee,

but it's not about the coffee.

It's so much deeper than that.

He gave me a quote that I'll never forget.

He said, Carmine, coffee is the product that we make,

but it's not the business we're in.

So you need to think about that.

That blew my mind.

I can't tell you what-- I mean, it completely

changed the way I look at communication.

You've got to think about not your product,

but what business you're in.