Knowing How to Tell a Good Story Is Like Having Mind Control | Alan Alda | Big Think
Video Overview & Insights
Knowing How to Tell a Good Story Is Like Having Mind Control
The glass of water, the obstacle, great way to summarize a key point in any story.
Watch the newest video from Big Think: https://bigth.ink/NewVideo
Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos: https://bigth.ink/Edge
Great story and good inspiration!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your mind thinks in stories. Tell better ones to get ahead.
đ đŚ
Knowing how to tell a good story is like having mind control. Alan Alda shares some incredible tips for captivating a crowdâor nailing your next job interview.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brilliant.
ALAN ALDA:
Alan Alda has earned international recognition as an actor, writer and director. In addition to The Aviator, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, Alda's films include Crimes and Misdemeanors, Everyone Says I Love You, Flirting With Disaster, Manhattan Murder Mystery, And The Band Played On, Same Time, Next Year and California Suite, as well as The Seduction of Joe Tynan, which he wrote, and The Four Seasons, Sweet Liberty, A New Life and Betsy's Wedding, all of which he wrote and directed. Recently, his film appearances have included Tower Heist, Wanderlust, and Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies.
He helped found the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University where he is a Visiting Professor, helping to develop innovative programs that enable scientists to communicate more effectively with the public. He originated The Flame Challenge, a yearly international competition for scientists in which they compete to explain complex scientific concepts so that 11-year-olds can understand them. Since 2008, he has worked with physicist Brian Greene in presenting the annual World Science Festival in New York City, attended since its inception by over a million people. He has won numerous awards for communicating science from the National Academy of Sciences, the American Chemical Society, and the National Science Board.
Alda was born in New York City, the son of the distinguished actor, Robert Alda. He began acting in the theater at the age of 16 in summer stock in Barnesville, Pennsylvania.
Thank you for creating this!!!!
During his junior year at Fordham University, he studied in Europe where he performed on the stage in Rome and on television in Amsterdam with his father.
After college, he acted at the Cleveland Playhouse on a Ford Foundation grant. On his return to New York, he was seen on Broadway, off-Broadway and on television. He later acquired improvisational training with "Second City" in New York and "Compass" at Hyannisport. That background in political and social satire led to his work as a regular on television's "That Was the Week That Was."
Love this! â¤
His wife, Arlene, is the author of nineteen books, including her latest, Just Kids from the Bronx. An award winning professional photographer, her work has appeared in a number of magazines and books. They have three daughters and eight grandchildren.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The worst advice ever... Great information is what makes great life.
TRANSCRIPT:
Alan Alda: I met a nanoscientist at Cornell University who had a really interesting story. He had discovered, with his graduate student, how to make the worldâs thinnest glassâit was only one atom thick. The top of it was the same atom as the bottom of it, and he called it âtwo-dimensional glass.â It was an amazing thing, nobody had ever found a way to make glass this thin before, and it was picked up by one scientific journal.
i love how all of his videos seem and sound like it's a conversation... .and as though he himself is geniunely invested and interested contently in it. not an assertive, ordered talk or smth like that... idk how to explain, it just feels that way..
And it seemed like a more interesting subject than one that would just get that much attention. And a couple of months later he was taking our workshop when we were up at Cornell, and in the course of talking about his discovery we realized that he had discovered how to make the worldâs thinnest glass by accident. It wasn't something he was trying to do, an accident happened.
And I said, "You know, this is fascinating. People like us, on the outside, in the public, it's an interesting story to us to know that something so groundbreaking, that helped you understand the structure of glass and might have new uses for glass, that you discovered such a thing by accident. What an interesting story that is."
I love coming back to this video! Sometimes, I unfortunately forget how much of a gift Alan Alda is to us all. His sharing/lessons are always relatable, applicable, and inspiring. Thank you, Big Think.
And also in the meantime he had been cited in the Guinness Book of World Records as having discovered the world's thinnest glass. So now he had two things that would interest the public.
And the next time he gave an interview he started off with the story of how it had been an accident that he discovered this. This human story now led into the technical story about what was the world's thinnest glass, how was it made, and that kind of thing. It became a story that was interesting to other people who don't know the technical details with that familiarity.
Imagine if my name was George Santos
Read full transcript on: https://bigthink.com/videos/alan-alda-how-to-capture-peoples-attention-by-telling-good-stories
Awesome!
More User Perspectives
Thank you Alan Alda. You gave me a spark of an idea for my short story I wrote several years ago that lacked something to make it more engaging. It has been languishing for some time until just now!!
@robg6965Bravissimo ...Mr Alda nailed it đ
@binkz5987I guess thats the reason why the CIA invests in hollywood. All you need to do to get people to finance the killing of millions of innocent people around the globe is tell them storys about war heroes..
@donalain69Folks who tells good stories, their background should be thoroughly checked. Or else one will end up with some fraud gurus from India like Osho, Sadhguru and Saibaba who is equivalent to todays social media's influencers who are good at story telling.
@machomanrichards1534Thanks, Alan. It reminds me of the story of the blind man on a blind horse. When challenged by his pals of telling the most scariest story, the main character conjured the tale of a blind man that was riding his blind horse back to his village, only to stray away the path towards a cliff face, and meet a horrible death once falling over. He stop the story as the half step at the edge was told, beating his friends in their contest of storytelling.
@mellow-jelloA story is like a sandwich, the middle is what gets in between the two ends and which ultimately makes the bite so delicious.
@alejandrosandoval9915I LOVED him in Crimes & Misdemeanors!
@TheRustyLMSo true! Did I ever tell you my story about "the BIG one that got away. . ."? lol
@cherilynnfisher5658Life is great awful great
@marcelchagnon4960That not fair
@marcelchagnon4960God story. Our real
@marcelchagnon4960No wonder there was the virgin birth introduced in the Jesus story, it was not to indicate the birth was supernatural but it was used to indicate the person was extraordinary.
@neld7721Existential before conventional.
@randyzeitman1354if glass was one atom thick, than it can't be transparent.........
@RamBhaktChandranarayanMr. Alan Alda, you're one of the most fascinating people on this planet. Thanks for sharing your wisdom with us.
@englishwithvivianaAlan, you are an excellent communicator. I was riveted to every word you saidâŚespecially the first three.
@CogentConsultGlass an atom layer thick is takeaway
@amanvijayjindal5742That's true
@DrMOB-kt7ttThe audience was riveted on the glass, whilst unsheathing their knivesâŚ.
@SRN1850ANCould this be applied to the stories in books like the bibul and such and the peepul who believe them?
@lannguyen-pu1dbCouse is more sticky? For media of sure. How body can follow mind...screw senses isn't means health?
@notme5249Interesting
@ad9366I did not know Alan Alda was doing such good work. I remember him clearly form the M.A.S.H, and have been a fan of his comic timing & dialogue delivery since then. What a wonderful artist. đđ
@pallaviborkar711Am I the only one the finds that, no matter how good the story is, people don't know how to listen anymore?
@MrJDOaktownA good story has obstacles. A better story shows the character or relationship transformation that results from those obstacles.
@domokatoHow do we distinguish between fictional obstacle and real obstacle.. I guess there we will need to have expertise of given topic.. it is true that common people are attracted towards good stories but it is also true common people are generally misled into wrong decisions..be it business (share market, consumer market, etc) or political or motivational market..everywhere.. expertise has it's own importance..its like "dont bullshit the bullshitter"đ
@AK-hz4lii like the water thing
@plugslideScience itself is nested inside a story, the story of alchemy, the story of rebellion, the story of the savior. It would do many scientists a service to recall that.. so much philosophical confusion in the scientific community.
@astrobros4196No wonder gravity is discovered accidentally by falling of an apple
@rajatmaheshwari916Coool đđ
@rayyanghayas1243Alan Alda is an American treasure.
@abeechri got it mind control is the engagment that results in not telling only the facts rather also the difficulties or how you do it. I like to hear Tarantino speaking because he tells everything about what and how he does his work, he doesnt care people imitating him, he tells it and even gives advices. So he talks how he wrote an screenplay but telling it as a story itself. Very good advice or at least to try it in my process. I wanna write because almost ten years ago or a little more after reading a book a realized that stories are like worlds, words have this effect in the mind. You can stay like really focus in a phrase, search for more info, learn and maybe change your mind. Then i get into philosophy from greece i found it so natural so useful. Then i met Proust and i say how to describe what i lived like that or my thoughts. Was impressive seen a book of eight chapters, almost 7000 pages full of life and insights, a story, the characters, about how he live or how he thinks. It is beatiful proust writes. And in my search i say wow i need to learn first to describe maybe someday i can do it like Proust and tell a good story. You know now you can publish easily. On digital if you want. My goal is to learn to tell stories. Write chapters, build worlds, explain myself, find my voice, be more intelligent with my emotions in my life choices, entertain people, my kids, and been able to do that the best way possible. Describe i think comes first. I enjoy this video makes me think and i kept to me the ideas thag he explains, where i am and how to get there is a kind of screenwritting formula, all those tips from this professionals are useful.
Good work. Always makes me think.
This is great advice! As an engineer Iâm compelled and training to speak in dry bullet point facts and charts. Thatâs valuable information! But you make a very compelling case to speak in narrative to a degree to keep attention. I cannot argue and will try to do so :)
@MotorDetroitIt seems this is why Ronald Regan die hard fans, flat earthers and their like are seeing their numbers grow. Thereâs a friendliness and compassion those folk science just doesnât have.
@D0praiseHow he got in Toledo? I need to know!
@flagelus01A good story doesnât have to be true, it just have to be told in an interesting way.
@hermask815Fermatâs Last Theorem
A book about how Andrew Wiles discovered the theorem as a child and spent the next 40 years solving it! And along the way, we learn fascinating insights about mathematics and how discoveries are madeâŚ
Stories are the 1st tool to teach aka pass on important information.
@TrickyD