What Great Storytellers Know: Matt Chan at TEDxSeattle

Over the last 40 years I've told a lot of stories on television and my job was to create and produce reality shows that give a window into people's lives and in my business you're only as good as your last show, so true. Now they

know

me as this guy, I readily admit that I have too many rats, he literally sees them as his children, you

know

what

these rats are going to go for, there are rats everywhere, man they come oh god it's their intestines. Blen you need to make the decision to quit yeah thank you when people find out I'm responsible for hoarders the first reaction is that it's the sickest show I've ever seen in my life it's real and

what

I'm saying yeah it's real.

Really the trash, the filth, the bugs, in fact sometimes crews need full hazmat suits just to do the shoot, so you can imagine what it's like out there. Well, I'm not here to talk about the hoarders experience, what am I here for. what I'm talking about is why hoarders worked and why it captured an audience and I feel like I've learned how to tell stories and the secret really is knowing your audience, knowing your audience, whether you're telling a story to sell something. or you are preparing a slide presentation for a project or just trying to be the most fascinating person at a party, the one thing that people overlook when telling a story and it is very important is to know your audience, they need to know their audience Now some people might say no, the most important thing is that all stories need a beginning, a middle and an end, all stories need a point to me that's the given, if your story doesn't have those elements it's probably a pretty bad story, no, what I'm talking about is capturing.

Your audience first engages them on a deeper level from the beginning, okay, how many times have you been stuck in a conversation with someone whose sole purpose in talking to you is to talk about themselves? It's brutal, well I was recently. at a memorial, uh, for someone who had passed away, you don't know the kind of place you want to be the life of the party, but there was this guy who was clearly a successful person because, within moments of talking to him, you knew . he had a car collection, he had property, he took amazing vacations, the guy had a fabulous life, he was working the table and the guy was relentless, he kept trying to strike up a conversation with me trying to find common ground and then he found out that I I went to look for him.

I went to the University of Oregon and proceeded to tell the story of two Oregon Duck fans who were completely drunk and he started telling the story and I immediately realized it didn't make sense, so you know, I'm thinking about this guy . I'm saying like you know this is a memorial man, I mean what's your problem? Well, finally, in H's last ditch effort to get me involved, he finally mentions the hoarders and says Matt, he says, I'm a hoarder, I'm a wine hoarder, so, uh, so I politely excused myself from the table to go to kill myself because clearly he didn't know his audience and in this case it was Brut, oh, and I know a lot of you have been in those situations, so when uh When you're creating your story, one of the pieces of advice you hear is: start with what you know.

I think that's pretty good advice, but I would say if you're trying to capture an audience, start with what they know what your audience knows, okay, in some cases, that's pretty easy. You're telling a story to friends, family, colleagues, but what if you don't know your audience? How can you know the unknown well? That's when you need to turn to your audience. life experiences, you know what those things are that we've all shared and been through, you know, like the guy that you get stuck behind the guy that's going 40 miles an hour on the Fastway and on the freeway, how about If you have to listen to that ass on his cell phone? talking too loud in a quiet room that's bad, what I think is leveraging shared experiences is the key to capturing an audience and that's why Hoarders works because we all know the trend.

No, I'm not talking about living on your knees and trash. and walking through human waste, no, what I'm talking about is that junk drawer, we all have this idea that we all understand that objects have emotional meaning for us, you know, the keychain you got from Disney World, the signed baseball card, what. about that jar of nail clippings that you've saved and added to for the last 30 years, hoarder, knowing that your audience is the key to capturing one, so, I was, I was leaving Las Vegas one night trying to get back to Seattle and I was on the second to last flight out and uh, it wasn't a full flight, so I thought this is good, this is good, you know, it's going to be a nice easy flight, but then of course Alaska cancels the last flight and everyone leaves. they go to my flight and um and then we're so we're packed and we're boarding the plane and it's slow and you know you're out and then some idiot starts mooing and uh you know, so I finally get to my seat and I'm sitting in the second to last aisle row and there is a free seat next to me.

I think well, this is

great

, this is

great

, but you know that's not going to last. People are getting on board and uh and then. They make the announcement that they're getting ready to close the door and then the stragglers arrive and the seats are still open, so, you know, I look up and there's a mountain of a man coming down the aisle and he gets to about the halfway and the guy sitting on the other side of the empty seat starts waving by saying his name and I'm like oh come on, maybe I shouldn't have made that moo and well, anyway, he gets up from the seat and looks at me and says : hey mate, you're a little fella, why don't you sit in that middle seat and give us all some elbow room, yes elbow room.

So, I think about you, I think there's no way, no way, I'm not giving up my seat. so I'm trying to think of something incredibly clever to say to the guy you know, like sit in your seat, let's go and I look at him and say no, no, I don't speak English, you know, so it worked and he came up with the idea. he crouches in the seat, I'm pressed against the armrest that hangs half in the aisle, they took it off and I try to make myself as small as possible uh and then I said, well, sleep, try to go to sleep and I do it, I do it.

I fall asleep and then it happens that I wake up gasping for air the oxygen is gone we decompress we crash and I open my eyes and everything is fine everything is fine and then I look to my left and his face is there he is asleep and I I realized that for the last 30 minutes I have been inhaling his exhale. They were slowly checking me out. I know, gross, gross, but don't forget I'm this guy. Okay, so what have we learned from history besides bringing your own oxygen? Well first of all first of all I started with something everyone who has flown knows a common experience to get you hooked once hooked, a good Storyteller can take you where you want to go, if they are really good they will keep you involved little by little . twists and turns and its Cliffhangers story that keeps you waiting for the next part of the story knowing that an audience is the key to capturing it so then back at the monument I'm getting ready to leave he had obviously risen from the dead and and the wine hoarder is on the corner talking to someone and he's just doing that and I'm like, well I gotta listen to this, so this is what I heard, he says you two, oh my gosh, I had to install two cars. further. lifts in my garage from my collection I think you're saying wow, tough life anyway, it was probably good, there's no other word for another word other than the most idiotic moment I've ever experienced in my life, but it was cool because I knew I had reason.

You knew you were right, you had engaged your audience with what they knew and now you know what all great

storytellers

know and that's how to capture an audience, thank you.