Pixar's Dirty Little Secret

Today we're going to break down one of the most successful startups of all time. And no, I'm not talking about Apple, I'm not talking about Facebook. We're actually going to break down Pixar. Yes, Pixar started off as a startup and it's one of the most successful of all time. 20 Academy Awards, every movie that they've released have had a cinema score of a minus or higher. And every single one of their films, except for one, got rated so certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. And out of the top 50 highest grossing animation films, they have 15 of them, even though they've only released 22 movies today. So let's first talk about why it's more difficult today than ever to achieve these feats.

It was hard, very difficult.

Barely made it out alive, so you're welcome. There's just so much content out there. When you talk about social media or television and streaming, because of this over saturation of content, it makes it more difficult than ever to get somebody to show up to a theater, to get somebody to click the rent or buy button from home. And that's what makes Pixar success so truly remarkable. In addition, with social media, it's giving everybody a voice today, it almost seems like we live in a culture, live in a society where we want to tear everything down.

You are a sad, strange little man and you have my pity.

To get a consistent collective of critics and consumers all saying that, I really love this movie, you should check out this movie is more difficult than ever. So how have they been so successful? How have they been able to generate this universal appeal? Now, some of you may be saying, well, Pixar is now owned by Disney and they spend millions and millions of dollars of marketing. They're competing against all of these other studios, all of these other movies and television shows put out there, and not everybody is having the same level of success. So what does it come down to? What is their secret? Well, it comes down to one thing and it's communication. Now, you may be sitting there and saying, oh, well, that's common sense. Effective communication is the key to any type of success. Well then why do so many other content creators struggle to reproduce the results? I'm not just talking about any type of communication. They actually have a secret fan form of communication. Would you like to find out? Now, it's not technically a secret, but it's definitely not well known. And that's why I want to share it with all of you today. If you want to get your point across, it comes down to the way that you communicate. We need to connect as a consumer, as a viewer. If you're watching a movie, if you're watching a television show and you ever get confused or you get lost or don't understand what a character is saying or what the story is trying to tell you, then you're probably gonna drop off. I don't get it. You had cultured swine. So communication is so critically important when it comes to storytelling because if you can't convey the message, if you can't convey the connection to the characters, to the storylines, it's not gonna sink in. So now let's dive into the secret sauce of Pixar. Now, first off, their animation was revolutionary. They created these films in such a way that we hadn't seen before. But the real element and brilliance of their success is the way that they communicate to the audience. And they use something that's called the process communication model. Now, I've been studying the process communication model for over six years now, and I'm a huge proponent of understanding communication, understanding human behavior, understanding psychology, understanding the subconscious. Do you ever look at someone and wonder what is going on inside their head? It's so critically important to understand how to effectively connect with somebody, to perform a specific action. So I dove into the process communication model, and after 15 years of studying different frameworks of communication self development, this is one of the most powerful and accurate ones that I have found to date. So let me give you some back context of PCM. So the story that I was told about PCM is it was this discovered in the 1970s by a psychologist that was studying something called human transactional analysis. It's one of the most difficult things to really learn. And the psychologists, in studying human transactional analysis, identified that within each individual we have six personality types. Now, with PCM and process communication model, we have access to all six, but we typically use one as our way of communicating and understanding and perceiving the world. And when you understand how somebody perceives the world, you can communicate with them more effectively. Now, what they saying in communication in general and PCM specifically, it's not about the content, it's about the context. So you could be saying something, but because somebody perceives the world differently than you, that they don't really hear you, they don't really understand you.

Signal the husband. Is it garbage night? We left the toilet seat up. What? What is it, woman?

What? So in the 70s, NASA actually picked up on this and brought Tabi Koller, the founder of process communication model. Down to study their process for understanding which space candidates were right for the space program. And I'm sure you've seen these crazy scenes in movies where they'll stick you in this crazy room and ask you all these questions. Woman with large breasts, woman with medium breaths. This one looks like you with breath. So they brought Taby Collar in and stuck him in the back of the room. And within 10 minutes, he would write down on a piece of paper what their personality type was, how they perceived the world, and whether they were fit for the space program. And then he dropped it on the room and left.

Within five minutes, I would put my pad down and three hours later he said, you have more information in the five minutes than I got in three hours. How do you do it?

I want to learn this. So NASA retrained their entire space program around this. Bill Clinton actually learned about the process communication model after he lost the re election of governor of Arkansas and then made Taby Collar move down to Arkansas to train him and his entire staff.

When Bill would write a speech, I would then say, okay, that target audience to connect with them. You might want to change the first.

Half of the speech with a little.

Bit more facts, a little less this, a little bit more this.

But what people will say who have met Bill Clinton, whether they like him or don't like him, the minute he shakes your hand, he makes you feel like you're the only person in the room. Why? Because in that instant second, he can determine how you perceive the world and to communicate directly with you because he understands how to use the power of the process communication model to effectively do so. And that's where we get to Pixar. So Pixar has writers trained on staff, and I may always say that they secretly have writers on staff trained in this because they don't really publicly talk about it. And why is that? So going back to the beginning of process communication model, what Tabi Kohler identified is that within each individual we have six different personality types. And again, those personality types dictate the way that we communicate with people and the way that we want to communicate with us. So what Pixar did so brilliantly is that they have characters that are designed to speak to each way that people perceive the world. So some of you may be saying, well, how this different from Myers, Briggs or other communication frameworks. It's a communication tool not only to understand yourself and how you like to be communicated to or how your brain works, but how you can effectively communicate your message and communicate it to the masses in such a way that gets people to perform the specific actions that you're looking for. Now, even on top of that, it predicts distress sequences. So based on how you perceive the world, it will tell you how your distress, if your psychological needs or aren't being met, will arise. I let this happen, you know, and it teaches you how to get yourself out of distress, but also how to get other people out of distress to bring them in to the conversation that you want to have with them. And it is one of the most accurate things that I have found in everybody I employ that takes the test, and every client that dives into it says the same thing over and over again. It's the most accurate description of myself. So in the world we see today, people are very different. I don't need to tell you that it's common sense. But with communication frameworks such as pcm, it allows us to bridge that gap and to connect with people that view the world differently than us. They communicate differently than us because it's sad to say, but so much conflict, whether it's just an argument with a spouse, a friend, or looking at global conflict in the form of wars and people killing each other, what we've got here is failure to communicate. And if we can effectively learn how to communicate and how we see the world differently, it can bring us all together, whether we're trying to do it for personal reasons, business reasons, or we're trying to make global change and global impact. So now I want to jump into a conversation with Jeff King, who is one of the world's leading experts and masters when it comes to the communication model. He learned it directly from tabi Kahler over 15 years ago. And I want him to break down for us the six different personality types and then we'll actually get into how Pixar specifically using them in their movies to have such tremendous success. All right, Jeff, well, thanks so much for taking the time. I appreciate it. And where I would really love to start is if you could break down the six different personality types within pcm.

PCM talks about the six personality types and communication styles that reside within you. For some of us, some of these are weak and some of them are strong. And the goal is to make them all strong. The first part is the thinker part. That is the part of you that thinks, that analyzes, that organizes and wants structure around timelines and plans and dates. The second part is the persister part. The persistent part is the part that shares opinions, has beliefs, develops morals, is able to offer their insight around any topics without having to think about it or consult. The third part is the rebel part and the rebel part is that fun part who is lax. And they're fluid, they use slang, they like to have fun, they're very cool with open ended work schedules and they don't really like to be a 9 to 5 situation. They want to be, you know, they want everything to be fluid and open and laissez faire. The next one is the imaginer part. The imagineer part is the part that is reflective, it's calm, it does not speak a lot. This part likes to contemplate on the world around them. And then the next part is the promoter part. And this is the part that goes, goes, goes. Doesn't make plans, just likes to move into action really fast. Likes to move and do big things and likes to be in competition and likes to accomplish big things. And then the last part is the harmonizer part and this is the caring, nurturing part that likes to, that is empathetic and likes to be around people and likes to be in environments where things are nurturing and soothing and likes to be in that caretaker role when they're in groups of people.

And the big difference is we have access to all six of these.

Absolutely, that's absolutely correct. So what you want to know is you want to know what you're doing. Base is what your strongest part is and what your weaker parts are so that you can make your weaker parts stronger. And that way you can connect with a diverse part of the population. The other thing that's great, fantastic about PCM is it gives you a roadmap on how to grow those parts of you that are weak.

My understanding then is the power of process communication model is to be able to understand that people perceive the world in different ways based upon their base personality type.

Absolutely. The flaw that most people do when they create content or ads is what they do is they speak to themselves. So we all have two or three parts that are really strong and two or three that are really weak. And if we don't have awareness, we're just going to speak to ourselves which is then only going to connect with those personality and communication styles that are like us. What PCM offers is here's how to connect with the entire population so you can have maximum engagement when you create content or marketing advertisements.

So let's talk about Pixar then. How are they using the process communication model in their films?

Yeah, so what Pixar does is when you watch a Pixar movie after You've gone through PCM training. You will be able to see how deliberate they are in putting the PCM parts into the characters, into the movie. They've been able to include all six parts so that when the audience is sitting there watching the movie, all six parts are represented on the screen. Therefore, everyone thinks, feels, and believes that a part of that movie is connecting with them.

Can you break down one film in particular to kind of show how they've used it?

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the films that we could look at is Finding Nemo. The other thing that PCM does real quickly is it also gives you demographics within North America. So when we look at Dory, one of the characters in Finding Nemo, her two strongest parts and the two languages that she uses the most are Rebel and Thinker.

Well, I don't. I don't think I've ever eaten a fish. Hi.

That's incredible. Good on you, mate. Therefore, she's connecting with 45% of the North American population right from jump. And so 45% is. When they're looking at that, they see a part of themselves. Dort, Marlon, he connects with the persister part, which is 10%, the rebel part, which is 20%, and then the thinker part, which is 25%. While they're doing their silly little impressions, I am miles from home with a fish that can't even remember her own name.

Boy, but that's frustrating.

So bump 10% from Dory, and he's connecting with a wider range of people. The other thing that was really interesting about finding Nemo, there's 30% of the North American population are what we call the harmonizer part, the feeling part. And Coral right at the beginning of the movie represents that part.

There's over 400 eggs. Odds are one of them is bound to like you.

She doesn't exist in the film very long. However, we have that immediate feeling connection right in that first five to seven minutes of the video.

What you're saying is Pixar is intelligently designing their characters, going in when they're creating a character, knowing that they need to connect with a big percentage of the North American population. People connect with those characters because they see themselves in those characters and thus are more interested and more entertained and more engaged and more likely to like the movie and then share it with other people they know?

Yeah, absolutely. Bottom line is it's about math. And what they figured out is there are certain there are segments of the population that. That they know are there. And if they write their scripts to connect with them, they're going to get those large percentage of people in those seats. And you have that with Dory, Nemo, Coral and Marlin in the first part of the film. You have all that math right there. I mean, how many times have you seen a film and it gets critical acclaim and people are, you know, this is one of the greatest films of all time and it wins a bunch of awards, but no one's, no one's watching it. They're not making any money. But then you have these big blockbuster films that are raking in billions, and when you look at them, they are diversifying their characters to connect with a larger audience and that's where they're making their dollars. And you and I have talked about this before. The promoter part is only 5% of the North American population are what we call promoter base, where promoters their strongest part. And that's the part that just goes, goes, goes. 95% of us are not them. However, 95% of us would really like to do that. Ironman is the greatest example that we have. Everyone wants to be like him, but none of us have that skill, that personality or that communication skill set. But we really want to be there. So when we were there, we're connecting to a part that we want to be which is a little bit, bit different than what Pixar does.

So I would guess that the biggest takeaway and lesson here is that when you're designing content is really first understand that you perceive the world in a certain way and that dictates how you communicate with other people.

Absolutely. Change the way in which you're delivering the content. You know, one of the things to ask yourself a question is when you deliver, when you've developed content and you have thought that it's solid and it flops, probably the reason that it went, went like that is because you designed it for yourself. And if you designed it for yourself, you're only hitting a small population. So when you design it, you don't have to change your brand, you don't have to change the position, you don't have to change your content, but you change the way in which you're delivering your content so that you can get multiple personality types to engage.

Can you kind of just break down a little bit about the words that you choose and the way that you either ask a question or give a second statement or tell somebody to do something can impact the power of the message that you're delivering? Yeah.

Is 85% of the North American population are disconnected or will disengage when they're told what to do. So if I say Brendan, click here, I'm telling you what to do. 85% don't want to be told what to do. So that some, there's the ways that we can connect with some personality types is just to tweak that and say will you please click here or will you sign up for this newsletter? So when you ask a question now, what you're doing is you're opening up to almost 35, depending on where energy is, anywhere from 35 to 60% of the North American population. But most importantly, you're not turning personality types off.

Do you see a difference whether you're communicating with one person on the other side of the table versus 10 million people or the same principles apply in.

Terms of that there is a difference and here's the nuance. If I'm talking to you now, if I'm talking to 10 million people, I do a Pixar does I just, I just use math and I just hit the top demographics and I repeat those, repeat the language of the top demographics while I slide in a few of the others to diversify my message.

That's great advice. Well, I appreciate your time in all this, Jim.

You're very welcome.

So the beauty of the process communication model, why I really wanted to share it with you today and I feel it's so valuable is because again, it's not just about us as an individual, it's about us as an individual and how we connect with people. Whether you're trying to connect with one person person or you're trying to connect with 10 million people, the model holds up. Does that mean that because you're effective at communicating that people are going to purchase your product, go see your movie, watch your social content? No, it's not a guarantee. It definitely increases your chances of success because your communication is not getting lost in translation. So I want to hear from you guys now, who is your favorite Pixar character and why? Now with your understanding of the process communication model, tell me why you love a specific character and also I'd love for you to take a guess to tell me which one of the personality types do you think that you perceive the world with? So if you want to learn more about the process communication model, click the link below and check out my book Hook how to Stand out in a 3 second world where we dive deeper into the process communication model. And my agency also offers in depth training. So if you want to learn from Jeff and myself around pcm, get your profile test done and attend one of our online workshops. Definitely shoot me a message and we'll get you signed up. So thanks for taking the time to watch this video. And if you want to see more videos like this, click the subscribe button and turn on notifications. And also give it a like, I'd really appreciate it.