How To Make Someone Trust You

Shane Dawson has revolutionized YouTube as well as content creation in general. And you may not even know it. For those of you unfamiliar, Shane has been around on YouTube for over 10 years doing all sorts of different styles of video, from vlogging to conspiracy theories to ghost hunting.

I didn't do anything. I didn't touch anything.

I didn't touch anything.

While he's always been a popular creator, something unprecedented has happened recently. His 45 minute long multi part series on famous and controversial figures like Jeffree star Trisha Paytas and most recently Jake Paul are averaging more views than every single show on television. That's one guy and one cameraman who are beating shows which have over 100 people. When you include the cast and crew, that means that there is something here to be learned for all of us who want to know how to grab attention in today's noisy world. So in this video I want to look at what it is about Shane that makes his 45 minute episode so hard to stop watching and what you can learn to be more engaging in everyday conversation from him. Not to mention how to develop his superpower that makes every single person he interacts with seem to trust him immediately.

Obviously, like with any of your help. I trust you.

Yeah, yeah man, I trust you. I trust you destroyed a kid's room or something. That was the thing.

Yeah, I mean that whole thing. I've never talked about this, but we're on the topic.

For starters, YouTube is in a very interesting time. It began as a platform for vlogs, comedy skits and cat videos. Now. Now we're seeing just about everything that has worked in television be ported over. So in 2017, YouTubers embraced music videos, especially the diss track. In 2018 we saw boxing matches and press conferences. And now Shane has brought in these multi part series that combine elements of cribs.

That's a castle. Am I allowed to park here?

True crime dramas and also somebody that.

I did consider a friend at the.

Time killed someone and Oprah Winfrey esque interviews.

I'm just so like big disappointment. I don't want to cry.

These 45 minute long shows have three main ingredients that make them like crack for the human viewer. First is the exposition. Shane is a master of establishing emotional stakes. His background as a conspiracy theorist, host and ghost hunter really helps him sell this so early in each episode and frequently throughout, we see the drama of each moment play out on his face. Even if it's something as small as receiving a voice note like in this.

Next clip, I just got the Chills. That was crazy, right? Yeah, that was weird.

Moments of intense emotion naturally grab our attention. And you can hear how the music and sound effects support the mood. B roll footage does the same thing, whether it's ominous and shocking.

People aren't people. They're just tools to be used in their life for their game, whatever it is.

Okay.

Or heartfelt and nostalgic.

Oh, my God.

A lot of archived stuff are in here.

These are all your records.

Oh, my God.

Come on, memory lane.

Wait. Oh, my God.

Wait.

I want to sit at your desk.

But these emotional stakes are all in service of one thing. And this is a critical piece of all storytelling. Whether you're a YouTube creator or just someone telling a story to your friends, Shane is raising burning questions in the mind of the listener. Questions that you need answered. And the emotional stakes are there to help imbue these questions with more meaning. You'll even hear people speak broadly about events that you don't yet understand to pique your curiosity.

He's been fucked over so many times by friends, family, you know, you know, some of the stuff off camera, like, it's. That's hard to let go of. Could you picture being around someone after something like that happen to you? Never, right? Like never.

And sometimes Shane just asks the questions that you will want answered outright.

I want to know, like, what's his life? Like, what is team 10? Is his house even real? Is it a set? We should get this address tattooed on us? Is his relationship real? Is the drama all fake? What is that? Because I literally don't know anything, right?

Raising these questions in the mind of the listener is maybe the most important and neglected part of storytelling today. And to demonstrate, it used to be just common knowledge that people wouldn't watch content on YouTube that was longer than 10 or maybe 20 minutes. But Shane is putting out eight part series, each 30 to 50 minutes long, that people binge watch. And a huge reason is because he is so strong at making these burning questions stick in your head. Like any good cliffhanger, you have to keep going to get the answers. So if you're ever telling a story in your own life and people aren't paying attention, it's not that you need to tell the story faster. It's that you need to raise questions as to what will happen next by hinting at a surprising revelation to come. Now, all of this talk about these emotional stakes might make these videos sound like they're more serious than they are if you haven't yet watched them. But Shane and almost every Good storyteller balances this intriguing idea of question raising with a lighthearted element of fun. So prior to the interview portion of every series, he often hangs out with the person and does goofy activities and he spends a lot of that time playing playfully cracking jokes with them. Now we've talked a lot about different kinds of humor and ways to have fun in our other videos, so I don't want to go too deep into it here, but Shane's particular brand is often self deprecating humor and that serves to make the people around him feel comfortable since he's making fun of himself.

Kind of just do everything in my house because I don't like to leave my house.

Now I don't necessarily recommend this style outright for reasons that you can see in another video that I will link to in the description. But the point here is that all that time spent enjoying one another's company goes a long way towards building strong rapport. And if you're curious to learn more about rapport building, you can join our email list using the link below. The first video that you'll see there is on four motions that lead to great rapport and an amazing first impression. So go ahead and check that out if you want more. But moving on now to the third section which is the interview. This is where we get the juicy payoff to all those questions that were raised by Shane earlier in the episode. And this wouldn't work though if his subjects that he was interviewing didn't open up.

He's open with the people that he's close to, but very. I've not seen him let in a stranger ever in my life. But this doesn't work if he's not honest. Like if he sits there and he has a rehearsed thing and he's just doing this to try and save himself, then that's f up.

I think this is where Shane really shines because almost everyone that he's interviewed trusts him enough to reveal things that they have never said before on camera, even if they've only known him for a few minutes.

Oh my God, Jeffrey. What the fuck?

I'm never shining. This is very weird for me.

This is like. I know this is like a lot and I'm sorry, but if you think.

About it, that is a crazy feat. These are public figures saying things they've never said on camera before, despite literally thousands of opportunities to do so. So how is Shane the one that makes that happen? Well, one piece is that during their conversations, Shane often emphasizes how he and the person that he is Talking to are quite similar.

It gets really lonely.

On a different level.

I feel very similar. Like I have a very, very small family. But it is like looking at a mirror right now because I'm the same way. I've never like. I don't even like talk to other YouTubers same.

No, they like you sometimes for humor, he'll even go so far as to dress up exactly like them. And while this might seem silly, we like and trust people who we perceive as being similar to ourselves. So all of this mirroring and commonality finding the goes a long way towards people opening up and sharing vulnerabilities.

I never thought I would be talking about these things today. I for some reason just want to say thank you because I don't talk about these things to anyone, you know, not with anyone. My family, Nate, no one is just always sitting inside me. So thank you for helping me get some of these feelings out.

When people start opening up, Shane is naturally very empathetic. He can often sense his interviewees discomfort at some of the things that they might say. Which is why, even though it's counterproductive to his goal to get the juicy story, he offers to turn the cameras off and gives the other person a chance to carefully consider what they want to share publicly.

Things for me started getting different when Greg Paul got involved.

Are you okay talking about this? Yeah. Let's turn the camera off for a second. Okay. I'm gonna be honest. We've been talking along for a while.

This is an extremely important lesson for your own life. When people begin to extend trust to you by opening up, for instance, you need to prove that you won't use it against them. Now, sometimes that can be as simple as saying, hey, just so you know, I'm not going to repeat this to anyone if you don't want me to. Other times it involves giving that person lots of space and not cutting them off with further questions, just listening. Like in this clip.

I feel like I can read people very well. I know when someone's been fake. I know when someone isn't. And I can see. Oh my God, I can see him when things happen to him and he's hurt. I can see him trying to process what he's feeling.

This may seem simple, but listening attentively is sometimes the hardest thing to do. When people are starting to be open and honest because you have so many questions. But if you do let them open up at their own pace, it shows them that you, one, are listening carefully and two, are not just going to push them to open up faster than they feel comfortable. Now as he listens, you can see Shane's facial expressions match the motion of the person that he's speaking to. Rather than judging them harshly, he's putting himself in their shoes and empathizing. And this was a key point in my breakdown of Oprah Winfrey, who is known for getting these exclusive scoops into the truth of her guests lives. Watch how Shane shows that same degree of empathy when he interviews people like.

Or I'm like, you can leave the contract. Like I just don't want to take a percentage of you. It just doesn't feel right. And I thought that was dope. I was like, oh shit.

Like, the willingness to go there emotionally with the person that they're talking to is what makes both Shane and Oprah such successful interviewers. People will keep secrets because they fear a judgmental reaction. But if while listening, you can actually allow yourself to suspend any judgment that you might have, no matter how bad what's coming out of their mouth is, and just experience the same thing as the person you're talking to, whether it's fear, discomfort or nervousness, you're going to be a better friend and prove yourself to be someone that they can trust. Now all of this adds up to some highly watchable video content that exactly follows the arc of a well told story. You've got the emotional stakes being established from the get go, character development and enjoyment along the way, and then a big climactic payoff at the end. In normal storytelling you wrap up here and there's a round of applause. But Shane's videos become even more addictive because he ends by starting that whole cycle over and hinting at the next video.

We texted after and we were like, I was like, please don't ever like tell Jake. I don't ever want this kid out. Like it was so stupid. He was like, listen like, I'm a savage, I'm a maverick.

Oh fuck.

So if you were curious, now you know why you can't seem to turn off Shane Dawson's videos. And whether or not you're personally a fan of his, you can absolutely use the broad strokes that we touched on here to tell better stories. There's first, emotional stakes and mystery needs to be created up front. Two, diversions, fun character development along the way, and three, that big payoff and reveal climax. Now hopefully I can learn the same thing as I do these videos in the future. And if you like this and want more of those videos, make sure to click subscribe, hit that notification bell. Because we put out new videos to help you be more charismatic and confident every single week. And if you're new here, I'm going to link to a couple of the ones on Oprah and and the other styles that I mentioned in the playlist on screen now. So I hope that you guys enjoyed this video and I will see you in the next one.