Ep. 34 How to Use Conflict Effectively

Hey there, Mark. How are you? Good. Great.

Yes, I am. Thank you very much.

I didn't even let you answer. That's not even nice. You know what that is, Mark?

Pause. The power of the pause, Darren.

Mark, that's a conflict.

I know, right? And the funny thing is, that's one part of speaking that we need to have in our stories. Some kind of conflict that the audience can identify to kind of see where is this going to lean in and to find out how our character handles the conflict. What do you think, Darren? Let's do this.

I remember back in my early days studying comedy writing, I had this mentor. His name was Stanley Ralph Ross, and he was one of the originators of the Batman series early on, you know, the pow biff, bam sock. And he was just brilliant and an amazing man. And when I studied storytelling from him, he had this quote that resonates that you and I know that I teach this whenever we do our storytelling webinar.

And.

And it is a great story. Is an appealing protagonist in pursuit of a worthwhile goal against seemingly insurmountable obstacles. What?

Anyone can give a presentation, Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcasts with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown. Mark Brown.

Your life tells a story, and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stagetime. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation. Ahas. Let's dive right in.

Darren, you said insurmountable. One, two, three. A word with five syllables.

All right, let's have a conflict right here. Come on. I know, it's amazing. That's conflict resolution right there. Hey, one of the things that we noticed in stories, if you want a great story, if you want to be unforgettable, one of the keys inside of the story is having a conflict. As Craig Valentine says, conflict is the hook. When we're watching TV shows right at the beginning, they get you hook hooked. It's interesting, Mark, because I was watching an old Columbo television show.

Yeah, Peter Falk. Yeah, yeah.

That was decades ago, and I loved it. But what was different between back then compared to the new crime shows that come out is they took a long time before they got to the conflict. And I think today's audience doesn't give us that amount of time to get there, to get hooked. Cause we're out. We're on another commercial. So, Mark, I think conflict is so important that we dedicated a whole episode to this. If you want to know more about characters, we went back to check out episode 32. But right now, today, we want to focus on conflict.

Mark Brown, you sound so aggressive, my friend. I love the Hollywood style opening. When the movie opens up right away and we see the hero or the character going through some kind of conflict, it's important to establish the conflict and as you said, establish it early, because if we don't know where the story's going, what's the big deal? He's going down the street. That's nice, but why would I have any interest in the story of a guy walking down the street whistling unless we know why he's going down the street? Is there a pretty girl on the park bench? Is there a cop watching him? Was it Charlie Chaplin, Darren, who said all he needs for a great story is a pretty girl, a park bench, and a cop?

Yes.

Or something like that.

Yes. So the pretty girl was the goal. The goal. The park bench was the setting. Setting, and the police officer was the conflict. That's the conflict that keeps us open to engagement, open to humor, open to fun, but most likely to lean the audience in to get them to listen.

And what's interesting is in that particular case, we're talking Charlie Chaplin here. Charlie Chaplin was doing silent film. There was no dialogue there, but the action showed the conflict. We have the benefit as presenters of the words that we can use establish the conflict as well. So what we say should paint that picture in the audience's mind of the conflict the character, male or female, is going through. And the cool thing is, even with Hollywood, we have cartoon characters. We have inanimate object. We have the brave little toaster who's trying to get home to his previous owner. So conflict exists all around us in film, in movie, in books, in plays. And we need to have that conflict in our presentations to draw the audience in, have them leaning in and really have an interest in the character and not just give them data and facts completely all the time. The idea of establishing that conflict, one may think it means, okay, we must see somebody with a goal. I want to climb that mountain. I want to get the girl. I want to get the job. But is the conflict always so obvious? The pursuit of the proverbial dream, Darren, is that all that conflict really is?

Well, it's not just the dream. It could be a simple, important fact. And here's the key that you and I learned from Michael Hague. It doesn't have to be important. Important to us. But it does have to be important to the character in your story, that person. And we have to see that it's important to them. So it doesn't necessarily. May not be able to relate emotionally, but if we can be rooting for the character, if we're rooting for the character to overcome that conflict, that's when we're engaged.

And I'm glad you mentioned Michael Hay, one of our wonderful coaches at stagetime, who's a Hollywood script consultant. Because I think of Michael, I think of films, and I think of old films like Working Girl, when she's trying to get ahead and trying to become better in the business, and she has to go through a boss who's blocking her every path and a boss who's using her material. And the funny thing is, in that particular film, the conflict can actually mirror real life. How many of us have had bosses who we felt held us back, who we felt didn't give us a chance to get ahead, who we felt stole our ideas. And the cool thing about conflict in that particular instance is we could relate to her conflict, knowing how our lives are. And we could relate to the idea of wanting to get ahead, wanting to achieve a goal, and have somebody who told us we couldn't do it. You and I, Darren, as speakers. When we were competing in Toastmasters, our goal was to get to the final, to get to the trophy. And we all had our own obstacle. We all had our own conflict. I had a friend of mine who also was a Toastmaster when I was first competing way back in 1994 in the previous Millenn. And yes, I do have the VHS videotape to prove it. He said he could never do what we did because his conflict was not having the support of a spouse who would be with him along the ride. And when I tell the story of how my friend Winnie, he could not consider himself even worthy to compete, he wouldn't even try. His conflict was right in his own home, and it prevented him from pursuing a goal he wanted to pursue. And in the contrast to that is my. My mentor. David Brooks, the 1990 world champion, told me that when he began to get really serious about pursuing this, he talked to his wife, Beth, and she said three words to him. And this occurred to me just now. It occurred to him. She said three words to David. She said, let's do this. And the contrast was he had his wife on his side. Let's do this together. Whereas Winnie said, I would never do it. I can't do it. Because his conflict came from Somebody in his life, a loved one who would not support in his goal, in his pursuit, in his idea of building himself. And again, it doesn't have to be pursuing a worthy goal to achieve a brass ring. But there are areas in our lives where things don't go the way we really want them to. And we have to establish that confidence. And if we can see it's important to them, the character, the bonus is very often we can see it in our own lives as well. And what that does is it establishes a connection between the character and us emotionally. That makes us want to root for them, that makes us want to see them succeed. It's almost vicarious. Nice word for you, Darren. Vicarious.

Let me go look that up.

Where we see our wins through their own. So the journey begins, the conflict is established, and we are right there with the character, wanting them to be successful and wanting feeling with them, empathizing with them, and relating to them. That's powerful, man.

Yeah. I think we also got to bring up internal conflict sometime. It could be a doubt inside, down deep, that was a lie told by somebody you cared about and you loved early on in your life. Well, that's a conflict, and it's very relatable. So there's both internal and external factors in the conflict. Sometimes there's both. And so we need, as the listener, listening to your story while you're on stage or listening to you virtually, we need to get what's the conflict? And it's really cool if it's subtle, but we get. Doesn't have to be. And there he was. But it's also, like you said, it can't be a story of Mark Brown trudging through the rain to get his paycheck in his mailbox, like, so who cares? Okay. He's gonna get wet.

All right.

Mark is wet. But now it starts raining harder.

And.

Then it rains even harder. Off in the distance, there's a lightning bolt. Well, if it's not close, there's no conflict. It's just a fact. So we get. Be careful. Remember our friend Scott McCain? We interviewed him last week. Check out the Scott McCain interview for sure. He was brilliant. And he told us a story early on in his career. He had to do one of the first keynotes in New York after September 11th. And then he also told us a story of speaking to a group. I think it was teachers. Was that correct? Yes.

Yeah. And they're going to go on strike.

He didn't know that.

He got there. Yeah.

And they stood up and turned around. When he started his speech, and I was like, oh, man, how is this one gonna come out? How would Scott McCain handle this?

See, right there, right there, you said. You just said. I was like, oh, no, how is Scott gonna handle this? Because you were able to empathize. And as a presenter, the idea of an audience standing and turning their back to you, you put yourself in his position. And if in our stories, we can give the audience the opportunity to put ourselves, put themselves in that character's position, that's the emotional buy in. And the conflict does not belong only to the character. Now, that conflict, Darren, that conflict is ours. We feel it and we own it. It's a game changer.

I couldn't wait to find out what. And he said he ran to the back of the room and they turned around again. In my life, people stood up, but then they walked out. His stay.

People walk out in Darren Lacroix.

Now, though, the mark is referring. Early on, when I tell a story where I was at the beginning of my comedy career and I would throw in a punchline and all I would hear was the ceiling fan. And that is the same thing. How is he gonna overcome that? We talked about this in episode 32. So Scott McCain was episode 33 and 32. We talked about characters, and we talked about my valet story, where at the very beginning, I was all excited. I got there early and he had parked my car in the farthest corner of the garage. And just before I was about to start, I was all nervous. And this was my first big professional presentation. So I'm trying to bring the audience there, and then the woman walks up to me and says, are you ready? And I was intimidated. Anyway, in episode 32, we talked about how Patricia Fritz said, you should make it an Amazon woman.

Amazon woman.

So there'd be more conflict. What's gonna happen? So when we're telling our stories on stage, we should be asking the audience, are you curious? You know, in our minds, are we making the audience curious? If they're not curious, then it just means we need a better conflict or a clearer conflict. But step number one is we've gotta know there's a conflict. We gotta establish that. So look at each of your stories and can you ident ask some of your friends if they can identify it? I mean, even like Toy Story, one of the best movies, our all time best animated movies. And what was the conflict? Woody was taken by the bad kid from across the street. The whole thing is about, how are we gonna get Woody back? That's the Conflict. But what's standing between getting Woody back? You know, if it was a nice kid that lived across the street, well, he would have never taken him in the first place. But then they could just go knock on the door and ask, and then Woody is back. There's no struggle. There's no journey. So we don't care. We don't really. Well, that's nice, but, you know, it doesn't make it a great movie. It's the conflict.

And that's true when you establish that conflict. And again, I want to say one more thing, Darren. People might think, well, I need to have something dramatic. And we have often said you don't need to cut your arm off and be stuck in the wilderness for five weeks for conflict to exist. Conflict can exist in the simplest of situations. It could be at home with a child who doesn't want to eat his Cheerios. You know, there's conflict there with mom and dad in the morning. Eat your breakfast. My daughter Angrene, she's 36 now, and we were having a family zoom last night, and we talked about how when she was a little girl, we'd want her to eat her breakfast and she would take a spoonful or a mouthful of food. She probably was 2 or 3 years old, and she refused to swallow. And our conflict was mom and dad trying to get this three year old to eat something. And she would keep that in her mouth for an hour till it turned soggy, who knows what, but she refused to swallow. We laugh about it now, but looking back in the 1980s, that was conflict for us. How do we resolve this? And it's a small thing, so think about your stories. Please don't think. You must go and find the most dramatic story in the world to establish conflict. Reach back, refle on the stories you are telling now. Can you clearly identify where the conflict exists? Or do you need to reword or rephrase your story? Rebuild your story to clearly establish to your audience that there is some conflict here that will draw them in and cause them to follow this character. And can't wait to see the resolution.

Yeah, I think any parent could relate to that story. Right now, everyone listening. Mark, how did you overcome that? Don't tell us. Don't tell us. We'll save that for part three in this episode. Stay tuned. If you want to hear how that was resolved, stay tuned through this commercial break.

Commercial break. I love this guy.

I just think we're so close to our own stories. I really think that goes to the power of getting a Great coach to help you see that somebody, not just a friend and a buddy. And that's if they're experienced, then they know storytelling do that. But if not, find that professional. Now, Mark, coaches, one on one. We have a lot of coaches. You can check out getaspeakingcoach.com where I have my whole faculty there. I don't do one on one coaching, but we don't even care who it is. Find the right coach. By the way, we did an episode on finding the right coach because not everyone is the right coach. And I just think this story, especially if it's a story you're gonna tell over and over and over again, just getting that help if you're stuck, especially and if you try to make it unforgettable. So, mark, phase two. One thing that most people miss, the.

Idea of increasing the conflict or magnifying the conflict, especially just when you think it's gonna be okay. I think of a film I saw several months ago. It's called 47 meters down. I don't mean to plug the film, but what's interesting, and it may be a spoiler here, I don't know, but in the film we have these individuals who are in a shark cage and they're stuck at the bottom of this ocean and they're coming and they're trying to find a way to get back up. And wonder of wonders, after a lot of conflict, they finally begin to pull him up and they're almost there. And what happens? The cable breaks. Oh, my gosh, they were so close. We thought they were home safe. And the cable breaks and the cage goes plummeting back down to the bottom of the ocean and you're like, oh, oh, no. What happens? That's Hollywood. That's drama. But the concept is, is there an aspect to your story where we think it's resolved, but then the conflict gets magnified? Because when that happens, Darren, one thing as a result is now the audience is kept engaged. Now, okay, we thought we were almost done, but now we want to lean in. What happens next and increasing the conflict. The audience, now, they want greater resolution. They're now engaged and maybe some can relate to having a second fall, so to speak. Right? And you talk about in your own kind of winning speech, about having this conflict, of having the goal you want to set and having your subway thing fail and Dr. Goddard failing time and time again and conflict increasing. Family doesn't approve of you. You have actually layers of conflict in your winning speech. You also have layers of conflict. The story you Told back in the character, episode 32, about the valet when you had increasing conflict, share how that kind of came about and how you were able to identify the increasing conflict and keep us, the audience, engaged. And I recall the speech in 2001. It was called RMT. I was there.

Well, first in the championship speech. Ouch. And that one I talked about strangers will make fun of your goal. Right. And then I said, family and friends, people who love you, who are well meaning can be naysayers. So it was using two different examples. Strangers are going to tell you you're crazy, but even people who love you are going to tell you you're cr. So that was how I did it in the championship speech. Now, I would love to tell you in the valet story, when I was working on it, that I knew I had to increase the tension. Fact of the matter is just the way the story happened. Naturally it was super clear and I just told it, but I didn't realize the power of what I was doing at the time. Now I see why it's so important. So here I am. First professional speech. I had a tape recorder, if you remember what that is, in my car in the valet. Had parked it in the farthest corner of the garage. I'm just about to start, and I need the cassette because it's my opening bit that I'm going to talk back and forth and have a conversation with the cassette. So it was crucial, it was critical to my opening. And I had to run back down to the valet, run through the. The garage, and then come back up. And I made it just in time. So that's what you're talking about. That.

Yeah.

Okay, now we go. And then. And then. Are you. The woman said, are you ready now? And I looked and I said, yes, I just need my note cards.

Oh, what?

And I had to run back downstairs again to get my note card.

The furthest spot in the parking lot.

Down the elevator, down the escalator to the friend. I found my little friend, the valet. Hi, it's me again. I have to get to my. I have to get to my car quickly. I have a humor presentation. And the irony of saying humor presentation like that actually gets a laugh as well. And then I'm trying to hurry him up, and he gets me into the car and I'm trying to make him. He's taking these little short steps, couldn't move along. The fact that he's taking little short steps, I couldn't move him along, escalates the conflict. And I get to the car And I had dropped them. So I had to plant the seed early on that I dropped them, but not make it clear that I forgot them. So sometimes you have to hide these things in our writing to get back to that leader. So then. And he turns to me and says, well, we'll get to what he says after that. But I can't wait to have Craig Valentine on. We mention him like every episode.

Yeah. World champion Craig Valentine, 1999.

Yeah.

Good buddy of ours.

Brilliant and a great storyteller. So we'll have to have him on soon. But he talks about the Titanic and when he's teaching storytelling and him and I are doing a story coaching, one event coming up later this year. And he says it's like the Titanic. If the Titanic hit the iceberg and there was a crack and the water only came up to the one foot mark, there's no story. There's no story. In a lot of movies we see the. I'm not sure Michael Haig could help us with this, what it's called, but the certain movie genre where the clock's ticking down to the bomb's gonna go off, whatever that is, that's adding to the tension and the drama again, keeping your audience engaged. Now. Now we're backing up from how Hollywood does it and just reminding you how can you increase the conflict? What other fact could you bring in? What other character could you bring in that would increase the tension? Again, keeping us engaged and getting us wanting to know what's going to happen even more.

You know what's brilliant about your story, Darren? First of all, your title was RMT Relieve My Tension. And you mentioned tension. And the other thing is it was organic. It actually happened the way you say it did, where the tension was increased, the conflict was increased as a part of the flowing story. Which tells me that there are times in our lives if we look for them. And I thank you, Jeanne Robertson, hall of Fame speaker, who says, look around you. The stories are there around you, the humor is around you, life is around you. There are times in our lives when we have situations where the conflict increases by itself. We've got to catch it, we've got to capture it. So we got to look back, look back on the stories you currently have. Are there dimensions to these stories where there is increasing conflict, but we fail to identify it, we have failed to capture it? But if we do that and craft the story well, we'll find the conflict is increasing by itself. And how we tell it draws the audience in. They have greater buy in and Then they, it can't wait for the last piece, which is the resolution of the conflict.

And Mark, when I've been working on writing my script and trying to put together my story, it came up. I was trying to get across the idea of my self doubt. And I created this scene which it's the emotional truth, but it wasn't the actual truth. And we talk about that where I confess to you that I remember like it's just before I'm going to go out on stage and I have this moment where I flash back when I was on third base in high school and all I had to do was hit home plate and I was just a pinch runner. I wasn't one of the star players, but I was faster than the guy that got to base. I was on third base. There's two outs, our home run hitter was up. All I had to do was get the home plate. There was a pass ball and pass ball usually means you steal home. And so I took a step and I was too afraid. I didn't want to lose the game for us that I stepped, I went back to third base and the next pitch, their home run hitter struck out. We lost the game.

Wow.

I flash back to that moment where I had that big opportunity but I blew it. And I hear my uncle say, you choke. Because he used to say that when everybody would make a mistake. But I was around that so much that I started having that self doubt. So if you have an external, you could have another external or another character come in. Or then we could move over to an internal conflict which raises the stakes. And I think. Is that the term Scott McCain used, raise the stakes?

He may have said that, but I'm thinking, Darren, you said that our own internal conflict can really magnify the struggle that we have with whatever the worthy goal may be. The goal could be to get your 3 year old to eat breakfast. And if you say, why can't she do what I say? I'm the dad, she must do what I say. What we say to ourselves in our minds can indeed increase the conflict. The idea that if I try to run to home from here, they're probably going to throw me out. I'm not going to risk it was your internal conflict. But that story also tells me you won't always have the perfect happy ending. But there are lessons to be learned from the conflict that we face and how we handle it. And it may often lead us to ask the question, what could I have done differently? And what will I do differently going forward? If I face a conflict such as this at a different time because conflict is always around us. It's how we harness it, how we address it, how we respond to it. And when we have the internal conflict in our minds, we're going to think it through, drop on all our experiences. And maybe it is a story you have been telling about your thoughts, your emotions, your responses, your feelings. And there is a dimension of internal conflict you haven't really addressed yet that could really magnify your speech, really draw the audience in, and really change the way the audience views you. You, the story, your message, and the outcome.

And I remember when Scott McCain was telling us that story, speaking to those teachers who were about to strike, I loved it. It was so funny where he said, so I ran to the back of the room, and they turned around. Oh, man, that. Just like, they're gonna diss him no matter what. How is this gonna be resolved? It just brings us in. And here's the key again, for a great storyteller, if we're writing in an article or a chapter in a book, we've got more time in a speech. We gotta get it across succinctly and emotionally. Yeah. Three syllables, Mark. Thank you. Succinctly. So we have to do that. And that leads us to part three in this episode, which is the resolution people need to see it's resolved. Otherwise, it's that open loop, and we just like, wait a minute, wait a minute. What happened to that character? I need to know. So we've got to clearly show the resol. So if you're gonna show the conflict, how is that resolved?

And of course, since you had so eloquently shared the story of you and the valet. I know. I found myself that June day back in 2001 when you said you had to go back again, I wanted to know, well, how was he gonna resolve this? And friends, we talk about suspended stories and keeping having cliffhangers and keeping the audience in suspense. But if you keep the audience in suspense and then forget to resolve or fail to res, that's pretty hard for the audience to forgive. They want to know what happened. You told this great story. You took us off on a tangent, and you never finished the story. What happened? And be honest, friends, if you've ever had an audience member ask you, hey, you didn't really finish. You didn't close that loop. What happened? They're telling you, you didn't fully resolve the conflict the character faced. And the audience wants to know, why do you think at the end of season Four, they give you a cliffhanger. They want you back for season five because they know you want to know, how in the world was that conflict resolved? So we have a responsibility to resolve the conflict when we deliver it and to find the resolution to the conflict in the film 47 meters down. I'll tell you this. Watch it on Netflix.

So, Mark, here's my thought on this. If you bring it up, wrap it up. If you bring it up.

If you bring it up, wrap it up.

I like that we don't have the opportunity to have a next season when we're giving a keynote speech sometimes. So be careful with that. You could use it strategically, but they may or may not bring you back. But don't leave your audience hanging. It's just if. Yeah, you gotta have the. It's also. We talk about this when we teach storytelling along with Craig, too, where it's When Harry Met Sally. I'll have what she's having. We want the character to get the resolution. So the audience wants the resolution, so they're willing to take the steps and take the action to get the There. How did Scott McCain bring that resolution? He brought up the truth. He said to the teachers that were about to strike, hey, oh, go listen to that episode. That's not even nice.

What a cliffhanger. You know what? I want them to listen as well. And hopefully this is their first time listening. They will go back to the episode and listen to what Scott said.

I can't do that. But if you want to hear the whole story, the way he tells it, much better than what we're doing. We're just using it as an example, and we think it's a great example. He said to the teachers, look, I understand where you're at. They're not telling me what to say because that's what was in the audience's mind. They just brought this guy in to soften us up and da, da. And he acknowledged the truth and used the truth in order to just get them to sit and listen. I love that. I mean, when all else fails, the truth will set you free. And that's what he did for mine. The valet turned to me. He saw the stress on my face. So in the story, I say, he painted three red letters across my forehead. Rmt relieve my tension. Relieve my tension. And he looked at me and said, next time you come here, we park your car closer. And it gets a huge laugh. The laugh is big because the tension is high. We've got to have that tension. So as I tell it One of my storytelling skills is to be animated on the stage and slowly bring up that emotion as I'm telling the story to get to that point that I relieve the tension. So it's part of, in my telling of the story as well. The Asian American guardian angel, my valet, he delivers this line in a thick, broken accent. So I set that up earlier. Great character. You just can't help but look, love him. So that's set up earlier. Then when he comes back and helps me, the resolution is I take a breath, my shoulders come down a half a notch, I stand a little stronger and more confident, and I tell the audience I gave a better presentation that day because of what he said. He was my hero and he taught me a valuable lesson. When you humorize, you humanize.

Well said, my friend. And I know there are probably some folks that are wondering, how did I resolve the tension? That was first, my daughter wouldn't eat. Okay, fine, first, she wouldn't take the food, number one. And second, she took it, but she wouldn't eat it. And literally an hour would go by and she would not swallow what she had. And it became this battle of wills. Who's going to win, the three year old or the adult? Trust me, family, friends, most of the time the child is going to win. But we had to find what did she like that we could put together with the food we wanted her to have, not have her have her own way. She wasn't going to eat sugar all day long. We had to find ways to combine what she liked and encourage her to eat. And if you don't want it, you know what, Fine, we'll have it for later. But we had to find a way for us in our family to resolve what was happening. Now, the resolution may not always be fantastic, blockbuster, mind blowing. It's amazing. Sometimes the resolution, resolution is simpler. But the resolution has to exist. You cannot leave it unresolved. Scott McCain told us he didn't get a standing ovation, which he likes to get. That didn't happen, he said. But he delivered, they stayed, they listened, and he fulfilled the assignment despite the difficulty of what he had to do. You know, Darren Lacroix talked about Darren, you talked about how you were able to deliver the presentation. You felt better, your shoulders relaxed and you really did well because you had the support of this man who relieved your tenure. Here's the thing. If we're going to resolve our conflict in our stories, we don't need to seek a resolution that is going to be an Emmy nominated short story. But it has to be resolved where the audience goes, ah, that's what happened. Okay, I get it, I see it. That makes sense. It has to make sense to the audience. Bonus if the emotional connection is strong and even more so if they can see themselves in the story, if they can experience the story. And I think Scott also talks about that when the audience can put themselves in the story, they really feel the tension, the conflict, they feel the resolution and they say, yeah, I can totally relate to that character, what he or she endured, be it the brave little toaster or be it Woody and Buzz Lightyear and the others, if they can see themselves in that character and feel what the resolution resulted in, then you could pretty much be guaranteed the message you deliver that was more receptive to it because they can identify with the character and the path that they have been on during this conflict.

All right, Mark Brown, establish the conflict, Increase or magnify the conflict and then resolve the conflict. What do we got for keepers, Mark?

Well, the one big keeper I have was if you bring it up, wrap it up on the idea of the resolution on the establishing piece. The idea is you want to establish the conflict early. Don't wait 15 or 20 minutes to get the conflict. Establish the conflict early. And as far as increasing the conflict is concerned, just when the audience least expects it, when they think we've got resolution, if the conflict is increased there, then they lean in for greater buy in as well. Well, establish conflict, increase conflict, resolve conflict.

Mark Brown, thank you very much. We always think, well this will be a short episode, 20 minutes and then we just. We love this, we hope you love our podcast and we'd love to have you join us next week where we sit down with Mark Sanborn, csp, cpa. He is so classy, so confident and I think what makes him unforgettable is he really makes the audience think. Join us next week. Mark Brown, thanks for joining me.

See you then.

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