November 14, 2022 • 27 mins
Carmine Gallo is a three-time Wall Street Journal bestselling author, internationally popular keynote speaker, Harvard instructor, and leadership advisor for the world’s most admired brands. A “communications guru,” according to Publishers Weekly, Gallo’s books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He delivers highly customized, engaging, inspiring, and actionable multimedia keynotes based on his international bestsellers: Talk Like TED, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs and many more.
Today we talk about his newest book: The Bezos Blueprint During which we touch on the communication principles used by the big brains of Amazon. Everything in this episode is universally applicable to areas like leadership, branding, marketing and so much more.
Remember you can get ahold of us, book speaking engagements and support this channel via our link: https://linktr.ee/LondonsLeadership_Podcast
Today we talk about his newest book: The Bezos Blueprint During which we touch on the communication principles used by the big brains of Amazon. Everything in this episode is universally applicable to areas like leadership, branding, marketing and so much more.
Remember you can get ahold of us, book speaking engagements and support this channel via our link: https://linktr.ee/LondonsLeadership_Podcast
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Whether you believe it or not,you are a leader in your everyday life.
Whether it's within your family, inyour work environment, or even online,
you can and will affect change inthose around you. Join me in
conversation with authors, professors and leaders, so together we can learn all things
regarding leadership and life. I'm yourhost, Fananda Carrillo, and welcome back
(00:22):
to another episode of London's Leadership Podcast. Hello everybody, Welcome to London's Leadership
Podcast. It's so good to getto be with you again today Today where
with Carmain Gallo, who is reallya communications expert. I've spoken to him
before on how to tell stories.We did a podcast quite some time ago
(00:44):
now, but I almost am hesitantto talk to him again because everything I
do I've basically copied from his bookon how to Communicate, on how to
speak everything is a direct copy.So everything i'd right to do, I
don't do it as well. Actually, to be fair, so I probably
wouldn't be doing him any good forno, but he is brilliant. He
(01:04):
wrote a book called Talklight Ted,which is absolutely brilliant on communication, and
he's about his new book, TheBesis Blueprint, is about to be released
in the UK. So we're justgoing to talk a little bit about that.
But let me introduce Carmen So.Carmen Gallo is the best selling author
of Talk Like Ted and The StorytellerSecret. He is a communications coach for
(01:26):
Why did My Brands such as Fitzer, LinkedIn, Intel and co Cola,
and a keynote speaker known for teachingthe world's most respected business leaders how to
deliver dynamic presentations and share inspiring stories. So, Carmene, first of all,
how did you get into this wholebusiness of communication, of storytelling?
(01:47):
What what got you into thinking aboutit all? Well? I wanted to
help people like you, so thankyou for your kind words at the beginning.
I appreciate that you are adapt andadopting many of the things you read
in my books. But that's thewhole point. We're all learning from each
other. Communication is a gray area. I hate to tell people. It's
(02:08):
not always black and white and simpleto understand, as you can imagine persuasion
influencing. It's a gray area.It gets complicated and there's always something new
to learn. So you have tobe a learn at all, not a
know it all, especially when itcomes to leadership, entrepreneurship, communication.
(02:29):
What I do, Fernando, isI research those communicators and those leaders who
I think are impactful or influential,or people who have inspired me in one
way or another, like Jeff Bezos, which, by the way, the
UK cover is different, it's differentcolors, but it's still called the Bezos
(02:50):
Blueprint. I'm really excited that thebook is being released both in the US
and the UK simultaneously and on audiobookfor those of you who and for those
of you who read audio, listento audio books or read ebooks, so
on all the platforms. But justlike Bezos or the book I wrote on
Ted or an earlier book on SteveJobs, that's what I do. Let's
(03:13):
let's identify some of the most inspiring, impactful leaders and put pieces of the
puzzle together and see how they whatthey do, how they work, and
what we can all learn from them. That's the key. What can you
learn, brilliant And today we're goingto look at Jeff Bezos and Amazon,
(03:35):
and and we're going to look athow they how he communicated to make Amazon
such a success. So so whyJeff Bezos and and how how did you
come across like doing a study onAmazon, and how did you come to
write this book. Yeah, Idon't think a lot of people would immediately
think of Jeff Bezos and communication onlybecause it's not something that they see every
(03:59):
day. It's easy to talk towrite a book about the Ted Talks and
Communication because so many millions of peopleare online watching Ted Talks. We all
know Amazon, I'm sure in theUK, just as in the US.
Their market is huge. In theUS, one out of every two households
(04:20):
has a Prime membership, which istheir subscription membership to Amazon. So it's
hugely impactful, hugely influential. Infact, if it wasn't for Amazon,
Fernando, we don't have this conversation, do you know why not because of
the book, just the technology.We're not using Amazon, are we?
(04:43):
We are because Zoom and most recordingplatforms are hosted on Amazon web services.
When you watch Netflix, it's hostedon Amazon Web Services. So it's been
kind of fun, Fernando for meto tell people that, you well,
Amazon impacts your life every day,probably more than any other company, and
they'll say, well, I don'treally shop on Amazon. Do you watch
(05:06):
Netflix? Do you do Zoo?So there are so many ways that Amazon
impacts our life. But that's whatthat's part of the thing that intrigued me
for Nanda. You know, I'ma storyteller. It's an irresistible story,
Are you kidding? A man inhis thirties who has a bold idea,
(05:31):
takes that idea, transforms it intoone of the world's most admired brands and
the company that impacts our life everyday from nothing, from working in a
garage at a time when his bosstold him to forget his idea and stay
in his current job. So hehad to fight those you know, those
(05:53):
psychological forces that were working to keephim in the status quo. Nobody thought
it could be done. Nobody thoughtit could be done. His parents gave
him some money to hire an engineerand a coder, and even they didn't
think it would last. They justwanted to bet on their son and give
him a break and see what hecould do. No one thought it wouldn't
(06:14):
work. The number one question thatJeff Bezos got when he was pitching Amazon
to investors, first question, what'sthe Internet? Can you imagine the community?
To me, that's a communication challenge. You have to be a master
persuader to get people to buy intoyour vision along the way. And this
(06:34):
answers more specifically the question why JeffBezos? Why Amazon is because over the
next nearly three decades, Jeff Bezospioneered communication and leadership strategies that former Amazonians,
former executives credit for fueling Amazon's success, and they copied those communication tactics
(07:00):
to start their own companies. That'swhat I wanted to learn. What did
they learn from Bezos? How didthey use it to be successful? Teach
it to me so I could teachit to you, brilliant. Well,
well, what we like to doat London's Leadership Podcast is is get a
three big ideas and you know,three big ideas. You've got loads of
(07:23):
the big ideas in your book,but we just like to just focus on
three and we'd like to know howdid Jeff do it? What are the
three key takeaways that you'd like togive us from the Bezos Blueprint. Let's
focus first on simplicity. I thinkthat's a theme that runs throughout the book.
I could have called it simple asthe New Superpower. Nobody would have
(07:46):
known it was about Jeff Bezos.But I could have called it that and
that is one of the lines Ihave in the book. I think that
it sounds counterintuitive, but if youwant to be known as credible and heligen
and someone who stands out, don'tadd to the digital noise. People are
overwhelmed with information. Cut through it? And how do you cut through it?
(08:11):
By keeping things simple? Now wehear that all the time, Fernando.
This is what I do as acommunication coach. I want to help
people under I need to understand it. Then I want to help people understand
it better. We always hear that, don't We keep it simple? Oh,
make sure your message is simple.Keep it simple? Okay, what
does that mean? Here's what itmeans. Use short words to talk about
(08:35):
hard things. Major revelation for me. If you I have a graph in
the Bezos Blueprint. I analyzed allfifty thousand words that Jeff Bezos wrote in
his annual shareholder letters over twenty fourplus years. Yeah, they're about twenty
(08:56):
four years, ninety seven to twentytwenty twenty one. Those shareholder letters are
a model of simplicity and clarity andvery famous executives are the ones who turned
me onto them. I had knownabout them, I've read about them.
But in my research, whenever Italked to an executive who had worked with
(09:16):
Bezos or a famous executive like theco founder of Netflix who knew Bezos well,
they always said, Carmine, thesecret, the gold is in those
shareholder letters. Okay. So I'mreading the shareholder letters and I noticed something.
Maybe this is because I'm focused oncommunication and I've written so many books.
(09:37):
I noticed it after about two thousandand seven, so that he has
the first ten years, okay,and those letters are somewhat complicated. I
put them through software and they readat about Some of them are at a
college level reading level, some arehigh school. And then after two thousand
(09:58):
and seven, as Amazon grows morecomplex, they the letters get simpler.
And by simpler we mean lower gradelevel. So eighth grade in the US
is a grade level that if youcan write for eighth grade level, you're
reaching the most people and making itpretty simple to understand. So most of
(10:20):
Jeff eighth grade would be ninth grade. I think in the UK about thirteen
year olds. So if you lookat the last ten years of shareholder letters,
all of them, most of themare written in eighth and ninth grade
levels. So we're talking about forthirteen to fifteen year old students, and
yet Amazon was growing larger. Theyhad over a million employees and much more
(10:45):
complex than ever artificially had to talkabout artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Why
is that? So? Think aboutthat? That to me is fascinating.
So I took that idea. Itook the research. I even looked at
some of the letters and sent themto English grammar experts, English writing experts,
(11:05):
some in the UK who really understoodthis whole idea, probably better than
the US. They understood the ideaof ten sixty six, the Norman invasion,
when the English language began to changeand Latin based words were introduced into
the vocabulary. But what's interesting iswhen you have to talk about something complex,
(11:26):
it's always better to go to themore ancient, old English simple words.
That's fascinating to me. I didn'tknow about you, but I gig
out over that stuff, and Ireally took a deep dive into what we
mean by simple. That's really goodand so simple as the new superpower.
(11:46):
I love what you said, useshort words to talk about hard things.
And as you said that, mymind kept thinking, does the letter itself
need to be short or do thisother sentences short or both. Yeah,
not necessarily. I don't think thereis a there's no hard and fast rule
(12:09):
for how long the letters were,but they weren't that long. They were
probably about as long as an article, you know, like a thousand words,
twelve hundred words. So it's notfor like pages and pages and pages.
But what we mean by eighth gradelanguage is it's very interesting. It
doesn't mean that you're talking like aneighth grader. It simply means that your
(12:31):
reader or your listener is consuming lessbrain energy to follow your idea or to
follow your argument, which means replacinglong Latin based words for shorter words whenever
possible, when they make sense,keeping sentences shorter, not having very long
(12:54):
convoluted sentences, paragraphs tighter, bettertransitions between paragraphs. And here's the key.
Here's another one of the keys thatall the software will tell you makes
writing better. Try to use theactive voice as much as possible. Subject
verb object. Going back to writingclass, subject verb object, the boy
(13:18):
kicked the ball. Subject kicked isthe verb object. Once you start saying
the ball was kicked by the boy, it becomes a little more complicated,
it's a little harder for me tofollow. And that's the easiest sentence,
almost the easiest sentence you could writein the English language, the boy kicked
the ball. Once you just changeit into the passive and put the object
(13:43):
first, the ball was kicked bythe boy. Even that simple sentence becomes
a tad harder to understand, justa tiny bit. So imagine what happens
when you get into really complicated things. So subject verb object almost I think
it was seventy percent of Jeff Bezos'swriting, his letters fell into the active
(14:05):
voice. Stephen King once said StephenKing, the great novelist, once said
that the passive voice has destroyed prettymuch every business document ever ever written.
So he has a real problem witha passive voice. That's really good.
Okay, so simple as the newpowerful. What else would you say to
(14:26):
to us? How can we learnfrom Jeff Bezos? Well, you wanted
to focus on three were there arethree things that you wanted to focus on
specifically? Well, I liked,I liked I liked when you said I
think and use metaphors and analogies.Okay, let's do that as our number
two. Yeah, So why don'tyou talk to us about that. Yeah,
so part of well, let's seethis all falls under simplicity. That's
(14:50):
why I started the book with simpleas the new superpower. Metaphors and analogies.
That's an advanced communication skill. Iwant all of your listeners to understand
this. Okay, this is anadvanced communication skill. Only really good effective
leaders do this. Yet we doit all the time. We do talk
in metaphor all the time. Sowhen Shakespeare said Juliet is the sun,
(15:15):
obviously he did not mean Juliet isreally is literally the sun, but that
she shares similarities with the sun becauseshe was so beautiful, and in trans
saying that she she shined through thebrightness through the darkness. So metaphors have
always been with us in terms ofliterature, but good business communicators also use
(15:37):
metaphor quite extensively. Think about whyJeff Bezos. Why do you think Jeff
Bezos named his startup Amazon. Itstarted with it. It started with a
metaphor. Amazon is the world's biggestriver. But it's not just a little
bigger. It's bigger than I believe, like the next six combined. It's
(15:58):
the largest river by far. Andso Jeff Bezos was thinking, what's a
good metaphor for Earth's largest selection ofbooks. At the time, it was
just books, but he was avisionary. He knew that if books took
off, he could sell anything,so he was thinking a metaphor from day
one. Day one is also aphrase that Jeff Bezos uses quite extensively in
(16:22):
every newsletter. By the way,I call them newsletters. I'm sorry,
there's shareholder letters to Amazon shareholders,But from nineteen ninety seven to two thousand
and one, every single letter endedwith it's always day one. Well,
day one isn't a thing, it'sa metaphor. It's a way of thinking
about something that is actually quite complicated. Day one is coming to work every
(16:48):
day like it's your first day ofthe startup, always never resting on your
laurels, always trying to improve theexperience for the customer, always learning,
always growing, So as you canimagine, you can write a whole essay
on that, you can write awhole book on that. But day one,
it's the day one mentality in onesentence, one phrase. I get
(17:08):
it. Jeff Bezos also created flywheelsto propel Amazon's growth, not real mechanical
flywheels like you would find in anengine, but metaphorical flywheels. He created
two pizza teams to explain how biga team should be that's working on in
(17:29):
particular product enough small enough for themto be fed with two large pizzas,
two pizza teams. So you seewhat he's doing, and there's so many
I have a whole chapter on it. He's always thinking, how can I
take something that's complex or abstract,or maybe a new concept and associate it
with something that's familiar, that's metaphoror it's sibling analogy, which is more
(17:55):
of an extended metaphor a longer explanation. So I broke up two chapters,
so I have one on metaphor oneon analogies, because they're a little different
but similar, and Jeff Bezos usedboth. So the takeaway Fernando is,
if you want to step up intothe next level of your career, think
very carefully about metaphors and analogies thatyou choose to use. Because most people
(18:21):
don't think deliberately about them. Weuse them all the time constantly. If
you're climbing the ladder of success,you're climbing a metaphor, so we use
them constantly. It's the way wethink, it's the way we process the
world. But people like Jeff Bezoschoose them very deliberately and then they're consistent
in the repetition and communication. Ihope that makes sense. This is an
(18:48):
advanced concept. I'm really thinking aboutit because I was just actually in a
meeting and we were talking about howthe number one priority of any leader,
of any manager, it is toit. And the best managers are ranked
by the fact that there that thepeople who were on their teams know exactly
(19:11):
what they need to do and howthey need to do it. The ability
for a leader to translate what theyhave in their minds to practice with the
people on their team is I wasjust talking to somebody. They were telling
me it's a single greatest contributing factorfor that leader being successful and I and
I was just thinking of situations andmoments when when I've been around leaders who
(19:33):
who who perhaps think that they've communicated, but the people in the team have
left not really knowing what they meanby what they've said. And a mesophoron
and analogy helps you kind of graspthe idea and almost paint a picture of
what it will look like in reality. So, for example, I was
(19:56):
in a meeting the other day andwe were talking about how how we can
give brilliant service to the people whowho we serve, and we're always talking
about, oh, always be attentive, keep an eye out, lookout,
make sure you support everyone, makesure and you create everyone. Well,
but then a leader said, oh, I walked into a supermarket the other
(20:18):
day, and in this supermarket,the people who worked there, they didn't
just say hello to me. Theywhen I asked them a question, they
didn't just kind of pushed me along. They walked me over. They asked
me how their day, how myday went. When I went into the
supermarket. The two people at thesupermarket, the two staff members, weren't
talking to one another. They wereoutward looking, they were outward facing.
(20:41):
And just by painting a picture,that helped everybody on the team think,
oh, when they're talking about service, that's what it means. And it
really communicated so clearly, well that'swhat I Yeah, I think that's what
a metaphor does. That's what thescience on the shows that it paints a
visual picture in your mind, andby doing that, it allows you to
(21:03):
grasp abstract concepts, complicated concepts,but also just new or novel ideas that
you haven't thought about before. Ithas to be associated with something that you're
very familiar with. Brilliant. Soeveryone, when you're communicating to your teams,
really think about how you can usea metaphor and analogy to help paint
a picture in their minds. Sothink and use metaphors and analogies. And
(21:27):
finally, I really love your encouragementfor people to read more. And why
is that? Yeah, I'm sohappy I was able to write an entire
chapter just on the power of reading. There's a cliche that leaders are readers.
It's true, It really is truethat people who reach the top of
(21:49):
almost any field tend to read farmore than average. And you can see
this, and it's certainly anecdotal forme. Everyone on almost every leader I've
ever met, who is at thetop of the chain, who is starting
the company or leading the company,are the ones who read far more than
(22:11):
their peers or their teammates, especiallyif they start a company. And the
reason is because by reading books orlistening to audio books. And frankly,
Fernanda, I'm not just saying thisI think you could throw podcasts in there
as well, because there is acorrelation between podcast listeners and readers that it's
simply this insatiable curiosity. So Idon't know what comes first, they're all
(22:36):
tied together. I don't know ifit's the book or it's the insatiable curiosity
or the personality, but somehow thosetwo come together. So when someone is
insatiably curious, like people like JeffBezos, they're constantly trying to learn new
things. So Jeff Bezos read.He was called a voracious reader by many
(22:56):
people. So I don't know howmany books exactly he would read a year,
but he always came to work withbooks and newspapers under his arm.
And many of the features and productsthat Amazon offers today came directly from books
like the Kindle, Alexa, andEcho. Actually those are inspired by some
(23:21):
of the science fiction books that JeffBezos loved to read, and it was
those science fiction books that inspired hiscuriosity for space, and then he launched
a Blue Origin, a space company. But there's a whole list I have
it in the book. There's awhole list of different books. Some are
related to business, some are notthat inspired many of Amazon's products and features,
(23:48):
and when I started talking to moreleaders, there was definitely a connection
between people who read a lot ofbooks and those people have great ideas that
they can then take from different disciplinesand apply to their company. But Jeff
Bezos was such a voracious reader andsomeone who's committed to knowledge in books that
(24:11):
he started a book club. He'sstarted, the CEO, the founder of
the company, started the Senior levelbook club, and pretty soon everybody in
the company wanted to know what whatis the boss reading? What is the
boss reading? So reading is afundamental habit to get into and a great
(24:32):
habit to cultivate. If you wantto stand out and have more of a
repository of ideas that other people don'thave. It'll also make you a better
communicator. You'll be a more interestingperson, really good. Yeah, I
got onto reading slightly late, butI mean I'm always trying to digest content
as much as I possibly can,and audiobooks have really helped me kind of
(24:55):
get through the content. I wantedto ask you just quickly, how many
you read a month. Let's sayI read fifty. I read at least
fifty a year, So yeah,fifty to seventy five. I go through
a lot of books, a lotof books because I'm on a list.
Now. You know, publishers willsend me books because they know I write
(25:18):
about books as well. So followYeah, follow me, follow me on
TikTok or LinkedIn on Twitter at CarmineGallo, and yeah, I talk about
a lot of the books I read, brilliant, well comin, thank you
so much for today. I've learnedso much from the Besis blueprints. So
you said, simple as the newsuperpower. Think and use more metaphors and
(25:41):
analogies and read more because leaders arereaders. Come on, any any last
thoughts or any last thing you'd liketo say to our listeners. Yeah,
you know. Jeff Bezos has afamous phrase where he says, you know,
don't look for passions, passions willfind you. And he's talking about
the idea that all everything I writeI can help you become a better communicator,
(26:07):
a better leader, But if you'renot passionate about the topic, it's
not going to help very much.So I am always encouraging people to let
passions find you. Look for whatthink about what gravity you're gravitated to?
What are those areas of life thatmake you excited and then figure out how
(26:30):
can I take my passion for something, something that's the kind of landed in
my lap or just pulls me inand apply my skills my experience to fill
a gap, to fill a need. But I think you need to really
be open to that and be constantlythinking about your passion, what you love
(26:52):
to do, but also you knowkind of what you're good at, what's
finding you. And it's that intersectionbetween town and passion that's the secret of
success. Jeff Bezos has talked aboutthat quite a bit. Brilliant. Come
on, thank you so much fortoday. You're a well touch from you,
and I'm sure so have all ourlisteners. I look forward to speaking
to you again and see you nexttime. Everybody on London's Leadership Podcast,
(27:17):
thank you. Thank you so muchfor joining me today. I can't wait
to see you next time. Rememberto leave a review, let me know
what you think, and if youneed help implementing anything we've discussed, or
you just want to say hello,feel free to email me at Fernando at
London's Leadership Podcast dot com. Untilnext time, remember to live and lead
with love every day
Whether you believe it or not,you are a leader in your everyday life.
Whether it's within your family, inyour work environment, or even online,
you can and will affect change inthose around you. Join me in
conversation with authors, professors and leaders, so together we can learn all things
regarding leadership and life. I'm yourhost, Fananda Carrillo, and welcome back
(00:22):
to another episode of London's Leadership Podcast. Hello everybody, Welcome to London's Leadership
Podcast. It's so good to getto be with you again today Today where
with Carmain Gallo, who is reallya communications expert. I've spoken to him
before on how to tell stories.We did a podcast quite some time ago
(00:44):
now, but I almost am hesitantto talk to him again because everything I
do I've basically copied from his bookon how to Communicate, on how to
speak everything is a direct copy.So everything i'd right to do, I
don't do it as well. Actually, to be fair, so I probably
wouldn't be doing him any good forno, but he is brilliant. He
(01:04):
wrote a book called Talklight Ted,which is absolutely brilliant on communication, and
he's about his new book, TheBesis Blueprint, is about to be released
in the UK. So we're justgoing to talk a little bit about that.
But let me introduce Carmen So.Carmen Gallo is the best selling author
of Talk Like Ted and The StorytellerSecret. He is a communications coach for
(01:26):
Why did My Brands such as Fitzer, LinkedIn, Intel and co Cola,
and a keynote speaker known for teachingthe world's most respected business leaders how to
deliver dynamic presentations and share inspiring stories. So, Carmene, first of all,
how did you get into this wholebusiness of communication, of storytelling?
(01:47):
What what got you into thinking aboutit all? Well? I wanted to
help people like you, so thankyou for your kind words at the beginning.
I appreciate that you are adapt andadopting many of the things you read
in my books. But that's thewhole point. We're all learning from each
other. Communication is a gray area. I hate to tell people. It's
(02:08):
not always black and white and simpleto understand, as you can imagine persuasion
influencing. It's a gray area.It gets complicated and there's always something new
to learn. So you have tobe a learn at all, not a
know it all, especially when itcomes to leadership, entrepreneurship, communication.
(02:29):
What I do, Fernando, isI research those communicators and those leaders who
I think are impactful or influential,or people who have inspired me in one
way or another, like Jeff Bezos, which, by the way, the
UK cover is different, it's differentcolors, but it's still called the Bezos
(02:50):
Blueprint. I'm really excited that thebook is being released both in the US
and the UK simultaneously and on audiobookfor those of you who and for those
of you who read audio, listento audio books or read ebooks, so
on all the platforms. But justlike Bezos or the book I wrote on
Ted or an earlier book on SteveJobs, that's what I do. Let's
(03:13):
let's identify some of the most inspiring, impactful leaders and put pieces of the
puzzle together and see how they whatthey do, how they work, and
what we can all learn from them. That's the key. What can you
learn, brilliant And today we're goingto look at Jeff Bezos and Amazon,
(03:35):
and and we're going to look athow they how he communicated to make Amazon
such a success. So so whyJeff Bezos and and how how did you
come across like doing a study onAmazon, and how did you come to
write this book. Yeah, Idon't think a lot of people would immediately
think of Jeff Bezos and communication onlybecause it's not something that they see every
(03:59):
day. It's easy to talk towrite a book about the Ted Talks and
Communication because so many millions of peopleare online watching Ted Talks. We all
know Amazon, I'm sure in theUK, just as in the US.
Their market is huge. In theUS, one out of every two households
(04:20):
has a Prime membership, which istheir subscription membership to Amazon. So it's
hugely impactful, hugely influential. Infact, if it wasn't for Amazon,
Fernando, we don't have this conversation, do you know why not because of
the book, just the technology.We're not using Amazon, are we?
(04:43):
We are because Zoom and most recordingplatforms are hosted on Amazon web services.
When you watch Netflix, it's hostedon Amazon Web Services. So it's been
kind of fun, Fernando for meto tell people that, you well,
Amazon impacts your life every day,probably more than any other company, and
they'll say, well, I don'treally shop on Amazon. Do you watch
(05:06):
Netflix? Do you do Zoo?So there are so many ways that Amazon
impacts our life. But that's whatthat's part of the thing that intrigued me
for Nanda. You know, I'ma storyteller. It's an irresistible story,
Are you kidding? A man inhis thirties who has a bold idea,
(05:31):
takes that idea, transforms it intoone of the world's most admired brands and
the company that impacts our life everyday from nothing, from working in a
garage at a time when his bosstold him to forget his idea and stay
in his current job. So hehad to fight those you know, those
(05:53):
psychological forces that were working to keephim in the status quo. Nobody thought
it could be done. Nobody thoughtit could be done. His parents gave
him some money to hire an engineerand a coder, and even they didn't
think it would last. They justwanted to bet on their son and give
him a break and see what hecould do. No one thought it wouldn't
(06:14):
work. The number one question thatJeff Bezos got when he was pitching Amazon
to investors, first question, what'sthe Internet? Can you imagine the community?
To me, that's a communication challenge. You have to be a master
persuader to get people to buy intoyour vision along the way. And this
(06:34):
answers more specifically the question why JeffBezos? Why Amazon is because over the
next nearly three decades, Jeff Bezospioneered communication and leadership strategies that former Amazonians,
former executives credit for fueling Amazon's success, and they copied those communication tactics
(07:00):
to start their own companies. That'swhat I wanted to learn. What did
they learn from Bezos? How didthey use it to be successful? Teach
it to me so I could teachit to you, brilliant. Well,
well, what we like to doat London's Leadership Podcast is is get a
three big ideas and you know,three big ideas. You've got loads of
(07:23):
the big ideas in your book,but we just like to just focus on
three and we'd like to know howdid Jeff do it? What are the
three key takeaways that you'd like togive us from the Bezos Blueprint. Let's
focus first on simplicity. I thinkthat's a theme that runs throughout the book.
I could have called it simple asthe New Superpower. Nobody would have
(07:46):
known it was about Jeff Bezos.But I could have called it that and
that is one of the lines Ihave in the book. I think that
it sounds counterintuitive, but if youwant to be known as credible and heligen
and someone who stands out, don'tadd to the digital noise. People are
overwhelmed with information. Cut through it? And how do you cut through it?
(08:11):
By keeping things simple? Now wehear that all the time, Fernando.
This is what I do as acommunication coach. I want to help
people under I need to understand it. Then I want to help people understand
it better. We always hear that, don't We keep it simple? Oh,
make sure your message is simple.Keep it simple? Okay, what
does that mean? Here's what itmeans. Use short words to talk about
(08:35):
hard things. Major revelation for me. If you I have a graph in
the Bezos Blueprint. I analyzed allfifty thousand words that Jeff Bezos wrote in
his annual shareholder letters over twenty fourplus years. Yeah, they're about twenty
(08:56):
four years, ninety seven to twentytwenty twenty one. Those shareholder letters are
a model of simplicity and clarity andvery famous executives are the ones who turned
me onto them. I had knownabout them, I've read about them.
But in my research, whenever Italked to an executive who had worked with
(09:16):
Bezos or a famous executive like theco founder of Netflix who knew Bezos well,
they always said, Carmine, thesecret, the gold is in those
shareholder letters. Okay. So I'mreading the shareholder letters and I noticed something.
Maybe this is because I'm focused oncommunication and I've written so many books.
(09:37):
I noticed it after about two thousandand seven, so that he has
the first ten years, okay,and those letters are somewhat complicated. I
put them through software and they readat about Some of them are at a
college level reading level, some arehigh school. And then after two thousand
(09:58):
and seven, as Amazon grows morecomplex, they the letters get simpler.
And by simpler we mean lower gradelevel. So eighth grade in the US
is a grade level that if youcan write for eighth grade level, you're
reaching the most people and making itpretty simple to understand. So most of
(10:20):
Jeff eighth grade would be ninth grade. I think in the UK about thirteen
year olds. So if you lookat the last ten years of shareholder letters,
all of them, most of themare written in eighth and ninth grade
levels. So we're talking about forthirteen to fifteen year old students, and
yet Amazon was growing larger. Theyhad over a million employees and much more
(10:45):
complex than ever artificially had to talkabout artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Why
is that? So? Think aboutthat? That to me is fascinating.
So I took that idea. Itook the research. I even looked at
some of the letters and sent themto English grammar experts, English writing experts,
(11:05):
some in the UK who really understoodthis whole idea, probably better than
the US. They understood the ideaof ten sixty six, the Norman invasion,
when the English language began to changeand Latin based words were introduced into
the vocabulary. But what's interesting iswhen you have to talk about something complex,
(11:26):
it's always better to go to themore ancient, old English simple words.
That's fascinating to me. I didn'tknow about you, but I gig
out over that stuff, and Ireally took a deep dive into what we
mean by simple. That's really goodand so simple as the new superpower.
(11:46):
I love what you said, useshort words to talk about hard things.
And as you said that, mymind kept thinking, does the letter itself
need to be short or do thisother sentences short or both. Yeah,
not necessarily. I don't think thereis a there's no hard and fast rule
(12:09):
for how long the letters were,but they weren't that long. They were
probably about as long as an article, you know, like a thousand words,
twelve hundred words. So it's notfor like pages and pages and pages.
But what we mean by eighth gradelanguage is it's very interesting. It
doesn't mean that you're talking like aneighth grader. It simply means that your
(12:31):
reader or your listener is consuming lessbrain energy to follow your idea or to
follow your argument, which means replacinglong Latin based words for shorter words whenever
possible, when they make sense,keeping sentences shorter, not having very long
(12:54):
convoluted sentences, paragraphs tighter, bettertransitions between paragraphs. And here's the key.
Here's another one of the keys thatall the software will tell you makes
writing better. Try to use theactive voice as much as possible. Subject
verb object. Going back to writingclass, subject verb object, the boy
(13:18):
kicked the ball. Subject kicked isthe verb object. Once you start saying
the ball was kicked by the boy, it becomes a little more complicated,
it's a little harder for me tofollow. And that's the easiest sentence,
almost the easiest sentence you could writein the English language, the boy kicked
the ball. Once you just changeit into the passive and put the object
(13:43):
first, the ball was kicked bythe boy. Even that simple sentence becomes
a tad harder to understand, justa tiny bit. So imagine what happens
when you get into really complicated things. So subject verb object almost I think
it was seventy percent of Jeff Bezos'swriting, his letters fell into the active
(14:05):
voice. Stephen King once said StephenKing, the great novelist, once said
that the passive voice has destroyed prettymuch every business document ever ever written.
So he has a real problem witha passive voice. That's really good.
Okay, so simple as the newpowerful. What else would you say to
(14:26):
to us? How can we learnfrom Jeff Bezos? Well, you wanted
to focus on three were there arethree things that you wanted to focus on
specifically? Well, I liked,I liked I liked when you said I
think and use metaphors and analogies.Okay, let's do that as our number
two. Yeah, So why don'tyou talk to us about that. Yeah,
so part of well, let's seethis all falls under simplicity. That's
(14:50):
why I started the book with simpleas the new superpower. Metaphors and analogies.
That's an advanced communication skill. Iwant all of your listeners to understand
this. Okay, this is anadvanced communication skill. Only really good effective
leaders do this. Yet we doit all the time. We do talk
in metaphor all the time. Sowhen Shakespeare said Juliet is the sun,
(15:15):
obviously he did not mean Juliet isreally is literally the sun, but that
she shares similarities with the sun becauseshe was so beautiful, and in trans
saying that she she shined through thebrightness through the darkness. So metaphors have
always been with us in terms ofliterature, but good business communicators also use
(15:37):
metaphor quite extensively. Think about whyJeff Bezos. Why do you think Jeff
Bezos named his startup Amazon. Itstarted with it. It started with a
metaphor. Amazon is the world's biggestriver. But it's not just a little
bigger. It's bigger than I believe, like the next six combined. It's
(15:58):
the largest river by far. Andso Jeff Bezos was thinking, what's a
good metaphor for Earth's largest selection ofbooks. At the time, it was
just books, but he was avisionary. He knew that if books took
off, he could sell anything,so he was thinking a metaphor from day
one. Day one is also aphrase that Jeff Bezos uses quite extensively in
(16:22):
every newsletter. By the way,I call them newsletters. I'm sorry,
there's shareholder letters to Amazon shareholders,But from nineteen ninety seven to two thousand
and one, every single letter endedwith it's always day one. Well,
day one isn't a thing, it'sa metaphor. It's a way of thinking
about something that is actually quite complicated. Day one is coming to work every
(16:48):
day like it's your first day ofthe startup, always never resting on your
laurels, always trying to improve theexperience for the customer, always learning,
always growing, So as you canimagine, you can write a whole essay
on that, you can write awhole book on that. But day one,
it's the day one mentality in onesentence, one phrase. I get
(17:08):
it. Jeff Bezos also created flywheelsto propel Amazon's growth, not real mechanical
flywheels like you would find in anengine, but metaphorical flywheels. He created
two pizza teams to explain how biga team should be that's working on in
(17:29):
particular product enough small enough for themto be fed with two large pizzas,
two pizza teams. So you seewhat he's doing, and there's so many
I have a whole chapter on it. He's always thinking, how can I
take something that's complex or abstract,or maybe a new concept and associate it
with something that's familiar, that's metaphoror it's sibling analogy, which is more
(17:55):
of an extended metaphor a longer explanation. So I broke up two chapters,
so I have one on metaphor oneon analogies, because they're a little different
but similar, and Jeff Bezos usedboth. So the takeaway Fernando is,
if you want to step up intothe next level of your career, think
very carefully about metaphors and analogies thatyou choose to use. Because most people
(18:21):
don't think deliberately about them. Weuse them all the time constantly. If
you're climbing the ladder of success,you're climbing a metaphor, so we use
them constantly. It's the way wethink, it's the way we process the
world. But people like Jeff Bezoschoose them very deliberately and then they're consistent
in the repetition and communication. Ihope that makes sense. This is an
(18:48):
advanced concept. I'm really thinking aboutit because I was just actually in a
meeting and we were talking about howthe number one priority of any leader,
of any manager, it is toit. And the best managers are ranked
by the fact that there that thepeople who were on their teams know exactly
(19:11):
what they need to do and howthey need to do it. The ability
for a leader to translate what theyhave in their minds to practice with the
people on their team is I wasjust talking to somebody. They were telling
me it's a single greatest contributing factorfor that leader being successful and I and
I was just thinking of situations andmoments when when I've been around leaders who
(19:33):
who who perhaps think that they've communicated, but the people in the team have
left not really knowing what they meanby what they've said. And a mesophoron
and analogy helps you kind of graspthe idea and almost paint a picture of
what it will look like in reality. So, for example, I was
(19:56):
in a meeting the other day andwe were talking about how how we can
give brilliant service to the people whowho we serve, and we're always talking
about, oh, always be attentive, keep an eye out, lookout,
make sure you support everyone, makesure and you create everyone. Well,
but then a leader said, oh, I walked into a supermarket the other
(20:18):
day, and in this supermarket,the people who worked there, they didn't
just say hello to me. Theywhen I asked them a question, they
didn't just kind of pushed me along. They walked me over. They asked
me how their day, how myday went. When I went into the
supermarket. The two people at thesupermarket, the two staff members, weren't
talking to one another. They wereoutward looking, they were outward facing.
(20:41):
And just by painting a picture,that helped everybody on the team think,
oh, when they're talking about service, that's what it means. And it
really communicated so clearly, well that'swhat I Yeah, I think that's what
a metaphor does. That's what thescience on the shows that it paints a
visual picture in your mind, andby doing that, it allows you to
(21:03):
grasp abstract concepts, complicated concepts,but also just new or novel ideas that
you haven't thought about before. Ithas to be associated with something that you're
very familiar with. Brilliant. Soeveryone, when you're communicating to your teams,
really think about how you can usea metaphor and analogy to help paint
a picture in their minds. Sothink and use metaphors and analogies. And
(21:27):
finally, I really love your encouragementfor people to read more. And why
is that? Yeah, I'm sohappy I was able to write an entire
chapter just on the power of reading. There's a cliche that leaders are readers.
It's true, It really is truethat people who reach the top of
(21:49):
almost any field tend to read farmore than average. And you can see
this, and it's certainly anecdotal forme. Everyone on almost every leader I've
ever met, who is at thetop of the chain, who is starting
the company or leading the company,are the ones who read far more than
(22:11):
their peers or their teammates, especiallyif they start a company. And the
reason is because by reading books orlistening to audio books. And frankly,
Fernanda, I'm not just saying thisI think you could throw podcasts in there
as well, because there is acorrelation between podcast listeners and readers that it's
simply this insatiable curiosity. So Idon't know what comes first, they're all
(22:36):
tied together. I don't know ifit's the book or it's the insatiable curiosity
or the personality, but somehow thosetwo come together. So when someone is
insatiably curious, like people like JeffBezos, they're constantly trying to learn new
things. So Jeff Bezos read.He was called a voracious reader by many
(22:56):
people. So I don't know howmany books exactly he would read a year,
but he always came to work withbooks and newspapers under his arm.
And many of the features and productsthat Amazon offers today came directly from books
like the Kindle, Alexa, andEcho. Actually those are inspired by some
(23:21):
of the science fiction books that JeffBezos loved to read, and it was
those science fiction books that inspired hiscuriosity for space, and then he launched
a Blue Origin, a space company. But there's a whole list I have
it in the book. There's awhole list of different books. Some are
related to business, some are notthat inspired many of Amazon's products and features,
(23:48):
and when I started talking to moreleaders, there was definitely a connection
between people who read a lot ofbooks and those people have great ideas that
they can then take from different disciplinesand apply to their company. But Jeff
Bezos was such a voracious reader andsomeone who's committed to knowledge in books that
(24:11):
he started a book club. He'sstarted, the CEO, the founder of
the company, started the Senior levelbook club, and pretty soon everybody in
the company wanted to know what whatis the boss reading? What is the
boss reading? So reading is afundamental habit to get into and a great
(24:32):
habit to cultivate. If you wantto stand out and have more of a
repository of ideas that other people don'thave. It'll also make you a better
communicator. You'll be a more interestingperson, really good. Yeah, I
got onto reading slightly late, butI mean I'm always trying to digest content
as much as I possibly can,and audiobooks have really helped me kind of
(24:55):
get through the content. I wantedto ask you just quickly, how many
you read a month. Let's sayI read fifty. I read at least
fifty a year, So yeah,fifty to seventy five. I go through
a lot of books, a lotof books because I'm on a list.
Now. You know, publishers willsend me books because they know I write
(25:18):
about books as well. So followYeah, follow me, follow me on
TikTok or LinkedIn on Twitter at CarmineGallo, and yeah, I talk about
a lot of the books I read, brilliant, well comin, thank you
so much for today. I've learnedso much from the Besis blueprints. So
you said, simple as the newsuperpower. Think and use more metaphors and
(25:41):
analogies and read more because leaders arereaders. Come on, any any last
thoughts or any last thing you'd liketo say to our listeners. Yeah,
you know. Jeff Bezos has afamous phrase where he says, you know,
don't look for passions, passions willfind you. And he's talking about
the idea that all everything I writeI can help you become a better communicator,
(26:07):
a better leader, But if you'renot passionate about the topic, it's
not going to help very much.So I am always encouraging people to let
passions find you. Look for whatthink about what gravity you're gravitated to?
What are those areas of life thatmake you excited and then figure out how
(26:30):
can I take my passion for something, something that's the kind of landed in
my lap or just pulls me inand apply my skills my experience to fill
a gap, to fill a need. But I think you need to really
be open to that and be constantlythinking about your passion, what you love
(26:52):
to do, but also you knowkind of what you're good at, what's
finding you. And it's that intersectionbetween town and passion that's the secret of
success. Jeff Bezos has talked aboutthat quite a bit. Brilliant. Come
on, thank you so much fortoday. You're a well touch from you,
and I'm sure so have all ourlisteners. I look forward to speaking
to you again and see you nexttime. Everybody on London's Leadership Podcast,
(27:17):
thank you. Thank you so muchfor joining me today. I can't wait
to see you next time. Rememberto leave a review, let me know
what you think, and if youneed help implementing anything we've discussed, or
you just want to say hello,feel free to email me at Fernando at
London's Leadership Podcast dot com. Untilnext time, remember to live and lead
with love every day
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