How do top leaders captivate audiences and drive action? Carmine Gallo distills the communication habits behind Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos into practical moves you can use right away. From minimalist slides to memo-driven meetings, and from relatable stories to memorable metaphors, this episode shows how to simplify, persuade, and be heard.

In this episode, you will learn:

✔️ Why simplicity signals confidence and increases retention

✔️ How to wrap data in a narrative so people care and remember

✔️ The Amazon rule that replaced slides with written memos

✔️ How to manage nerves with deliberate rehearsal under pressure

✔️ A simple structure to avoid the curse of knowledge. Start at the top

Whether you lead teams, pitch clients, or present to executives, these strategies will help you communicate with clarity and credibility.

CONNECT WITH ANDREA

🌐 Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawojnicki/

✉️ Andrea’s Email Newsletter: https://www.talkabouttalk.com/newsletter/

🟣 Talk About Talk on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-about-talk-communication-skills-training/id1447267503

🟢 Talk About Talk on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3afgjXuYZPmNAfIrbn8zXn?si=9ebfc87768524369

📺 Talk About Talk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@talkabouttalkyoutube

CONNECT WITH CARMINE GALLO

🌐 Website: carminegallo.com

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carminegallo/

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

📖 Talk Like TED by Carmine Gallo: https://amzn.to/3N9Fgn2

📖 The Bezos Blueprint by Carmine Gallo: https://amzn.to/4gpDaOi

📰 Carmine’s Columns on Inc.: https://www.inc.com/author/carmine-gallo

🎙️ Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard: https://armchairexpertpod.com/

TRANSCRIPTION

Carmine Gallo: We’re all storytellers. We’re wired for story. It’s how we process the world through narratives and stories. It’s the way we communicate information, mostly through stories, not bullet points on a slide. 

Andrea Wojnicki: If you wanna communicate like the world’s top leaders, then you’ll love this episode with Carmine Gallo, bestselling author, storytelling guru, and expert communication coach. We’ll reveal storytelling secrets from Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos, and break down how you can craft stories that connect, persuade, and stick. 

Let’s do this. Let’s talk about talk. I’m Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. Please call me Andrea. This is Talk Sbout Talk, the podcast where I help you communicate with confidence. I also write a newsletter. We’ll put a link to that in the description. 

About Carmine Gallo

After years of following Carmine Gallo, I finally connected with him on the Inc. Magazine Slack channel of all places. Yes, we’re both columnists for Inc.Magazine. I’ll leave links by the way to his and my articles in the show notes too.

Thank you so much for being here today, Carmine, to talk with me and the Talk About Talk listeners about communication skills. 

CG:  Well, thank you for inviting me. I think one of the reasons why I like your approach is because, unless I’m mistaken, it comes from an academic research background, doesn’t it? Didn’t you get a, uh, you got a PhD from the Harvard Business School? 

AW: I did. I got a doctorate of business administration, uh, with a major in marketing. 

CG:  Yeah. So I shared the perspective of putting things into contacts and sharing ideas that we can back by research and data. These aren’t just opinions, but everything we talk about is really backed by the latest science, which is always cool.

I think we come from different perspectives. Obviously, I’m not from an academic background, but we probably reach similar conclusions. 

AW: Yes. And I know from reading most, if not all of your books, Carmine, that you do a ton of research for your books, whether it’s interviews or counting things in various Ted Talks, which we’re gonna get into.

CG: Excellent. I see some of my books on your bookshelf. Yes. You, you a smart, you’re a smart podcast host. 

Secrets of the World’s Best Communicators

AW: Yeah, that’s the image I’m trying to portray here. Carmine. Okay. So. I have so many questions that I wanna ask you, but I really wanna start with this one, which is, I know based on your books and your writing and your articles that you’ve studied, many of the world’s greatest communicators, including Ted speakers, including Jeff Bezos, including Steve Jobs, and on and on and on. So I wanna start there. What do these incredible speakers have in common? Maybe what surprised you about them? Who stands out for you as the number one speaker in your mind? 

CG: In my opinion, still the world’s greatest brand storyteller was Steve Jobs. He brought a completely new dimension to presentations. His presentations were like theatrical performances. They were fun and engaging and interesting and entertaining. So I wrote the first book on how Steve Jobs gave these awe-inspiring presentations. 

That’s where I really started getting into the research, trying to talk to people who had worked side by side with Steve Jobs or who were in the practice and rehearsal rooms when he was getting ready for these huge keynote presentations, like the launch of the iPhone in 2007 and some of the other iconic presentations. 

AW: Can I just add, I’m so glad to hear you say that because I teach a lot of workshops on communication skills, and there’s a series that I’ve been doing for some physicians, some healthcare workers, and on the set, the workshop that we do focused on formal presentations, I ask them to watch that 2007 presentation, ’cause I think it is iconic as well. I’d love to hear maybe what you think stands out about that in terms of his preparation and delivery. 

CG: I’ll tell you what they all have in common. The great Ted speakers, Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs. Getting back to one of your questions, and this will answer the Steve Jobs one too, it’s, he had the courage, they all had the courage to keep it simple.

Minimalism. When we talk about minimalism right now, it’s more about product design, or when you walk into an Apple store or a luxury store, it’s minimal, more white space, fewer products. Well, you can also apply that to presentations. So if you look at that, Steve Jobs’ presentation. There’s one picture on a slide.

One photo, one image, two words. You, there are no slides. That Steve Jobs probably ever delivered, you know, maybe decades earlier. There are no slides with just text and bullet points. It’s an image and minimal text, or just an image that takes a little courage. That’s what I mean by having the courage and the confidence to keep things simple.

Simple meaning everything from the words you use. Less jargon, more familiar language, all the way to the presentation itself, if you are using slides or visual materia,l to have the confidence to tell the story and let PowerPoint complement th