In case you are not familiar with The Moth, it is a not-for-profit devoted to ‘true stories told live.’  The stories are short, intimate, and funny.  Most Moth storytellers, including Janna Levin, draw from one (or several) moments of profound personal transformation; more often than not, these moments were catalyzed by foolishness, futility, character flaws, or failure. While polished in plot, setting, and character development, the best Moth stories retain raw, honest sincerity and offer an uplifting moral.

In this post, I’ll deconstruct Janna Levin’s Life on a Mobius Strip, the lead-off story in The Moth’s new book.  I recommend you enjoy the video below and then read my analysis.

Tip #1: Develop a richly plotted story

Plot, setting, and dialog-rich character are the key elements that add texture to a story.  Let’s examine how Janna developed the first element, plot.  As shown in the table below, notice that Janna impressively wove dual-plots that converged in the end.

Boiled down, the essence of plot is the topsy-turvy journey characters must undergo is search of the answer to a profound question.  The types of questions that work best do not have an obvious or even a single answer; in fact, depending on the path taken, diametrically opposed answers may be equally viable.  Despite that challenge, storytellers (usually) share their answer to the question at the end in the form of a revelation that allows the protagonist to achieve her goals and live happily ever after.

Sometimes characters know the question the storyteller is exploring, and sometimes they do not.  In Plot A, Janna as protagonist knows the question and frames it early on as, “The hazard for a scientist working on something so esoteric is the possibility that it just might not be true or it might not be answerable.”  She is asking: Is it worth dedicating your professional life to fundamental scientific research when it is unlikely that your effort will amount to anything? In Plot B, in contrast, Janna as protagonist does not know the question: Do we get to choose who we love?

Quite cleverly, these two plots share a common theme summarized by the overarching question: Are our lives determined by fate or free will? At the end of her story, Janna discovers the answer in the symbolism of her anatomically unusual son – Love, like the universe, is unpredictable, improbable, circular, and worthwhile.

[table]

,Plot A,Plot B
Once upon a time and every day…, (1) I was working at Berkeley as an astrophysicist obsessed with an esoteric\, probably unanswerable topic, (2) I met Warren\, an uneducated obsessive compulsive musician\, in a coffee shop in San Francisco

Until one day…, (4) My fellowship ended and I accepted a job in Cambridge\, England,(3) Warren moved in with me

And because of that…, (5) I shifted to the exciting topic of Black Holes and got to hang out with Nobel laureates,(6) Warren worked as a dishwasher and focused on his music

Until finally…, (8) I wrote a book about the universe and the unraveling of an obsessive compulsive mind,(7) Our relationship ended explosively

And after that…, (9) I returned to San Francisco…,(10a) … and saw Warren working in the coffee shop ~~ (10b) We married a year later ~~ (10c) We had a son whose internal organs (harmlessly) are reversed

And the moral of the story is…,[attr colspan=”2″](11) Love\, like the universe\, is unpredictable\, improbable\, circular\, and worthwhile

[/table]

Tip #2: Get laughs early and often

Compelling personal stories, including if not especially traumatic ones, need generous helpings of humor.  I find that humor can typically be classified in three buckets: superiority (ex: laughing at people with bad judgement, particularly those in positions of authority); surprise (ex: absurd overstatement or understatement); and emotional release as a salve to embarrassment, discomfort, or fear (ex: gallows and scatological humor).

Janna used all three types early and often.  She got her first laugh with superiority humor a mere nine seconds into her story with the following: “Einstein famously said, ‘Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity.’ Then he added, ‘And I’m not so sure about the universe.” Though it may be painfully obvious, this is superiority humor because implies that people are infinitely stupid.  Since Einstein’s and Janna’s audiences were in on the joke, they get to feel superior to the rest of the world.

(Note: I advise speakers to avoid quoting famous people, especially at the opening or closing of a speech.  Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.  The main exception is when the speaker either knows the famous person or heard the quote first-hand.  Janna reveals another exception which is when the quote perfectly sets up the fundamental theme of the story and ties to a major story element – in this case, Janna is an astrophysicist studying whether or not the universe is infinite.)

Janna’s second laugh relied on surprise humor in the form of understatement as follows: “Warren came charging past me the first day I saw him and pinned me with his blue eyes and said, ‘You’re the astrophysicist.’  (pause) Which I knew.”

She employed release humor a bit later on when she recounted living in low-cost accommodations upon arriving in England, “… we spend a few weeks in a coin-operated bed-sit in Brighton. If you ran out of pound coins, your electricity went off and the lights went out. We often ran out of pound coins, and towards the end we were so despondent we would just sit in the dark.”

By the end of her 16 minute 20 second story, Janna garnered 31 laughs – a rate of 1.9 laughs per minute. While shy of the stand-up comedy standard of four to six laughs-per-minute, the rate is both impressive and typical of entertaining personal stories. If the laughter density is too low, below 1 laugh-per minute, a story becomes heavy and dull; if the laughter density is too high, above 4 laughs per minute, a story loses meaning and becomes just a pleasant, in-the-moment experience.

 Tip #3: Be vulnerable

Over the course of the story, the audience learns that Janna holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from MIT, did post-doctoral work at Berkeley, hobnobbed with Stephen Hawking and Nobel laureates at Cambridge, wrote and published a book that “came out of me fully formed,” and has a healthy, happy family.  If Janna had led with all of this, or even any of this, the audience would have immediately disconnected from her.  However, she paired vulnerabilities with each of her bona fides – foolishness, frustration, futility, and failure always preceded good fortune:

• The futile pursuit of fundamental science precedes Janna’s disclosure of being an MIT-trained astrophysicist.
• The frustration of living in squalor precedes Janna’s opportunity to work at Cambridge with Stephen Hawking.
• The failure of her relationship precedes Janna’s book deal.
• The foolishness of falling in love with the wrong kind of man precedes Janna’s happy family life.

The Bottom Line

While I have touched on the most powerful insights that I drew from Janna’s story, there is much more richness to explore in character and setting development as well as in Janna’s engagingly raw verbal and non-verbal delivery.  Please listen to her story and share what struck you as valuable in the comments section below.

Dan Pallotta is a humanitarian, author, speaker, social entrepreneur, and activist involved with countless charities.  His focus is primarily on heath and human services causes.  His TED2013 talk already has nearly 3 million views.  In this post, I deconstruct the factors that make his talk so popular.

Tip 1: Share an idea worth spreading

The most powerful TED Talks generally have a single idea worth spreading.  Having more than one tends to water down the message. However, Dan’s talk proves the exception to the rule by combining two intrinsically linked ideas where one is at the macro/societal level and the other is at the personal level.

a. (Macro/Societal) To scale charitable giving from 2% of GDP to 3% of GDP, focusing the resulting $150 billion increase on health & human services charities so that we can have real change

b. (Personal): To judge charities on the scale of their dreams, their progress, and their resources so that the not-for-profit sector can play a massive role on behalf of people in most desperate need

Tip 2: Build the narrative by raising and answering a series of questions

In How to Deliver a TED Talk, I outlined three structures for highly-effective presentations. One is the classical hero’s journey structure. The second is the inductive logic group which consists of an introduction, a series of supporting points that could be re-ordered without much loss of clarity, and a conclusion.  Dan went with the third approach which I call a logic chain.  A good way to spot a logic chain is that the speaker builds his or her narrative by raising and answering a series of questions that grow progressively more nuanced and profound.

[table ]

Element,Premise,Proof

Ice Breaker,(1) I’m here to talk about social innovation and social entrepreneurship. ,(2) I have triplets and am gay which is the most socially innovative thing I have done.

Introduction,(3) What we have been taught about the NFP sector is undermining the causes we love. , (none)

Part 1,(4) Does the NFP sector have a role to play in changing the world with the emergence of FP social business?, (5) FP sector is having a positive impact. But\, NFP establishes a markets for laughter\, compassion\, and love (ex. Center for the Developmentally Disabled) that creates a world that works for everyone.

Part 2,(6) But why is the NFP sector struggling to affect change in cancer\, homelessness\, poverty?, (7) The NFP rulebook is broken in 5 ways: ~~a.Incentive compensation viewed as parasitic\, so top MBAs stay away ~~b.Paid advertising viewed as wasteful overhead ~~c.Risk-taking is punished by reputation destruction ~~d.NFPs face expectation of instant (time) return-on-investment. ~~e. NFPs have no access to capital markets so few NFPs have achieved scale

Part 3,(8) Why do we impose these restrictions on NFP sector?,(9) Charity was way for Puritans to do penance at 5 cents on the dollar for their profit-seeking behavior. In 400 years\, nothing has intervened to change this.

Part 4,(10) How does this ideology get policed today?,(11) “This ideology gets policed by the question\, ‘What percentage of my donation goes to the cause versus overhead?’” We confuse morality with frugality.

Conclusion,(12a) To scale charitable giving from 2% of GDP to 3% of GDP\, focusing the  resulting $150 billion increase on health & human services charities so that  we can drive real change ~~(12b)  To assess charities on the scale of their dreams\, their progress\, and their resources so that the NFP sector can play a massive role on behalf of those most desperately in need, (none)

[/table]

(Note: NFP = Not-For-Profit; FP=For-Profit)

Tip 3:  Expose your passion and your emotion

Every speaker has a persona. The more their on-stage persona matches their off-stage persona, the more powerful the talk.  For the majority of his talk, Dan’s (genuine) tone is a thoughtful and concerned humanitarian.  At 14:45, his tone intensifies (genuinely) to outraged activist when he says, “On one day, all 350 of our great employees lost their jobs (pause to compose himself) because they were labeled as overhead.”

At 17:20, he makes one more (genuine) tone shift to hopeful visionary when he says, “The next time you are looking at a charity, don’t ask about the rate of their overhead. Ask about the scale of their dreams, their Apple, Google, Amazon scale dreams, how they measure their progress toward those dreams, and what resources they need to make them come true regardless of what the overhead is…”

Tip 4: Stay contextually relevant at all time

Dan’s talk is extremely powerful, but I have one tiny nit to pick.  Everything inside a talk should be contextually relevant to the idea worth spreading.  I am not a big fan of Ice-breakers at the beginning of talks.  They can work when they bridge the content of previous speakers to a new theme as Ken Robinson did in the beginning of his TED Talk.

At the beginning of his talk, Dan built rapport with his audience by introducing the audience to a photo of his children; but, in hindsight, his personal life did not have strong contextual relevance to the rest of his material.  Additionally, at the end of his talk, Dan used a video to ‘call-back’ his lovely children who said,  “That would be a real social innovation.”  To me, this ending felt formulaic and took away from the momentum he built.  While his kids are cute and touching, I did not feel they belonged in this talk – they might have been an effective addition if he were talking mainly about children’s charities.

Again, this was a small nit and other viewers could easily argue that his icebreaker and video clip ending were clever and emotionally effective.  Either way, his powerful talk earned him a standing ovation and, more importantly, will drive critical change in charitable giving.