Being a taxi driver is better than being Malcolm Gladwell

“Ah, great, it’s an old-school taxi driver,” Patricia says as the guy sees us and starts pulling over. 

“What do you mean?,” I ask. 

“Well, it’s an old bloke who knows where he’s going without needing the GPS. They’re always much nicer.”

“Ok…”

So we get in, give him our destination and he just starts driving. No GPS. 

Patricia looks at me and smirks. 

He’s pretty talkative, so we chat about nothing in particular for a while until we get close to home. 

“I think you can turn left on this one,” Patricia says. 

“Oh, no, I can’t. Most people don’t know that, but there’s a sign there, you get fined.”

“Really? I drive this way often and I’ve never seen that!” 

“Oh, yeah, most people don’t know that. But there’s a sign there. You get fined.”

“Ok, good to know!”

“Yeah, you need to be super careful. The fine will be expensive. And it’s so hard to earn money these days. So be careful, there’s a sign there, you don’t want to get fined.”

“Sure, ok.”

“And you have to be even more careful with the undercover traffic police in unmarked cars. If you take that turn, there’s a sign there, they fine you.”

“Wait. Undercover traffic wardens in unmarked cars? Is that really a thing??,” I ask. 

“Oh yeah. They’re everywhere, and they’re really out to get you. You have to be very careful. I can spot them, I know how, but most people can’t. So they take that turn because they don’t know there’s a sign there, and they get fined. I’m telling you.”

“Ok…”

In the 5 mins left in our trip, he tells us about the sign and the fines another three or four times. 

As he drives off, I swear he’s still going on about it. 

I look at Patricia and say,

“You’re right, old-school taxi drivers are the best.”

“Shut up.”

A few days later I’m running some errands around the neighbourhood, and I walk past that left turn. 

There’s no sign anywhere 😂

A storyteller can be a tour guide… 

This particular story has no meaningful point. Sure, I could make it about not overdoing your message, getting your facts straight or what happens when you expect people to behave a certain way. 

But I didn't–and that’s ok. Stories can be for entertainment, or to introduce ideas and concepts. 

As a storyteller, you can get away with being a tour guide, taking people to interesting and surprising places with no destination in mind. 

You just can’t do that as a speaker. 

A speaker must be a taxi driver 

It doesn’t matter if you’re giving a keynote speech, a workshop, a TED-style talk or a business presentation, your job is still the same: 

Take people to where they want to go–not where you want to take them 

That will always be where one of their problems is solved or their lives are improved in some way. 

“But Francisco, Malcolm Gladwell just put out a TED talk that wasn’t about my problems, it was about him!”

He did. And it’s doing very well. But he’s Malcolm Gladwell. He’s famous and, let’s be honest, he is mostly selling entertainment disguised as real insight. 

(His talk is about what he got wrong. If there was ever a TED talk that should be a couple of hours long, it’s that one 🤭)

Sure, you can still get creative choosing a route. You can entertain them. You can get there faster or slower. But you always need to get there. 

In fact, you can be the most fun “taxi driver" of all time, but if you don’t get them to their destination that might even work against you (“he was more concerned about telling us jokes than going the right way"). 

And here’s another thing: they need to know you’re going there. Imagine getting in a taxi, and they just start driving off. Even if you get home, you’d be mighty pissed off they didn’t communicate properly early on. 

So before you start worrying about how you’ll engage and entertain your audience, figure out where they want to go, and tell them that’s where you’re going. 

Manage that, and they'll even forgive you if you sound repetitive and paranoid like my old-school taxi driver 🤘

-Francisco 

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Getting clarity through your story to stand out from all the other coaches, speakers and entrepreneurs out there 

2. If you dream of speaking on the Red Dot, take this Scorecard and instantly discover how likely your idea is to be accepted by a TED-style organizing committee

3. If you (or your team) got any storytelling challenges, I’m sure there’s something we can do together ;-)

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