Become a World-Class Communicator

I’m running a 2nd cohort of my course: How to Become a World-Class Communicator, starting in two weeks, on November 4th! You can sign up here:

I ran the first cohort in May. Fifty students and I spent three weeks together working on their communication skills. I was blown away by their response:

Here are some reviews from my students:

If you want a sample of what the lectures and Q&A will look like, you can watch this Lightning Session I did a few weeks ago:

Here are some questions I’ve received about the course:

What is your experience in communication?

If you’re reading this, you might know that nearly 100,000 people receive this newsletter every week, and that I have about 350,000 followers on Twitter. Every year, my content gets read by hundreds of millions of people. My forays in other media have also worked well: My 2nd YouTube video has been seen by over one million people.

This started with my COVID articles, the first of which was read by over 60 million people. This pushed me to appear in the media around the world 

And my ideas guided the domestic policy of dozens of countries like Germany, the US, India, Spain, Canada, Singapore, Japan, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, the Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Kuwait, Argentina, Costa Rica…

This was not an overnight success:

• As a consultant for three years, I presented to dozens of companies

• At Stanford, I took several classes in public speaking, political communication, movie scriptwriting, and fiction storytelling

• I went to Toastmasters for a decade, giving dozens of speeches. I reached the California finals for humorous speeches and standup comedy.

• I wrote a book on storytelling structure

• I gave a TEDx on the same topic

Applying these skills, in about ten years I went from product manager to Chief Product Officer of a $2 billion tech company, managing ~100 people. In the process, I helped raise a total of $500 million for my last three companies.

Throughout this career, my employees have consistently said that they appreciated my coaching, especially the communication insights, so that’s what I plan to share with another small group of students come November.

What are we going to learn?

I want to teach you everything I know about effective communication. I have put together 72 insights across 8 lectures, which you’ll be able to consume at your own pace:

1. The Structure of All Stories: Movies, books, stories, and business communication all have the same fundamental structure. You will learn to understand it, so you can make your communications as compelling as a movie.

2. How to Solve Any Problem: Business communication always involves solving problems. You'll learn the main pitfalls of problem-solving, how they're connected to storytelling, and how to transform your ideas into riveting communications.

3. The Formula for Great Communication: We can boil down great communication to one single formula. You'll learn that formula, how it manifests everywhere, and detailed examples for how you can apply it easily.

4. Top 8 Communication Mistakes: They're hard to discern from the outside, but once you see them, you won't be able to unsee them. You'll learn what they look like, how to identify them, and how to avoid them.

5. Irrational Persuasion: How to influence people, not with rationality and arguments, but by hacking their brains and using their biases to your advantage.

6. Speeches: Speech has dozens of small pitfalls. You'll learn about them all, with practical examples from master speakers like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Tony Robbins, so you can incorporate them over time and become as good an orator as they are.

7. Visuals: Most visuals are really bad. You will learn ~20 of the most common mistakes, and how to eliminate them using basic tools. You’ll understand how to make fantastic graphs, images, videos, transitions, and animations, with simple tools like Powerpoint and AI.

8. My Process: All the inner secrets of how I craft my articles, threads, and YouTube videos. 

What are the specifics of the course? What will the sessions be, and what will we learn in each?

We will start on Monday, November 4th 2024. I will give you an introduction to the course live, and explain in detail what will happen. I will answer any questions you might have on the course specifically, and communication more broadly.

In that first session, I will also put you into small groups so that you can learn not just from me, but also from each other. I’ve heard that some study groups are still meeting months after the first cohort ended, and that meeting these peers was one of the most valuable parts of the course.

You will take the rest of the week to watch the relevant lectures. There are about 10 hours in total. If that’s too much, you can pace yourself, as we will have a total of 3 weeks to go through all the content.

The lectures come with small exercises that you can do at your leisure. You can then share these exercises with your peers for feedback, or bring them to the Q&A session on Thursday the first week.

On that first Thursday, we will also kick off the projects. I will ask you to come to the course prepared with two of your own projects:

• One past communication that didn’t achieve the results you wanted

• One communication project you are currently working on 

I will provide live feedback on how your past communications could have been improved.

The following two weeks will be focused on your ongoing projects. I will workshop with you any issues you might be facing, provide live feedback, and do deep dives on how you should apply the insights from the lectures to your own projects.

Most sessions will be at 9am PST / 12pm EST / 6pm CET, but I will adjust some sessions to accommodate people in the Asian timezones.

By the end of the three weeks, you will have learned over 70 communication insights and applied them to your real-life projects so as to fully internalize them and carry them with you for the rest of your lives.

How much time should I reserve for the course?

The minimum amount is the 8-10h in total it will take for you to watch the lectures. I think these lectures are enough to make it very worthwhile for you: They were deemed one of the course’s biggest highlights by previous students.

Beyond that, you’ll get out as much as you put in. 

It should be easy for you to find a past communication piece that didn’t fully achieve your goals. Getting feedback on that will help you apply the concepts from the lectures to your real-life experience.

The next thing I’d recommend that you prioritize is the real-life communication project, because the best way to learn is to apply the theory. If you practice using the insights from the course, you’ll understand the nuances, and the insights will become memorable.

You can invest in that project as much as you want, from a couple of hours to dozens. The more you invest, the more you apply the insights, the more you will learn.

Finally, if you want to take your learning one notch higher, you can do the exercises. They are designed to be short (5-15m each), fun, and insightful.

Will I have access to the content after the course?

Yes, forever.

What has changed since the 1st cohort?

I was told that it was too much work to follow my lectures and do the exercises at the same time, so I made the workload more flexible by recording all the sessions. This has two benefits:

1. Now, you can consume lectures at your leisure—ideally in the first week, but you’ll keep access forever. You don’t need to turn up at a specific time.

2. Because I’m not preparing and giving live lectures, I can dedicate more time to coaching you, giving specific advice on what you are doing well and what you could improve.

Will there be more cohorts?

I’m not sure.

It took me six months to prepare for this new cohort, and I’m doing it because the course platform, Maven, asked me to, since they are helping to market it. I don’t know if I’ll do this again because it’s a lot of work, so enroll now if you want to learn communication and storytelling directly from me!

I’d say the current probability of me doing this again is 40%.

I have more questions!

Ask away in the comments!

I hope to see you soon in the course!