A major highlight of the last week for me was watching the movie 'Andaz Apna Apna' in a theatre in Pune (with a big gang of friends!).

We were worried it might be boring to watch the entire movie, songs and all, on the big screen. We were wrong! It was a laugh riot with almost no dull moment,

I even wrote a gushing post about it!

If you haven't seen the movie yet, I would encourage you to catch it (preferably with your family or friends who also enjoyed the movie!) before it leaves the theatres.

And now, on to the newsletter.

Welcome to the one hundred and fourteenth edition of '3-2-1 by Story Rules'.

A newsletter recommending good examples of storytelling across:

3 tweets
2 articles, and
1 long-form content piece

Let's dive in.

𝕏 3 Tweets of the week

This is a fascinating video - this person with ALS is able to type with just his thoughts!.

As they say - 'the future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed'. We are seeing a magical glimpse into the future.

What a stunning pic. A modern city in the foreground framed by snow-capped mountains in the background - does not get more magical than this!

(Check out Pueyo's full thread to get some cool insights on Canada's geography).

Haha, hard relate! Google Slides, Keynote, Canva, Prezi - nothing compares to the OG PowerPoint. (Proud Gen-X'er speaking here).

(I know, I know, I need to check out Gamma)

📄 2 Articles of the week

a. 'China's rare earth controls are not the masterstroke they seem' by Pranay Kotasthane and Tannmay Baid

By now, most people would have heard that China mines about 70% of the world's rare earths and refines about 90%. These form crucial inputs in a variety of products including smartphones, batteries, automobiles etc.

After the recent tariffs by the US, China put some export controls on these rare earths. Here's where the authors of this article come up with an interesting counter - this would encourage non-Chinese labs to restart their refinement and production of these metals:

China has protected its monopoly with economics rather than technology. Whenever a non‑Chinese refinery or processing plant threatened to scale up, Chinese exporters, subsidised by the govt, flooded the market with below‑cost REEs, driving new entrants into insolvency. Alternatively, Chinese firms bought out the international companies. However, a monopoly created by dumping can survive only as long as the monopolist keeps dumping. By restricting exports, as it has done now, Beijing loses the weapon that kept rivals at bay.

The authors mention three ways to meet this restriction - using substitutes, recycling from existing sources and reducing the requirement through efficiency gains.

They offer some advice for how India should integrate itself into this supply chain:

Instead of ruing over China’s REE power, this is an opportunity. India’s National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM) comes at the right time. Private sector can now apply for licenses to explore and mine critical minerals. Policies encouraging exploration, fast-tracking critical mine projects, a framework for rare-earth recycling, and creating joint stockpiles with friendly countries would make India a part of this critical supply chain.

a. 'Andaz Apna Apna Was Made Without A Script. What Happened Next Is Bollywood History' by Yasser Usman

In this lovely article, journalist Yasser Usman digs out some interesting trivia about the making of this iconic movie.

For instance, the contrasting working styles of the two lead actors:

Shehzad Khan, who played Bhalla, revealed that Aamir-Salman clashes were mainly due to their different work ethics. Aamir, the punctual perfectionist, would show up at the Madh Island set by 7-7:30 am, while Salman, known for his more laid-back approach, often rolled in closer to 10 or 11 am. Shehzad, who was close to Salman, often had to step in as the peacemaker, trying to smooth over the tension between the two stars.

Raveena Tandon also marvels at how the movie got made despite so much animosity between the main actors:

Remembering the making of the film, Raveena Tandon had said in an interview, "Aamir and Salman weren't talking to each other, Karisma and I weren't talking and neither were Salman and Raj ji. I don't know how that film got made."

And yet, the sets seem to have filled with laughter:

The energy on set was infectious, sometimes too infectious. "Our cinematographer Ishwar Bidri would laugh so hard during takes, we had to stop rolling and wait for him to calm down," Amod chuckles. "And this wasn't once or twice. It happened a lot."

I guess that presaged the reaction in theatres and millions of homes later!

Mad respect to Vinay Sinha (the producer) who put so much fight into ensuring that the movie was completed:

When the release date was locked, producer Vinay Sinha realised the lead actors were tied up with other projects in different cities. But after four years and a budget that had ballooned four times its original plan, he refused to delay it any longer. Andaz Apna Apna would hit theatres, publicity or not.

As the delays piled up, director Rajkumar Santoshi shifted focus to Damini pushing AAA further down his priority list. Funds began to dry up, and the struggle was real. But through it all, producer Vinay Sinha remained undeterred. "I remember, despite everything-the delays, the money troubles-Dad always said, koi baat nahi... we'll finish this film," recalls his daughter, Priti Sinha. And thank God he did.

Thank God indeed. He gifted all of us an unforgettable gem that will be etched in the minds of fans forever.

🎧 1 long-form listen of the week

a. 'Become a better communicator: Specific frameworks to improve your clarity, influence, and impact' Wes Kao on Lenny Rachitsky podcast

This conversation is useful for some simple and actionable frameworks to communicate better at work, especially to senior stakeholders. I share some of the ideas here.

Don't reserve your best storytelling only for the high stakes moments. Kao says you should Practice like it's game day for every stakeholder interaction:

Kao: ...another big one that I teach in my course and really kick off with is practicing like it's game day, playing like it's game day. So I see a lot of operators who save their best behavior for executives only. So, you know, they want to shine when they're presenting to senior leadership.

But with everyone else, they're kind of calling it in. And I just don't think that you're going to be able to get enough reps to actually get good at executive communication if you are only doing it with executives. Because many of us only present to execs once a month, right? Or a couple times a quarter. And that's just not a lot of chance to practice. So really treating every single stakeholder as if they are important because they are.

And you shouldn't be, you know, if you don't want to waste your CEO's time, you also shouldn't waste your cross-functional team members' time, or your manager's time, or your director of reports' time. So that's something else that I ask folks to keep in mind.”

I liked this framing of 'Sales then logistics'. Don't switch the order of ops:

Kao: ... a common mistake that I see is overestimating the amount of buy-in that you have from your audience. So that looks like jumping straight into talking about the logistics, the details of the how to do something, of the process, when in reality your audience has not yet decided if they even want to do the thing.

So what I see operators do in response then is go even deeper into the logistics and the how, thinking that, oh, if I just explain this more, then that person will want to do it. When really a sales note is different than a logistics note. A sales note is meant to get people excited to do the thing you want them to do and to agree to do it. And only then after they have bought in, does it make sense to share the logistics.

So I'm not talking about spending 15 minutes out of a 30 minute meeting selling, I'm talking about one to two minutes, even a couple sentences, and then transitioning into the main thing you want to talk about. So I'm a huge proponent of doing that and basically reminding people, why are we doing this? Why are we here today? Why does this matter? And then getting into the meat.

State your ask upfront:

Kao: I also like asking or stating what I need from the other person upfront. So saying, you know, 'hey, we're here today because two weeks ago, we were reviewing the product flow and realized that there were a couple parts that were kind of confusing. So I took a stab at fixing those areas, rewriting the microcopy, and I want to present them to you today. See if you agree with these changes and then we're going to roll them out. What I'm looking for from you is feedback on the changes and if you agree'.

So like that was like 15 seconds, right? Like super fast. And then now we're all on the same page about why we're here.

Writing is thinking - don't assume you automatically know the main point:

So we've all heard, "Don't bury the lead, cut to the chase."... Put the main point at the top, bottom line up front, right? And all of these pithy aphorisms assume that you actually know what your core point is. So you can't cut to the chase unless you know what the chase is. You can't unbury the lead unless you know what the lead is. And so that I found is the bottleneck to being concise. It's actually not really being clear of what you are thinking, that's what's leading to being long-winded.

Being concise is not about the word count. It's about insight density:

One of my pet peeves is when people are too concise and they equate being concise with brief, being brief. And being concise is not about absolute word count, it's about economy of words. It's about the density of the insight that you're sharing. And so you can have a 300 word memo that's meandering and long-winded and a thousand-word memo that is tight and concise.

By the way, the extracts above are from just the first 19 mins (which includes the guest intro, some ads etc.) of a 90-minute conversation. This is one insight-filled episode! Do give it a listen.

That's all from this week's edition.

Ravi

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Ravishankar Iyer

How to Communicate to CXOs (3-2-1 by Story Rules #114)

𝕏 3 Tweets of the week

📄 2 Articles of the week

🎧 1 long-form listen of the week

The Man Who Saved a Billion People (3-2-1 by Story Rules #118)

Using Historical Context with Empathy (3-2-1 by Story Rules #117)

On the 'Art of Interviewing' by Malcolm Gladwell (3-2-1 by Story Rules #116)