15:06Shannon Jenkins · Tutorial
The Kodak Carousel Pitch: How Don Draper Sold an Idea With Emotion, Not Logic
A scene-by-scene breakdown of Mad Men's most famous pitch, and the five techniques that make it land on any audience.
September 16thThe argument in one line.
Ted Lasso's most memorable moments work because he withholds the payoff, drops the audience into one specific moment instead of summarizing, and closes by stating what the story meant, a repeatable structure Shannon Jenkins packages as CART: Context, Action, Result, Takeaway.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You lead teams or present in meetings and want your examples and stories to actually hold a room's attention instead of getting a polite nod.
- You're building a keynote, sales pitch, or team update and want a repeatable structure for turning a personal experience into a story with a point.
- You already tell stories at work but they land flat because you explain the moral upfront instead of building toward it.
SKIP IF…
- You're looking for fiction-writing or screenwriting craft — this is built for workplace and stage communication, not narrative fiction.
- You want tactical video-editing or retention-hook advice — the lessons are about spoken storytelling technique, not video production.
The full version, fast.
Shannon Jenkins breaks down two Ted Lasso scenes, the pub darts bet and the press conference after Earl the dog's death, to show how strong storytellers build a story rather than summarize one. The mechanism: open with an unresolved question instead of the answer, zoom into one specific moment instead of the helicopter-view summary, vary pace by slowing down for the details that matter and speeding through the rest, and use an unexpected opening or twist to keep the audience recalibrating. Every story should close by stating what it meant, not just what happened. She packages this as CART: Context, Action, Result, Takeaway, and argues that withholding the payoff and naming the meaning at the end are the two moves most people skip.
Free for members
Chat with this breakdown — free.
Sign in and you get 23 free chat messages on us — ask for the hook, quote a framework, find the exact transcript moment, generate a markdown action plan. Bring your own key when you want unlimited.
Create a free account →Where the time goes.
00:00 – 03:48
01 · The Underdog's Secret Weapon
Intro plus the setup for the darts-bet scene; Ted opens his story by naming a pattern (being underestimated) without explaining why, creating an unresolved question.
03:48 – 04:33
02 · Curiosity Is Tension
The Walt Whitman quote moment works because Ted drops into a specific instant, seeing words painted on a wall, instead of summarizing a change in mindset.
04:33 – 05:50
03 · Specificity vs. The Helicopter View
Weak storytellers stay at the helicopter level ('we realized something needed to change'); strong ones name the exact meeting or conversation.
05:50 – 09:55
04 · Why the Best Storytellers Keep You Waiting
Ted answers the setup question about his darts skill only once tension has built, and answers it with specific, personal detail (Sunday afternoons with his father) rather than a flat yes.
09:55 – 11:28
05 · Novelty Sparks Engagement
At the Earl press conference, Ted opens with a childhood dog-attack memory right after a beloved dog's death, an unexpected opening that keeps the room listening.
11:28 – 12:23
06 · The Advanced Move
The dog the audience expects Ted to resent turns out to be the dog he came to love, a twist that reverses the story's emotional direction.
12:23 – 13:30
07 · The Art of Changing Speed
Ted slows down for the moments that matter (feeding, walking the dog) and compresses years into a sentence once the details stop mattering.
13:30 – 14:51
08 · Finish Your Stories Like This
The story closes by stating what it meant and bringing that meaning back to Earl, turning a personal anecdote into a tribute.
14:51 – 17:17
09 · The 7 Moves That Make Stories Stick
Recap of all seven techniques plus the CART framework, followed by the pitch for the free storytelling guide and the Speak to Resonate program.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- Weak storytellers give the payoff too early; strong ones create an unresolved question and make the audience wait for the answer.
- Zooming into one specific moment, like driving your kid to school and seeing a quote painted on a wall, beats summarizing an experience in general terms.
- Slowing down for the moments that matter and speeding through the rest is a pacing choice most people never make on purpose.
- Starting somewhere the audience doesn't expect creates a reason to keep listening, even before they know why it matters.
- A twist works by leading the audience to one reasonable assumption and then revealing something that forces them to reinterpret everything they just heard.
- A well-chosen personal detail, like a father who died when the speaker was 16, closes the distance between competence and warmth in a way no credential can.
- The most commonly skipped step in workplace storytelling is the ending: naming what the story meant, not just what happened.
- The CART framework, Context, Action, Result, Takeaway, turns any personal experience into a business story with a defined shape.
- Personal doesn't mean private: the goal of a personal detail is to be seen as human, not to overshare.
- A story that lands well makes the audience think 'that's why you told me that' at the very end, not partway through.
The seven moves that make a story actually stick
STORY MECHANICS
Great stories aren't reported, they're built: withhold the payoff, zoom into one moment, vary the pace, and always land on what it meant.
01The Underdog's Secret Weapon
- Ted opens by naming a lifelong pattern (being underestimated) without explaining why, creating an unresolved question the audience wants answered.
- Tension doesn't require life-or-death stakes; it just means creating curiosity the audience wants resolved.
- Two Ted Lasso scenes get analyzed specifically because they show contrasting techniques: withholding information, and starting from an unexpected place.
02Curiosity Is Tension
- The Walt Whitman quote moment works because Ted takes the audience into a specific instant, seeing the words on a wall, rather than summarizing a change in mindset.
- The gap between reporting what happened and telling a story is the difference between a summary and a specific, sensory moment.
03Specificity vs. The Helicopter View
- Staying at the helicopter level ('we realized something needed to change') is the default weak-storyteller move; naming the exact meeting or moment is what makes people lean in.
- Concrete examples like 'my biggest customer looked across the table and said this is never going to work' work because they're a single scene, not a summary of months.
04Why the Best Storytellers Keep You Waiting
- Giving the audience the most important information too early kills the story; answer the setup question only once tension has built.
- The payoff needs specificity too: 'every Sunday afternoon at a sports bar with my father from age 10 to 16' does more work than 'yes, I played a lot growing up.'
- Revealing something unexpectedly personal, like a parent's death, shifts a story from a competence flex into an emotional connection.
- Warmth and competence aren't a trade-off: the same story that proves skill can also make the audience feel for the storyteller.
05Novelty Sparks Engagement
- Opening with a memory that seems to contradict the moment creates immediate, productive confusion that holds attention.
- Starting somewhere the audience doesn't expect gives them a reason to keep listening, even without knowing why yet.
06The Advanced Move
- A twist works by leading the audience toward one reasonable assumption and then revealing something that forces them to reinterpret everything they just heard.
- The subject the audience expects the speaker to resent can turn out to be the subject they came to love, reversing the emotional direction of the whole story.
07The Art of Changing Speed
- Good storytellers don't narrate every part of a story at the same speed; they slow down for the moments that matter and compress years into a sentence otherwise.
- Speeding through the parts the audience only needs for context, not to feel, keeps the story moving toward its meaning.
08Finish Your Stories Like This
- The most commonly skipped step in a workplace story is the ending: stating explicitly what the story meant, not just what happened.
- Bringing a personal story's meaning back to the original point is what turns an anecdote into a message instead of a tangent.
09The 7 Moves That Make Stories Stick
- The seven moves, in order: create curiosity, create tension, zoom into a specific moment, change the pace, introduce something unexpected, use personal stories, and land with a takeaway.
- The CART framework (Context, Action, Result, Takeaway) is offered as a repeatable structure for turning any personal experience into a business story.
- A well-chosen personal detail closes the gap between competence and warmth without requiring the speaker to overshare.
Terms worth knowing.
- CART
- A four-part storytelling structure, Context, Action, Result, Takeaway, for turning a personal experience into a clear business story.
- Helicopter view
- Telling a story by summarizing what happened overall instead of dropping into one specific, detailed moment.
Things they pointed at.
Lines you could clip.
08:20
“If you tell them half as well as Ted, I guarantee you will already communicate better than 99% of your colleagues.”
10:24
“Novelty gets attention. If you start somewhere people didn't expect you to start, you create a reason for them to keep listening.”
11:27
“You lead your audience towards one reasonable assumption and then reveal something that forces them to reinterpret what they just heard.”
04:59
“Weak storytellers will stay at the helicopter level... instead, zoom into the specific moment.”
Word for word.
Read-along
Don't just watch it. Burn it in.
See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.
metaphor
There is a reason Ted Lasso can walk into a room where people underestimate him and minutes later have that same room hanging on his every word he is an exceptionally good storyteller and in this video i'm going to break down two of his best stories to show you exactly what he's doing how he creates curiosity when he holds information back how he drops you into very specific moment and how he creates exceptional Then I'll show you how to use the same techniques to tell stories better than 99 % of your colleagues.
Hi, I'm Shannon Jenkins. I'm a leadership and storytelling trainer trusted by companies, including Nestle, Nespresso, and Google. And very often what stands between someone and their next leadership role is their ability to move and influence.
people storytelling is one of the most powerful tools we have to do just that and we're going to see it with ted now before we get into it if you haven't seen ted lasso it is a comedy about an american college football coach who is hired to manage an english premier league football team despite not knowing anything or virtually anything about football side note i genuinely recommend watching it because it is such a good show but also because ted has this extraordinary ability to use stories to disarm people to make an idea memorable and change the way people see things and the two scenes we're going to analyze together are perfect examples of that.
So before I show you this first scene let me give you a bit of context so you understand it better. Rebecca owns richmond a football club in the english premier league she acquired the club through her divorce from with its former owner rupert who is a wealthy arrogant and powerful man and just before this scene rebecca discovers that rupert has found a way back into the club by financing a minority stake through his new fiance So they're all in a pub and Rupert makes it very clear to Rebecca and her coach, Ted Lasso, that he intends to sit in the owner's box every week to get in front of the cameras and publicly undermine the way that Rebecca runs the club.
Ted, the perfect underdog, quietly listens to Rupert's little demonstration of power. And then... he notices the dartboard.
Rupert is an experienced darts player. Ted plays himself down and asks Rupert to explain the rules to him. And Rupert suggests later that they play a game for £10 ,000.
And of course, he assumes that this will be easy. Ted says, oh no, this is a little bit rich for him. And he proposes something else.
He says, if Rupert wins, he gets to choose Richmond's starting lineup for the final two games. If Ted wins, Rupert has to stay away from the owner's box for as long as Rebecca is in charge. Deal, they say.
Now, by the time we join them in the scene, they are near the end of the game, and Rupert is convinced that he has this won. And that's when Ted starts telling the story we're going to analyze. Let's watch.
You know, Rupert, guys have underestimated me my entire life. And for years, I never understood why. It used to really bother me.
Let's stop there. There is already something very clever happening. You see, Ted doesn't start with, when I was 10 years old, I used to play darts with.
He deliberately doesn't tell us the most interesting piece of information yet. Instead, he gives us an unresolved question. Why have people underestimated him his entire life?
And now I want the answer. That's tension. And tension in storytelling, it doesn't have to mean that somebody's about to die or the company is about to collapse.
It simply means creating curiosity in your audience's mind that they then want to resolve. Let's keep watching. Then one day I was driving my little boy to school and I saw this quote by Walt Whitman.
It was painted on the wall there. It said, be curious, not judgmental. I like that.
Do you notice how specific that is? Ted could have said, then I came across a quote that changed the way I thought about it. No, that is a summary.
Instead, he takes us into the moment. He's driving his little boy to school and he sees the words painted on a wall. This is one of the biggest differences between reporting what happened and actually telling a story.
Weak storytellers will , such as, we realized something needed to change. There was a lot of resistance, but eventually we found a solution. Instead, zoom into the specific moment.
For example, three weeks before launch, my biggest customer looked across the table at me and said, this is never going to work. Or I'm sitting in a meeting when our sales director puts one number on the screen and he says, guys, I think we've been solving for the wrong problem. Now we're somewhere.
Let's see scene number three. Because if they were curious, they would ask questions. You know, questions like, have you played a lot of darts, Ted?
Let's stop again. So Ted has finally revealed the question that we should have been asking. But notice what he still hasn't given us.
The answer. So by this point, we really want to know, well, has he played darts before? How good actually is he?
Weak storytellers will often kill this tension because they give us the most important information too early. For example, I grew up playing darts with my father, so when this guy challenged me to a game, I decided to play dumb.
Story, curiosity, over. You see, you already know where this is going. Instead, give the audience what they need to keep following you, but don't give them the payoff until you're ready for it.
Which I would have answered, yes, sir. Every Sunday afternoon at a sports bar with my father from age 10 to 16 when he passed away.
And there's the satisfying payoff to all of that curiosity. Do you notice how Ted doesn't just say, yes, I played darts a lot growing up. He gave us Sunday afternoons, a sports bar, his father from age 10 to age 16.
And in one sentence, I can picture this ritual between a father and his son. And then. he tells us his father passed away and now this isn't really a story about being good at dance anymore there's meaning there's emotion behind him and what is particularly effective is that ted reveals something unexpectedly personal and we suddenly feel something for him That is what good specificity does.
You don't need loads of detail, but you just need the right amount to help us see and feel the moment. And when the story is personal like this, it closes the distance between you and the audience. So we see Ted's competence through his darts ability, but also his humanity.
at the same time and that combination of both warmth humanity and competence is incredibly powerful for a leader of course this is television so it's beautifully engineered the story finishes the dart lands right on the bullseye your takeaway though is to include stories like this in your professional communication and if you tell them half as well as ted i guarantee you will already communicate better than 99 of your colleagues and if you're thinking okay but how do i actually find and structure stories like these from my own experience well i've created a free storytelling guide speak better than 99 of people and you can download it from the link So from the dart scene, this is a masterclass in creating tension, taking us into a specific moment using just the right amount of detail and building connection through a personal revelation.
And this next scene shows us another side of Ted's storytelling skills. So a little bit of context before we dive in. Richmond have started the season with seven consecutive draws.
In the final minute of a match against Nottingham Forest, they are equal. at two all, and one of the players, Danny Rojas, has a penalty that could finally give Richmond their first win. Just as Danny strikes the ball...
Earl Greyhound, the club's beloved dog, the mascot, runs across the goal chasing a pigeon. The bull hits Earl and kills him right there and then in front of the whole stadium. And later at the press conference, a journalist asks Ted what he has to say about Earl's death.
Let's watch how he answers it. I was wondering if you had any comments on Earl, the dog Danny Rucker has killed today. Trent Cram bringing that heat.
Yeah. Well, when I was three years old, I got attacked by our neighbor's dog. I don't remember it happening, but my mother said it was pretty scary.
That's such an unexpected place to start. Richmond's beloved mascot has just been killed in a freak accident on the pitch. And everyone is expecting some kind of compassionate response.
And Ted starts by telling us about a dog that had attacked him when he was three. But this is storytelling 2 .0. He takes us almost to the edge of how unexpected an opening can be.
Because at that point, nobody can see where he is going with this. And for a moment, it almost sounds a bit unexpected. empathetic a dog has just died and Ted appears to be explaining why he doesn't particularly like dogs and that immediately puts a question in my mind well what does this have to do with Earl so I keep listening and there's a lesson in that for you too novelty gets attention if you start somewhere people didn't expect you to start you create a reason for them to keep listening let's see where he takes it I do remember being afraid of dogs while growing up, though.
Like if I was at a friend's house for a sleepover or something, they'd have to keep their family dog outside, otherwise I'd bawl my eyes out. Years later, when Ted is in high school, his neighbor loses his wife and stops properly looking after their dog. And then Ted reveals which dog it is.
Then in high school, our neighbor, Mr. Grady, his wife passed away. And he was real sad about that, you can imagine.
And he just...
And there's the twist. The dog we're expecting Ted to hate is the same dog he's about to start caring for. This story is going nowhere near where we thought it was going.
And that's a more advanced storytelling technique. You lead your audience towards one reasonable assumption and then reveal something that forces them to reinterpret what they just heard. We heard this was a story about why Ted didn't like dogs, perhaps even why Earl's death didn't affect him that much.
Now it's beginning to feel completely different. And once again, I need to know what happens next. Let's keep watching.
And so I started looking after him, you know, feeding him, taking him on walks, playing fetch, all that fun stuff. Eventually, Mr. Grady's son moved his dad into a nursing home and he asked if I wanted to keep Hank.
And I was like, yeah, heck yeah. And then a year or so after that, we had to put Hank to sleep.
Do you notice something different here? Earlier, Ted slowed right down when the details mattered.
But now he's covering years in a few sentences. That's another thing good storytellers do. They don't tell every part of the story at the exact same speed.
Slow down around the moments you want us to really experience the events and speed up through the information we simply just need to know to understand. It's funny to think about the things in your life that can make you cry just knowing that they existed. can then become the same thing that make you cry knowing that they're now gone.
And now he's starting to tell us what the story means. Let's keep watching. I think those things come into our lives to help us get from one place to a better one.
And I hope we helped Earl do just that. We're going to miss him around here a whole bunch.
And this is perhaps the most important part of the story. Ted doesn't just tell us what happened to Hank, he tells us what it meant. The dog that once made him cry because he was terrified of it eventually made him cry because he loved it and it was gone.
And then Ted takes that experience and turns it into a bigger idea. Some things come into our lives and move us from one place to a better one. This is the move that turns a personal memory into an inspiring story with a message for the listener.
And it maps perfectly on the storytelling framework I teach. CART. CART stands for Context, Action, Result.
takeaway. Now, the takeaway is the part that people most often forget, but it is critical for the audience to see the relevance of what you share. Why did you tell me this story?
What does it mean for the people listening? And look at exactly what Ted does. You see, he doesn't finish with Hank.
He brings the meaning of his own experience straight back to Earl. and to the people listening so what began as this bizarre story about being attacked by a dog becomes a far more moving tribute to earl than the standard expected statement of condolences ever could and once again we come away seeing ted as somebody deeply thoughtful sensitive and caring so let me summarize what we can learn from ted one create curiosity Give me something that I want to understand, an unanswered question, a piece of information you're holding back, a destination I want you to take me to.
Two, create tension. Give me a reason to care about what happens next. There needs to be something uncertain, something important at stake, something I want resolved.
Three. Zoom in to a specific moment. Don't give me the helicopter view of everything that happened.
Take me into the specific meeting, the specific conversation, the specific moment where something has changed. Four, change the pace. Slow down around the moments that you want us to experience and speed through the information we simply need to know.
Five, introduce something unexpected. ted does this beautifully the story doesn't always go to where we think it will there's a twist a surprising detail or an unexpected opening that makes us pay attention and six use personal stories to you don't need to overshare and personal does not mean private but a well -chosen personal detail lets people see the human being behind the expertise and that is particularly important for leaders who have the tendency to over emphasize their competence their credibility at the expense of the human side people need to believe you're competent but they also need to feel that they can trust you connect with you and follow your direction And finally, seven, land with a takeaway.
Don't leave your audience wondering why you told them the story. What did it mean? What changed?
The ending should make the whole story click into place. You want that moment where the audience thinks, ah, that's why you told me that. That was clever.
Well done. And if you want to put all of this into practice, as I said, download my free storytelling guide, Speak Better Than 99 % of People. It will help you to find the right story, how to structure it and how to make it resonate.
The link is below. And if this is a skill that you want to work on either individually or with your teams, I encourage you to check out my program, Speak to Resonate, where we really learn how to tell stories to captivate, inspire, connect, to make action happen in your organization.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Shannon Jenkins uses two Ted Lasso scenes, a pub bet over darts and a press conference after a dog's death, to reverse-engineer why some stories make a room lean in while others get a polite nod.
Named ideas worth stealing.
14:09acronym
CART (Context, Action, Result, Takeaway)
- Context
- Action
- Result
- Takeaway
Shannon Jenkins' four-part structure for turning any personal experience into a business story.
Steal forframing case studies, onboarding stories, or leadership anecdotes in a keynote or team update
15:00list
The 7 Moves That Make Stories Stick
- Create curiosity
- Create tension
- Zoom in to a specific moment
- Change the pace
- Introduce something unexpected
- Use personal stories
- Land with a takeaway
A checklist summarizing the storytelling techniques demonstrated in both Ted Lasso scenes.
Steal forreviewing a draft story or presentation before delivering it
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
16:48product
“download my free storytelling guide, Speak Better Than 99% of People... check out my program, Speak to Resonate”
Two-tier pitch delivered in the closing 90 seconds after the 7-point summary: free lead magnet first, then the paid corporate training program.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
PRIMARY CTAWhere the creator wants you to go next.
OTHER LINKSAlso linked in the description.
Visual structure at a glance.
