Resonate
Nancy Duarte · 2010
Resonate (2010) is a book by Nancy Duarte on communication & influence. Design expert Nancy Duarte reverse-engineers history's greatest talks, from MLK to Steve Jobs, into a repeatable story structure that turns any presentation into a hero's journey audiences feel compelled to act on.
Stop casting yourself as the hero: Duarte's insight that a great talk oscillates between "what is" and "what could be" with the audience as the protagonist is the closest thing to a formula for moving people that presenting has ever produced.
Two of the ideas you’ll keep
The Clif summary of Resonate pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first two.
- Resonance is a physics metaphor: just as a struck tuning fork makes a matching piano string vibrate on its own, you can't force people to change, you tune your message to the beliefs and desires already alive in the audience so they change themselves.
- In your talk, the audience is the hero and you are the mentor. Yoda to their Luke, whose job is to bestow a gift (your idea) and then surrender the spotlight; making the presentation about yourself is the cardinal sin.
The other 5 — and the full 11-minute summary — are in the app.
What’s inside: 9 chapters
The whole summary runs about 11 minutes, read or listened to.
- Why Presentations Change the World
- The Audience Is the Hero: You Are the Mentor
- Get to Know the Hero
- Find the Big Idea and What's at Stake
- The Shape of a Great Talk: What Is vs. What Could Be
- Contrast Is the Engine
- Deliver a STAR Moment
- Sparklines in Action: MLK and Steve Jobs
- Arrive at the New Bliss
Finish Resonate tonight.
Read or listen to the full summary in about 11 minutes, then keep the ideas with a minute of review a day. Start with the 2-minute quiz — no card required.
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