Nir Eyal is best known as Wall Street Journal's Bestselling Author of "Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products", published in 2013. As well as a captivating public speaker, behaviour-design consultant, investor; and helping design & marketing teams create more engaging products.Nir spent years in the video gaming and advertising industries, he describes the techniques he learned and applied for motivating and influencing users. We also discuss some popular companies who are great at creating 'habit-forming' products and how they do it; with great examples using the 'Hook Model'. Right from the start Nir provides thought-provoking pearls of wisdom I know you'll enjoy.

Robert Greenberg is a Composer, Pianist, Music Historian, Author, and Story Teller. Since 1993 he has recorded over 650 lectures on a wide variety of musical subjects, and in 2011 his book "How to Listen to Music" was published by Penguin.Robert has lectured for some of the most prestigious musical and arts organizations in the United States, and is passionate about story-telling. This was a stimulating discussion and one I'm sure you'll enjoy.

Jorgen Sundberg. Jorgen is the Employer Brand Consultant and CEO at London-based employer brand agency, Link HumansJorgen started as a recruiter in 2003, he caught the early wave of digital marketing and tested many talent attraction tactics while managing hiring campaigns for giants like IBM, Accenture, SAP, and Deloitte. By late 2009, he thought he was convinced that when social media communicated an uncommon employer brand then talent attraction results improved.So, in late 2009, he quit his job and Link Humans. Seven years in, they've grown into a boutique agency of ex-recruiters & creatives that can help link your brand to the right humans, they say by Employer Brand Strategy, Brand Asset Creation and Recruitment Marketing Campaigns.Jorgen and I discussed the power of storytelling in employer branding and it was a thoroughly absorbing discussion. I hope you enjoy it.

Graeme Johnson is Senior Leader of Resourcing and Talent Acquisition at BT, with a track record of developing and leading high-performing teams and implementing transformational change. Prior to joining BT Graeme led a remarkable employer brand project at Virgin Media, which put brand storytelling front and centre in Virgin's talent attraction strategy, driving an innovative campaign that helped win and retain customers just as much as staff.We dive straight into a great discussion about the importance of employer brand and storytelling to attract great talent - so put your feet up and enjoy the chat!

Ed Nathanson is a legend in the world of employer brand storytelling. Ed has spent over 20 years developing and building highly effective, efficient, and successful employer brands and talent attraction strategies. Ed lives by the mantra that "Even the most revolutionary idea in the world is nothing without the right people to drive and build it". Attracting the right people is all about telling the right story, and in this thoroughly entertaining and wide-ranging discussion Ed's passion for his subject shines through.

Bryan Kramer is a renowned social business strategist, global keynote speaker, executive coach, and bestselling author. He’s one of the world’s foremost leaders in the art and science of sharing. As you'll hear, Bryan was the guy who originated the "human to human" business movement which hit the marketing world like a tsunami a few years ago.With more than 350,000 social fans and followers, Bryan is both a practitioner and authority on the subject of social technologies and social behaviours, This was a fascinating conversation, and I know you're going to get a lot of food for thought from what Bryan has to say. During the chat, Bryan mentions a website he's involved in, but he gets the URL a little wrong, so you can find the site at www.sellstuffinyoursleep.com

This week's show is a chat with Michael Yank. Michael is a story editor at the amazing DreamWorks Animation, the studio that has brought us such modern-day classics as Shrek, Kung-Fu Panda, Madagascar, and How To Train Your Dragon. We discuss his work both in animation and live action, the importance of collaboration, the Story Circle approach to narrative storytelling and tips to deal with writer's block. Michael is really entertaining; he's full of great insight and I think you'll get a lot from what he has to say. Enjoy this chat with Michael Yank

Noah Klocek is Art Director at Pixar Animation Studios, one of the most iconic and ground-breaking production companies in the world. Responsible for developing the use of computer-rendered animation into film-making, Pixar has brought us such modern classics as the Toy Story series, Wall-E, Up, Cars and The Incredibles.Prior to Pixar Noah also enjoyed roles with Dreamworks Animation and Industrial Light and Magic, and has his own content production company Imageblock Studio, which focuses on his painting and illustrations and is dedicated to storytelling in all its forms.Noah shares fascinating insights into how he visually conceives, plans, and approaches storytelling. I know you're going to enjoy his insight. http://imageblock.com/

Joe Pulizzi is a legend in content marketing and brand storytelling. He's the founder of Content Marketing Institute - the leading education and training organization for content marketing - and the author of five books, including his latest, Killing Marketing. Joe and I last spoke a year or so back and it was great to catch up with him again. Over the course of our conversation, we discussed how content and customer interaction is driving the growing dominance of Amazon amongst the big four online brands, how a company's brand storytelling needs to be aligned with its purpose, and how content marketing is something 99% of businesses are doing wrong. So sit back and enjoy the content marketing wisdom of Joe Pulizzi.

Jen Grisanti is an acclaimed Story/Career Consultant at Jen Grisanti Consultancy, Inc.Jen is also a Writing Instructor for Writers on the Verge at NBC, a former studio executive, a blogger for The Huffington Post and author of Story Line: Finding Gold In Your Life Story, TV Writing Tool Kit: How To Write a Script That Sells, and her upcoming book, Change Your Story, Change Your Life. In this podcast, she discusses the concept of "the personal void" in storytelling, how to tell a story that people will care about and the trigger incident that every story needs. Listeners can get a discount on one of her writing courses.Visit https://jgcis-master-classes.thinkific.com/ and use coupon code bryanadamspodcastjgcoupon

It was an honour to chat with one of the co-writers of Shrek, Roger S.H. Schulman. In addition to his hugely successful writing career, Roger coaches writers, including people like me who are keen to improve their business writing and tell a story in their marketing.One thing I was really keen to explore with Roger was how to create empathy in a business marketing story, given that the opportunity to do so is much more limited in a few lines of marketing copy than in a full-length movie. As entrepreneurs, we need to make sure our business communications are concise and effective, grabbing the attention and telling our business story in a way that stands out from the crowd.To me, there's a gulf between the two disciplines of business writing and long-form screen-writing. How do we create empathy in such short marketing messages and cause someone to take the action we want them to take? The foundation of a great story is often pain, suffering and deep human emotion, but how do we transition from that to a practical framework that someone can apply to business communications when we want to write great marketing messages about our brand?Roger was very illuminating on the topic, and for him, there is no gulf. "It's only a gulf in the mind", he told me. "If we aren't convinced ourselves by the words we are writing then we are never going to convince anyone else". The words that make up the business message, whether its an advert, a PowerPoint presentation or an eBook, need to be authentic and from the heart, just like the greatest novels and movie scripts.Roger's sound advice is that we need to look at our writing and make sure that it represents our true feelings in some ways. If it does, it's successful. Now that may not necessarily immediately translate into commercial success, but it's important as a communicator to write from the heart, otherwise, the message will never hit home. In truth, we can never know what the audience will make of our story, but as long as it is written honestly and with authenticity then it is successful writing. "Over time", he says, "you can feel it, knowing you are authentic. The rest is in the lap of the gods."It came across loud and clear in our conversation that honesty and simplicity is a powerful differentiator when it comes to business communication. Whilst the hero in your business story might not be obvious, there's definitely one in there. Most likely the hero is the great piece of advice at the heart of your message or the news of a great service development that you're launching. Set the story up with an outline of what you do, talk about the issue that your development solves and how you tackled it, and highlight the benefits that your solution brings. That's the classic hero story - an adventure, a crisis and a victory. It was a fascinating discussion. Find out more about Roger's work and courses at https://www.writercoach.net/