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Every Problem is a Story Problem (with Jim Woods) · The Daily Writer

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, welcome to episode one hundred and twenty-seven of the Smart Business Writing Podcast.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Kent Sanders, and this is the show dedicated to helping you share your message, increase your impact, and grow your business through the power of writing.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Before we get into this episode, I want to ask a very small favor.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: I have created a survey to discover what my readers and listeners most need when it comes to their writing skills.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: And this survey will help me develop podcast content, books, and other material that I want to bring to you this year.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I would really love your input.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: This is a simple one question survey that literally takes sixty seconds or less.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you can access it by going to KentSanders.net slash survey.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be really grateful for your help with this, and again the link is KentSanders.net slash survey.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: I want to invite you to step back for a moment and think about a very meta question.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: What lens do you see the world through?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Some people see the world through the lens of politics.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Some people see the world through the lens of sports.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Some people see the world through the lens of Star Wars or technology or business or a million other possible things.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, my guest today is going to invite you to see the world through the lens of story.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: His name is Jim Woods, and he's a writing coach, author, editor, and storyteller.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Jim has worked with best-selling authors and influencers such as John Acuff, Gretchen Rubin, Mike Vardy, Kelsey Humphreys, and many others.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Jim is a really talented writer, but he's also a coach who can help you achieve your writing goals.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Jim believes that ultimately every problem is a story problem.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: In our conversation, he breaks down what that means and how it can help you live a more fulfilling life and also write better stories.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Jim will share some of the TV shows that have helped him understand storytelling, and he also talks about the importance of empathy in our communication.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: He shares tons of great wisdom in this episode.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: I love talking with Jim, and I also love talking about stories, so this is an especially fun conversation.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure and check out the show notes at KentSanders.net slash one two seven.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: All right, let's get to the conversation with Jim Woods.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Jim, welcome to the show.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: This is your second appearance, and you are the second guest to have two episodes, so congrats on that achievement.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, I'm I'm I'm honored.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank all the people.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that achievement means anything on my podcast, but uh It means something to both of us, can't that?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's sort of like winning a Golden Globe, I guess.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: I I I would assume I haven't won any Golden Globes.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: With all the profanity bleeped out.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Which if you bleeped out all the profanity of the Golden Globes monologue, there wouldn't be much monologue left, probably.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Ricky Gervais hosting and all that stuff.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't watch it.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I it's been so long since I watched any like any award show.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: I I must I'm I'm showing my age here, Ken.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's all right.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't generally watch those things, except I do really like the Oscars.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's still something about that.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: I just I sort of love the glitz and the glamour.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we actually have done this thing the last several years where all three of us in our family, me and my wife Melanie and son Ben, we all have a ballot that that she prints out, and we choose our movies that we think are gonna win, and then we all compare and contrast and we see who who actually got the most wins at the end of the night.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a fun thing.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: The winner gets the winner gets some MMs or something like that.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: We we need to have some sort of meaningful prize.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what that like a chocolate trophy.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like the winner doesn't have to do dishes for a week or something.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's better than a chocolate trophy, okay.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: I would take a chocolate trophy, though.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we are here to talk about storytelling and to give a little context on this conversation for everybody listening.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: We were actually chatting just a few days ago, and of course, I I you're one of my favorite people to chat with because we have so much fun and and I always learn stuff from you.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, those are the best kind of friends, people that you learn from.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you were talking about storytelling, and you mentioned this phrase where you said, every problem is a story problem.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that was so insightful, and uh that really piqued my curiosity.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what we're talking about today.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Every problem is a story problem.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: So can you dive into that a little bit and give us some context and where that came from and what that means?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I heard that expression, I can't even remember where, and I questioned it.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: I thought about it.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, does that make sense?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Does everything fit under that one assumption?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the more I thought about it, I realized that it truly does work.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Especially if you kind of look internally and like think, okay, what stories am I telling myself?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like that covers so much of our you know own personal lives.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then the stories you see around you, uh, whether it's movies or film or podcasts or whatever, you're getting something from these stories, and you're trying to solve some problem.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: It might be the problem of boredom, and that and people think I I think sometimes overlook that.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, that's not a real problem.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's not like, you know, I need someone to file my taxes.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a story problem.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd say, well, they're both problems, and you know, stories are filled with conflict.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's like troubleshooting.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care if it's the most mundane task, like filing or you know, something that you just you put off, you can't stand it.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can absolutely frame that as a story problem.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's a reason under underlying like why you're not doing those things.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, why do we really procrastinate?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'd argue again, that's a story problem.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're procrastinating because you're afraid of something.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or you're you're telling yourself the story.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is not fun, therefore I'm gonna go do this other thing over here.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that's a story problem.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we want things to be easy, we want things to be really convenient and simple, but good stories are like never that way.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: If they are, you're turning it off.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, click, that's boring.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not watching that, I'm not reading it.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I've fallen more and more and more in love with story, and I have a background working with productivity.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: When you kind of combine the two together, I think that's where I where I kind of keep moving.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's like my love for fiction, my love for movies and films and uh podcasts and music.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you kind of mesh those together and just take, okay, well, how do you get those done and how do you improve yourself?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's why that's why like I'm building this framework called story crafting.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like I keep moving more more and more in that direction because story is like that's the one unifying thing.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody loves stories, even if they tell you they don't, it's like, well, what do you like to do?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I like to watch TV.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, guess what?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's you know, unless it's like uh even a game show is a story, though.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, even a sporting show.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it is.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a sporting event, if it's not, if it's the lopsided victory, you're turning it off because that's not an interesting story.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's a story, but you want some of that back and forth, you know, the the ups and downs, almost like even a roller coaster ride, kind of in a in the context of a sporting event to really make it engaging.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's fascinating because so we're recording this on January the 7th.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: This episode will come out in probably three weeks or some three three or four weeks.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: So just a couple days ago, I guess this was Sunday.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm not a huge sports person, so I don't know much about sports, but I do know, I do know enough to know that the Patriots are now out of the running for the Super Bowl.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess Tom Brady's a free agent.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: So and I know that's a huge deal in the sports and football world.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: But it's funny because there's a narrative there about what what does that mean for the Patriots, what does it mean for Tom Brady?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: What does it mean for football?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, here's this whole dynasty that's coming to an end potentially.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it's fascinating because we apply that that narrative framework to sports, particularly.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, holy cow, I live in St.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Louis and and there's a huge narrative about the Cardinals and the Cubs and that rivalry and how they hate each other.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: And whenever the Cubs are in St.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Louis, I mean the stadium is Bush Stadium is packed to the guilds because there's that there's a story of this long time conflict.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's fascinating because it's true.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: We apply a narrative to everything.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it especially like you mentioned, the rivalry.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's like, okay, we have this history, we have all of these separate stories that we can look at.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh I I live in Ohio, so the big, big rivalries Ohio and Michigan, Ohio State, Michigan, and it's like people really, really get into this.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm oh my gosh.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, it's extreme.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And people will get into arguments and fights and all this craziness over over, you know, playing a game.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, we do the same kind of thing, I guess, in our own ways with all forms of entertainment, but Star Wars.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I I mean I was reading a post about Star Wars earlier before recording this because I I commented on someone's article, and um it's just there's something so engaging inherently with the concept of story.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: We are attached to it.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard it said that it's story is by far the number one communication tool.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, yeah, I mean, it takes every word, every sentence, and puts it into a framework, and then it's like, ooh, this is entertaining, this is engaging, versus, you know, you ever have a friend that just talks and talks and talks, and there's like no point to their conversation.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Do you ever have someone like that, Ben?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't mean to say Ben.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: I love Ben.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not talking about your son.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I just it's just kind of hard to follow, especially if they talk real monotone and nothing is, you know, no inflection, no nothing.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes Ben Stein.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I was going with Ben.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, Bueller.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Bueller.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, just to bring it kind of to hone in on your show, your story within like your business, the story is everything.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And your story, your story, you could might you might just want to flip it on his head.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh, Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, no, the story has kind of been misinterpreted.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Goliath was very likely blind, and David was a marksman.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like a guy with a gun going up against someone who's blind and just big and clumsy.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, finding that new take on that story, like I'm like, ooh, this is crazy.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: I've been looking at it the wrong way.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that might even be why some movies, some shows, some books are so engaging.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, I just want to find a new little twist, a new tiny little different part that I'm just that I hadn't seen before.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: What's the last good movie, like really, really good movie that you enjoyed that you saw?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Or TV show?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: The wire.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love the wire.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: I love the wire.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like you you watched that.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Has that been a recent thing, or that's been years ago?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Recently, I'm re-watching it and I'm falling in love with it even more.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was, it's probably my absolute favorite show of all time, but now I'm like, okay, no, it's even further, like above the Sopranos, above breaking bad, and all those.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's fascinating.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so last summer.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let me think.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: What year is this?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is 2020, right?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: I have to stop and think.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm getting old.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: See, it wasn't 2019, I guess it was 2018.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: I watched the Sopranos.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: We've got an HBO subscription.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I watched the whole like six seasons in probably a couple month period, spent way too much time and loved it.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: I liked it even more than Breaking Bad, which I enjoyed.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: So help help me to understand, and for those who have not seen The Wire, help me to understand what's so great about it.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because I watched about four or five episodes of The Wire a few years ago, and I just, it was so complicated, I just couldn't get into it.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and it helped me to understand why it's great and maybe why I should give that a shot again.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Each character is truly different.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Each character has their own goals, each character has their own approach.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, makes me think, I mean, Star Wars, the original trilogy, every character really, you know, you're not confusing R2D too with like C3PO or you know, with Chewbacca.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Each character really stands alone.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that the beauty is also in the dialogue and the terminology.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm learning new terms watching it the third time through because certain terms they're flying past you, especially if you like I watch with subtitles.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do you watch with subtitles, Kent?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: I always do because you're missing stuff, especially with dialogue.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh not to mention side ramp.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Some some uh some guys cannot EQ for for anything as far as volume goes.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: So of an actor, it might be a mumble, but that mumble might be really important dialogue.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that's another part.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: But uh I think it helps my brain, especially as a writer, to pick up everything and to improve with dialogue.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm watching this, the wire shows the good guys and the bad guys, the police and the gangsters.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And as it really breaks down, it becomes more like a Shakespeare.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's an intertwined Shakespeare.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, okay, if you were brought up in this in this environment over here, and if you're brought up over in this environment, you can actually see both sides completely.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And each season is a different context.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like the first season is in um the streets of Baltimore, the second season is like focused solely on the docks, like with the dynamic of the docks were shutting down, less people or less boats were bringing in cargo.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's focused on, and then the fourth season specifically is education, and that in an inner city setting, it's like it becomes really in-depth, and it's not a story of just one person.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: While there are is kind of one main character, he's not in it through the whole series, which I kind of think makes it better.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's just the interplay of you know, the cops are kind of good.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're usually good, but then they make stupid mistakes and then they're bad, and then they get in trouble, and then there's the gangsters, and you know, you can see why the gangsters are doing what they're doing.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And well, if it means feeding your family or or going to jail, what are you gonna do?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that kind of thing.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so just the dynamic.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: I the more I watch it, and I'm also obviously a crime junkie, it's really helping me as a writer.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if someone when someone reads my novel, they'll be like, oh my gosh, he likes the wire, and he likes Frank and Bad and he likes the shield, and you know, I'm I'm kind of like, oh man, if they know all my favorites, but I think that's everything is fan fiction.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard that saying, and I think there's there's some truth to that too.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's really nothing truly new under the sun as far as stories.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's just it's really different twists and turns on the same few themes that we've had all throughout human history when it comes down to it.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: So with the wire, you would say that it helps you in some ways develop empathy and understanding for the quote-unquote bad guys, kind of like The Godfather does, the Sopranos does.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, the Sopranos show does.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's a I think it's a really fair analysis, and I don't think it glamorizes it as much as like I love The Godfather, my favorite movie of all time.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: But it's glamorized.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it's glamorizing the mafia, and you don't see what happens, you know, in the aftermath of you know something that the gangsters did.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Where in the wire, you're seeing the whole picture, and it's real, and it's based on um the writer, he was a Baltimore journalist for like you know, like 10-15 years, and it's just so real.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like the dialogue, everything about that show, I don't think anything was like made up.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was literally like his experiences kind of you know put together and then you know, taking a few liberties, and then it's then it's fiction, but I'm sure a lot of it is straight up truth.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you feel like when we watch TV shows and movies with a critical eye and with an eye toward learning and being open to learning, that that helps us to become better storytellers and does it also help us to become better writers in some ways?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Assuming you're writing, yes.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're spending all your time consuming and not writing, which which is easy to do.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right, and I think I think too, uh it it obviously is easier to consume than it is to create.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna be able to go out of the gate and go write something that I feel is the quality of you know my favorites, but that's kind of the goal in my brain.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that gap between where I'm at and where I want to be, you have to be okay with like, okay, I'm exploring that distance, that that crevice between my own writing skill and where I want to be.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you don't ever really arrive.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh I think in some ways we can't fool ourselves by saying, ooh, I want to write something like you know, some amazing book that you love.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that can be actually a little bit misleading.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that can be a problem because we're not seeing the writing process for these shows and books.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're only seeing the finished product.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, very rarely do we ever see the okay, and this is how the idea started, and this was you know, step two and step three, etc.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we usually see like maybe at most a little snippet behind the scenes, and then there's the finished product.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I just I'm realized more and more it's like it we're we can't get a we can't get the entire grasp.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: We we have to take our own personal individual stories and take those and craft other stories.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like a give and take, really.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: All those like I I realize more and more can I use myself as an example a lot.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And like what I'm going through is what the content I make.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, I'm doing this, hey, I'm gonna create something about this.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that's that's just my own process.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of us are that way.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever is happening in our lives right now often shows up in those stories.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you work with a lot of writers, I I do as well, and we're we're very much in the same space in terms of we both do a lot of writing, you know, we can edit, we love to craft stories and create content and all those kinds of things.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: I and I love that advice where you know a lot of people wonder what I should use for content?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: How do I get ideas for things to write?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you get a book idea?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you get uh an idea for an article or a blog post or a talk or whatever?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I love I love what you just mentioned about just take whatever's going on in your life and use that as the basis for something you can then teach somebody else.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think Pat I think it was Pat Flynn who called that.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, that's a different concept.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say what he calls just in time learning.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe there's the flip side of that, which is just in time creating, where you're, hey, here's what I'm learning today.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let me take something away from this and then help somebody else to learn from my own struggle or my own process or journey.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think that I think it really does help.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And when you force yourself to learn like every day, um, we just have to have that approach of let's learn as much as possible, even if it's something you don't enjoy, even if it's something you're just like, oh, really?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do this, I don't want to do my bookkeeping, I don't want to do, you know, I don't, I don't want to read this, but I need to for this course or whatever.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to work on my website.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's a there's a there's one where a lot of people are like, I don't want to mess with this.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of those experiences, you're going to reuse them.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not today, but I guarantee you down the road, it makes me think of the Steve Jobs thing where you know he sat in on the calligraphy class and then that you know it showed up later on the Mac.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was never intended.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: He was just, hey, this isn't this is interesting.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's in that example, Steve Jobs was interested in calligraphy.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: What if he wasn't?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: What if he, you know, what if he was after a girl that was in that class?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's a little more of a real life example, or or maybe he just his boss signed him up for that class.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the point is you can still learn wherever you are.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then apply these things later.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it becomes like this.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Canvas and we're just putting little dots of knowledge and stories on it.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you back away, you're like, ooh, hey, these dots connect.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, this is going somewhere.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I've heard people say that you know, creativity is really just make like connecting things together.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was probably jobs that even said that.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: But connecting things together and troubleshooting, that's like that's like the core of storytelling.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's that's really fascinating.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: One of the most interesting experiences that I had in recent years that I learned so much from was substitute teaching.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm for those who are listening, my in my day job, I'm a college professor.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: There were a couple years there where my schedule allowed me to substitute teach in a local school district a couple days a week because I was doing a lot of online stuff at that time.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: My schedule was more flexible.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one of those things where you think I'm just kind of doing it to make a few extra bucks here.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to kind of get through it and endure it.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: But it ended up being one of the most fun and interesting experiences of my whole professional life.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: I had no idea what substitute teachers, what that's like to be a sub.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it was so interesting.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I learned so much.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I love what you're talking about in terms of, hey, take this experience that maybe you don't think it's going to be a creative experience and learn from it because if you just open your eyes, there's so much that you could take away from whatever situation that you're in.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And just to go back to exactly what I was saying earlier, Kent, I remember when you were doing it and you said that there were parts you just weren't enjoying.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: But now you're looking back and you're saying, no, I learned so much.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: But you you were like, oh, you know, the pay isn't really well, it's a lot of stress.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you, it's like right there, what story are you telling yourself?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Are you telling yourself, ooh, this is a lot of work, ooh, the pay is not that well, it's a lot of stress, or are you saying, wow, this is a great opportunity to learn?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's yeah, that's like night and day.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's for me, I mean, Ken, I'm I'm telling myself stories today, and I'm really trying to, you know, you have to believe these stories too, though, when when you know they're the truth.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, good things are to come.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: I keep showing up.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna finish this project.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't have to judge my work right now because it's not finished yet.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, those stories that are really important, we often glance over them when we're telling them in our minds.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you and I both can't.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: We could like live in our heads for like a lot, you know, a lot of our waking hours.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to do.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh my gosh.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then you start spinning.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think personally it often gets negative quick.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you just it can, yeah.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for me, it gets negative quick if you're not interacting with anyone, if you're not getting your thoughts down, if you're just thinking and just kind of drifting a little.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you can you have the opportunity to change it completely by saying, okay, what story am I actually telling myself?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then like writing it down, and you can say, is it true or is it false?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it just I don't know.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe, maybe I don't know.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we we need to be okay with that.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if this story is true or false, but I'm just gonna write it down and I'm gonna you know focus on the ones that I know are true, the ones that I know are positive stories.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there is a lot of value in admitting that we don't know something or or just taking that stance on something.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm and this is not a political show at all.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: I have zero interest in that kind of stuff really.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it is kind of funny because in in our day and age where everybody has to have an opinion about everything, the last thing that we often hear is somebody saying, Hey, you know what?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know the answer.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have an opinion.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: I have an open mind about whatever the topic or issue or candidate is or whatever.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of value to just saying, uh, I don't know.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I I have a dis I don't have an opinion about that.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it is okay to not have an opinion about something.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's kind of liberating, and it's also I think it makes conversations that could be, you know, very difficult or you know, very divisive.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's like this is like it smooths everything over.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna argue somebody's it's just like this blanket that covers the statement, and you're just like, okay, well, let's talk about something else.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, I it's so easy to find things to argue about.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh especially with stories, even it's like, oh, well, this this person did this, and I don't believe this.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we can really jump to assumptions really quick.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something I'm working on.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm working on it too, because I think we all are.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know, we all have a voice, and our voices absolutely do matter, but at the same time, I'm I'm advocating for a lot more story listening because that I think we need to do more story listening, not just not just telling.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: And isn't that the the story of marriage to a huge degree?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: Is we do we de and people that you're close to, whether that's family or your spouse or your kids or your parents, we develop these narratives about people around us and that sometimes are confirmed by others or denied by other people, and sometimes we we select facts and uh circumstances that support our viewpoint, regardless of whether they're actually true.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: And man, I think back to my own marriage.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: I've been married for 23 years.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's that's a long time.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: That is.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, over the years you can so easily develop a narrative about your spouse that's that may be true or not true, but you're you're selecting these events in the past and you're interpreting them a certain way, and you're you develop this story of, well, my spouse is they're messy or they're this, or they're always upset, or they're always dramatic, or you know, when it comes to me, it's why is he always you know, why is he always this way?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: And how come he he doesn't put a lot of thought into gifts sometimes?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: And why did why does he always forget the trash and you know, all kinds of things?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: But wow, that's this whole concept of story is really an overarching thread through our whole lives.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: It is, and if your wife or or anyone's partner in this case, if they were to write out some of these things and you were to see it, you would be like, Whoa, really?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, yeah, I'm probably confirming this because they don't you know just come up with that from nowhere.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of eye-opening, and it's like, oh wow, we we can actually get on the same page now because I'm totally not realizing that this is happening.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um in the context though, with like business, especially, I think that we often, like, even myself personally, we really need to lean into story more and more.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the more I get into marketing, Kent, the more I'm like, I just say story so much.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of hilarious because I'm like every post I write, like if the word story is not in like three or four times, I'm like, I I missed the main point.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: Give us some concrete examples.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say somebody's listening to this episode.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: They have a small business of some kind.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they have a storefront, maybe they have an online business.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, they're not really dialed into the story concept quite so much.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: What are maybe are there two or three or four practical things that they could do immediately?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: First thing you have to realize is that it's not about you.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's about it's about the end user.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's across the board.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, especially as a writer, as a content creator, as a service, if you're a store that has products, you know, physical products, again, it's not about you.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's about that end user.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think empathy is right in there, it's one of the key elements of story, because you're not going to connect to a story where you have like nothing in common.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: If that isn't a human being or at least some kind of human emotions, and that's where I think the empathy comes in, you're not connecting.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: So if you even if you really, really wanted to buy a jacket, I just bought this jacket today.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: It looks nice.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you really wanted to buy a jacket, it's cold upstairs.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I live in Ohio, so um, but um, if you really wanted to buy a jacket and that owner for that business treats you really poorly, say they're just standoffish, say they're snobby, or at least that's the story you're telling yourself as the customer.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: They could be having a bad day.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: They could their parents of that um that a shop owner, they could have just you know had some terrible news.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: So again, it's the story you're seeing as the customer.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: That shop owner is just thinking, oh my goodness, what about my what about my uncle George?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: My uncle George, who I love like a grandfather, he's sick, you know, and they're not even aware of it.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like we just mentioned earlier, the spouse thing, where we're just it's not even on our radar.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: But if they have a bad experience, the customer, they're gonna go somewhere else almost always, even if the price is right, it's it's like you're that story is so negative, you're gonna kind of run away from it, and you'll be like, I'm going somewhere else.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna you know, vote with my feet, so to speak, and gonna go buy a jacket somewhere else, even if it costs more, because emotions are definitely a part of the you know the sales process.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, you know, that is so correct.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm in fact thinking through.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: So right now I'm building my son a bunk bed with a desk underneath in his room, and we were at Home Depot just a few uh in fact I've been several times in the last week.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's another story.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: But but the other day we went together and we were picking out some wood, and it was about it was about 8:30 at night, about a half hour before they were going to close.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: And my son Ben was like, Dad, there's nobody helping us.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like people, the employees were just walking by not asking if we needed any help, and we were looking for a couple things.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: And when we left, we had both told ourselves a story.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, he told my wife the story when we got home that boy, they were just not very friendly, they weren't very helpful.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: And who knows if that's you know, I I know nothing about their whole company or whatever, but in that moment, that's the story we were telling ourselves.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you're convinced of it.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's completely what you experience firsthand, it's truth to you.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, again, maybe maybe you were in the worst spot of the store and people were leaving their shift and others, you know what I mean?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's you don't know.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it totally could have been that way.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you were right by the break room and you had no clue whatsoever.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it applies to a lot of things, especially though, as writers, we continually have to remind ourselves like we are in a customer service role.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not like, ooh, this is this doesn't really jive with the picture of uh an author like you know, camped out in a cabin off in the woods, you know, at a typewriter writing this amazing book.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: But we're in customer service, and it's easy to overlook this.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I mean, let's be honest, if we're introverts, we're and some of us like you know, we're like, I don't like I don't like to deal a lot with people face to face, or maybe I don't like talking on the phone or whatever.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: It can be a little harder, but the more you have that empathy, the better you do, and you start to say, Oh wow, I I can I have the power by just being a positive person, by you know, treating others really well, you know, having that empathy, I can change their story and their entire experience, really.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: That is so true.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: And especially in today's world, that is so there's such a hyper-awareness of differing opinions, and it seems like we live in a time where there's a lot of conflict, and social media just amplifies all that stuff, of course.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: But wow, empathy is such a critical skill.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as we start to wind this down, can you talk about maybe two or three of the books that you're reading now, or courses, or any anything that you have been through the last few months that you feel like has really helped you to become a better communicator or writer?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great question.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um I know one of them.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: The right to the right to write.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to say.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: R-I-G-H-T, and that's two W-R-I-T-E.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: The right to write.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: To right, to right.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh by Julia Cameron.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, is that a new one?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that new.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, it was after she did the artist way.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I recommend that one, especially for writers.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: I if I had more time and would have thought of it, I probably already would have sent you a copy of this cat because this one is really cool.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: It covers a lot of different areas of life, like all these different parts of writing.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: And she gives us practical advice and helpful advice.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like having your own, you know, a writing coach in your pocket, really.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Pull it out and be like, oh, guilt.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, you're dealing with guilt.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: What's what's she'll talk about that.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really cool how she hits on certain topics.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, again, under that umbrella, too, the artist way.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Love that book.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: That book is encouraging too.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um another one, I'm trying to think here, what I've been reading.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I saw that you sent out an email this morning with a book by Chuck.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Chuck Polanak.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Chuck Polanak.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: I started reading today in the bookstore.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna I'm gonna finish it soon.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: But he wrote a new book called uh, what is it, Ken?
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I totally was just seeing it.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's killing me now.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: But he just came out, it's on writing.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's literally his new writing book.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say it's like consider this.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's it, consider this.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm actually gonna get the audiobook because after reading it, and I I looked it over, I was like, this will be incredible as an audiobook.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: Where he's he's really just talking um about writing things.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I just, you know, I I kind of have this habit, Kent, where I used to beat myself up for starting and stopping books a lot, but it kind of goes with my learning.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like I love that power of like pick it up, set it down, pick it up, side down.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and especially as I if I'm writing like writing a book, if I have any too much of one book, I sound like that book.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like I, you know, I read old Cormac McCarthy, I sound like him, and I'm I'm not even in his ballpark yet.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I I just try to mix it up a lot.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, writing my own stories and you know, learning from those as much as possible.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: Which of Cormac McCarthy's books have you read?
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: The Road, No Country for Old Men.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've read part of Blood Meridian.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: I need to finish that one still, but um I think I've only finished those two.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: But they've they stick with you so much.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I read, of course, one of my favorite movies is No Country for Old Men.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I read the book a couple years after the movie came out.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: So this has been a number of years ago, and um it was really hard to get used to the fact that he doesn't use punctuation with his dialogue.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: But the funny thing is that you get used to it really fast, at least I did.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, and you don't even miss it.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: And man, that that was the that was a book that I finished it and it just sticks with you for days emotionally, at least it did for me.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh yeah, his his any of those, any of those writers where it's like so unique, it's an experience.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um Hubert Selby is another.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Requiem for a dream.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: That that movie and the book are just devastating, but I I find beauty in it because it's like it's so deep, like so just emotional.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I started reading his uh last exit to Brooklyn, and that's another, and that like these books become an experience, and I'm like trying to learn as much from those as I can.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, what are they doing?
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: What's the context?
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: What's the structure?
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, trying to soak it up as much as possible and say, okay, well, at least I can if I can learn a few little things here and combine that with a few little things from yesterday, and just keep learning a few things every day, you're gonna have this amazing, you know, arsenal of tools to go to.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's really hard, I think, as a writer, to just enjoy books on their own terms because you're always in that mode of you're enjoying it, but you're also analyzing it.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's gotta be like if you're a film or a screenwriter or a director or an actor.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can't really just watch a movie on its own terms.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: I could not agree with you more.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Jim, this has been a blast.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: I always learn a ton from our conversations.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I have a feeling like you're gonna be a regular guest.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can put that.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds great to me.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, not like Matt Damon on the Jimmy Kimmel show, because you know, every time he comes on, they like have this battle and they're always at odds and and stuff.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you again so much.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I appreciate your friendship and your knowledge and wisdom.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: I always enjoy this.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: See you later.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: All right, see ya.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jim.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: Here are my three biggest takeaways.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, we all need to use storytelling in our conversation.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that sounds like a very simple insight that we all need to use stories, but it's amazing how much we often neglect this and how we just want to get down to the facts and we miss the human and the empathetic and the story-based elements in our communication.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it doesn't matter what kind of business you run.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: It might be a brick and mortar business, it might be an online business, a nonprofit, or a solopreneur type of business.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter what it is.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: Stories are the way that we humans make sense of facts and events.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: There are lots of ways to use stories.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: And one very simple way is to try and include a story in every piece of communication that you put out.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: Whether that's a blog post, whether it's a copy on your website, whether it's an email, a speech, a presentation, or anything else.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: When in doubt, think where can I include a story here?
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Takeaway number two, movies and TV shows are a great place to learn about storytelling.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: And Jim mentioned that he likes shows such as The Wire, which is a show on HBO, and there's tons of great shows to learn from.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: I love the Sopranos and House of Cards, not to mention fantastic movies like The Godfather, The Dark Knight, The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane, and so many others.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, oftentimes as writers and as entrepreneurs and business people, we feel kind of guilty for watching movies or TV shows or for playing video games.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: But the fact of the matter is that if you want to be a better storyteller, you've got to spend time doing those things.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: You can't exist in a creative vacuum.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: It can be a really good thing to watch and learn from movies, TV shows, and even some great video games.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: Takeaway number three, use what you're learning to create content and to teach others.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: Jim gave some great advice about how to come up with content and it's really, really simple.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: He said, whatever you're going through, whatever you're learning, whatever you're struggling with, use those learning points to then teach other people.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: Many times we make the process of creating content way too difficult.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're struggling to come up with something to talk about or to write about, think about a struggle that you're dealing with right now and what you're learning from that.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: Tell a story about what happened, and then draw a lesson or a teaching point from it.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really as simple as that.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I like to call this just in time learning.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, you're not waiting around for the clouds to part and for a beam of light to shine down from heaven and give you some sort of golden answer.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: You're just looking around at your life and taking notice of what you're going through and experiencing, and you're teaching those learning points to other people.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really that simple.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, hey friends, those are my thoughts, but I'd love to hear what you think about this episode.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: How do you use stories in your writing, teaching, or speaking?
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: And what are some of your favorite TV shows or movies?
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to know that because I need a new great TV show to watch.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: You can let me know your thoughts by heading over to Kent Sanders.net slash one two seven and speaking your mind.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that's also where you'll find the show notes and the links for this episode.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: Again, that is KentSanders.net slash one two seven.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: I want to give a huge thank you to my good friend Jim Woods, and I want to encourage you to check out his website, which is storycrafting.net, and you'll find a lot of good stuff there.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: He does coaching for writers and he provides a lot of great services.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: I have used Jim's services before personally, and I have found that he is really, really awesome to work with.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: So check out his site at storycrafting.net.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: Here's a preview of what's coming up on the next couple of episodes.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: On 128, we're going to explore the issue.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: Can you be thankful for your critics?
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a way that your critics can actually make you a better business person and a better writer?
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there is, but I'm going to share how to do that on that episode.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then on the following one, on 129, we're going to be talking about 10 different ways to repurpose your content.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's going to be really helpful.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to help you to be way more productive in the content that you're creating and sharing at different places so you can build your audience and reach more people.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: Once again, this is a reminder to complete the writing survey that I mentioned.net slash survey.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's a huge help to me, so thanks in advance for doing that.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, hey guys, we have reached the end of the road here.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for listening to this episode, and I hope that you have enjoyed it.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: I know I've enjoyed bringing it to you.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, remember that your writing has the power to change people's lives.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: I will see you in the next episode.