Latest / Uncommon Impact / Andy Janning: Great Stories Aren't Safe

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Andy Janning: Great Stories Aren't Safe · Uncommon Impact

0:02
Nathan Whitaker: Today's guest is Andy Janning.
0:05
Nathan Whitaker: You're gonna love chatting with Andy.
0:07
Nathan Whitaker: You're gonna love hearing his voice, seeing his spectacular hair.
0:10
Nathan Whitaker: I met Andy a few years ago when we were both on stage at a credit union event in Colorado.
0:15
Nathan Whitaker: You'll hear a little bit about that in our interview.
0:18
Nathan Whitaker: But he's involved in some really important initiatives, ways that he's impacting the world through things he knows, but then also things he's exploring.
0:26
Nathan Whitaker: As he said to me one time, writers are told to pay attention to their boredom.
0:31
Nathan Whitaker: But I think we also have to pay attention to our passion.
0:34
Nathan Whitaker: And you'll see the way that he has followed some of those passions into some interesting ways to make an impact on the world around him.
0:41
Nathan Whitaker: Andy, thanks so much for joining me.
0:43
Nathan Whitaker: It is a pleasure to have you on Uncommon Impact.
0:45
Andy Janning: Good seeing you, my friend.
0:46
Andy Janning: How are you?
0:48
Nathan Whitaker: I'm doing great, thanks.
0:49
Nathan Whitaker: You know, we met for the listeners.
0:51
Nathan Whitaker: We met a couple of years ago.
0:53
Nathan Whitaker: We were both flown to Denver.
0:54
Nathan Whitaker: They flew you from Indiana, they flew me from Florida.
0:58
Nathan Whitaker: We were there at the dress rehearsal the day before.
1:02
Nathan Whitaker: And you won't remember this the way I do, but we're at the dress rehearsal the day before, and I'm sitting out in the crowd and I've got my note cards and I'm looking over just what I'm supposed to do for this dress rehearsal.
1:13
Nathan Whitaker: And I thought somebody was handing down stone tablets.
1:17
Nathan Whitaker: I heard this voice from the stage, and I thought like Cecil B.
1:20
Nathan Whitaker: DeMille was doing a and it was you.
1:24
Nathan Whitaker: And I thought, why is this guy MCing?
1:26
Nathan Whitaker: Why I have to follow this guy?
1:27
Nathan Whitaker: Are you kidding me?
1:28
Nathan Whitaker: He should keep him.
1:29
Nathan Whitaker: So now I'm just gonna jump right in.
1:33
Nathan Whitaker: Now you're doing a podcast, which feels like anytime you can use this voice, it has to be used.
1:39
Nathan Whitaker: So with all that, you probably don't even want to speak now.
1:41
Nathan Whitaker: But let me just go jump right into overdrawn, right?
1:44
Nathan Whitaker: That's how we met, and you do all this work, and we're gonna get back to that.
1:47
Nathan Whitaker: But let's jump right into Overdrawn.
1:49
Nathan Whitaker: It sounds really cool.
1:50
Nathan Whitaker: And and the one other thing I like, by the way, is that it's a it's a podcast that I hopefully, you know, my wife listens to Dateline and all these things.
1:58
Nathan Whitaker: It's a podcast where I don't think the husband dies.
2:01
Nathan Whitaker: There's a, you know, she listens to so many of these 20/20s and and Datelines that I, you know, every now and then I get worried.
2:06
Nathan Whitaker: So anyway, tell us about Overdrawn.
2:09
Andy Janning: Yeah, so no, there's no one is passing away in this particular podcast.
2:13
Andy Janning: But yeah, it is a it is a project that I've been wanting to do for a while about crime and cost and consequence, and what happens when trust breaks inside of institutions that we rely on, and what kind of fills in that gap, and how do people respond?
2:28
Andy Janning: And what's what happens to the people left behind?
2:31
Andy Janning: So, Overdrawn, people can find it at overdrawnpodcast.com and they can get it wherever they get their podcasts.
2:37
Andy Janning: Um, it this first season, and as you mentioned, this isn't a studio interview show.
2:43
Andy Janning: Those are great.
2:43
Andy Janning: I mean, I'm I'm on yours right now.
2:45
Andy Janning: This is a little bit different.
2:46
Andy Janning: This is a documentary podcast, this is episodic, serialized storytelling, and we're focusing on one case for the entire season.
2:54
Andy Janning: Season one is going to be eight episodes, and that premieres September 29th.
2:58
Andy Janning: Season one starts with the failure of a small credit union in western Pennsylvania that was liquidated in the at the end of May of 2020.
3:08
Andy Janning: And it got a little bit of a little bit of notoriety there, but this was also at the height of the pandemic.
3:14
Andy Janning: Not a whole lot of people were paying attention to the story.
3:16
Andy Janning: They were more worried about toilet paper.
3:18
Andy Janning: Um cut to about a year and a half, two years later, it is discovered that the credit union failed because of insider embezzlement.
3:28
Andy Janning: It got a little bit of headlines in industry press, uh, you know, made a little bit of national attention, but then everybody moved on.
3:36
Andy Janning: That story kind of stayed with me because this was this happened as a small credit union that was focused solely on one specific group of people, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 712 in the town of Beaver, Pennsylvania.
3:52
Andy Janning: It has about 4,400 people there.
3:54
Andy Janning: So everybody knows everybody.
3:56
Andy Janning: And this town is kind of like if you were to prompt AI to give me the quintessential American town, it would spit out Beaver, Pennsylvania.
4:04
Andy Janning: So I got to thinking, what happens when a credit union like this that's so woven into the community, it's been there for 56 years, it just suddenly literally disappears overnight.
4:13
Andy Janning: How does that impact everybody else around them?
4:15
Andy Janning: Though that's what was the element of the story that was never really told.
4:19
Andy Janning: So I've gone, been going back there to find out what happened when it failed, and what was the impact on the community.
4:27
Andy Janning: And what I have found is a far more complicated story than has been reported.
4:32
Andy Janning: Certainly it had community impact.
4:34
Andy Janning: It certainly had impact on the credit union that had to kind of pick up the pieces, the one that absorbed the one that failed.
4:41
Andy Janning: It also speaks to larger questions about how are how are credit unions run?
4:47
Andy Janning: How are they governed?
4:48
Andy Janning: How are they examined?
4:49
Andy Janning: How can something like this happen in a highly regulated federal uh you know deposit institution, especially one that's built on people helping people, especially one built on that, on the cooperative principles inside credit unions.
5:05
Andy Janning: What has to fail for this big of a financial crater to be made?
5:10
Andy Janning: And so telling that story, good getting into that, and following it where it's it's taken me, it's been arguably the hardest story I have ever worked on, the hardest documentary project I've ever worked on.
5:21
Andy Janning: But it's also been the most fulfilling because I think for me it it changed a lot of things for me, a lot of things that I thought I understood.
5:29
Andy Janning: It got me to uh to meet and connect with some absolutely amazing servant leaders.
5:35
Andy Janning: But it also then I think has implications for the rest, not just of credit union industry, but I think all industries that rely on trust.
5:44
Andy Janning: And so hopefully it will raise questions that will last far longer than than anybody will remember my my voice or you know anything else about the show.
5:55
Nathan Whitaker: Wow.
5:55
Nathan Whitaker: So yeah, as you were saying that, I was thinking about obviously the credit union industry is one that you're familiar with, that you've been in for decades.
6:04
Nathan Whitaker: And it has a feeling of of you know, it's a it's a wonderful life, right?
6:07
Nathan Whitaker: Where the whole town's helping each other, except that George Bailey's sticking the money in his pocket and walking out the back door, I guess, in this case.
6:14
Nathan Whitaker: And, you know, I don't I don't know.
6:16
Nathan Whitaker: In fact, I have no idea what happened, but I'm I'm some sort of some some sort of bad action.
6:21
Nathan Whitaker: And then the question of of, like you say, trust.
6:24
Nathan Whitaker: As you were saying it, I was thinking about for better or worse, there used to be a lot of things where if somebody said, so-and-so recommends that you X, whatever it may be in the paper these days, we would go and do X.
6:38
Nathan Whitaker: And now we're like, well, I don't know.
6:39
Nathan Whitaker: I don't know if that institution really has my best interest at heart.
6:42
Nathan Whitaker: I don't know if we can.
6:43
Nathan Whitaker: And we're seeing some of those breakdowns in in trust in some of our institutions.
6:47
Nathan Whitaker: Um and and what do we do to repair those?
6:50
Nathan Whitaker: I think that's an interest, and especially in this small town you're talking about, when you talk about just tearing away that that trust that I know, hey, I'll go in there and I'll make this deposit and then I'll come back.
7:00
Nathan Whitaker: And wait, why is there a line around the block?
7:03
Nathan Whitaker: Um or whatever it may be.
7:06
Andy Janning: It's interesting you mentioned that because that's one of the that's one of the images in the the trailer, in the trailer for the for season one, is that there was a line stretching out the door of the institution that had to kind of pick up the pieces.
7:18
Andy Janning: And it wasn't just a line, it actually had far-reaching impact on the absorbing institution.
7:25
Andy Janning: So not gonna say a whole lot more about that, but the the one thing I don't want, I don't want the show to be pigeonholed, it's just a credit union show.
7:33
Andy Janning: The when something happens at this credit union, the credit union is the entry point.
7:37
Andy Janning: Uh they talk about, you know, you know, as a as a writer and as a storyteller, write what you know.
7:42
Andy Janning: This is what I know.
7:43
Andy Janning: I know this industry and it's been better to me than I've deserved.
7:47
Andy Janning: So you write what you know, but this the credit union is just the entry point.
7:51
Andy Janning: The crime itself is just the entry point.
7:54
Andy Janning: I think the questions that are raised transcend industry, transcend company, transcend size.
8:01
Andy Janning: I think they're ones, like I said, hopefully it will spark conversations and spark more adherence to community and understanding where exactly that can break and how fragile it can be in most institutions.
8:15
Nathan Whitaker: Yeah, no doubt.
8:16
Nathan Whitaker: It's it certainly is fragile.
8:17
Nathan Whitaker: And in institutions and relationships and whatever.
8:20
Nathan Whitaker: It's something that we really have to uh monitor and cultivate.
8:24
Nathan Whitaker: And uh and I'll look forward to uh to hearing more of that.
8:27
Nathan Whitaker: I'm I'm I'm excited, and I think I should get my email there whenever the first um podcast or episode drops because I've signed up for the uh the early entry, whatever that is.
8:36
Nathan Whitaker: So I'm ready.
8:37
Nathan Whitaker: Awesome.
8:37
Nathan Whitaker: And hopefully the listeners will do the same.
8:39
Nathan Whitaker: And I want to get to your storytelling in a second.
8:41
Nathan Whitaker: First, I want to jump over to though um one of the other endeavors that you spoke about when you were with me in Denver, and um and that we've talked about a bit, this idea of life over debt and and what you're doing with credit unions.
8:56
Nathan Whitaker: But I also think, again, the formal project is with credit unions, but I still think it's something worth the rest of that that's worth the rest of us thinking about as well.
9:06
Nathan Whitaker: If you don't mind chatting about that at that.
9:08
Andy Janning: Well, first of all, thank you for asking about it.
9:10
Andy Janning: Uh this kind of goes back to write what you know.
9:12
Andy Janning: Uh so back in 2019, my wife was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer.
9:17
Andy Janning: She got really she got really sick.
9:18
Andy Janning: It was a real struggle for us for a very long time.
9:21
Andy Janning: Um then about six months after she was diagnosed, I was given the opportunity in early 2020 to do a documentary for the National Credit Union Foundation, which is the philanthropic arm of America's credit unions across the country, to do a documentary about the financial crisis of cancer.
9:38
Andy Janning: And that project called Side Effects, that's a seven-part, 18-story documentary about what does the financial toxicity of cancer look like in real lives, and what can financial institutions do to step up.
9:50
Andy Janning: So that project basically kind of took over my life.
9:56
Andy Janning: Uh, it was in ways, it was almost like storytelling is therapy.
10:00
Andy Janning: Uh, it was a way for me to contextualize and understand what was going on in my own family.
10:04
Andy Janning: Uh, because we were going through the financial, the emotional, the physical struggle of cancer.
10:09
Andy Janning: And to an extent, we're still feeling that uh cancer sh casts a very long shadow over people's lives, and hair grows back faster than money.
10:19
Andy Janning: And so when I did that documentary, we have seen this in our own lives, and seeing that there are millions of other people out there that were they're going through what we're going through, I started thinking, how can financial institutions step up and do a better job?
10:31
Andy Janning: How can I engage this industry that I love to maybe step out and say, hey, we've we're going to tell millions of hurting Americans when you're fighting for your life, you need your money more than we do.
10:43
Andy Janning: So Life Over Debt is basically a program that it that allows credit unions to basically pause the payments and interest for any installment debt that a person in active treatment for cancer has with that credit union.
10:56
Andy Janning: So life over debt is basically this mechanism that encourages credit unions, it is this alliance of credit unions across the country that are unified around four principles.
11:07
Andy Janning: One is providing payment and interest pauses for installment debt that someone in cancer-related financial distress has.
11:13
Andy Janning: It basically says, hey, if you're if you're fighting again, if you're fighting for your life, you need your money more than we do.
11:19
Andy Janning: So we're going to pause your payments, pause your interest while you work, while you just focus on getting better.
11:24
Andy Janning: Then we pair you with a financial counselor that will walk you through the financial minefield that you're going to be going through.
11:29
Andy Janning: We will find emergency assistance, you know, if emergency funding, if you have urgent medical expenses that need to be paid, we can certainly help you with that.
11:38
Andy Janning: And then we can even, you know, help you keep the lights on, help you keep your utilities going.
11:42
Andy Janning: So that those are the four elements of the program.
11:45
Andy Janning: And there's a small and growing alliance of credit unions across the country that are committed to doing this.
11:50
Andy Janning: And the impact that we've seen, you know, we've got stories of members that have broken down in tears when they've heard that their credit union is going to be doing this, and saying that, hey, you know, this is actually this is helping me rebuild my life.
12:03
Andy Janning: Uh it's been recognized, the program itself has been recognized by the Anthem Awards for its impact on social um and social impact for basically, you know, trying to do good for individuals and organizations that are trying to do good.
12:19
Andy Janning: I'm really kind of fumbling over this because there's so much going on with this program right now, and I get really excited about it.
12:25
Andy Janning: I'm like a kind of like a kid at Christmas here, so this is probably a horrible interview uh when it comes to this.
12:31
Andy Janning: But uh and I get a little bit weird about talking about the accolades that it that it has earned, which are nice, but I'm more worried, I'm more focused on the human impact.
12:42
Andy Janning: Um the recognition that the program has received, you know, it got this award out of 2,000 entries from 42 different countries.
12:48
Andy Janning: We're also partnering with the University of Alabama at Birmingham to study the effects of this program on physical and emotional and the financial well-being of the participants.
12:57
Andy Janning: And this is the first type of medical research that's ever been done on this subject.
13:02
Andy Janning: So credit unions are literally creating an entirely new field of medical research by participating in life over debt.
13:09
Andy Janning: And so uh I want to be also very, very clear about the fact that the credit unions who are in this alliance, they're doing the yeoman's work.
13:16
Andy Janning: I kind of just kind of lit a fire in the middle of a field, and more and more folks are coming around the campfire, and then they're taking that flame and they're going back and they're making more stuff, and they're creating more warmth, and they're creating more community.
13:27
Andy Janning: So that's a that's a pretty good day at work.
13:30
Nathan Whitaker: That's fantastic.
13:31
Nathan Whitaker: And again, we'll have links to that, but you know, UAB, what a fantastic school with their healthcare, their, you know, Birmingham and medicine and the like.
13:39
Nathan Whitaker: So that's a great place to study it.
13:41
Nathan Whitaker: And, you know, I so so not to make it all about me, which some people would say I do make everything about me.
13:47
Nathan Whitaker: But having decided to leave the practice of law and then go into the NFL and then leave that and become a writer, I kept uh I kept taking these steps down um in uh in income, or at least where I knew the income was going to come from.
14:03
Nathan Whitaker: And I was talking to Tansley Stearns on this show.
14:06
Nathan Whitaker: She's, I think they're one of your uh life over debt partners.
14:09
Nathan Whitaker: Yes.
14:09
Nathan Whitaker: And and I was talking to her on this show, and she was talking about financial challenges and the shame that comes with that and the exhaustion that comes with that, and then we don't talk about it, and you often walk alone.
14:21
Nathan Whitaker: And I certainly felt that.
14:23
Nathan Whitaker: Like I remember there was a day years ago when when somebody showed up, they didn't show up at the door, they showed up at the side, um, you know, however long ago, to turn off the power.
14:34
Nathan Whitaker: And, you know, I'm running going, well, uh, I'm I think I've got it now, and I'm like, you know, one, two, three, and here's a bunch of quarters.
14:42
Nathan Whitaker: And um, and it was just so awful, not only from a, but I can't imagine so so going back to two thoughts.
14:50
Nathan Whitaker: One is the shame and the fact that there's counseling and there's help, and and we're also shining a light on this is really hard and exhausting.
14:57
Nathan Whitaker: And UAB, I mean, I don't know how many sleepless nights I had.
15:00
Nathan Whitaker: I know my health was not I didn't have a cancer, and I know there were health impacts from from all this.
15:05
Nathan Whitaker: And then to to drop on that, um, then I've got to decide, right?
15:10
Nathan Whitaker: Do I keep the power on or do I go get whatever treatment or get whatever prescription filled?
15:15
Nathan Whitaker: And I can promise you, having gone through what I went through, I would totally go, you know what, I'll get the prescription filled next month.
15:22
Andy Janning: Right.
15:22
Nathan Whitaker: Knowing next month is probably not gonna come and I'm still gonna be paying the power bill or the mortgage or whatever.
15:27
Nathan Whitaker: So this is I just love this that you've got folks doing it and that it's growing, and and it's just it's so cool.
15:35
Nathan Whitaker: And so I love that you've um shined a light on this and that you're and that you're running with it.
15:41
Nathan Whitaker: It's it's just this is really awesome.
15:43
Andy Janning: Appreciate it.
15:43
Andy Janning: Thank you very much.
15:44
Nathan Whitaker: Yeah.
15:45
Nathan Whitaker: So then let's let's the two things we talked about a little bit so far um is your storytelling, right?
15:52
Nathan Whitaker: And and that whether it's life over debt and creating a story and a way through for people to understand that initially, or then with overdrawn.
16:00
Nathan Whitaker: Um and I've got a good friend, by the way, former movie producer, and he did a bunch of things, Chronicles and Narnia, and a bunch of kids' books and whatever.
16:07
Nathan Whitaker: And he's now said, look, documentary podcasting is where people are getting their information.
16:13
Nathan Whitaker: And if you want to get somebody to engage and to understand, it's documentary podcasting.
16:18
Nathan Whitaker: But you also do stuff beyond that with storytelling to help people craft their stories.
16:23
Nathan Whitaker: Can you talk about that a little bit as well?
16:25
Andy Janning: Yeah, so I uh if people go to make greatstories.com, they will find something that I came up with.
16:32
Andy Janning: Uh I've been working on it for a while, but I've wanted to find a way, how can we operationalize or at least find a way to get us down into what makes a great story?
16:44
Andy Janning: You know, we as in the credit union industry certainly, but I think across all industries, there's so much of this rallying cry, we want to tell a story.
16:51
Andy Janning: You know, tell your story, tell your story.
16:53
Andy Janning: And more often than not, uh people I think people want to do that, but the the ability to be able to tell a great story is difficult, to say the least.
17:02
Andy Janning: Uh to do it in a way that is compelling, that's captivating in a very short attention span world, to be able to do that in a way that gets people to not just stop scrolling, but it gets them to absorb it and then really take that in and then move forward with it.
17:18
Andy Janning: That's a very difficult thing to do.
17:20
Andy Janning: So I came up with this method of helping, starting with financial institutions and mission-driven organizations, for them to basically, you know, look at their stories through this heuristic, this guide that says, hey, let's really inspect this to make sure that all the elements of a great story are there.
17:40
Andy Janning: This isn't talking about word choice, it's not talking about you should have used passive voice and not active voice here.
17:45
Andy Janning: It's not necessarily about that.
17:47
Andy Janning: It goes far deeper.
17:49
Andy Janning: Think of this as like a home inspection for your storytelling.
17:52
Andy Janning: It basically says, are all the bones there, are all the elements there for this story to really be great, for it to really stick?
17:59
Andy Janning: Because too often a lot of the stuff that we're getting out there saying that our stories are basically just announcements.
18:05
Andy Janning: It's basically just, hey, here's the things, hey, remember that thing that we told you that we were going to do for you?
18:11
Andy Janning: We did it a lot.
18:14
Andy Janning: Thanks.
18:16
Andy Janning: And especially in the credit union industry, and I I love it enough to kind of tell the truth here.
18:20
Andy Janning: A lot of our storytelling comes down to saying, hey, once upon a time, someone needed a checking account, and they came to us and we gave them the checking account, and they were happy.
18:30
Andy Janning: And we were happy, they smiled, we smiled harder at that story.
18:36
Andy Janning: And it's like, okay, that's that's great that you did that, and those stories are there, they're necessary to show that we at least know what we're doing, that we're not going to go into an existential crisis if someone asks us to open up a checking account.
18:47
Andy Janning: Those stories don't stick.
18:50
Andy Janning: What makes a story go from good to great are two things risk and surprise.
18:55
Andy Janning: And those are two things that for the financial services world will absolutely make them just collapse into a puddle.
19:02
Andy Janning: We don't like risk, we don't like surprise.
19:04
Andy Janning: And so there's this tension of how do we incorporate the elements of great stories into an industry that basically runs screaming for the hills if you tell them to do more risk and surprise.
19:14
Andy Janning: That's where story score comes in.
19:16
Andy Janning: It helps you show how you can show that journey, how can you show that messy middle?
19:22
Andy Janning: How can you show the struggle?
19:23
Andy Janning: How can you show how hard this work can be sometimes?
19:27
Andy Janning: How can you show the risks that you took and the the ways that you surprised your members and your customers?
19:32
Andy Janning: That's what Story Score is allowing people to do and helping them kind of find a way through that, not being irresponsible, not doing crazy things.
19:40
Andy Janning: But I think that we are at an inflection point with the credit union industry.
19:45
Andy Janning: Uh I think our our enthusiasm for storytelling, I think, has become it sounds to me a little bit more like we just need to tell them louder.
19:55
Andy Janning: And I disagree with that.
19:57
Andy Janning: I think it's more of we need to find ways to have more risk and surprise.
20:04
Andy Janning: Um for me, for storytelling, it comes out of this.
20:07
Andy Janning: Great stories are not safe.
20:09
Andy Janning: Great stories aren't safe.
20:11
Andy Janning: Um they're not safe to tell, they're not necessarily safe to live.
20:16
Andy Janning: They will cost you something.
20:17
Andy Janning: Uh, because it's taking you in a place that you never expected.
20:21
Andy Janning: It's taking you somewhere that you didn't really know that you that you could go.
20:25
Andy Janning: And not every single story that an organization is going to tell has to be packed with that.
20:29
Andy Janning: You need those everyday stories of everyday competence, but every once in a while, you need to use that capital, that trust that you've built to be able to say, here's how we've decided to break the norm the norm.
20:40
Andy Janning: Here's how we've decided to meet people where they are and do something for them that they never expected.
20:46
Andy Janning: That's the common thread running through Overdrawn and Life Over Dead and all these other storytelling projects.
20:51
Andy Janning: The extent to which I think the credit union industry can embrace that and share those in a way that's human, that doesn't rely on stock photos or AI or just kind of generalized, you know, generic storytelling with smiling people holding hands, shaking hands, and holding a big check, that's not storytelling.
21:10
Andy Janning: Those won't stand out.
21:11
Andy Janning: Those will just make us go into irrelevance louder and longer.
21:15
Andy Janning: The extent to which we're willing to say, how can we break the mold, go into the places that we normally typically won't, and feature real people, that's our differentiator.
21:25
Andy Janning: That's our great undiscovered country.
21:27
Andy Janning: And hopefully we can all get there collectively here soon.
21:32
Nathan Whitaker: Amen.
21:33
Nathan Whitaker: That's great.
21:34
Nathan Whitaker: And you know, it's it as you're talking about that, it makes me think of Michael Lewis, right?
21:38
Nathan Whitaker: Great storyteller, big short, other things.
21:40
Nathan Whitaker: Yeah, yeah.
21:41
Nathan Whitaker: Or Aaron Sorkin, right?
21:42
Nathan Whitaker: I mean, they they take things that when you look at it, it's so dramatic.
21:45
Andy Janning: Sorkin is my spirit animal.
21:46
Andy Janning: I love Sorkin.
21:47
Nathan Whitaker: But you're like, uh if you if somebody told you, hey, this is about you know, institutions that were too big to fail, and then the government had to step in and whatever, you'd be like, okay, great.
21:56
Nathan Whitaker: I saw it in the paper.
21:57
Nathan Whitaker: And then you get into one of their and you go and You just keep turning the page.
22:01
Nathan Whitaker: Yeah.
22:01
Nathan Whitaker: And or you're watching a really well-done movie, right?
22:04
Nathan Whitaker: And all of a sudden, halfway through, the the protagonist, she gets through on the phone, and the police are going to come and you're like, oh, good, everything's saved.
22:11
Nathan Whitaker: But then you realize, no, I got half the movie to go.
22:14
Nathan Whitaker: Something's going to happen.
22:15
Nathan Whitaker: This is not.
22:16
Nathan Whitaker: And it's, and to me, it's the same, right?
22:18
Nathan Whitaker: I mean, I could tell the here's what's going on.
22:21
Nathan Whitaker: And those are good, those are helpful stories.
22:23
Nathan Whitaker: But to really captivate people, I think is an art.
22:26
Nathan Whitaker: And you've got to think through where the story's going, what the and be accurate, right?
22:30
Nathan Whitaker: You can't, you're not taking liberties here, but you're also helping somebody get into it and understand and engage.
22:37
Nathan Whitaker: And I think that does carry a lot more weight when people think that through and do it well.
22:40
Nathan Whitaker: And so I'm glad you're offering that.
22:42
Andy Janning: Yeah, there's two elements here that I want to make sure that that it gets pointed out.
22:46
Andy Janning: It's the power of one person.
22:48
Andy Janning: You know, we can talk about, oh, you know, there's a big crisis of you know dog adoption, people aren't adopting dogs, but then when you put the one dog there on the screen, Sarah McLaughlin moving underneath it, you will vapor, you will vaporize your 401k to be able to just adopt all the dogs.
23:02
Andy Janning: The second thing I think we as storytellers get into is what I call the superhero problem.
23:07
Andy Janning: Especially in organizations that want to portray trust and credibility, we always say, hey, this person came to us and we effortlessly met their needs, and that's great.
23:15
Andy Janning: But you're basically making yourself the superhero of the of of the story.
23:19
Andy Janning: And Superman is a is a terrible character to write a story about.
23:23
Andy Janning: He's not interesting because he's he's invincible.
23:25
Andy Janning: He's only interesting when he's vulnerable, when he's fighting for his life.
23:29
Andy Janning: And so the extent to which the organizations can sh kind of open the, you know, kind of peel back the layers and show here's where we're struggling, here's what we learned, here are the mistakes that we've made, and here's what we've learned from, and here's how we're putting ourselves out there for the people that we care about.
23:43
Andy Janning: That's what stands out.
23:45
Andy Janning: That's what makes a good day at the office.
23:46
Andy Janning: Not just for distinctiveness, but for the human part too.
23:50
Andy Janning: That's what beats burnout.
23:52
Andy Janning: We get burned out because we get emotionally exhausted, we stop seeing people as people, we stop, we stop seeing the impact that we make.
23:59
Andy Janning: And if we want to be uncommon about that, we have to show that dent in the universe is yours.
24:05
Andy Janning: And we're gonna celebrate it through story and we're gonna talk about your struggle and we're gonna be honest about it, but we're gonna lift you up because we will forget our narratives, we will forget our journeys.
24:15
Andy Janning: That's why the days are long, but the years are short.
24:17
Andy Janning: If I can find a way to flip that through helping people tell tell great stories, then again, that's another good day at the office.
24:24
Nathan Whitaker: Yeah.
24:25
Nathan Whitaker: So let me just uh kind of wrap these together real quick for a second.
24:28
Nathan Whitaker: So you've got you've got podcasting, you've got um storytelling, you've got this life over debt mission.
24:38
Nathan Whitaker: Um to these things, to this idea of having this impact, of of creating this, you know, my words, uncommon impact, because it really is what you're doing.
24:46
Nathan Whitaker: Uh you're taking uncommon, an uncommon voice and spectacular hair, which um I can't decide if I'm gonna leave in that moment when you're trying to mess with your hair.
24:56
Andy Janning: Uh it is it is the it is the first time like my hair has gone crazy in an interview, so I have no idea why.
25:02
Nathan Whitaker: It's well, it's me, right?
25:03
Nathan Whitaker: I've made too many comments over the years about how spectacular your hair is.
25:06
Nathan Whitaker: I've got good hair, but my gosh.
25:08
Nathan Whitaker: Um But you've taken all those things and and you've put them together is not even the right word because you're you're here and you're here and you're here.
25:16
Nathan Whitaker: They they're disparate in some ways, but they're also there's a unifying theme.
25:20
Nathan Whitaker: Did that come to you overnight?
25:21
Nathan Whitaker: Was it years or decades where you were just kind of following the path in front of you, whether it was your wife having cancer or and then all of a sudden on the back end you're like, oh, this is something?
25:31
Andy Janning: Uh I I will say uh it's kind of been coalescing for for about seven or eight years.
25:36
Andy Janning: I think when my wife got sick, I think that was kind of the the the I kind of measure my career before and after that, to kind of show that, hey, what do you really enjoy doing?
25:45
Andy Janning: What do you what do you have, you know, either some ability with or some passion for?
25:49
Andy Janning: Uh I will tell you that this really crystallized, especially with Overdrawn, to kind of, you know, this was been something that's been knocking around in my brain for a while, to pursue it.
25:58
Andy Janning: Uh my mom got sick, uh has she was in declining health for many, many years, and she really got bad this year.
26:06
Andy Janning: And I remember sitting there and talking with her about these projects and talking about these things, and you know, even when Overdrawn was a glimmer in my eye, and I remember her just lighting up because she was she was in an in-home hospice at the time, she couldn't move out of her bed, and I'm telling her about this, and she would just light up.
26:20
Andy Janning: She would be like, I can't, it just you know, go do it, honey, go do it, honey.
26:25
Andy Janning: Um I lost my mom on July 16th of this year, uh, 24 hours after her goddaughter passed away from breast cancer.
26:32
Andy Janning: They had the same birthday.
26:34
Andy Janning: And so to have those two losses in that short a time, it kind of crystallizes your thinking.
26:40
Andy Janning: It says, Hey, this life is very, very short, and I don't want to leave anything on the table.
26:45
Andy Janning: I want to provide for my family, I want to be, I want to be a good role model for my daughters, I want to be a servant to my wife, but I also don't want to leave anything in the tank either.
26:55
Andy Janning: And I want to make my mama proud.
26:58
Andy Janning: And so I want to find a way that wherever she is, I want to bring something into the world that I know that she would be smiling about, not because of its quality, but because she knows it lights me up.
27:07
Andy Janning: And it lights up and it gives back to an industry that has lit me up for decades.
27:11
Andy Janning: So if I can make my mama smile, that's again a that's again a pretty good day.
27:16
Nathan Whitaker: Yeah.
27:16
Nathan Whitaker: And that's got you walking, chewing gum, and and trying to uh create some sort of nuclear uh weapon at the same time.
27:23
Nathan Whitaker: I mean, you're you're a line before we started taping, yes.
27:26
Nathan Whitaker: Um but you know, I think that's a great I love that because so often for me, for a lot of people, uh partly it's a fear of failure or something, but also there's this there's this sense of like, well, I shouldn't undertake that because that's like a pet project, or that means a lot to me, but you know what?
27:47
Nathan Whitaker: I know there's a check here.
27:49
Nathan Whitaker: And if I go here, then that's the that's the sure, you know, it's it's yes, it's safe, but it's also like this is responsible, right?
27:56
Nathan Whitaker: This is what a person does if they're versus you going, hey, I gotta make mom proud.
28:01
Nathan Whitaker: I gotta this litter up, this lights me up.
28:03
Nathan Whitaker: Why would I not follow something that lights me up?
28:05
Nathan Whitaker: Great, great way of looking at that.
28:08
Andy Janning: Thanks.
28:08
Andy Janning: Um Yeah, I I will when I say the great stories aren't safe, I am living that every day.
28:14
Andy Janning: Um and I will say that this, you know, they this these things will take things from you.
28:18
Andy Janning: They will.
28:19
Andy Janning: Uh I'm not gonna say that this is that this is easy.
28:22
Andy Janning: But what I will say is that the is the things that you learn along the way, you cannot put a price tag to that.
28:30
Andy Janning: And so if I can find a way to balance the the practical and the and the aspirational, then I'm still trying to figure that out.
28:38
Nathan Whitaker: Awesome.
28:39
Nathan Whitaker: Well, I love that you're on that journey.
28:40
Nathan Whitaker: I love that you're uh, you know, I think your story will be one.
28:44
Nathan Whitaker: Uh it's already a story of risk and then uh a story of surprise.
28:48
Nathan Whitaker: Um so so I love that you're you're doing that, and I love that you're sharing it with us and and that you've got such great skills.
28:55
Nathan Whitaker: And it's so cool that we shared that stage years ago, and that I went from being totally intimidated to now being totally intimidated by having you on my podcast.
29:05
Nathan Whitaker: So this is fantastic.
29:08
Nathan Whitaker: So any any final thoughts on what it means to have an uncommon impact today?
29:11
Nathan Whitaker: I feel like we've touched that in so many different ways, but but just any any concluding thoughts on that?
29:16
Nathan Whitaker: How you see that, how you view that?
29:19
Andy Janning: Two things.
29:19
Andy Janning: Uh I think in I think in terms of movies, uh, well, so in and just media, so three things.
29:25
Andy Janning: Um one of them is from the Shawshank Redemption, get busy living or get busy dying.
29:29
Andy Janning: Uh from Ted Lasso, uh Be Curious, not judgmental.
29:32
Andy Janning: And from Hamilton, look around, look around, how one how lucky we are to be alive right now.
29:38
Andy Janning: If again, those three things are the kind of the three three choruses of my life.
29:42
Andy Janning: If those can be for anybody else that that is listening to this, if that touches them too, then that's a that's again, that's another good day.
29:51
Nathan Whitaker: That is a great day.
29:53
Nathan Whitaker: Andy, thanks so much for being on Uncommon Intact.
29:55
Nathan Whitaker: I really appreciate your time.
29:57
Andy Janning: Thank you, friend.