Latest / The Starfish Storytellers / Episode 11: The Superpower of Storytelling, Moth Style with Liana Henry

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Episode 11: The Superpower of Storytelling, Moth Style with Liana Henry · The Starfish Storytellers

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Starfish Storytellers, the podcast that makes a difference one story
• 0:04
  at a time by bringing storytelling to life.
• 0:07
  I am a headstrong, driven, independent woman.
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  This has gotten me really far in a lot of areas of my life, but it's also been a source
• 0:37
  of frustration for a lot of the folks who are closest to me.
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  You see, I don't always know how to ask for help.
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  And the tagline of my life, even in adulthood, hasn't changed much since I was a toddler,
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  which is, I do myself.
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  So it was sophomore year in Manchester, New Hampshire, and it was probably the spring
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  and in the mid-1980s.
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  And I was in my room getting ready for school.
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  And I shared an apartment with my mom and my two younger brothers in a six-unit tenement
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  in the residential side of the city, on a quiet street.
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  So I'm getting ready for school in my very spacious room.
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  And in my room, I had a plastic canopy bed with a yellow ruffled bedspread and a white
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  and yellow geometrically shaped dresser.
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  And in the corner, I had a record player.
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  And so I'm dancing around the room.
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  Duran Duran is playing in the background.
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  And I'm brushing my hair.
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  And my black hair, which it was black then, was wavy, naturally wavy, and pretty much did
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  whatever it wanted to do.
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  And I usually wore it all one length down to my shoulders.
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  And I would part it on one side, and I would pull it back with a ribboned barrette.
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  And the other side would be feathered.
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  And so this particular day, I was getting really frustrated with it because it was just
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  being disagreeable, as usual.
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  And so I'm dancing around the room mindlessly, like a teenage girl might.
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  And I was putting on my shirt, looking at myself in the mirror.
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  And I'm using my hairbrush as a microphone, singing, and I'm hungry like the wolves.
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  And all of a sudden, and I'm not really sure what possessed me to do this, I grab a pair
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  of scissors and still dancing.
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  Now have you ever noticed when a hairdresser cuts your hair, they're not actually dancing?
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  So still dancing, I grab the right side of my hair and snip.
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  I lob off five inches of hair.
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  And I stop, and I look in the mirror, and I cock my head to one side.
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  Hmm.
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  Well, that doesn't look right.
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  So I grab the left side and snip.
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  Off it came.
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  And I stop, and I look again.
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  And I think, well, that's not very even.
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  I have this bushy hair in the back and bushy in the front, snip.
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  And I cut my bangs over an inch over my eyebrows.
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  And so I study myself in the mirror for a minute.
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  And then I can see my hair.
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  It's all different lengths, and it's chunky, and it's not even.
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  And my heart starts pounding, and I start to panic, and I let out a scream, mom, come
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  quick, help me.
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  My poor, hardworking, single mom.
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  All she wanted to do was get her two sons ready for school that day, who were five and
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  seven.
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  So she comes running into the room, full tilt, thinking I hurt myself, and then comes to
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  a screeching halt.
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  She takes one look at me, and she gasps, what did you do?
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  By this point, I'm crying, I don't know.
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  But I grab her by the shoulders, and I shake her, mom, you've got to help me.
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  I can't go to school like this.
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  To which she breaks free of my grasp, gives me one of those single one eyebrow lifted
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  looks.
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  And she says, you probably should have thought of that before you did this.
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  So she sighs a frustrated sigh, picks up the scissors off the dresser, points to the bed
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  and says, just sit.
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  So I sit down, tears are coming down my eyes, and she starts to clip.
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  And I hear a clipping here, and a clipping there, and I can see hair falling onto the
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  carpet, and I close my eyes.
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  I just didn't want to know.
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  And when she was done, she put the scissors down quietly, and she pointed at the mirror,
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  and I got up and I took a look, and my heart sank, where my long flowing locks had been,
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  was now a tight, even mullet.
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  My hair was cut up over my ears, my bangs were short, short, short, and I had this big
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  bush of hair in the back.
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  You know, mullets might have been a thing in the 80s, and they might have been for some
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  folks, but they weren't for me.
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  And now I had to go to school looking like this.
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  And I said nothing, except a quiet sheepish, thank you, while I looked at the floor.
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  And it was in this moment that, probably one of my first awarenesses that in actuality,
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  you cannot do everything by yourself.
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  You do need to ask for help, and you do need to accept help.
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  So ever since then, I go to the salon to have my hair done professionally.
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  Hello.
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  My name is Leanna Henry, and welcome to the Starfish Storytellers.
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  I'm the CEO of the Black Dog Group, a Marcom and project management firm headquartered on
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  the east coast of the US in Quaint Colonial Bedford, Massachusetts.
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  I'm your host and passionate about storytelling, and I'm actually on a mission to raise up
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  the next generation of storytellers.
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  We've named ourselves the Starfish Storytellers after the Starfish Story.
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  The moral of the Starfish Story is based on the power of one.
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  No matter how big the challenge, each action we take makes a difference and has an impact
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  one step, one starfish, or one story at a time.
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  Every episode, we welcome a new storyteller who will share their story meant to inspire
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  and connect with you.
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  Then we'll break it down and offer tips for any listeners who are ready to tell their
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  own stories.
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  So thanks for tuning in.
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  Now let's get started.
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  Today we have a special episode featuring me.
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  In this CEO's cut, we're talking about the superpower of storytelling, moth style.
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  I really wanted to do a podcast on the moth to talk about this amazing organization and
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  the story framework that I think our listeners will find really helpful when they want to
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  tell better stories.
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  Plus, I'll walk you through my process of how I told a moth story.
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  So a little bit about the moth.
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  They are an acclaimed global not-for-profit organization, and they're dedicated to the
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  art and craft of storytelling.
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  They were founded by novelist George Dawes Green.
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  So I read on their website that while living in New York, George wanted to recreate the
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  feeling of a sultry summer evening in his native Georgia when he would see moths that
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  were attracted to the light circling around on the porch where he and his friends would
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  gather to share some stories.
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  And so he had his first New York moth event in his living room, but from there, story
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  events have quickly spread to larger venues throughout the city and around the world.
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  Since it launched in 1997, the moth has presented thousands of stories told live and without
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  notes.
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  Moth shows are renowned for the great range of the human experience they showcase, and
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  each show creates a unique, intimate, and often enlightening experience for the audience.
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  Beyond storytelling events, the moth has education, community, and for-profit programs that they
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  offer, and they have storytellers that have been on the stage who come from celebrities,
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  politicians, people from global organizations.
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  They've had events at the UN, at the Met.
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  They are world-renowned.
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  So I was actually first introduced to the moth by a storytelling student of mine.
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  I was teaching my storytelling for everyday class, and she came up to me and she said,
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  have you ever heard of the moth?
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  And I said, no.
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  She encouraged me to look into it, so I did.
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  I realized they had a book called How to Tell a Story.
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  So I figured I would probably start there.
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  So before I would go to any events, I would read the book.
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  It's a great book, and it walked me through their framework.
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  And so in short, every moth story has the same framework.
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  So I'm going to just rattle that off so that you can hear it, because it's a really great
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  way to tell a story.
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  And to keep in mind, it's one framework, one story style.
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  There are many ways to tell stories, but the nice thing about the moth is it's true, it's
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  authentic, and it's usually short.
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  So every moth story starts with, it has to be a true story.
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  It has to be told in the first person.
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  It has to be your story to tell, and it has to be authentic.
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  And if you're going to include other characters in your story, they have to be relative to
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  your personal experience and there to support your story.
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  They caution people around having a list of complaints or rattling off a narrative.
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  It's really a story about you.
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  Moth stories focus on one moment in time.
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  So they're a snapshot of an event, and it's from your own life.
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  It can be tempting to bring in lots of other periods of time or irrelevant details into
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  a story, but then it really will just water it down and it will confuse your audience.
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  It will confuse your listener.
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  Your moth story has to be told out loud and without notes.
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  So you have to be able to speak it without relying on notes, and they're not read, they're
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  not recited.
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  And I can tell you personally, as a note user, this was hard for me when I did it the first
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  time because I struggle with focus issues.
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  And so I find that notes would help me, but notes can actually become a crutch.
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  And I think a big part of why that they want folks to be able to tell their stories without
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  notes, it just is more genuine.
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  Moth stories will highlight some stakes, and in the end, they're going to showcase a transformation.
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  So you have to think about when you're putting together a moth story, why should this story
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  matter to the listener or you, and what did you discover about yourself in this journey?
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  So there has to be a transformation tied to your story.
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  Moth stories may have a theme, but that's usually only the context of the story and
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  not what the story is really about.
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  So you just heard me tell my story called Mindless Mullet.
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  And I told this story at a moth story slam where the theme for the evening was hair.
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  So yes, my story takes you through that harrowing morning when I mindlessly chopped off my own
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  hair, but my story is really actually about the consequences I face when I don't ask
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  for help, which I hate to admit has been a recurring pain that I experience regularly,
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  especially in my adult life.
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  Moth stories are told within a specific time frame or with a time limit.
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  So there's a couple of different kinds of moth events.
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  They have moth main stage events and moth story slams.
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  So moth main stage events are, if you were invited to participate in one, your story
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  would be 10 to 15 minutes long.
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  But if you went to a story slam, your story would be five minutes long.
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  And the way that they sort of control it, they have a timer and they time you.
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  And it's kind of a fun way to do it.
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  So sometimes it might be there's a drummer on the stage with you who when you get to
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  your time limit, they start giving a couple of wraps on the drum to let you know that
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  you're coming up on your time or your time is getting is up.
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  And then if you keep rambling, the drummer now breaks into like a full music, full song,
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  and they start playing louder than you.
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  So folks that are on the stage really don't want to have to get the timer to let them
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  know.
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  And it was funny, my story slam, the timer was a harmonica.
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  So yeah.
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  So moth stories avoid the isms.
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  Sexism, etc.
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  The moth's mission is to promote the art and craft of storytelling and to honor and celebrate
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  the diversity and commonality of the human experience.
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  And so they want their stage to be used to practice civility and respect.
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  So no form of homophobia, misogyny or any form of hate speech is allowed.
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  And it's great because even moth stories that don't have a happy ending, they still, you
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  really do connect with the storyteller.
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  So walking through my process.
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  So when I prepared my story for the moth stage, I first had to mine for memories.
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  It's what they call it.
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  Before you're going to start a story, you want to mine for memories.
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  So I thought about all the times in my life when my hair was like front and center for
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  me, like how when I've gone through life changes, I tend to change my hair to sort of
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  signal like a new beginning or how during menopause I experienced the horror of hair loss and
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  thinning hair after I'd had long hair that had been all the way down to my waist.
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  But neither of these themes or times really signaled stakes or transformation for me,
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  which is why I then settled on the mullet story.
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  And then I wrote it out in excruciating detail, which people in my life would expect no less.
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  And it was pages and pages and pages long.
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  And so I knew that I needed to get it down to five minutes.
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  And I do a fair amount of public speaking, so I know about, you know, time speeches.
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  So getting it to five speeches ended up, I trimmed it back to about 850 words.
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  And then I worked on the beginning and the ending.
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  Moth stories have a setup opening line and then a wrap up that brings you back to what
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  the story setup was.
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  This meant that my story could not just be about hair.
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  It had to have a transformation.
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  So this, when I started figuring this out, this was a little bit harder to figure out.
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  At first I thought I'd make the story about the grace that moms will show their kids when
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  they do mindless things.
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  But then that got me thinking about my own moments of motherhood and that would have
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  been a completely different story.
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  So I ended up changing it.
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  You know, I ended up changing it.
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  So I took some time to reflect to come up with the real meaning of the story and a realization
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  that it really was likely the first awareness in a time when I would experience the painful
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  embarrassment consequences of being headstrong and not asking for help.
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  And like I said earlier, it's been many decades of facing these consequences before realizing,
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  you know, it is okay to ask for help.
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  So anyhow, once I put the story together, I had to practice.
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  So that's a big thing that Moth directors will advise you on is a lot of rehearsal and
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  a lot of practice.
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  And practicing to something, practicing to a person, practicing to your plants, practicing
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  to your pets will help you hear your own voice.
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  So I started, excuse me, I started by recording myself, read it into a voice recorder app
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  on my phone, and then I would listen to that recording over and over and over again.
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  So I was listening to my recording over breakfast.
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  I was listening to it on the treadmill at the gym.
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  I was listening to it in the car while I was going to the grocery store.
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  And then I would try mouthing along the words so I could get the cadence of the story.
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  And in order to sort of remember the cadence, it helped to grab hold of like key points
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  like bullets in my own mind and put myself back into that bedroom in Manchester, New
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  Hampshire.
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  So once I'd listened to it about a dozen times, it was time to utter it.
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  Lot's Story Directors will tell you that in order to be able to tell it on stage and
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  get confident to do it without notes, your story must leave your lips.
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  You've got to speak it out loud.
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  So I started telling the story to myself in the car on the drives to the gym.
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  Then I started telling the story to my husband on the car rides back from the gym.
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  And then I got so that when he and I got into discussions about anything, even nothing related
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  to this because I told it so many times, I'd just look at him in the face and say, I am
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  a headstrong driven independent woman to which he would then roll his eyes, chuckle and say,
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  yeah, so I've heard.
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  So the night of my first Moth Story Slam, I threw my name in the basket as a potential
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  storyteller.
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  Moth main stage events are planned and the storytellers are coached by storytelling
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  directors, but Moth Story Slams are open mic competition nights that are MC'd, but the
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  storytellers come from the audience.
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  So they pick 10 out of the basket to come up and tell their stories.
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  And then you're judged by a panel of judges.
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  The events are open to the public.
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  So if you're listening to this, you have an interest.
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  I'll give you some information at the end of the podcast on how you can get tickets
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  to these events.
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  They have them all over Boston and all over the world actually.
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  And so storytellers that participate in these events agree to storytelling frameworks and
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  stage rules and they list them and they review them with you.
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  And then the winner of a Story Slam gets set to the Moth Grant Slam with other Story Slam
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  winners and a later time to compete to win the Grant Slam.
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  And so I found that that night at the Hair event, the stories that I heard, they were
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  all wonderful.
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  The storytellers were wonderful and they varied.
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  Some folks followed the Moth Story telling framework pretty closely and some folks didn't,
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  but all the stories were really well done.
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  And it's just a lot of courage to stand up.
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  If you've never stood up in front of a crowd, to stand up in front of a few hundred people
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  and tell your story and this is something personal.
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  It's not necessarily like theater and stage where you have a rehearsed script.
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  This is you.
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  So that night they varied.
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  Some were focused solely on the themes.
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  Some only made a brief mention of it.
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  I ended up getting chosen to speak and I was number nine out of the ten.
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  So I got the chance to get up on stage and deliver my story and definitely had some butterflies
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  in my stomach going up to the stage.
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  This was the largest crowd I had spoken in front of.
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  There was probably three or four hundred people there.
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  And I just took a breath and I was standing up in front of the mic and I delivered it.
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  And it just flowed.
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  And I've heard it said, we're better on our feet.
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  It's true.
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  And a rehearsal tip that I got was when you rehearse standing up, it will work better.
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  So in the end I ended up scoring I think it was third or fourth in the lineup, which was
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  really, really exciting.
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  So that's my process of how I did a Moth Story.
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  We've talked today about the framework for if you want to write a Moth Story.
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  And if you're interested in the Moth, you can get tickets to their storytelling events
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  or you can learn more about them at themoth.org.
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  You can also listen to Moth stories so you can learn more about them.
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  They have a podcast and you can also go to their website.
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  I believe that their podcast is available on any podcast station, but themoth.org.
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  But also if you'd like to learn how to use the Moth Story framework, I actually teach
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  workshops on the Moth and you can find that information on our website, which is blackdogmarcom.com.
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  And to our listeners, whether you hear us locally from the BTV studios in Bedford, Massachusetts
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  or across the globe on such podcast channels as Spotify, Apple or Amazon Prime, thank you
• 21:21
  for listening.
• 21:23
  We hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll see you next time.
• 21:26
  Happy storytelling.