April 17, 2023 • 62 mins
Running the Bases today with Mark Carpenter, Chief Storyteller: Helping people teach, lead, sell, and inspire through intentional storytelling for business
Today’s guest is a serial storyteller. Growing up he loved humor, telling stories, and exaggerating his real-life experiences as a middle child trying to stand out. He grew up in a home surrounded by books from his English Teacher Mom, which only increased his love of stories. He leveraged his abilities into a marketing communications and public relations career, then later as a college professor and corporate facilitator. Now, he teaches people how to more intentionally tell stories that teach, lead, sell, and inspire to accomplish business and personal goals.
He is the co-author of the best-selling book “Master Storytelling: How to Turn Your Experiences Into Stories that Teach, Lead, and Inspire” and co-creator of the Master Storytelling Workshop. Leveraging a 20-year career in corporate communication and a subsequent 15 years of Corporate facilitating training.
When he’s not training, speaking, coaching, or creating new content, he is likely hiking or snowshoeing in the mountains, playing the piano, bragging about his grandchildren, or writing children’s books
Key Lessons
- Storytelling can be used to connect and build relationships, as well as to inspire teams, remember information, and pass values and traditions.
- Platforms such as LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok can be used to leverage storytelling in a business setting.
- Mark encourages listeners to take risks and make their dreams a reality, offering a free ebook download to those interested.
To learn more about Mark and Storytelling visit: www.master-storytelling.com
Get the FREE eBook HERE
The Science Behind Good Storytelling
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
I'm fascinated with entrepreneursand small business owners.
Plus, I love baseball.
Every show I sit down with a smallbusiness owner and we discuss
their running the bases ofentrepreneurship.
We throw the ball around onstrategy, management, execution
and innovation.
(00:22):
Plus, a little fun baseball tug.
Hey, thanks for joining us today.
Settelaine, grab your crackerjacks and you know what they Okay,
it's a great day for a ball game.
Hey, this is Randy Rodi withrunning the bases with small
businesses.
Glad to have you on.
Hey, today's guest is a serialstoryteller.
(00:43):
I don't think we've had anybodyquite like this before.
Growing up, he loved humor,telling stories and exaggerating
his real life experiences as amiddle child trying to stand out.
He grew up in a home surrounded bybooks from his English teacher
mom, which only increased his loveof stories and he leveraged his
(01:05):
abilities into a marketingcommunications and public
relations career, then later as acollege professor and corporate
facilitator.
Now he teaches people how to moreintentionally tell stories that
teach, lead, sell and inspire toaccomplish business and personal
(01:25):
goals.
He is the co-author of the bestselling book, Master Storytelling,
how to turn your experiences intostories that teach, lead and
inspire and he's the co-creator ofthe Master Storytelling workshop.
Leveraging a 20 year career incorporate communication and a
subsequent 15 years of corporatefacilitating training, he has a
(01:48):
lively engaging style and packs itwith purposeful, impactful
learning.
That's mouthful of peas rightthere.
When he's not training, speaking,coaching or creating new content
is likely hiking or snowshoeing inthe mountains, playing the piano,
bragging about his grandchildrenor another version of
(02:11):
Storytelling, writing children'sbooks.
Please welcome to the show fromthe great state of Utah, Mark
Carpenter.
Mark, welcome.
Thank Randy.
Boy, that's a long intro to get towho I am.
That's a pretty completebackground I am.
That's too.
I'm telling my staff, they do agreat job of cooking this stuff
(02:34):
up.
I'm like Utah again.
If I had to, aside from, so we'rebased in Ohio and we have a lot of
local businesses and entrepreneursfrom Ohio on the show, but if we
probably went through, I wouldswear Utah is probably solidly
second.
We've had more guests from Utahthan I bet I could rattle off
eight of them that I know aboutthe top of my head.
(02:56):
It's There's quite a bit ofentrepreneurship in this area.
I think it stems from some of thetech layovers or crossovers that
we get from Silicon Valley andassociated companies with those
and then people get their ownideas and want to go out on their
own.
There's quite a bit of here.
(03:16):
You're right.
I'm telling you, we've had somefascinating terrific guests.
I hope anime may be expecting thatyou'll love up to the legacy here
of Utah.
Now the pressure's on, right?
So listen, I'm really intrigued bythis whole thing of storytelling
and I'm going to hit you up first.
I'm going to put you on the spot.
Can you give us a story of yourexaggerated real life experience
(03:41):
growing up as a middle shot?
Red that.
I'm like, what, Sir, let's hearthat.
That sounds kind of Now thepressure's on, you, some of the
stories that I used to tell to mykids, I was just having a
conversation with my daughterwho's 29 years old now about
stories that we used to tellaround the campfire and when we
were out hiking and just in familysituations.
(04:04):
And the stories she alwaysremembers are the stories that I
would tell about my brother who'sa year older than me.
And my brother claims that Iexaggerate them more.
In fact, I was telling one ofthose stories.
My brother says, no, I thinkyou're exaggerating that.
My mom happened to be in the roomtoo.
And she said, you kind of livedyour life in exaggeration.
So I don't know if it is thatsometimes about my brother and I
(04:26):
remember on a snowy day, theyactually canceled school because
it snowed so much.
I was in junior high.
My brother was a year old, he wasin high school.
And I was sitting in our livingroom and I was watching the snow
fall.
My brother didn't know that it wasgoing to snow that day.
So he'd ridden his And he playedthe trombone in the marching band.
And he's, so he's got his trombonestrapped as a bungee cord in the
(04:47):
back of his bike.
And he's coming down the hill,becomes to our house.
And then I'm watching him and he'sfrantically pumping the brakes
with his hands, trying to get thatbike loaded down, but he's got no
friction because of the snowthat's on the ground.
And I'm just watching him come flyit into our front yard.
He goes one way, the bike goesanother way, the trombone goes a
third direction.
He gets up, all covered with snow,stands up, kicks the bike three
(05:09):
times.
And the average guy that doeseverything up and comes in.
And I'm sitting there justlaughing at him because I know
that he didn't know that I waswatching it.
Now, the point that I like to makewith this story is that years
later I confessed to him that Itell that story to my He looks at
me recollection of that everhappening.
(05:29):
And I'm like, what are you talkingabout?
I've got this clear picture ofthis happening.
And he says, I making it all up.
And I thought about that more.
And the point that came out to mewas, you know, that's a great
indication of his That he had thisbig crash, he gets up, gets his
frustrations out, kicks in thebike, and And he And I think
that's a great business lesson inthere.
(05:49):
But when we have those crash andburn moments, they're painful in
the moment.
Like from it, and that.
I was wondering, there's a goodmoral.
It's coming in here.
This is great.
No, I think you're absolutelyright.
It's kind of funny that youmentioned about the visualization.
I was literally just having thisconversation last night with my
(06:12):
wife.
And we were talking about memory.
And she's like, do you remember wehad this conversation?
And that's not a baited question,like, oh my god, here it comes.
I'm like, I don't.
And then she goes on, like, youknow, I was thinking about how do
(06:34):
you remember things?
And she's like, I remember thingsmentioned something.
And I visualize having thisconversation.
She goes, I didn't see the pictureof it.
I'm like, I don't do that.
I just kind of recall.
It's like, oh, that's, you know,two plus two is five, right?
And this comes up.
That was my attempt to be funny.
(06:57):
And so I don't like you were justsaying, like, I have this visual
memory.
And I just find that interesting.
You use that phrase because wewere just talking about that and
about how people, you know, aredifferent about how they pull back
memories and how they hold on tothings.
(07:18):
And that's another great lessonthat comes from that story that I
just shared.
Yeah.
Is that I had this clear memory ofit.
He And he's convinced it didn'thappen.
I'm convinced it did.
We do.
We remember things differently.
And we remember things indifferent ways.
This happens with my wife and Iall the time too.
(07:40):
And by the way, you're right.
Do you remember when we talkedabout is like, right there next
to, does this dress like makinglook bad?
You know, in terms of the terriblequestions that you want to hear
from your life partner.
Yeah, look bad?
You know, in terms of the terriblequestions that you want to hear
from your life partner.
(08:01):
Yeah, there's no good answer Butmy wife and I go to someplace and
she'll mention somebody's name andI'll say, now who is that?
Well, she was wearing this andthis and this and this.
I'm like, no, you do what Tell mewhat this person looks like.
How tall is she?
How long is your hair?
What color is her hair?
That's going to give me the bettervisual image.
Right.
But for her, it's always what theywere wearing.
So it's just always one of thosefunny things that we look at
things differently.
Right.
And I think that's important toremember, particularly in
(08:23):
businesses, you're as you'rebuilding a team.
Right.
In fact, if I can throw in alittle baseball story here, oh,
love it.
Yeah.
Makes this point as well.
Warmest up.
Yeah.
When my oldest son was six yearsold, I think it was five or six
years old.
We got him into a tea ball team.
Okay.
Tea ball, of course, is your leadinto baseball.
They hit the ball off the littletea.
(08:45):
There's Warmest up.
And the outfield is basically theedge of the infield because that's
as far as the ball will ever go.
Right.
So you have this cluster of ninekids in all in the infield,
basically, to field the ball.
Well, my team is in the field.
Our team is out came up.
The bases were loaded.
And this little girl named Kayleywas standing next to the pitcher's
(09:06):
man.
And I said, Kayley, Kayley, if theball play, touch home play, and
we'll She nods, she nods.
Okay, okay, okay.
And I knew that this was going tohappen because that's She so
great.
She ran right to home plate,stepped on home plate, looked up
at me so up the ball.
And I couldn't get mad this herfor her.
I just told her to run to homeplate and touch on plate.
(09:29):
I assumed she knew she had to pickup the ball.
in business?
Sure.
We give people instructionsbecause it's clear in our mind
what all those steps are betweenthe vague instructions that we
give.
Right.
And then we get frustrated whenthey didn't follow our
instructions exactly.
We about how they think aboutthings.
(09:50):
How does their memory work like wewere just talking about?
What do they actually have intheir background and experience?
So we're trying to explainsomething to them.
We need to explain it from theirperspective, not ours.
Right.
you just did there.
By the way.
You lead us into this great story.
(10:16):
I'm really like affectionate,right?
I mean, just like, oh, little kidsplaying T-Vall and my little girl.
And she's right.
And then boom.
And then you tie it in with agreat kind of business lesson.
That's perfect.
That's good storytelling rightthere.
So you were like leading byexample on this whole Well, and
that's one of the reasons thatwrote this book is.
(10:38):
I told me one thing you need towrite a book about how you just
turn everyday experiences intoreal life lessons.
And my initial response was, it'snot a book.
That's just what you do.
Right.
And she's not.
People don't know how to do this.
And that was really the genesis ofthe book.
But my contention is, and this iswhat we say in the book is your
(11:03):
everyday experiences.
Have some of the best lessonsembedded in them.
We love stories because we livestories.
Right.
That's what our lives are, just acollection of little stories that
are together.
And the key thing is to thinkabout, so what do I learn from
that Tell people who say to me, Idon't have anything important
enough happening to me to tell astory about it.
(11:26):
I tell them, think of anytime youhave any kind of an emotional
reaction to be frustration.
It could be joy.
It could be anger.
It could be annoyance.
It could be happiness.
Whatever it happens to be, whenyou have an emotional reaction to
something, there's some kind oflesson embedded in that.
those moments because those aregoing to be the stories or the
experiences you can turn intostories that can teach an
(11:47):
important principle or make animportant point.
I that.
That I love how you're just tyingthat in all about the emotional
response.
And I completely agree becausethrough my conversation with my
wife, and by the way, we didn'teven mention that, oh, I got this
storyteller guy coming on here.
We didn't even talk about that.
But through that conversation andthrough this discussion now, it's
just reinforces, I guess, as wellkind of my thought around the idea
(12:10):
that, you know, if you've got a,you know, this visual imagery that
you're creating.
And you're like the example thatyou just gave, which was fabulous,
the T-Ball experience.
You're creating this visualimagery.
I'm sitting here listening to itlike, oh, you have a, because my
daughter played T-Ball my kidsplay, right?
And so I'm like, I remember thatwas great.
(12:33):
You laid it.
I was there with you on meaningthen of the story and then when
you get to it, when you're talkingabout and relating it to practical
kind of business experience andthe lesson there, it actually is
going to stick, I think, with thelistener, with your intended
audience, much better.
And I think they'll be able torecall that purpose in that intent
(12:55):
at a much higher level thanprobably if you just went to the
people and said, listen, this iswhat you have to do.
We are a storytelling species.
Yeah.
This is, this is how we haveevolved as community over time.
You know, you think of somespecies of animals on this planet.
I'll go to a giraffe is born.
(13:18):
First thing that their mom does isget up on your feet and get
moving, dude.
Yeah.
You know, and we as a humanspecies, we don't have that
capacity with our young ones.
We rely on community to survive asa species.
And story is the way that we buildthat community.
I loved how you said you could,you could picture your own
(13:39):
experiences with kids and T-Ballas I was telling that story.
That story was my experience, butit became a vicarious experience
for you.
All of a sudden you were therewith me standing by my side in
that story.
And because it connects to yourlife to it.
And Right, Mandy, you're going toremember it better because of that
(14:00):
connection that it made into yourlife experience.
And that's the power of story thatI think that we don't often
realize in a business setting.
We think, no, as a businessperson, I need to share my facts
and figures and the numbers outhere.
(14:21):
And I need to give features andbenefits of my products or
services.
I don't have time to tell a story,but the story is actually gonna
give you a shortcut to connect tothat people.
Well, why do people buy fromsomebody else?
They buy from people that theyknow trust in life.
Well, let's storytelling going todo.
It's gonna help people know youtrust you and like you more.
And so there's great power instory and in a business Yeah, that
(14:44):
is terrific.
Good stuff.
This is a good point in here,because you're just dropping all
kinds of great bombs here thathigh value.
You so graciously have offered upfor listeners, they can get your
ebook that you put together, themaster storytelling book that I
mentioned in the intro.
They can go to your websitemaster-storytelling.com, forward
slash podcast gift.
(15:06):
I'll have that link case you'rememory is that's it.
I didn't tell a great story aroundit.
Well, I'll have that link inthere, but you're offering a free
ebook, your master storytellingebook to the listeners.
I thank you so much for that.
That is very generous.
I just think because you'retelling great stories and you're
like relating great content there.
I'm like, oh my gosh, people gottago grab this thing.
(15:28):
So go there, I'll have it info inthe show notes.
So be sure to go check that out.
So you were in the corporateworld.
I'm gonna kind of dance throughtime a little bit because I wanna
hear your story about how you cameto be where you are right now.
You were in the corporate worldfor a number of years, I think 20,
(15:50):
and then doing various kinds ofmarketing, public relations, kinds
of things.
And at some point you said, hey,I'm gonna step out.
I'm gonna do my own thing.
I'm gonna do, you went into yourtaught at college, you started
(16:11):
doing some of those facilitatedtraining kinds of events, I'm sure
I'm probably doing, working withcompanies.
This is what you do now.
How did you make that leap?
What was it that you said, youknow, I wanna do something
different or I wanna do what I'mdoing in a different way, still
(16:33):
the same thing, maybe, I don'tknow, when I hear your story.
But how did you come to thatpoint?
How did you know now is the timeto do that?
To see how does this podcast run?
That's a lot, that could be a verylong story, Randy.
And there's a lot of componentsinvolved in that.
So I'll give you this shortversion because I don't want your
audience to check out on this.
(16:56):
But yeah, I spent 20 years incorporate marketing and
communications, public relations,10 years with the bank, 10 years
with some high tech companies,with some software developers.
And from all the way from like a20% company to 12,000 people
companies that I work with in.
I always had a little bit of thisentrepreneurial bent.
I also had a little bit of thisteaching bent embedded in me.
(17:19):
In the intro, you mentioned my momwas a school teacher.
And I always had a little bit ofthat teacher in me, I think
genetically, both my sisters orschool teachers, my brother who
wrecked on the bike, he's acomputer engineer, but now he does
math tutoring on the side as well.
Oh nice.
I have nieces and nephews, I havetwo children who are school
teachers, so kind of all aroundme.
(17:42):
So I always had that desire.
The way that I transitioned intowhat I'm doing now is I'm here to
a neighbor.
I didn't know I'm super well atthe time, but he came to me, he's
had some content that he wanted tobring into the company that I was
currently with.
And so I helped him get the rightconnections and I set into his, in
(18:04):
his first pilot class that he didwith our company.
And as I stepped there and Iwatched him, I said, this is such
great stuff and I would love to beable to give this to people too.
I would love to be able to do whatcould be a very long story, Randy.
And so that was kind of theopening of the door for me to say,
(18:26):
this is a different path that Icould go on.
And to make this longer storyabout a two year period transpired
there where I kept bugging themthat I wanted to get into what he
was doing and the transition cameabout.
And here I am, transition fromteaching other people's content,
which I still do some to creatingmy own content and teaching that
(18:47):
with master storytelling.
But I realized that through thecourse of that, through by
marketing communications career.
And teaching is an adjunct at acourse What did I do to stand out?
What did I do to try to get mypoint across?
It was telling If you think aboutthe teachers that you had,
particularly in subjects that likehistory, I used to hate history,
because I had history teachers whowould teach me in terms of here
are the dates and the names andthe facts and the figures you need
(19:10):
to memorize.
That was boring and repetitive tome and not fun.
But when I had somebody startintroducing to me, here is the
story of why this piece of historycame about.
I would have affected thosepeople.
It had the same impact as metelling the story about T-Ball to
you.
I could put myself into theirlives and go, yeah, I would have a
struggle with that too.
And all of a sudden history becamea And so that's how I developed
(19:31):
into this teacher and advocate forintentional storytelling.
Not storytelling just to share anexperience or just to entertain,
but storytelling with that purposeto teach, lead, sell, and inspire.
So I'm thinking then as well andwhat you do.
You work with companies as well orsmall businesses or whoever
individuals even and help themrelate storytelling to their
(19:51):
business, maybe managing theiremployees.
I'm thinking as well and maybe youdo this, I don't know.
Help people craft their story soas they're going out.
So when you were talking about theindividual that came to your
company that you were working withat that point and you
participating in his class, Iwould, in my mind, I was thinking,
(20:15):
oh, and he was going to say, Icould help him repackage and be
much more effective by, you know,I could teach him this skill.
That's what I thought But I'mwondering is that what you do some
of that as well?
I'm curious on how you're workingwith companies because so
(20:35):
intrigued.
And I'm a big fan of thestorytelling.
I think it is incrediblymeaningful and impactful and
sticks with people.
So a dig that you're doing, man.
And it's stickiness really is thepower in story.
And we've talked about that abouthow much that sticks in your
resume, a little brainworm thatjust holds on to you.
And the people we work with,there's several different
audiences that we work with.
(20:58):
One of them we work with a lot issales.
Because sales people are alwaystrying to make connections with
their customers.
And so I'm not talking about theperson that loads the vending
machine.
I guess essentially they're insales.
But anytime you have to talk topeople, it's those kind of sales
(21:20):
professionals that we're workingwith.
And to get them beyond, here arethe facts and figures, the
pricing, the features, thebenefits of our product.
You should But if you can insteadsay, here's the product.
Here's what it's about.
But let me tell you how it canhelp you.
I worked with my customer Randy.
(21:41):
And he used our product because hewas running into this problem.
And by getting our product orimplementing our service into his
business, he was able to achievethis result.
That's what I want to be able tohelp you with.
Because as I'm telling that story,my customer sitting there
listening and going, yeah, I'mkind of And so I could get the
same benefits that Randy'sgetting.
(22:01):
So if we can tell that in the formof a story, it's going to be much
more impactful and memorable forAnd let them make the case to get
the budget for it.
It's interesting.
Heard this recently, people buy ona motion and they justify on And
so if you can get people into thestory, they'll get that emotional
(22:23):
connection that they want to buyon.
And then they'll make thejustification with the facts and
figures that you give them to Butthat's one of the key audiences we
work with.
Another one is leaders andparticularly emerging leaders.
Somebody's first put into aleadership position and they're
taught how to run their budget andhow to do their annual performance
reviews and things like that.
But they don't know how to lead aninspire a team and stories are the
(22:46):
way to lead an inspire a team.
The lesson I shared with you fromthe T-Ball experience that I had,
that's a great lesson for andthinking in terms of what do my
people actually know, not what doI know and they should know that
too.
And so those kinds of stories canteach lead an inspire your team as
(23:07):
a I love it.
Take it is completely fascinating.
And completely agree on theemotional aspect about the lever,
so to speak, what people buy anemotion.
and then justify it with thelogic.
I've had this conversation with afew other guests and kind of
similar vein, but we talk about acell the dream because it is
emotional.
Don't get stuck into the weedsabout, this is what we're gonna
(23:28):
do, we're gonna do this, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but
like you want this, is what wewill do.
Because if we do this, this willbe your life, right?
That we're selling, selling, we'regonna kind of make that Then once
you have that, then you're, Ithink you're, then it's your sale
to lose at that point, is what Ikind of believe.
(23:54):
But of one of the most commonsales transactions there are for a
lot of, at least here in NorthAmerica, buying a car.
Yeah.
And when you go, when you go tobuy a car, hate No, we all do, but
this is why.
Because sales people that autodealers haven't learned No, They
need?
How big a car do you need?
What kind of car do you want?
(24:15):
They go to that instead of what isthis car gonna do for Do you want
a car that's gonna just get apoint A and point B?
Well, let's get you somethingreally economical, you might gonna
save money on.
But what are your desires?
Because that might be, I want acar that I can feel super
comfortable in, that helps me feelconfident, hey, now you're selling
(24:37):
the dream.
You're selling the emotionalaspect of that car.
To a lot of people don't buy carsjust for the functionality.
They buy it for the image, for theprestige, for wanting to, and even
needing to drive in a longcommute.
(25:04):
And so if you can get to thatneed, that sales gonna be a lot
easier.
And you're gonna stand out fromother people who are doing the
same thing, because they're backthere doing features and benefits
and So fascinating.
I'm fascinated by this, and I knowyou've touched on the emotional,
the logic, but I think in thenotes that I have in front, you
also kind of roll through someaspects, kind of around the
scientific data that supportsstorytelling and why it's
important.
(25:25):
We have some time here before weget into the 17th inning stretch.
I'd love to hear it, bring this tolife, right?
The science and data behindstorytelling.
we've talked a little bit abouthow storytelling connects us as
people, and how it draws us in.
And that is now veryscience-based.
I mean, we can feel it.
We sense it intuitively.
(25:47):
It's a great researcher, Dr. PaulZach, at Claremont Graduate
University, and he has doneresearch around the chemical
changes that happened within uswas we're And there's three
chemical reactions or brainreactions that go on, as you hear
a well told story.
Now, I'm going to go back to thatT-Ball story that I told to
(26:08):
connect this with you.
Is that the first one is we get anincrease of oxytocin.
Oxytocin is a trust hormone.
It makes me feel like I can trustyou.
It makes me feel like I can relateto you.
And you got an increase ofoxytocin as I was telling that
story about T-Ball because youcould relate to it.
That's where you can stand therebeside me and you're seeing the
T-Ball game from your perspectiveand your life's experience.
(26:31):
All of a sudden, we're the sameperson.
We're not the same personnecessarily, but we can relate to
each other.
That builds The second thing thathappens is there's an increase in
cortisol as you get some conflictin the story or some surprise that
comes out of that story.
When I related to you, she ran tohome plate.
She's touched home plate.
She stopped on home plate.
(26:51):
And you were building up there andthen I said, and she never picked
up the ball.
Also, and you go, oh my gosh.
How did they, yeah.
And it's bringing that littlespark of cortisol that's now gonna
heighten your attention becauseyou want to know, how did I as a
coach react to Did I yell at thisAnd then you get the third thing,
(27:18):
which is an increase in dopamine.
When you come to that satisfactoryresolution of my realization that
I didn't tell her what to do,that's on me.
That's not on her.
And you of satisfaction from thelesson that comes from that.
Right.
And so you see how it happenednow, but you didn't know that, oh,
I can feel this different chemicalchange going on in my brain.
(27:43):
It just happens very naturally,but it's a very, very research
base now that storytelling has apowerful impact on us because of
those reactions that happenedwithin our It makes sense because
as you were going through all ofthose phases, I'm thinking, yes,
exactly.
I felt Not just emotionally, butcertainly motions are chemical,
they're electrical, they're, yeah,I don't know, certainly, yes, it
makes sense.
(28:05):
All why- There's why- There's abunch of other researches, not
quite as deeply geeky on thechemicals that go on in us, but
just about how stories help us toremember things better.
Sure.
There was a great research studywhere they put students in three
groups, college students in threegroups.
One of them, they just got theinformation.
So it was just, here's aninformation dump that we want you
to remember.
(28:25):
The second group got charts andgraphs along with the information.
And the third group was given theinformation in the form of a
story.
then they came back a couple ofweeks later and they checked to
see how much and how well theyremembered.
That was the thing they werereally that those first two groups
remembered roughly the same withroughly the amount of accuracy,
(28:46):
which surprised me.
I thought that the charts andgraphs group would have it have a
boost, but they were about thesame.
storytelling group remember moreinformation and remember it more
accurately, they actually foundthe information more credible than
the first two groups.
more another great businessimplication of the power of story.
People are going to remember youmore.
They're going to remember it moreaccurately, but they're also going
to trust you more when they getthings in the form of a story.
(29:11):
I make sense.
Everything just like, I don'tknow.
You're connecting with me on theemotional.
I like, oh, yes, I get it.
And you know, I always, whenyou're talking about that with the
storytelling piece as well, Ithink the more that you tell a
story.
So it related the story about yourbrother and the snow on the bike
(29:34):
and you know, I could visualize,you know, the trombone flying all
over the story over again, yourepeat it to other people, then it
becomes like this legacy.
And I think for you probably,probably, I don't know if your
brother ever did, like, oh, yeah,I know I got it.
(29:59):
But it probably just galvanizeseven more important.
why I kind of think it'simportant.
My wife and I tell stories to ourkids about when they were young,
oh, when we did this, you know,because we're trying to engage,
you know, some of those, whetherit's traditions that we do as a
family or things that we've doneor things that they've done in
(30:20):
their life, we want them to beable to remember I would include
in that the values that we have asa family.
Yeah.
I actually did a presentation justthis week with a new organization
that's that's focusing aroundintentionally building values
within your family.
let society dictate for yourfamily what your values are.
You dictate for your family whatthey are and talked about what are
(30:40):
the stories that we could tellwithin our families based on our
own experiences, our own sharedexperiences, the family that show
these are values to us becausethat's going to stick with
children as they grow older.
And even as they start out ventureout on their own, they're going to
remember those stories andexperiences that taught them.
These are the values that we havekind of harkened back to what you
(31:03):
said really at the beginning ofthe show where you said we are a
storytelling species.
And that is fact right therebecause you think from the very
early caveman ages, right?
They're like telling stories onthe cave walls with their high
regular effects.
I mean, traditions passed orallyfrom generation to generation.
(31:25):
Yes, we are a storytellingspecies.
So fascinating.
I love it.
All right.
Well, we're going to get back.
I want to hear more about you asthe businessman and the business
of storytelling.
But Mark, I know I asked you earlybefore we hit the record button.
If you like baseball of do.
So where it is that time.
(31:45):
It's time the seventh inningstretch.
Seventh inning stretch, You can'tsee us, but I just did a stretch
so that I, you know, I'm gettingready for I, you know, seventh
inning stretch here.
It's so fun.
All right.
So I do know though, as youshared, well, you had a history
with baseball and then during thestrike kind of periods of baseball
(32:06):
history, which I am sure you'renot the only you can't get
dissolution and left baseball fora while.
Hopefully you're coming back.
But so baseball and I and I stillfollow it.
I just don't watch it as don'twatch it as much as I used to.
All right.
Well, that makes sense.
do know you and as you shared, youhave the salt lake bees.
(32:28):
You're like, are they triple A, Awinner?
Yes, yes, the triple A Yeah, ofthe angels angels.
The Los Angeles A affiliate ofthe.
angels.
All right, so here's the setup foryou.
We're gonna talk about becauseyou're in storytelling, the
business of storytelling.
So we're gonna talk about baseballbroadcasting, which is kind of the
storytelling of baseball, right?
See how I wove that in?
(32:50):
Yep, and that then you're right ontoo.
It wasn't me, but it was my Sovery So as you may know, listen
and watch on TV or listen to radiothough.
Some baseball franchises have aregular color commentator while
others teams may bring in guestsand do some play-by-play and
color.
But you know, there's typicallylike this season team of a couple
of men or women coming togetherand they're like the ones.
(33:11):
I'm a huge Cubs fan and I thinkthe Cubs have the best broadcast
team, Pat Hughes, Ron Coomer.
I mean, I can listen to theseguys.
Sometimes even when I alwayssubscribe to MLB.com so I can
stream games anytime, anywhere.
But sometimes I just preferlistening to it on radio because
they tell a great story.
(33:35):
It's visual, right?
I'm like, I am there.
It's my happy place is to be atRiggly and just hanging out,
watching the game.
And so I hear these guys tell thestory.
Cleveland, couple of another greatbroadcast or Tom Hamilton, this
guy's great.
So the storytelling in baseball,I'm gonna ask you.
(33:57):
So you usually have theplay-by-play guy.
He's like, okay, he's at the, youknow, he's winding up, right?
So the guy is doing, but then youhave the real storyteller which is
the color commentator, right?
He's the guy who gives thebackground, the fluff, the meat of
like, well, let me tell you thisstory about, you know, when I was
(34:19):
at, when I was a player, a lot oftimes these guys were players.
When I was a player, I was on thebus, and so you get it.
So here's your question, Mr. Whendid the color commentator join the
broadcasting booth?
And I'll give you double points ifyou can tell me who was the first
(34:42):
one, but just in general, maybeyou can say, when do you think the
color commentator first joined thebroadcasting booth for baseball?
So this is very baseball specific.
I don't know in some of the otherI'm thinking it's gotta be really
early on, but I may be off on thatbefore I, so before I give my
answer, I'm gonna say this, thatboth the play by play broadcaster
and the color commentator arestorytellers.
(35:04):
Oh, sure, yeah, yeah.
Because that play by play person,you mentioned your happy places
there at Wrigley Field.
Well, that play by play person canpaint that picture of Wrigley
Field that day.
You feel like you're there withtheir word pictures of what's
(35:24):
going on in the game.
So they're both greatstorytellers.
So I have absolutely no idea whatthe answer to your question is.
And so I'm just gonna take a wildguess.
I'm gonna go question is.
You know, really quite close.
(35:47):
I mean, it was a very good logicalguess.
So let me give you a littlethought.
And I'll tell you why I went with1932.
thought.
And I'll tell you why I went with1932. 1932 was the year my mother
(36:07):
was born.
So I'm just taking a guess basedon her on her birthday.
All right.
You're within 10 years.
I'll say that.
All right.
So let me give you a littlehistory here.
So in 1921, first baseball gameever was broadcast on the radio.
That was the Pittsburgh Piratesagainst the Philadelphia Phillies,
August of 1921.
(36:28):
That same year, well, season, wasalso the first world series on the
radio, New York Giants and the NewYork Yankees.
I always, every time I see the NewYork Giants, my father-in-law was
a big New York Giants fan.
And he's never forgiven baseballto allow them to move out of New
York.
(36:49):
But aside from that, now the funnything about that when they first
started broadcasting baseball in1921, broadcasters were not
actually present at the game.
They simply gave the reports fromthe telegraph wire.
And I'm from the camera.
The kicker.
Yes.
So that's And then in 22, thebroadcasts the entire World
Series.
they were broadcasting.
(37:09):
But Deering, here's your answer.
1923 World Series, they had a mainbroadcast, or the play by play
guy, I guess.
But during the fourth inning ofGame 3 of the 1923 World Series,
the announcer turned the mic overto another person in a broadcast
booth and became the first colorAnd I'm from the camera.
(37:31):
The kicker.
How about about that?
Awesome.
And listening to that, I'mthinking, they evolved pretty fast
on that then.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's only a couple ofyears after they started the radio
broadcast.
Right.
I was gonna try to cheat with thatquestion.
I asked you when was the firstradio broadcast, and then I was
gonna try to calculate it fromthere.
(37:54):
I still wouldn't get quite thatthat close.
Yeah, and the first guy, so that23 World Series, Game 3, Graham
McNamey?
Yeah, I never would have gottenthat one.
I'm not familiar with him, butthat's really kind of popularized
it.
But here's the thing.
So that was in 23, but it wasn'tuntil, so just like in everything,
(38:16):
you can imagine the conversationamongst baseball owners and teams
like, well, if we do it on theradio, if we broadcast it for
free, people aren't gonna come tothe games, right?
I mean, some more probably, somemore conversations that have
occurred now about streaming thestuff over live on the internet.
But all of this kind ofconversation, but it wasn't until
(38:37):
1938 that all teams beganbroadcasting baseball games live
on the radio.
So that was almost 15 years ormore before everybody did.
So it was like some teams begandoing it, slow Yeah, I never would
have gotten Some of the teams orcities that had multiple teams
like Philadelphia and New York,Chicago, those cities rolled it
out a little bit faster, but yeah,it still took a little of time.
(38:58):
And so I'll connect this back intoour storytelling topic.
I'll be talking about here today.
Think about the owners of some ofthose teams that were slower to
get your point.
They probably had their marketingpeople coming to them, saying
(39:19):
telling this story of the future,saying if we put all these on the
radio, nobody will ever come tothe game because they'll sit at
home and listen And they didn'trealize the one of the great
values of seeing a baseball gameis being there.
I mean, for me, those are the bad,I can watch a baseball game
(39:42):
sitting in the stadium.
Oh, I like it.
I'd much rather watch a gamesitting in the stadium than it
would on TV.
Yeah, And so there's great powerin that story there, the stadium.
Right, Yeah, I think, and probablyat some point, Major League
(40:05):
Baseball, still one of the, youknow, very controlling leagues.
And in my notes, I can't whereverit is in the paper here, but it
was somewhere in that early 1930s,like 31 or 32 or something like
that, they signed a contract witha sponsor for like $400,000 to be
(40:27):
the sponsor for a World Seriesbroadcast.
And then, and I think it was in 38that Gillette signed a 10 year,
$14 million deal to be the WorldSeries in all-star game sponsors
for the next 10 years.
So I think at that point, peoplefinally began to like, wow,
there's money to be made here.
That's a huge amount of money inthat time.
Yeah, can you imagine that?
Yes.
Crazy.
So anyway, that's allstorytelling.
Yes, I love it.
Yep.
All right, well, let's get backinto it.
(40:48):
that Play ball.
I just a little phase.
I love that one.
All out on your own.
You're doing this console.
What kind of challenges?
How long have you been doing thison your own now?
Consulting, doing thisstorytelling consulting.
What do you call yourself, asidefrom master story tell?
Are you that like the CEO, theCMS, you know, of the chief master
(41:10):
storytelling?
see that, now you're gettingclose.
The title I put on my businesscard is Chief Storyteller.
Oh, see.
And so that's where I've landed interms of a title.
But I've been doing this forworking with this storytelling
content since we launched the bookabout four years ago.
OK. And so continuing to build andthen doing some other consulting
(41:31):
at the same So I can only imaginebecause so many of our listeners
are entrepreneurs.
And they're either folks that arekind of thinking like, ah, I want
to take that jump.
I want to do that leap in theothers who just have even.
(41:52):
And I'm always Like, you know,what was it with our guests that
was that deciding factor if youcan it at all think back or pin it
down like, yes, I'm just going todo this.
Yeah.
There was that moment where it wasa, okay, I'm just going to do
this.
And it was, it was a moment ofclarity when I went, I can make
(42:13):
this work.
It may not be, I may not get rich,but I can make this work.
keeping that in mind.
And having the belief that, yeah,what I have is, is providing value
to people.
big focus that I went in with ishow can I provide value to other
people?
It wasn't so much, how can I getmoney from people?
It was, how can I provide value topeople?
(42:35):
Because if I'm providing value,the revenue will start coming.
of clarity for me was that I hadenough value that I could provide
for people.
That it would allow the revenue tocome in eventually and that it
would build from there.
What do you do from a marketingstandpoint?
I'm kind of curious.
(42:57):
Are you clearly, you do podcasts,so you put yourself out there to
tell stories.
Do you have other kind of content?
You put the book out, but whatother kinds of things are you
doing?
Yeah, and the book was really thefoundation of it.
And in terms of our marketingefforts of getting that message
(43:19):
out there to lead people to theworkshop.
You know how this goes?
You read a book and you think,yeah, this is great.
But then you can't do what they'retelling you in the book.
It helps so much to get somehands-on activity and coaching.
And like many entrepreneurs, Ithink it starts with the people
(43:42):
that I know.
And so it started with the peopleI know and the people, the people
who I know, the people that theyknow and reaching out from there.
And then you start building a listand I communicate regularly with
my email list and with myfollowers on LinkedIn.
(44:02):
love to have your audience join meon LinkedIn.
I put stories out there aboutevery week to teach some kind of
lesson and to show that we havethese happening all the time in
our lives.
And then it's just beingconsistent and letting people know
(44:22):
that it's available.
I've got some other marketingthings in the work where I'm
building through social media.
But it's really just a stepwiseprocess.
And it's how much time and effortyou want to put into doing that.
I recognize I said this tosomebody just yesterday.
I am the greatest asset and thegreatest liability to my company.
I'm the one who's kind of doingeverything.
(44:43):
And so how much I'm willing to putinto that determines whether I'm
an asset or liability.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
I understand that.
It's interesting that youmentioned about social media and
LinkedIn and such because thatactually was kind of on my mind to
ask you about social media and itspart or play in storytelling.
Because depending upon theplatform that you decide to tell
(45:03):
your story or as a vehicle, youmay use video, you may be on
YouTube or Instagram, Rails orTikTok.
You've got Twitter, which is alimited number of characters to
tell your story and kind of daisychain segments of a story.
You mentioned LinkedIn, so you'vegot bigger platform.
But I'm curious.
Do you find that it was socialmedia?
(45:24):
Is it helpful?
Is it a strong aid help you getthe message further across?
Or does it do you think that itdilutes?
And as well, is there a differencebetween kind of telling your story
orally versus written content?
Okay, so I got like threequestions.
I know.
I really like Larry.
And I can try to remember to getto a while.
(45:47):
So if I don't call me back onthat.
But from broad standpoint, I thinksocial media is a storytelling
platform.
People tell their stories onsocial media.
And so I think it encourages morestorytelling.
Now, the downside of that is itlimits, it encourages a limited
kind of story.
(46:07):
Because everybody thinks I have toput my very best face out there on
social media.
But that is, I have to make myselflook good and maybe look better
than I actually am.
And I think that leads people tobelieve I can only tell these
glowing, powerful, super successstories.
I know.
I really like Larry.
And I can try to that's not thetruth.
reality is some of the mostpowerful stories we tell are the
(46:29):
stories of our stumbles and ourmistakes that we've made and what
we've learned from them.
We'll even go back to the lessonlearned from the T-Ball story that
we talked about early on.
That's it.
That was a mistake that I made.
It wasn't a huge catastrophicmistake.
But it's a good lesson learnedtype of story.
so I think social media thosekinds of stories sometimes, which
is a mistake for businesses andbusiness leaders.
We need to be able to tell thosestories.
(46:49):
Okay.
Now, if there was a third questionin there and can't remember what
it was, orally or through writtencontent, what do you think is more
I think the answer is yes.
They're all impactful.
The key is not the medium you'reusing.
The key is that you're structuringyour story well enough that it
addresses your audience.
That taps into your audience.
So you've seen this.
You've seen YouTube videos.
(47:10):
You've seen posts on LinkedIn.
You've seen Facebook posts orTikTok videos or whatever that are
great and that are terrible.
And so it's not the medium.
It's how you're using the skill ofstorytelling to deliver on that
medium.
My daughter who I referencedearlier, I was having a
conversation with her and she wastalking about a conversation they
had on Zoom with some remotefamily members in her husband's
(47:30):
family And she turned to herhusband and said, hey, share that
experience about this.
That really relates to what we'retalking about here.
And he started sharing hisexperience and she's sitting there
with him on zoom and below thecamera angle, she's doing one of
these looping of her fingers kindof motions.
Like get to the point, get to thepoint, get to the point.
(47:58):
And she said to me, Dad, this iswhat you've done to me because
I've read your book.
I realized he wasn't telling thestory the right way.
He was taking too long to get tothe point.
And we do that on social media.
(48:19):
Unless you're intentional, I usethis word a lot about
intentionally telling your story.
Unless you're intentional abouthow you've crafted that, it
doesn't matter what medium youuse, it's not going to work well.
And so it's that intentionality ofknowing how to tap into that brain
chemistry that we talked about.
How to tell that story in a waythat it does effectively make the
(48:42):
point that you're trying to make.
That's going to be more importantthan the meeting you choose to it
on.
It really kind of gets, and I'mgoing to ask you this question,
but it probably actually probablyjust answered to a degree anyway.
And I'll set this up and there'sanything that you wanted to add to
it.
You're talking about intentionallytelling your story.
(49:04):
I was going to ask you thequestion as well.
So any social media platform thatyou would like to use, mention
LinkedIn, choose whichever one youlike, are there some practical
tips that you would give abusiness owner on how to use that
platform social media to help telltheir Yeah, I would start with,
and thanks for calling back thatword intentional because that's
(49:28):
where I will start with thatanswer is what is your intention
in Sometimes we say, okay, I'vehad this experience.
I'm going to just share it out Andwe as the audience will read or
listen to that experience ago.
So what But if you start with,this is the message or this is the
point that I want to make withthis story.
That's going to help you at theoutset to filter out the less
(49:50):
necessary components of thatexperience to get to the point
that you're With a lot of theplatforms, they do limit how much
you can put out there.
Twitter is the classic example ofthat.
You can, within the camera, thecharacter count is 127 or
something like that.
Whatever that character count is.
If you're really Whatever thatcharacter count it, you can get
(50:10):
your story into that limitedamount.
But if you're not clear on whatyour intent is in the to wander
around a little bit with thatstory, like my son-in-law, who
went to my daughter was trying topull me back.
He was wandering through his storybecause he wasn't clear on his
intent when he started the socialmedia, it's a good point that you
(50:34):
get across there because oftenwhen we're either talking with
clients or I'm just talking withbusiness owners, they're asking
me, I'm very involved in theChamber among the board of our
local Chamber of Commerce.
But people are always like, hey,what do you think about social
(50:55):
media?
And I try to tell you, you have totell a story, you have to tell
your story, tell your brand story,provide value, provide
information, tell the story.
Don't get hung up about, I got to,here's my deal, here's my, you got
to buy for me.
This is like, no, no, no, no,that's the wrong approach.
And telling the story.
That's why I'm like, yeah, what'sthe best, some great advice and
(51:15):
the intentional storytelling Ithink is purposeful.
How about this?
Let me stretch this even further.
It's just an everyday life, noteven a business owner.
How can people incorporate storyto the story?
telling in their everydayinteractions.
Because you talk about, hey, weare a storytelling species,
telling the stories helps buildthe community.
And so it really shouldn't belimited whether you're a business
owner, whether you're acorporation or whatever, from that
standpoint, really it should justbe in the interactions that I'm
(51:37):
gonna have with my kids, or I'mgoing out to dinner with some
friends tomorrow night.
And so how can I, what would besome practical, important
storytelling tips that I can likebegin to embrace in my daily You
know, when I first got into, whenwe'd written a book and we got
into teaching, storytelling andthings like that, I kind of got
caught up into every story I tellhas to fit within the framework
(51:58):
that I'm talking about here.
It has to be this intentionality.
And so I backed off of that,because sometimes, when I'm
sharing experience, I'm justsharing it to share an experience,
or I'm just sharing it toentertain and to have So just note
the times when you need to be moreintentional about it, but just in
(52:19):
your day to day life, one of thegreat examples I can think of is,
let's say that we're at a chamberevent.
You mentioned the Chamber ofCommerce.
So I go to a Chamber of Commerceevent, somebody that I don't know
comes up to me, we start to talkand they say, what do you Well,
(52:41):
how do we answer that story?
Or how to answer that question?
We typically answer it with, well,I do this and this and this and
this and this and this.
And we talk about kind of what wedo on a day to day basis.
What if you just turned that intoa super simple quick story you
(53:02):
could tell?
And you could I serve people whothem this.
And that in essence is a supershort form But that tells people
more of what they want to knowthan what you do on a day to And
it's going to engage them more.
When I've done this, the responsethat I get from people is, oh,
tell me more about When I don't dothat, people go, oh, and then
(53:24):
they're like ready to move on tosomebody else.
And so if you want to make thoseconnections with people,
remembering that people buy fromthose that they know, like, and
trust, start with that, formulatethat little story that can be like
two or three sentences thatexplains who you serve, how you
serve them, and then stop and letthe other person ask the questions
(53:47):
that they want to ask, because nowthey're going to be intrigued.
The brain chemistry is kicked inand they want to know more.
And that's going to just try toregular day to day kind of basis
help you make those connectionsthat you want like ready to move
on to somebody make.
That's good.
All right, Mark, here we are downto the bottom of the ninth.
(54:10):
And this is where I ask all of ourguests, what advice do you have
for rookies in the game?
Meaning those just starting out inbusiness or maybe those who
already have their business ormaybe looking for some guidance.
I mean, you've got someexperience, right?
You've been in the corporateworld, you've jumped, you're doing
your own thing right now, lovely.
(54:32):
What kind of advice do you So I'mgoing to give one broad practical
advice and then I'll give a couplethat are related directly to
storytelling.
The first broad practical advice,I love this phrase that I picked
up from somewhere else.
You can do anything that you can'tdo Meaning you can do anything
(54:52):
that you want in this moment, butyou can't do everything in this
moment.
So choose, be deliberate andconscious about, okay, what am I
going to spend my time on rightnow?
Because it's really easy,particularly as you're starting
out in business to say, oh, I'vegot to do this and this and this
(55:12):
and this and this and this and youget so distracted about all the
things that you need to do or wantto do that you're not doing in the
moment.
So be clear on those things thatyou're going to do, but choose the
one that you're going to do in themoment so that you're using your
(55:33):
time more The other things that Iwould say tied to storytelling is
look for your stories, look forthose experiences that you can
turn into stories that teach leadand inspire, look for those
emotional interactions or thoseemotional responses that you have
to something and start capturingthose and thinking, what's that
story?
And then practice your storieswith the intent that you have
whether that intent is I wantpeople just to get to know my
(55:55):
business, my product, my service,whether it's I want people to be
able to know how this benefitsthem or whether it's I just need
them to get some background aroundwhat I do.
that story down, refine it.
And the first few times you tellit, it's not going to go well.
It's going to be a stumble.
It's going to feel like thatdidn't work.
So refine it, think about it.
(56:15):
It's like any other skill.
You're not going to be perfect atit the first time you do it.
I very often do this with podcasthost.
I'll go to you and say, Randy, thefirst podcast you did, how well
did you feel you did as a podcasthost?
Oh, it's horrible.
I felt so bad.
It was one of my clients.
I It was one of my clients.
I talked to you, says that.
It was one of my clients.
(56:38):
I felt so bad.
I'm like, oh my gosh, we shouldYeah.
And you know, we get in thosemoments.
And sometimes when people startoff with the skill of
storytelling, and they go, oh,that was so bad.
I'll never do that again.
(56:58):
Well, that's from wrong with thatstory or why it didn't land well,
and refine it from there and keepgoing.
And then after a while, it becomesmore smooth and more comfortable
for you.
So don't give up on storytellingas a key business skill,
particularly as you're startingout with your Just good, good
advice.
Thank you so much, Mark.
(57:20):
Now, I'm going to refer peopleagain.
I think if you're as intrigued asI am in the storytelling process,
you'll want to go pick this thingup, Mark.
Again, being so gracious to give afree copy of his ebook, the master
storytelling.
You can go to his websitemaster-storytelling.com slash
forward slash podcast gift.
And you can go grab it there.
I'll have the link in the shownotes.
(57:42):
You can go check that out.
And Mark, I just, I loved it.
I loved having the conversation.
I loved hearing your stories.
Good stuff.
I love the visual that I wasgetting coming from it, all
everything.
It was just terrific having you onthe show.
you, Randy.
It's been a pleasure talking toyou.
Thanks for putting your show outthere and providing benefit to
(58:03):
your audience.
I appreciate that All right.
OK, folks, that's the ball game.
So thanks for joining us today.
And if you like to show, pleasetell your friends, subscribe, and
review.
And we'll see you around theballpark.
Running the bases with smallbusinesses is brought to you by 38
digital market, a digitalmarketing agency committed to
(58:23):
client growth with leadgeneration, higher conversions,
and increased sales.
Connect
I'm fascinated with entrepreneursand small business owners.
Plus, I love baseball.
Every show I sit down with a smallbusiness owner and we discuss
their running the bases ofentrepreneurship.
We throw the ball around onstrategy, management, execution
and innovation.
(00:22):
Plus, a little fun baseball tug.
Hey, thanks for joining us today.
Settelaine, grab your crackerjacks and you know what they Okay,
it's a great day for a ball game.
Hey, this is Randy Rodi withrunning the bases with small
businesses.
Glad to have you on.
Hey, today's guest is a serialstoryteller.
(00:43):
I don't think we've had anybodyquite like this before.
Growing up, he loved humor,telling stories and exaggerating
his real life experiences as amiddle child trying to stand out.
He grew up in a home surrounded bybooks from his English teacher
mom, which only increased his loveof stories and he leveraged his
(01:05):
abilities into a marketingcommunications and public
relations career, then later as acollege professor and corporate
facilitator.
Now he teaches people how to moreintentionally tell stories that
teach, lead, sell and inspire toaccomplish business and personal
(01:25):
goals.
He is the co-author of the bestselling book, Master Storytelling,
how to turn your experiences intostories that teach, lead and
inspire and he's the co-creator ofthe Master Storytelling workshop.
Leveraging a 20 year career incorporate communication and a
subsequent 15 years of corporatefacilitating training, he has a
(01:48):
lively engaging style and packs itwith purposeful, impactful
learning.
That's mouthful of peas rightthere.
When he's not training, speaking,coaching or creating new content
is likely hiking or snowshoeing inthe mountains, playing the piano,
bragging about his grandchildrenor another version of
(02:11):
Storytelling, writing children'sbooks.
Please welcome to the show fromthe great state of Utah, Mark
Carpenter.
Mark, welcome.
Thank Randy.
Boy, that's a long intro to get towho I am.
That's a pretty completebackground I am.
That's too.
I'm telling my staff, they do agreat job of cooking this stuff
(02:34):
up.
I'm like Utah again.
If I had to, aside from, so we'rebased in Ohio and we have a lot of
local businesses and entrepreneursfrom Ohio on the show, but if we
probably went through, I wouldswear Utah is probably solidly
second.
We've had more guests from Utahthan I bet I could rattle off
eight of them that I know aboutthe top of my head.
(02:56):
It's There's quite a bit ofentrepreneurship in this area.
I think it stems from some of thetech layovers or crossovers that
we get from Silicon Valley andassociated companies with those
and then people get their ownideas and want to go out on their
own.
There's quite a bit of here.
(03:16):
You're right.
I'm telling you, we've had somefascinating terrific guests.
I hope anime may be expecting thatyou'll love up to the legacy here
of Utah.
Now the pressure's on, right?
So listen, I'm really intrigued bythis whole thing of storytelling
and I'm going to hit you up first.
I'm going to put you on the spot.
Can you give us a story of yourexaggerated real life experience
(03:41):
growing up as a middle shot?
Red that.
I'm like, what, Sir, let's hearthat.
That sounds kind of Now thepressure's on, you, some of the
stories that I used to tell to mykids, I was just having a
conversation with my daughterwho's 29 years old now about
stories that we used to tellaround the campfire and when we
were out hiking and just in familysituations.
(04:04):
And the stories she alwaysremembers are the stories that I
would tell about my brother who'sa year older than me.
And my brother claims that Iexaggerate them more.
In fact, I was telling one ofthose stories.
My brother says, no, I thinkyou're exaggerating that.
My mom happened to be in the roomtoo.
And she said, you kind of livedyour life in exaggeration.
So I don't know if it is thatsometimes about my brother and I
(04:26):
remember on a snowy day, theyactually canceled school because
it snowed so much.
I was in junior high.
My brother was a year old, he wasin high school.
And I was sitting in our livingroom and I was watching the snow
fall.
My brother didn't know that it wasgoing to snow that day.
So he'd ridden his And he playedthe trombone in the marching band.
And he's, so he's got his trombonestrapped as a bungee cord in the
(04:47):
back of his bike.
And he's coming down the hill,becomes to our house.
And then I'm watching him and he'sfrantically pumping the brakes
with his hands, trying to get thatbike loaded down, but he's got no
friction because of the snowthat's on the ground.
And I'm just watching him come flyit into our front yard.
He goes one way, the bike goesanother way, the trombone goes a
third direction.
He gets up, all covered with snow,stands up, kicks the bike three
(05:09):
times.
And the average guy that doeseverything up and comes in.
And I'm sitting there justlaughing at him because I know
that he didn't know that I waswatching it.
Now, the point that I like to makewith this story is that years
later I confessed to him that Itell that story to my He looks at
me recollection of that everhappening.
(05:29):
And I'm like, what are you talkingabout?
I've got this clear picture ofthis happening.
And he says, I making it all up.
And I thought about that more.
And the point that came out to mewas, you know, that's a great
indication of his That he had thisbig crash, he gets up, gets his
frustrations out, kicks in thebike, and And he And I think
that's a great business lesson inthere.
(05:49):
But when we have those crash andburn moments, they're painful in
the moment.
Like from it, and that.
I was wondering, there's a goodmoral.
It's coming in here.
This is great.
No, I think you're absolutelyright.
It's kind of funny that youmentioned about the visualization.
I was literally just having thisconversation last night with my
(06:12):
wife.
And we were talking about memory.
And she's like, do you remember wehad this conversation?
And that's not a baited question,like, oh my god, here it comes.
I'm like, I don't.
And then she goes on, like, youknow, I was thinking about how do
(06:34):
you remember things?
And she's like, I remember thingsmentioned something.
And I visualize having thisconversation.
She goes, I didn't see the pictureof it.
I'm like, I don't do that.
I just kind of recall.
It's like, oh, that's, you know,two plus two is five, right?
And this comes up.
That was my attempt to be funny.
(06:57):
And so I don't like you were justsaying, like, I have this visual
memory.
And I just find that interesting.
You use that phrase because wewere just talking about that and
about how people, you know, aredifferent about how they pull back
memories and how they hold on tothings.
(07:18):
And that's another great lessonthat comes from that story that I
just shared.
Yeah.
Is that I had this clear memory ofit.
He And he's convinced it didn'thappen.
I'm convinced it did.
We do.
We remember things differently.
And we remember things indifferent ways.
This happens with my wife and Iall the time too.
(07:40):
And by the way, you're right.
Do you remember when we talkedabout is like, right there next
to, does this dress like makinglook bad?
You know, in terms of the terriblequestions that you want to hear
from your life partner.
Yeah, look bad?
You know, in terms of the terriblequestions that you want to hear
from your life partner.
(08:01):
Yeah, there's no good answer Butmy wife and I go to someplace and
she'll mention somebody's name andI'll say, now who is that?
Well, she was wearing this andthis and this and this.
I'm like, no, you do what Tell mewhat this person looks like.
How tall is she?
How long is your hair?
What color is her hair?
That's going to give me the bettervisual image.
Right.
But for her, it's always what theywere wearing.
So it's just always one of thosefunny things that we look at
things differently.
Right.
And I think that's important toremember, particularly in
(08:23):
businesses, you're as you'rebuilding a team.
Right.
In fact, if I can throw in alittle baseball story here, oh,
love it.
Yeah.
Makes this point as well.
Warmest up.
Yeah.
When my oldest son was six yearsold, I think it was five or six
years old.
We got him into a tea ball team.
Okay.
Tea ball, of course, is your leadinto baseball.
They hit the ball off the littletea.
(08:45):
There's Warmest up.
And the outfield is basically theedge of the infield because that's
as far as the ball will ever go.
Right.
So you have this cluster of ninekids in all in the infield,
basically, to field the ball.
Well, my team is in the field.
Our team is out came up.
The bases were loaded.
And this little girl named Kayleywas standing next to the pitcher's
(09:06):
man.
And I said, Kayley, Kayley, if theball play, touch home play, and
we'll She nods, she nods.
Okay, okay, okay.
And I knew that this was going tohappen because that's She so
great.
She ran right to home plate,stepped on home plate, looked up
at me so up the ball.
And I couldn't get mad this herfor her.
I just told her to run to homeplate and touch on plate.
(09:29):
I assumed she knew she had to pickup the ball.
in business?
Sure.
We give people instructionsbecause it's clear in our mind
what all those steps are betweenthe vague instructions that we
give.
Right.
And then we get frustrated whenthey didn't follow our
instructions exactly.
We about how they think aboutthings.
(09:50):
How does their memory work like wewere just talking about?
What do they actually have intheir background and experience?
So we're trying to explainsomething to them.
We need to explain it from theirperspective, not ours.
Right.
you just did there.
By the way.
You lead us into this great story.
(10:16):
I'm really like affectionate,right?
I mean, just like, oh, little kidsplaying T-Vall and my little girl.
And she's right.
And then boom.
And then you tie it in with agreat kind of business lesson.
That's perfect.
That's good storytelling rightthere.
So you were like leading byexample on this whole Well, and
that's one of the reasons thatwrote this book is.
(10:38):
I told me one thing you need towrite a book about how you just
turn everyday experiences intoreal life lessons.
And my initial response was, it'snot a book.
That's just what you do.
Right.
And she's not.
People don't know how to do this.
And that was really the genesis ofthe book.
But my contention is, and this iswhat we say in the book is your
(11:03):
everyday experiences.
Have some of the best lessonsembedded in them.
We love stories because we livestories.
Right.
That's what our lives are, just acollection of little stories that
are together.
And the key thing is to thinkabout, so what do I learn from
that Tell people who say to me, Idon't have anything important
enough happening to me to tell astory about it.
(11:26):
I tell them, think of anytime youhave any kind of an emotional
reaction to be frustration.
It could be joy.
It could be anger.
It could be annoyance.
It could be happiness.
Whatever it happens to be, whenyou have an emotional reaction to
something, there's some kind oflesson embedded in that.
those moments because those aregoing to be the stories or the
experiences you can turn intostories that can teach an
(11:47):
important principle or make animportant point.
I that.
That I love how you're just tyingthat in all about the emotional
response.
And I completely agree becausethrough my conversation with my
wife, and by the way, we didn'teven mention that, oh, I got this
storyteller guy coming on here.
We didn't even talk about that.
But through that conversation andthrough this discussion now, it's
just reinforces, I guess, as wellkind of my thought around the idea
(12:10):
that, you know, if you've got a,you know, this visual imagery that
you're creating.
And you're like the example thatyou just gave, which was fabulous,
the T-Ball experience.
You're creating this visualimagery.
I'm sitting here listening to itlike, oh, you have a, because my
daughter played T-Ball my kidsplay, right?
And so I'm like, I remember thatwas great.
(12:33):
You laid it.
I was there with you on meaningthen of the story and then when
you get to it, when you're talkingabout and relating it to practical
kind of business experience andthe lesson there, it actually is
going to stick, I think, with thelistener, with your intended
audience, much better.
And I think they'll be able torecall that purpose in that intent
(12:55):
at a much higher level thanprobably if you just went to the
people and said, listen, this iswhat you have to do.
We are a storytelling species.
Yeah.
This is, this is how we haveevolved as community over time.
You know, you think of somespecies of animals on this planet.
I'll go to a giraffe is born.
(13:18):
First thing that their mom does isget up on your feet and get
moving, dude.
Yeah.
You know, and we as a humanspecies, we don't have that
capacity with our young ones.
We rely on community to survive asa species.
And story is the way that we buildthat community.
I loved how you said you could,you could picture your own
(13:39):
experiences with kids and T-Ballas I was telling that story.
That story was my experience, butit became a vicarious experience
for you.
All of a sudden you were therewith me standing by my side in
that story.
And because it connects to yourlife to it.
And Right, Mandy, you're going toremember it better because of that
(14:00):
connection that it made into yourlife experience.
And that's the power of story thatI think that we don't often
realize in a business setting.
We think, no, as a businessperson, I need to share my facts
and figures and the numbers outhere.
(14:21):
And I need to give features andbenefits of my products or
services.
I don't have time to tell a story,but the story is actually gonna
give you a shortcut to connect tothat people.
Well, why do people buy fromsomebody else?
They buy from people that theyknow trust in life.
Well, let's storytelling going todo.
It's gonna help people know youtrust you and like you more.
And so there's great power instory and in a business Yeah, that
(14:44):
is terrific.
Good stuff.
This is a good point in here,because you're just dropping all
kinds of great bombs here thathigh value.
You so graciously have offered upfor listeners, they can get your
ebook that you put together, themaster storytelling book that I
mentioned in the intro.
They can go to your websitemaster-storytelling.com, forward
slash podcast gift.
(15:06):
I'll have that link case you'rememory is that's it.
I didn't tell a great story aroundit.
Well, I'll have that link inthere, but you're offering a free
ebook, your master storytellingebook to the listeners.
I thank you so much for that.
That is very generous.
I just think because you'retelling great stories and you're
like relating great content there.
I'm like, oh my gosh, people gottago grab this thing.
(15:28):
So go there, I'll have it info inthe show notes.
So be sure to go check that out.
So you were in the corporateworld.
I'm gonna kind of dance throughtime a little bit because I wanna
hear your story about how you cameto be where you are right now.
You were in the corporate worldfor a number of years, I think 20,
(15:50):
and then doing various kinds ofmarketing, public relations, kinds
of things.
And at some point you said, hey,I'm gonna step out.
I'm gonna do my own thing.
I'm gonna do, you went into yourtaught at college, you started
(16:11):
doing some of those facilitatedtraining kinds of events, I'm sure
I'm probably doing, working withcompanies.
This is what you do now.
How did you make that leap?
What was it that you said, youknow, I wanna do something
different or I wanna do what I'mdoing in a different way, still
(16:33):
the same thing, maybe, I don'tknow, when I hear your story.
But how did you come to thatpoint?
How did you know now is the timeto do that?
To see how does this podcast run?
That's a lot, that could be a verylong story, Randy.
And there's a lot of componentsinvolved in that.
So I'll give you this shortversion because I don't want your
audience to check out on this.
(16:56):
But yeah, I spent 20 years incorporate marketing and
communications, public relations,10 years with the bank, 10 years
with some high tech companies,with some software developers.
And from all the way from like a20% company to 12,000 people
companies that I work with in.
I always had a little bit of thisentrepreneurial bent.
I also had a little bit of thisteaching bent embedded in me.
(17:19):
In the intro, you mentioned my momwas a school teacher.
And I always had a little bit ofthat teacher in me, I think
genetically, both my sisters orschool teachers, my brother who
wrecked on the bike, he's acomputer engineer, but now he does
math tutoring on the side as well.
Oh nice.
I have nieces and nephews, I havetwo children who are school
teachers, so kind of all aroundme.
(17:42):
So I always had that desire.
The way that I transitioned intowhat I'm doing now is I'm here to
a neighbor.
I didn't know I'm super well atthe time, but he came to me, he's
had some content that he wanted tobring into the company that I was
currently with.
And so I helped him get the rightconnections and I set into his, in
(18:04):
his first pilot class that he didwith our company.
And as I stepped there and Iwatched him, I said, this is such
great stuff and I would love to beable to give this to people too.
I would love to be able to do whatcould be a very long story, Randy.
And so that was kind of theopening of the door for me to say,
(18:26):
this is a different path that Icould go on.
And to make this longer storyabout a two year period transpired
there where I kept bugging themthat I wanted to get into what he
was doing and the transition cameabout.
And here I am, transition fromteaching other people's content,
which I still do some to creatingmy own content and teaching that
(18:47):
with master storytelling.
But I realized that through thecourse of that, through by
marketing communications career.
And teaching is an adjunct at acourse What did I do to stand out?
What did I do to try to get mypoint across?
It was telling If you think aboutthe teachers that you had,
particularly in subjects that likehistory, I used to hate history,
because I had history teachers whowould teach me in terms of here
are the dates and the names andthe facts and the figures you need
(19:10):
to memorize.
That was boring and repetitive tome and not fun.
But when I had somebody startintroducing to me, here is the
story of why this piece of historycame about.
I would have affected thosepeople.
It had the same impact as metelling the story about T-Ball to
you.
I could put myself into theirlives and go, yeah, I would have a
struggle with that too.
And all of a sudden history becamea And so that's how I developed
(19:31):
into this teacher and advocate forintentional storytelling.
Not storytelling just to share anexperience or just to entertain,
but storytelling with that purposeto teach, lead, sell, and inspire.
So I'm thinking then as well andwhat you do.
You work with companies as well orsmall businesses or whoever
individuals even and help themrelate storytelling to their
(19:51):
business, maybe managing theiremployees.
I'm thinking as well and maybe youdo this, I don't know.
Help people craft their story soas they're going out.
So when you were talking about theindividual that came to your
company that you were working withat that point and you
participating in his class, Iwould, in my mind, I was thinking,
(20:15):
oh, and he was going to say, Icould help him repackage and be
much more effective by, you know,I could teach him this skill.
That's what I thought But I'mwondering is that what you do some
of that as well?
I'm curious on how you're workingwith companies because so
(20:35):
intrigued.
And I'm a big fan of thestorytelling.
I think it is incrediblymeaningful and impactful and
sticks with people.
So a dig that you're doing, man.
And it's stickiness really is thepower in story.
And we've talked about that abouthow much that sticks in your
resume, a little brainworm thatjust holds on to you.
And the people we work with,there's several different
audiences that we work with.
(20:58):
One of them we work with a lot issales.
Because sales people are alwaystrying to make connections with
their customers.
And so I'm not talking about theperson that loads the vending
machine.
I guess essentially they're insales.
But anytime you have to talk topeople, it's those kind of sales
(21:20):
professionals that we're workingwith.
And to get them beyond, here arethe facts and figures, the
pricing, the features, thebenefits of our product.
You should But if you can insteadsay, here's the product.
Here's what it's about.
But let me tell you how it canhelp you.
I worked with my customer Randy.
(21:41):
And he used our product because hewas running into this problem.
And by getting our product orimplementing our service into his
business, he was able to achievethis result.
That's what I want to be able tohelp you with.
Because as I'm telling that story,my customer sitting there
listening and going, yeah, I'mkind of And so I could get the
same benefits that Randy'sgetting.
(22:01):
So if we can tell that in the formof a story, it's going to be much
more impactful and memorable forAnd let them make the case to get
the budget for it.
It's interesting.
Heard this recently, people buy ona motion and they justify on And
so if you can get people into thestory, they'll get that emotional
(22:23):
connection that they want to buyon.
And then they'll make thejustification with the facts and
figures that you give them to Butthat's one of the key audiences we
work with.
Another one is leaders andparticularly emerging leaders.
Somebody's first put into aleadership position and they're
taught how to run their budget andhow to do their annual performance
reviews and things like that.
But they don't know how to lead aninspire a team and stories are the
(22:46):
way to lead an inspire a team.
The lesson I shared with you fromthe T-Ball experience that I had,
that's a great lesson for andthinking in terms of what do my
people actually know, not what doI know and they should know that
too.
And so those kinds of stories canteach lead an inspire your team as
(23:07):
a I love it.
Take it is completely fascinating.
And completely agree on theemotional aspect about the lever,
so to speak, what people buy anemotion.
and then justify it with thelogic.
I've had this conversation with afew other guests and kind of
similar vein, but we talk about acell the dream because it is
emotional.
Don't get stuck into the weedsabout, this is what we're gonna
(23:28):
do, we're gonna do this, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but
like you want this, is what wewill do.
Because if we do this, this willbe your life, right?
That we're selling, selling, we'regonna kind of make that Then once
you have that, then you're, Ithink you're, then it's your sale
to lose at that point, is what Ikind of believe.
(23:54):
But of one of the most commonsales transactions there are for a
lot of, at least here in NorthAmerica, buying a car.
Yeah.
And when you go, when you go tobuy a car, hate No, we all do, but
this is why.
Because sales people that autodealers haven't learned No, They
need?
How big a car do you need?
What kind of car do you want?
(24:15):
They go to that instead of what isthis car gonna do for Do you want
a car that's gonna just get apoint A and point B?
Well, let's get you somethingreally economical, you might gonna
save money on.
But what are your desires?
Because that might be, I want acar that I can feel super
comfortable in, that helps me feelconfident, hey, now you're selling
(24:37):
the dream.
You're selling the emotionalaspect of that car.
To a lot of people don't buy carsjust for the functionality.
They buy it for the image, for theprestige, for wanting to, and even
needing to drive in a longcommute.
(25:04):
And so if you can get to thatneed, that sales gonna be a lot
easier.
And you're gonna stand out fromother people who are doing the
same thing, because they're backthere doing features and benefits
and So fascinating.
I'm fascinated by this, and I knowyou've touched on the emotional,
the logic, but I think in thenotes that I have in front, you
also kind of roll through someaspects, kind of around the
scientific data that supportsstorytelling and why it's
important.
(25:25):
We have some time here before weget into the 17th inning stretch.
I'd love to hear it, bring this tolife, right?
The science and data behindstorytelling.
we've talked a little bit abouthow storytelling connects us as
people, and how it draws us in.
And that is now veryscience-based.
I mean, we can feel it.
We sense it intuitively.
(25:47):
It's a great researcher, Dr. PaulZach, at Claremont Graduate
University, and he has doneresearch around the chemical
changes that happened within uswas we're And there's three
chemical reactions or brainreactions that go on, as you hear
a well told story.
Now, I'm going to go back to thatT-Ball story that I told to
(26:08):
connect this with you.
Is that the first one is we get anincrease of oxytocin.
Oxytocin is a trust hormone.
It makes me feel like I can trustyou.
It makes me feel like I can relateto you.
And you got an increase ofoxytocin as I was telling that
story about T-Ball because youcould relate to it.
That's where you can stand therebeside me and you're seeing the
T-Ball game from your perspectiveand your life's experience.
(26:31):
All of a sudden, we're the sameperson.
We're not the same personnecessarily, but we can relate to
each other.
That builds The second thing thathappens is there's an increase in
cortisol as you get some conflictin the story or some surprise that
comes out of that story.
When I related to you, she ran tohome plate.
She's touched home plate.
She stopped on home plate.
(26:51):
And you were building up there andthen I said, and she never picked
up the ball.
Also, and you go, oh my gosh.
How did they, yeah.
And it's bringing that littlespark of cortisol that's now gonna
heighten your attention becauseyou want to know, how did I as a
coach react to Did I yell at thisAnd then you get the third thing,
(27:18):
which is an increase in dopamine.
When you come to that satisfactoryresolution of my realization that
I didn't tell her what to do,that's on me.
That's not on her.
And you of satisfaction from thelesson that comes from that.
Right.
And so you see how it happenednow, but you didn't know that, oh,
I can feel this different chemicalchange going on in my brain.
(27:43):
It just happens very naturally,but it's a very, very research
base now that storytelling has apowerful impact on us because of
those reactions that happenedwithin our It makes sense because
as you were going through all ofthose phases, I'm thinking, yes,
exactly.
I felt Not just emotionally, butcertainly motions are chemical,
they're electrical, they're, yeah,I don't know, certainly, yes, it
makes sense.
(28:05):
All why- There's why- There's abunch of other researches, not
quite as deeply geeky on thechemicals that go on in us, but
just about how stories help us toremember things better.
Sure.
There was a great research studywhere they put students in three
groups, college students in threegroups.
One of them, they just got theinformation.
So it was just, here's aninformation dump that we want you
to remember.
(28:25):
The second group got charts andgraphs along with the information.
And the third group was given theinformation in the form of a
story.
then they came back a couple ofweeks later and they checked to
see how much and how well theyremembered.
That was the thing they werereally that those first two groups
remembered roughly the same withroughly the amount of accuracy,
(28:46):
which surprised me.
I thought that the charts andgraphs group would have it have a
boost, but they were about thesame.
storytelling group remember moreinformation and remember it more
accurately, they actually foundthe information more credible than
the first two groups.
more another great businessimplication of the power of story.
People are going to remember youmore.
They're going to remember it moreaccurately, but they're also going
to trust you more when they getthings in the form of a story.
(29:11):
I make sense.
Everything just like, I don'tknow.
You're connecting with me on theemotional.
I like, oh, yes, I get it.
And you know, I always, whenyou're talking about that with the
storytelling piece as well, Ithink the more that you tell a
story.
So it related the story about yourbrother and the snow on the bike
(29:34):
and you know, I could visualize,you know, the trombone flying all
over the story over again, yourepeat it to other people, then it
becomes like this legacy.
And I think for you probably,probably, I don't know if your
brother ever did, like, oh, yeah,I know I got it.
(29:59):
But it probably just galvanizeseven more important.
why I kind of think it'simportant.
My wife and I tell stories to ourkids about when they were young,
oh, when we did this, you know,because we're trying to engage,
you know, some of those, whetherit's traditions that we do as a
family or things that we've doneor things that they've done in
(30:20):
their life, we want them to beable to remember I would include
in that the values that we have asa family.
Yeah.
I actually did a presentation justthis week with a new organization
that's that's focusing aroundintentionally building values
within your family.
let society dictate for yourfamily what your values are.
You dictate for your family whatthey are and talked about what are
(30:40):
the stories that we could tellwithin our families based on our
own experiences, our own sharedexperiences, the family that show
these are values to us becausethat's going to stick with
children as they grow older.
And even as they start out ventureout on their own, they're going to
remember those stories andexperiences that taught them.
These are the values that we havekind of harkened back to what you
(31:03):
said really at the beginning ofthe show where you said we are a
storytelling species.
And that is fact right therebecause you think from the very
early caveman ages, right?
They're like telling stories onthe cave walls with their high
regular effects.
I mean, traditions passed orallyfrom generation to generation.
(31:25):
Yes, we are a storytellingspecies.
So fascinating.
I love it.
All right.
Well, we're going to get back.
I want to hear more about you asthe businessman and the business
of storytelling.
But Mark, I know I asked you earlybefore we hit the record button.
If you like baseball of do.
So where it is that time.
(31:45):
It's time the seventh inningstretch.
Seventh inning stretch, You can'tsee us, but I just did a stretch
so that I, you know, I'm gettingready for I, you know, seventh
inning stretch here.
It's so fun.
All right.
So I do know though, as youshared, well, you had a history
with baseball and then during thestrike kind of periods of baseball
(32:06):
history, which I am sure you'renot the only you can't get
dissolution and left baseball fora while.
Hopefully you're coming back.
But so baseball and I and I stillfollow it.
I just don't watch it as don'twatch it as much as I used to.
All right.
Well, that makes sense.
do know you and as you shared, youhave the salt lake bees.
(32:28):
You're like, are they triple A, Awinner?
Yes, yes, the triple A Yeah, ofthe angels angels.
The Los Angeles A affiliate ofthe.
angels.
All right, so here's the setup foryou.
We're gonna talk about becauseyou're in storytelling, the
business of storytelling.
So we're gonna talk about baseballbroadcasting, which is kind of the
storytelling of baseball, right?
See how I wove that in?
(32:50):
Yep, and that then you're right ontoo.
It wasn't me, but it was my Sovery So as you may know, listen
and watch on TV or listen to radiothough.
Some baseball franchises have aregular color commentator while
others teams may bring in guestsand do some play-by-play and
color.
But you know, there's typicallylike this season team of a couple
of men or women coming togetherand they're like the ones.
(33:11):
I'm a huge Cubs fan and I thinkthe Cubs have the best broadcast
team, Pat Hughes, Ron Coomer.
I mean, I can listen to theseguys.
Sometimes even when I alwayssubscribe to MLB.com so I can
stream games anytime, anywhere.
But sometimes I just preferlistening to it on radio because
they tell a great story.
(33:35):
It's visual, right?
I'm like, I am there.
It's my happy place is to be atRiggly and just hanging out,
watching the game.
And so I hear these guys tell thestory.
Cleveland, couple of another greatbroadcast or Tom Hamilton, this
guy's great.
So the storytelling in baseball,I'm gonna ask you.
(33:57):
So you usually have theplay-by-play guy.
He's like, okay, he's at the, youknow, he's winding up, right?
So the guy is doing, but then youhave the real storyteller which is
the color commentator, right?
He's the guy who gives thebackground, the fluff, the meat of
like, well, let me tell you thisstory about, you know, when I was
(34:19):
at, when I was a player, a lot oftimes these guys were players.
When I was a player, I was on thebus, and so you get it.
So here's your question, Mr. Whendid the color commentator join the
broadcasting booth?
And I'll give you double points ifyou can tell me who was the first
(34:42):
one, but just in general, maybeyou can say, when do you think the
color commentator first joined thebroadcasting booth for baseball?
So this is very baseball specific.
I don't know in some of the otherI'm thinking it's gotta be really
early on, but I may be off on thatbefore I, so before I give my
answer, I'm gonna say this, thatboth the play by play broadcaster
and the color commentator arestorytellers.
(35:04):
Oh, sure, yeah, yeah.
Because that play by play person,you mentioned your happy places
there at Wrigley Field.
Well, that play by play person canpaint that picture of Wrigley
Field that day.
You feel like you're there withtheir word pictures of what's
(35:24):
going on in the game.
So they're both greatstorytellers.
So I have absolutely no idea whatthe answer to your question is.
And so I'm just gonna take a wildguess.
I'm gonna go question is.
You know, really quite close.
(35:47):
I mean, it was a very good logicalguess.
So let me give you a littlethought.
And I'll tell you why I went with1932.
thought.
And I'll tell you why I went with1932. 1932 was the year my mother
(36:07):
was born.
So I'm just taking a guess basedon her on her birthday.
All right.
You're within 10 years.
I'll say that.
All right.
So let me give you a littlehistory here.
So in 1921, first baseball gameever was broadcast on the radio.
That was the Pittsburgh Piratesagainst the Philadelphia Phillies,
August of 1921.
(36:28):
That same year, well, season, wasalso the first world series on the
radio, New York Giants and the NewYork Yankees.
I always, every time I see the NewYork Giants, my father-in-law was
a big New York Giants fan.
And he's never forgiven baseballto allow them to move out of New
York.
(36:49):
But aside from that, now the funnything about that when they first
started broadcasting baseball in1921, broadcasters were not
actually present at the game.
They simply gave the reports fromthe telegraph wire.
And I'm from the camera.
The kicker.
Yes.
So that's And then in 22, thebroadcasts the entire World
Series.
they were broadcasting.
(37:09):
But Deering, here's your answer.
1923 World Series, they had a mainbroadcast, or the play by play
guy, I guess.
But during the fourth inning ofGame 3 of the 1923 World Series,
the announcer turned the mic overto another person in a broadcast
booth and became the first colorAnd I'm from the camera.
(37:31):
The kicker.
How about about that?
Awesome.
And listening to that, I'mthinking, they evolved pretty fast
on that then.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's only a couple ofyears after they started the radio
broadcast.
Right.
I was gonna try to cheat with thatquestion.
I asked you when was the firstradio broadcast, and then I was
gonna try to calculate it fromthere.
(37:54):
I still wouldn't get quite thatthat close.
Yeah, and the first guy, so that23 World Series, Game 3, Graham
McNamey?
Yeah, I never would have gottenthat one.
I'm not familiar with him, butthat's really kind of popularized
it.
But here's the thing.
So that was in 23, but it wasn'tuntil, so just like in everything,
(38:16):
you can imagine the conversationamongst baseball owners and teams
like, well, if we do it on theradio, if we broadcast it for
free, people aren't gonna come tothe games, right?
I mean, some more probably, somemore conversations that have
occurred now about streaming thestuff over live on the internet.
But all of this kind ofconversation, but it wasn't until
(38:37):
1938 that all teams beganbroadcasting baseball games live
on the radio.
So that was almost 15 years ormore before everybody did.
So it was like some teams begandoing it, slow Yeah, I never would
have gotten Some of the teams orcities that had multiple teams
like Philadelphia and New York,Chicago, those cities rolled it
out a little bit faster, but yeah,it still took a little of time.
(38:58):
And so I'll connect this back intoour storytelling topic.
I'll be talking about here today.
Think about the owners of some ofthose teams that were slower to
get your point.
They probably had their marketingpeople coming to them, saying
(39:19):
telling this story of the future,saying if we put all these on the
radio, nobody will ever come tothe game because they'll sit at
home and listen And they didn'trealize the one of the great
values of seeing a baseball gameis being there.
I mean, for me, those are the bad,I can watch a baseball game
(39:42):
sitting in the stadium.
Oh, I like it.
I'd much rather watch a gamesitting in the stadium than it
would on TV.
Yeah, And so there's great powerin that story there, the stadium.
Right, Yeah, I think, and probablyat some point, Major League
(40:05):
Baseball, still one of the, youknow, very controlling leagues.
And in my notes, I can't whereverit is in the paper here, but it
was somewhere in that early 1930s,like 31 or 32 or something like
that, they signed a contract witha sponsor for like $400,000 to be
(40:27):
the sponsor for a World Seriesbroadcast.
And then, and I think it was in 38that Gillette signed a 10 year,
$14 million deal to be the WorldSeries in all-star game sponsors
for the next 10 years.
So I think at that point, peoplefinally began to like, wow,
there's money to be made here.
That's a huge amount of money inthat time.
Yeah, can you imagine that?
Yes.
Crazy.
So anyway, that's allstorytelling.
Yes, I love it.
Yep.
All right, well, let's get backinto it.
(40:48):
that Play ball.
I just a little phase.
I love that one.
All out on your own.
You're doing this console.
What kind of challenges?
How long have you been doing thison your own now?
Consulting, doing thisstorytelling consulting.
What do you call yourself, asidefrom master story tell?
Are you that like the CEO, theCMS, you know, of the chief master
(41:10):
storytelling?
see that, now you're gettingclose.
The title I put on my businesscard is Chief Storyteller.
Oh, see.
And so that's where I've landed interms of a title.
But I've been doing this forworking with this storytelling
content since we launched the bookabout four years ago.
OK. And so continuing to build andthen doing some other consulting
(41:31):
at the same So I can only imaginebecause so many of our listeners
are entrepreneurs.
And they're either folks that arekind of thinking like, ah, I want
to take that jump.
I want to do that leap in theothers who just have even.
(41:52):
And I'm always Like, you know,what was it with our guests that
was that deciding factor if youcan it at all think back or pin it
down like, yes, I'm just going todo this.
Yeah.
There was that moment where it wasa, okay, I'm just going to do
this.
And it was, it was a moment ofclarity when I went, I can make
(42:13):
this work.
It may not be, I may not get rich,but I can make this work.
keeping that in mind.
And having the belief that, yeah,what I have is, is providing value
to people.
big focus that I went in with ishow can I provide value to other
people?
It wasn't so much, how can I getmoney from people?
It was, how can I provide value topeople?
(42:35):
Because if I'm providing value,the revenue will start coming.
of clarity for me was that I hadenough value that I could provide
for people.
That it would allow the revenue tocome in eventually and that it
would build from there.
What do you do from a marketingstandpoint?
I'm kind of curious.
(42:57):
Are you clearly, you do podcasts,so you put yourself out there to
tell stories.
Do you have other kind of content?
You put the book out, but whatother kinds of things are you
doing?
Yeah, and the book was really thefoundation of it.
And in terms of our marketingefforts of getting that message
(43:19):
out there to lead people to theworkshop.
You know how this goes?
You read a book and you think,yeah, this is great.
But then you can't do what they'retelling you in the book.
It helps so much to get somehands-on activity and coaching.
And like many entrepreneurs, Ithink it starts with the people
(43:42):
that I know.
And so it started with the peopleI know and the people, the people
who I know, the people that theyknow and reaching out from there.
And then you start building a listand I communicate regularly with
my email list and with myfollowers on LinkedIn.
(44:02):
love to have your audience join meon LinkedIn.
I put stories out there aboutevery week to teach some kind of
lesson and to show that we havethese happening all the time in
our lives.
And then it's just beingconsistent and letting people know
(44:22):
that it's available.
I've got some other marketingthings in the work where I'm
building through social media.
But it's really just a stepwiseprocess.
And it's how much time and effortyou want to put into doing that.
I recognize I said this tosomebody just yesterday.
I am the greatest asset and thegreatest liability to my company.
I'm the one who's kind of doingeverything.
(44:43):
And so how much I'm willing to putinto that determines whether I'm
an asset or liability.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
I understand that.
It's interesting that youmentioned about social media and
LinkedIn and such because thatactually was kind of on my mind to
ask you about social media and itspart or play in storytelling.
Because depending upon theplatform that you decide to tell
(45:03):
your story or as a vehicle, youmay use video, you may be on
YouTube or Instagram, Rails orTikTok.
You've got Twitter, which is alimited number of characters to
tell your story and kind of daisychain segments of a story.
You mentioned LinkedIn, so you'vegot bigger platform.
But I'm curious.
Do you find that it was socialmedia?
(45:24):
Is it helpful?
Is it a strong aid help you getthe message further across?
Or does it do you think that itdilutes?
And as well, is there a differencebetween kind of telling your story
orally versus written content?
Okay, so I got like threequestions.
I know.
I really like Larry.
And I can try to remember to getto a while.
(45:47):
So if I don't call me back onthat.
But from broad standpoint, I thinksocial media is a storytelling
platform.
People tell their stories onsocial media.
And so I think it encourages morestorytelling.
Now, the downside of that is itlimits, it encourages a limited
kind of story.
(46:07):
Because everybody thinks I have toput my very best face out there on
social media.
But that is, I have to make myselflook good and maybe look better
than I actually am.
And I think that leads people tobelieve I can only tell these
glowing, powerful, super successstories.
I know.
I really like Larry.
And I can try to that's not thetruth.
reality is some of the mostpowerful stories we tell are the
(46:29):
stories of our stumbles and ourmistakes that we've made and what
we've learned from them.
We'll even go back to the lessonlearned from the T-Ball story that
we talked about early on.
That's it.
That was a mistake that I made.
It wasn't a huge catastrophicmistake.
But it's a good lesson learnedtype of story.
so I think social media thosekinds of stories sometimes, which
is a mistake for businesses andbusiness leaders.
We need to be able to tell thosestories.
(46:49):
Okay.
Now, if there was a third questionin there and can't remember what
it was, orally or through writtencontent, what do you think is more
I think the answer is yes.
They're all impactful.
The key is not the medium you'reusing.
The key is that you're structuringyour story well enough that it
addresses your audience.
That taps into your audience.
So you've seen this.
You've seen YouTube videos.
(47:10):
You've seen posts on LinkedIn.
You've seen Facebook posts orTikTok videos or whatever that are
great and that are terrible.
And so it's not the medium.
It's how you're using the skill ofstorytelling to deliver on that
medium.
My daughter who I referencedearlier, I was having a
conversation with her and she wastalking about a conversation they
had on Zoom with some remotefamily members in her husband's
(47:30):
family And she turned to herhusband and said, hey, share that
experience about this.
That really relates to what we'retalking about here.
And he started sharing hisexperience and she's sitting there
with him on zoom and below thecamera angle, she's doing one of
these looping of her fingers kindof motions.
Like get to the point, get to thepoint, get to the point.
(47:58):
And she said to me, Dad, this iswhat you've done to me because
I've read your book.
I realized he wasn't telling thestory the right way.
He was taking too long to get tothe point.
And we do that on social media.
(48:19):
Unless you're intentional, I usethis word a lot about
intentionally telling your story.
Unless you're intentional abouthow you've crafted that, it
doesn't matter what medium youuse, it's not going to work well.
And so it's that intentionality ofknowing how to tap into that brain
chemistry that we talked about.
How to tell that story in a waythat it does effectively make the
(48:42):
point that you're trying to make.
That's going to be more importantthan the meeting you choose to it
on.
It really kind of gets, and I'mgoing to ask you this question,
but it probably actually probablyjust answered to a degree anyway.
And I'll set this up and there'sanything that you wanted to add to
it.
You're talking about intentionallytelling your story.
(49:04):
I was going to ask you thequestion as well.
So any social media platform thatyou would like to use, mention
LinkedIn, choose whichever one youlike, are there some practical
tips that you would give abusiness owner on how to use that
platform social media to help telltheir Yeah, I would start with,
and thanks for calling back thatword intentional because that's
(49:28):
where I will start with thatanswer is what is your intention
in Sometimes we say, okay, I'vehad this experience.
I'm going to just share it out Andwe as the audience will read or
listen to that experience ago.
So what But if you start with,this is the message or this is the
point that I want to make withthis story.
That's going to help you at theoutset to filter out the less
(49:50):
necessary components of thatexperience to get to the point
that you're With a lot of theplatforms, they do limit how much
you can put out there.
Twitter is the classic example ofthat.
You can, within the camera, thecharacter count is 127 or
something like that.
Whatever that character count is.
If you're really Whatever thatcharacter count it, you can get
(50:10):
your story into that limitedamount.
But if you're not clear on whatyour intent is in the to wander
around a little bit with thatstory, like my son-in-law, who
went to my daughter was trying topull me back.
He was wandering through his storybecause he wasn't clear on his
intent when he started the socialmedia, it's a good point that you
(50:34):
get across there because oftenwhen we're either talking with
clients or I'm just talking withbusiness owners, they're asking
me, I'm very involved in theChamber among the board of our
local Chamber of Commerce.
But people are always like, hey,what do you think about social
(50:55):
media?
And I try to tell you, you have totell a story, you have to tell
your story, tell your brand story,provide value, provide
information, tell the story.
Don't get hung up about, I got to,here's my deal, here's my, you got
to buy for me.
This is like, no, no, no, no,that's the wrong approach.
And telling the story.
That's why I'm like, yeah, what'sthe best, some great advice and
(51:15):
the intentional storytelling Ithink is purposeful.
How about this?
Let me stretch this even further.
It's just an everyday life, noteven a business owner.
How can people incorporate storyto the story?
telling in their everydayinteractions.
Because you talk about, hey, weare a storytelling species,
telling the stories helps buildthe community.
And so it really shouldn't belimited whether you're a business
owner, whether you're acorporation or whatever, from that
standpoint, really it should justbe in the interactions that I'm
(51:37):
gonna have with my kids, or I'mgoing out to dinner with some
friends tomorrow night.
And so how can I, what would besome practical, important
storytelling tips that I can likebegin to embrace in my daily You
know, when I first got into, whenwe'd written a book and we got
into teaching, storytelling andthings like that, I kind of got
caught up into every story I tellhas to fit within the framework
(51:58):
that I'm talking about here.
It has to be this intentionality.
And so I backed off of that,because sometimes, when I'm
sharing experience, I'm justsharing it to share an experience,
or I'm just sharing it toentertain and to have So just note
the times when you need to be moreintentional about it, but just in
(52:19):
your day to day life, one of thegreat examples I can think of is,
let's say that we're at a chamberevent.
You mentioned the Chamber ofCommerce.
So I go to a Chamber of Commerceevent, somebody that I don't know
comes up to me, we start to talkand they say, what do you Well,
(52:41):
how do we answer that story?
Or how to answer that question?
We typically answer it with, well,I do this and this and this and
this and this and this.
And we talk about kind of what wedo on a day to day basis.
What if you just turned that intoa super simple quick story you
(53:02):
could tell?
And you could I serve people whothem this.
And that in essence is a supershort form But that tells people
more of what they want to knowthan what you do on a day to And
it's going to engage them more.
When I've done this, the responsethat I get from people is, oh,
tell me more about When I don't dothat, people go, oh, and then
(53:24):
they're like ready to move on tosomebody else.
And so if you want to make thoseconnections with people,
remembering that people buy fromthose that they know, like, and
trust, start with that, formulatethat little story that can be like
two or three sentences thatexplains who you serve, how you
serve them, and then stop and letthe other person ask the questions
(53:47):
that they want to ask, because nowthey're going to be intrigued.
The brain chemistry is kicked inand they want to know more.
And that's going to just try toregular day to day kind of basis
help you make those connectionsthat you want like ready to move
on to somebody make.
That's good.
All right, Mark, here we are downto the bottom of the ninth.
(54:10):
And this is where I ask all of ourguests, what advice do you have
for rookies in the game?
Meaning those just starting out inbusiness or maybe those who
already have their business ormaybe looking for some guidance.
I mean, you've got someexperience, right?
You've been in the corporateworld, you've jumped, you're doing
your own thing right now, lovely.
(54:32):
What kind of advice do you So I'mgoing to give one broad practical
advice and then I'll give a couplethat are related directly to
storytelling.
The first broad practical advice,I love this phrase that I picked
up from somewhere else.
You can do anything that you can'tdo Meaning you can do anything
(54:52):
that you want in this moment, butyou can't do everything in this
moment.
So choose, be deliberate andconscious about, okay, what am I
going to spend my time on rightnow?
Because it's really easy,particularly as you're starting
out in business to say, oh, I'vegot to do this and this and this
(55:12):
and this and this and this and youget so distracted about all the
things that you need to do or wantto do that you're not doing in the
moment.
So be clear on those things thatyou're going to do, but choose the
one that you're going to do in themoment so that you're using your
(55:33):
time more The other things that Iwould say tied to storytelling is
look for your stories, look forthose experiences that you can
turn into stories that teach leadand inspire, look for those
emotional interactions or thoseemotional responses that you have
to something and start capturingthose and thinking, what's that
story?
And then practice your storieswith the intent that you have
whether that intent is I wantpeople just to get to know my
(55:55):
business, my product, my service,whether it's I want people to be
able to know how this benefitsthem or whether it's I just need
them to get some background aroundwhat I do.
that story down, refine it.
And the first few times you tellit, it's not going to go well.
It's going to be a stumble.
It's going to feel like thatdidn't work.
So refine it, think about it.
(56:15):
It's like any other skill.
You're not going to be perfect atit the first time you do it.
I very often do this with podcasthost.
I'll go to you and say, Randy, thefirst podcast you did, how well
did you feel you did as a podcasthost?
Oh, it's horrible.
I felt so bad.
It was one of my clients.
I It was one of my clients.
I talked to you, says that.
It was one of my clients.
(56:38):
I felt so bad.
I'm like, oh my gosh, we shouldYeah.
And you know, we get in thosemoments.
And sometimes when people startoff with the skill of
storytelling, and they go, oh,that was so bad.
I'll never do that again.
(56:58):
Well, that's from wrong with thatstory or why it didn't land well,
and refine it from there and keepgoing.
And then after a while, it becomesmore smooth and more comfortable
for you.
So don't give up on storytellingas a key business skill,
particularly as you're startingout with your Just good, good
advice.
Thank you so much, Mark.
(57:20):
Now, I'm going to refer peopleagain.
I think if you're as intrigued asI am in the storytelling process,
you'll want to go pick this thingup, Mark.
Again, being so gracious to give afree copy of his ebook, the master
storytelling.
You can go to his websitemaster-storytelling.com slash
forward slash podcast gift.
And you can go grab it there.
I'll have the link in the shownotes.
(57:42):
You can go check that out.
And Mark, I just, I loved it.
I loved having the conversation.
I loved hearing your stories.
Good stuff.
I love the visual that I wasgetting coming from it, all
everything.
It was just terrific having you onthe show.
you, Randy.
It's been a pleasure talking toyou.
Thanks for putting your show outthere and providing benefit to
(58:03):
your audience.
I appreciate that All right.
OK, folks, that's the ball game.
So thanks for joining us today.
And if you like to show, pleasetell your friends, subscribe, and
review.
And we'll see you around theballpark.
Running the bases with smallbusinesses is brought to you by 38
digital market, a digitalmarketing agency committed to
(58:23):
client growth with leadgeneration, higher conversions,
and increased sales.
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