The Truth About Stories (and Why They Change Everything) w/ Kim Weitkamp

Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Some people tell stories to passthe time, but Kim Weitkamp tell
stories that stop time. She's been called one of the
greatest storytellers in the world.
She's headlined festivals acrossthe globe, released
award-winning albums, and is a sought after speaker and
consultant for Fortune 500 companies and organizations of
every shape and size. We all have that one relative

(00:23):
that that can turn a 5 minute trip to Walmart into a 45 minute
epic adventure. Well, Kim does that for a
living, except she packs theaters, moves audiences to
laughter and tears, and she teaches leaders how to do the
same thing. Today, she's pulling up a chair
with us on the porch. And trust me, you're going to
laugh. You might even cry.

(00:44):
And you'll definitely think twice about the power of a well
toward story. Welcome to the pulpit and porch.
I'm Tony Maher and with me, as always, is my friend Robert
Kell. Hey everybody, we are so glad
you're here. The pulpit and porch is where we
kick back, put up our feet and have real conversations about
life, faith, growth, and maybe even a little sports and pop
culture. If you're looking for a

(01:05):
perfectly polished sermon, you're probably in the wrong
place. Yeah, around here it's more
about those honest heart to heart conversations, like the
one you have on a front porch with good friends.
Sometimes we stay on track, sometimes we take the same
group. And honestly, that's half the
fun, isn't it? Dig into the highs, the lows,
and all the in betweens of living out your faith in real
life. Along the way, we may pull up a
few extra chairs and invite somefriends under the porch to share

(01:26):
stories and ideas that just may change the way that you see
things. So whether you're chasing your
purpose, building your faith, orjust trying to live a little
more fully, pull up a chair, grab some sweet tea, and join
us. This is the pulpit and porch we
got to see waiting for you. So a couple of months ago we

(01:53):
made lists of our dream guests, dress guests that we would like
to have on the show with us. And you made a list of about
1520 people. I made a list of about 15 to 20
people. And on my list, at the top of my
list was Kim Whitekamp. And Kim is someone that I've
known for a few years. And, and actually, Kim, I don't

(02:14):
know if you remember the first time that we met.
I, I doubt that you do. I was still, I was still in full
time ministry. I was still a lead pastor at a
church and also running higher ministries.
Who sponsors this this show? And Bruce Montgomery was on
staff with us at, at Higher Ministries.
And we did, Robert, we used to do an annual fundraising

(02:38):
banquet, you know, where you tryto raise money and you invite
people in and you feed them and you tell lots of great stories
and you have some entertainment.Well, I, I didn't do anything
within storytelling. This was before I'd even started
in the master's program at ETSU.But Bruce was very involved in
that world. And Bruce said, oh, I've got
someone who should be our keynote speaker for our banquet.

(03:03):
And so we hired this lady, Kim Whitekamp, who had a history and
ministry, but now is this world renowned storyteller and
performer and singer. And so we're all set up for the
banquet. We've got a couple 100 people
that are there for this thing and there's no Kim.
And Kim was stuck in traffic. You had something crazy go on

(03:26):
that you were stuck in traffic. So we're scrambling because
we're going through the program and Bruce is getting regular
updates on her and she's like, OK, I'm this far out, I'm this
far out, I'm this far out. And we're getting to the part of
the show where it's time for herto go on.
So we sit there and we just called an audible and I got up
and told a story and was so I actually opened for Kim

(03:50):
Whitekamp. I'm claiming that that that I
was the opening act for Kim Whitekamp and she showed up like
30 seconds after I had started. And so like, great.
This was my big moment. This is my big chance to shine.
And now she's here. So I quickly wrapped it up,
turned it over to her and she blew everyone away and we raised

(04:11):
more money than we ever had before.
So that was the first time that we ever met.
And I don't know that you that we've ever talked about that
before. No, I completely forgot about
it. I feel bad.
I wish I could say, oh, I do remember that.
But I, I, I don't. I remember having dinner with
you and Bruce, I think at the Thai restaurant.

(04:31):
I tend to, I tend to remember stuff that's connected,
connected to food, Tony. Amen.
I'm in for that. Well, we do want to welcome onto
the Porch world renowned storyteller in demand, speaker
consultant, festival headliner, singer Kim Whitekamp and and

(04:53):
Robert, I've been building this one up for a while because she's
not only a phenomenal performer,she is just an all around great
person. This is the best research I've
had to do, the best homework. I mean, I guess I've had to do
in a long time because I try andresearch and get to know the
guests a little bit, especially the ones that I don't.

(05:13):
I don't know who they are. And man, it is an absolute treat
to go down the the YouTube and Internet rabbit trails of Kim
White Camp. And so a lot of fun, good
stories. Yeah, hilarious.
So I'm excited. I can't wait.
Yeah. So, Kim, thank you so much for
joining us on the porch today. We are honored to have you and
excited to hear what you're going to share with us and with

(05:34):
our audience. We have people that listen to
the show all over the globe, allaround the world.
And you are in Ohio and I lookedand Ohio is actually like our
fifth most listened to state. We have the fifth most listeners
in the state of Ohio. They've been waiting this
episode. Oh no.
I will never say I'll never finish that statement.

(05:57):
Ever. I'm out.
If you're waiting on Kim to do it, she can, but I will not
finish that. What is the statement?
OH. O I/O there.
You go. OK, so Kim, like I'm trying to.
Figure out I I was like, I have no idea what I was like Oh yeah,

(06:18):
that you know, I. Are you a sports fan?
I mean, do you like sports and enjoy watching those or are you
really I'm. A hockey girl, I am die hard
hockey I am bring the blood in the lost teeth hockey girl.
And so when I moved here to BlueJackets territory, I felt like a
traitor 'cause I'm a hardcore Penguins and Hurricanes fan.

(06:40):
I've been a Penguins fan forever.
And yeah, the the North CarolinaHurricanes, though, they have my
heart. Just I love those guys.
I've loved the Canes before anybody really talked about the
Canes. And so, yeah, I'm a hockey girl,
so, and I'm also with college football.

(07:01):
I'm a Penn State person. I've been a Penn State football
fan for Oh my, did I hear someone go make a noise?
You did. It was me.
Penn State and Ohio State are low on my list of teams.
Very low. I'm a Penn State girl.
I can't. I grew up in Pennsylvania.
No, no, I totally get that. I grew up in Alabama and so I'm

(07:22):
an Alabama fan and it's, yeah, no, I totally get it.
I just, you know, college football.
Yeah, I like college football better than NFL because those
boys are playing for their future.
Everything is on the line hardcore.
You know, they're getting some kickbacks on some things, but I
just feel like they're more desperate to win.

(07:46):
I'm liking college football right now more as well because
I'm a Cowboys fan and Jerry Jones keeps ruining my life.
Well, your team just lost. Well, we lost the game.
I'm not overly concerned, I mean.
To an unranked team. To an unranked team that had 25
transfers that were all high level D1 players.
That's this isn't a conversationfor an episode with Jim.

(08:07):
I don't want to waste 20 minutesgoing down a rabbit trail of
arguing college football with with when we've got Jim here to
talk about. Really.
That's OK, I I love this kind ofconversation, but I get it.
That's not what this is. No.
Well, this is what we do every week.
I mean, it's it's actually. One of the few reasons people
listen to us is to hear us arguefor 10 minutes about something

(08:28):
that should that should mean nothing to anyone and we argue
about it like Nevada, Nevada, which is the correct way to say
that and that kind of stuff. So it's.
There's a right way and a wrong way.
And then there's Tony's way thattell you, one of my boys the
other day said like, how do you?I was like, how do you say the
the place at like where Sin City's AT?

(08:50):
And and somebody said something,we were talking Atlanta said
Nevada. And I said, please say that to
Tony on Sunday. Please say Nevada.
It would be so great. I don't think he did, but I
thought that would be so good ifhe looked at you and said, Tony,
are you from Las Vegas, NV? Oh that would be so great.
Only someone from Alabama would say alike.

(09:11):
He's not from Alabama. He's.
Actually from here. So Kim, you are in an incredibly
busy season of life. It is festival season for
storytelling. We've now wasted 10 minutes of
your life on on this conversation so far.
Oh no, I like this kind of conversation.
But Kim, how, how did you get started in this world, on this

(09:33):
journey? You have been referred to called
one of the greatest storytellersin the world.
You're one of the most. But tell my.
Mom all over. Did my mom call you?
My mom still doesn't think I have a real job.
Kimsmom.com was the website and he hopped on there and it was so
your mom just talking all the time about how good you are.

(09:55):
It was great. See, that's, that's where it
comes from. The only place I'm I'm world
famous is 1 whatever town I'm inat the moment.
And then that fades quickly and then with my family, so.
At least she's got that. I'm just a legend of my own
mind, so she's way ahead of me. Hey, at least you got one person

(10:16):
on your side. I'm there.
Well. Can you tell us your story?
Yeah. So for 20 years I worked with
youth. I was actually a pastor.
I don't make that widely known because people change around you
when you say that. But I was a pastor for almost 20
years, 18 years as a pastor, 20 years working in ministry.
And I used story in everything that I did, everything that I

(10:41):
did. And it became this joke that I
was the story lady. Now, in our world, in
storytelling world, you don't want to be called the story
lady. But in that world, I didn't know
this world existed. The world that I'm in now, which
is much bigger than people realize, but it's still somewhat
of a small, you know, kind of art form.
And I was at a leadership conference.

(11:03):
I spoke at a leadership conference and there was a
dinner afterwards. It was in California and I heard
a woman at the table and she washosting it say something about a
storytelling festival. And I was like, what?
So I asked her about it and I said jokingly, people call me
the story lady because you're going to I teach in story, I
communicate in story, I reprimand in story, my staff,

(11:26):
whatever. It's always story.
She said, where are you located?I told her and she's like, Oh my
gosh, you're you're 2 hours fromthe mothership.
And I said, what do you mean? She said the National
Storytelling Telling Festival and there is an unbelievable
amount of phenomenal festivals around the country.
If you put in your state and putStorytelling Festival, you're

(11:48):
probably going to find one. But this one is 50 years old,
gets about 20,000 people to it. I think it is 15 to 20
depending. And it's fabulous.
So I went and I took a friend with me and the whole time she
kept saying this is what you do,this is what you do.
And I was really at that point wanting to get out of my work as

(12:09):
a pastor because my main focus for those 20 years was
adjudicated and at risk youth. It was youth, women in worship.
I had phenomenal worship teams and but the main thrust was
youth. And I never, when I would work
at a church, I would tell him, I'm not going to be a babysitter
on Wednesdays for the youth group kids.

(12:31):
They're going to, there's going to be cogs they work through and
I'm going to do major outreach. And you're going to have a lot
of kids here whose parents don'ttithe.
And so you're going to end up investing more.
And if you're good with that, wecan work together.
And so I was just kind of burnt out from that, though, really
burnt out from that kind of work.

(12:51):
It's, it's working with at risk and adjudicated and even kids in
juvenile facilities, it'll, it wears you down after 20 years.
And I, so I stepped away from that and at that, whenever I
went to the festival, I thought,this is what I do.
I do this in a different way, but this is what I do.
So I made a decision to be on the national stage in two years

(13:13):
and it happened. Wow.
And when? When was that?
Well, that was like 19 years agoI guess.
What is your journey been like since that moment?
It's been amazing. I mean, I've traveled to amazing

(13:34):
places, I've met incredible people.
I've been able to tell stories to the masses, I guess you could
say. I mean, I was thinking about it
the other day that I'm easily close.
I know I'm over half a million people easy that I've spoken to

(13:54):
either through keynote speaking,which I do a lot, or
performances, which I do a lot, or even training.
You know, I train businesses howto align their culture using
storytelling is and I'm not justsaying this because this is what
I do. It is fact.
I've witnessed it, I've utilizedit, I've researched it, and I

(14:15):
also did everything for 20 yearsusing story.
I've owned record labels, designcompanies, streets, on stores,
on Main Street here and story. If it is not one of your
foundational blocks in what you do in business or in your home,
in your relationships, you're really missing out on being

(14:37):
majorly fruitful, productive, profitable and healthy.
And so my journey, you know, oneweek I'm at a dentist conference
for dentists and, you know, and then speaking and keynote
speaking. And then I'm keynote speaking at
a hunger action thing in Vermont.

(14:57):
And then I'm at a theater in in Portland, OR.
I'm thinking of the Alberta RoseTheater right now.
It just came up in my brain performing.
So it's this really awesome, weird world that I live in.
Yeah. When did you first begin to
realize the power of storytelling?
That it was more than just entertainment, that it could

(15:20):
really be transformational in someone's life.
Well, I have always used story since I was a kid.
Very elaborate, beautiful, made-up stories to get out of
trouble or to gain extra points in history class, whatever.

(15:41):
But obviously, during my 20 years of work with with the with
youth and women, I saw the transformational value of story.
But there is a extremely pivotalmoment that happened in my life
that rocked my world after I left ministry.

(16:05):
And I also was a director of like 3 states of youth
nonprofits during that time. Just done tired.
I took a job that would give me a chance to rest.
I took took time off probably like half a year off.
And then I became the assistant to the chief of police and I
handled Homeland Security for the county we were in because it

(16:29):
was right after 911, like not right after.
But, you know, all those things were coming into to motion in
places and trying to figure out what direction I was going to
go. And my new storytelling was it,
but I didn't know how and what that looked like.

(16:50):
And I would go to work at the Police Department and I had my
phone and my booking calendar and then I did my work.
And he knew because there was a door that no one could see that
I could see in his office for his protection.
And he knew I was booking myselfand taking calls and everything.
He was great. But it was during my time at
that job that my cousin Shelly, who we found each other on

(17:14):
Facebook, thank you, thank you Mark Zuckerberg and sent me an
article. So I never met my birth mother.
I didn't know anything about my birth mother.
I was picking up pieces of aboutmy birth mom trying to put it
together and my dad never talkedabout her.
I didn't even find out that I was, that my mom wasn't my mom

(17:36):
that raised me till I was like 1415.
And she sent me an e-mail and itsaid, you probably already know
this, but that was the subject line.
And I opened it and she said, I thought you'd like to have this
article. And it downloads.
And it's a story. There's a black and white
picture of a nun. There's four children and a
little baby in her lap, but fourchildren surrounding her, all

(17:59):
dirty, not quite dressed. There's a little girl with a
distended stomach, wopped chopped hair and she's just in
her underwear and it says 5 Washburn children abandoned a
gas station. So I read this article about
these five kids dumped off at a gas station and that it was not
the first time the child services as well as this

(18:23):
children's home became involved in the Washburn kids life.
And so I read this whole articleand I'm like, why did she send
me this? So I called her and I'm like,
why did you send me that article?
I don't know who it is. And she said, well, that's your
mom on the end, the little girl with the wop chopped hair and
the distended stomach. And I said, no, it's not.
It says her name's K Annie Forgy.
She goes, no, they were all adopted out and their names

(18:46):
changed. So that's your mom, Linda
Winters. And I had carried around a lot
of hurt, deep hurt. She left me when I was six weeks
old at a babysitters and never came back.
And my dad got home from a trip for his work and found out that
she had just abandoned us. And she has nine other kids, two
different men. And I carried a lot of hurt and

(19:07):
pain questions. But reading that article and
understanding what she went through and then seeing a cycle
that had happened basically because my my mother abandoned 9
children and then her mother abandoned 5 and my great

(19:29):
grandmother abandoned 12, and alcoholism runs rampant.
So in that moment, Tony, when I got her story, it was like 30
years of therapy. Absolute empathy flowed through
me. I remember sitting at the Police
Department by my computer after seeing and reading and talking

(19:50):
to Shelly. I looked up and I was just like,
I forgive you. I forgive you.
Like, I get it. I get.
That we've got this generationalthing here and I get all of her
issues just in one swoop. And it was in that pivotal
moment I realized that a well told story, not even well told,

(20:16):
but just a story at the right time, delivered authentically,
can on a dime, change somebody'slife.
I already knew that in my 20 years of work, but it never felt
it that profoundly myself. And that's when I decided that I
needed to do more than tall tales because when I first got
into this realm, I was the only really the only woman other than

(20:37):
another one that I know doing like really hilarious tall
tales. And that's when I realized I
have way more to say and that when people allow me in the
pulpit of their life, and I don't mean that religiously, I
mean they buy a ticket and sit down to listen to me talk, When
they grant me that luxury, I take that extremely seriously,

(21:01):
especially because of that moment.
I know that when all of those people come together, different
religions, different income levels, different political
views, whatever, that we all come together and that I have an
insanely beautiful opportunity to change their life on a dime.

(21:27):
Did you see a a big shift in thereaction that you got, the
connection that you had with thepeople that you were
communicating with when you madethat shift from just telling
tall tales to getting more personal with your stories?
Yes, because well and and I I don't want to belittle or make

(21:50):
less than stories that are told and entertainment wise or even
around the dinner table that arejust funny.
That lifts the heaviness of the world by telling tall tales or
by being funny. And you can infuse a lot of
truth into funny, but when it's just for the sake of making
people laugh, you know, just more simplistic, you do take

(22:13):
reality and suspend it for a while and give them a chance to
breathe. Whether it's the wayward child,
the knee that hurts, the job they hate, whatever.
You just give them a chance to breathe with that kind of stuff.
And so that's valuable. It's as it's as valuable as the
other side where it's with greatintention, expecting a certain

(22:34):
kind of output and reaction. So but I did because I was
delivering a different kind of story.
So I definitely saw a different kind of reaction.
Kim, with all of that that you just said, why do you think
there's maybe a stigma in some circles around storytelling?

(22:55):
What? What do you think people
misunderstand about story? Well, first of all, they think
it's juvenile. That's the biggest hurdle that
there is. They think it's juvenile.
If you say to a guy, hey, we're going to go do some
storytelling, We're going to go listen to some storytelling.
Come on, they men and women, notjust guys, but I will, you know,

(23:19):
men are a little tougher sell women, when you say
storytelling, tend to get it a little better.
Even though they're still thinking kids, they're still
thinking kids. At least they kind of have their
mind wrapped around it because they're doing it with their kids
a lot, even if they're just making it up or in conversation.
But let me go back and amend that.
The biggest issue is that a lot of people think it's juvenile.

(23:44):
And let me explain that they either A, think it's just for
kids, B, it's the lady at the library, or C, it's too
emotional and I don't want to invest that kind of effort into
my business. It's this is Foo Foo.
Storytelling is emotional and itfeels a little juvenile.
And why are you asking me to make that a cornerstone of my,

(24:06):
my business or whatever it is that I'm building?
And it's, that's probably the biggest hurdle that I have.
And then the second one is people thinking that their
stories aren't worth anything, which is so sad.
They think it has to be profoundor edited.
You know, my dad dropped a storyin me that was probably a 45

(24:29):
second story in response to a question I asked.
And it radically changed my liferadically.
As a matter of fact, it caused me with the help of a professor
at Virginia Tech to I came up with this whole thing called the
Newton's Cradle of Story. And, and then I worked with her

(24:52):
a little bit because she was doing research on some of the
similar stuff that I was alreadythinking just from that 45
second story. So when people say they don't
have a story that's worthwhile or good enough, they just,
they're wrong, period. Or if they think it's just for
kids, they're wrong. We all speak in story.
We speak in story every single day.

(25:12):
I was doing a conference and I don't don't ask me where it was.
It was on the water. I remember that really lovely
resort and I was speaking to a group of people that in my brain
I'm like, how did I get here? Because I shouldn't.
These people are so incredibly brilliant.
How in the world did I even get here that I get to be their

(25:32):
keynote speaker? But you know, and so I called my
mom and I said, mom, I said, howare you?
I'm good, great. Kimmy, where you at?
I told her and she said, what are you doing?
And I said, I'm at a conference and I'm keynote speaking.
And I said I'm keynote speaking for and I told her what and what
they did. And she said, Oh, Kimmy, oh

(25:55):
honey, I am so proud of you. And I'm like, oh, thanks, mom.
And then I called my sister later that day and she's like,
where are you? I told her and she's like, what
are you doing? I'm like, well, I keynotes.
I had a keynote this morning, but then I went to the spa.
They have a spa here. And I did this, this, this.
So I took the same scenario and turned it into two different
stories because I wanted two different reactions from those

(26:16):
people. I wanted my mother to think I
was her brightest, most successful, well loved favorite
child and I wanted my baby sister to wish she was me
because that's just human nature.
And I say that tongue in cheek, but it every day we we
manipulate the story of our lifewith people to get the response

(26:38):
we want from them or to get the reaction or output from them
that we want from them. People are born storytellers.
They do it every single day. And and there is no story that
is not worthwhile. There's a piece of gold in every
part of your story. What is Newton's cradle of
story? So this is copyrighted, just for

(26:59):
the record, because I make I make my living teaching this to
businesses and marketing companies as well as people on a
relationship. Kim's contact info at the end of
this episode and in our show notes, if any of our listeners
want to reach out to Kim and hire her to come in and teach
this with their organization or you also do coaching on this,

(27:20):
right? I do yeah.
I do a lot of coaching and consulting with with businesses,
small business owners and large organizations like I I was
contracted with Purina for almost 4 years and Habitat for
Humanity, not no feeding feedingAmerica National Edward Jones.

(27:44):
I could just Griffles. I just, there's huge companies I
work with. But anyways, so the Newton's
Cradle story is, you know, the Newton's Cradle how all the
balls hang down, right? And you pull back the first one
and that's the release of the story.
And like I said, the story that my dad gave me was not pre
written, edited and perfected. It was just authentic and

(28:08):
truthful. And he dropped it into me and it
changed the, well, let me explain.
So the story was released into me.
We'll use it as an example, and the very next thing that
happened was my concept changed.In this case, it was the concept
of my father. It could be the concept of your
spouse. It could be the concept of your

(28:30):
child. It could be the concept of your
product. It could be the concept of your
workplace that you're building. But my concept changed.
You can't release a story and not have a conceptual change.
If you tell the Three Little Pigs to a bunch of kids, they're
going to have a conceptual change about a few different
things that are pretty obvious to us as adults.
And it works the same on a higher level, not a better

(28:53):
level. But I'm just going to say maybe
a more adult level that when yourelease a story to somebody,
they have a conceptual change, just like I did with my mom and
my sister. And so in that case, the concept
of my father radically changed in a millisecond from that
authentic story he dropped. And the next thing that happens

(29:15):
is that your worldview changes. You cannot have a conceptual
change in your mind and not havea change in your worldview.
Now, I don't mean the world as awhole, although that could be
the case depending on what the story is.
In this case, it's the worldviewwith my father, my worldview
with my father, our whole life together and all the Gray areas

(29:37):
that crisscross through that andintermingle was changed that day
because I had a conceptual change of him.
Now my sight into our world has been altered.
And you cannot have a story dropwithout a concept change.
And a concept change gives you anew view into your world.

(29:58):
And so all the things that I held against my father shifted
didn't make him right. He was a tough guy.
He was a tough, he was a tough guy.
I don't know if to put it, neverabusive, but just a hard guy, a
tough guy. And I really, it changed my
worldview with him. I, I, I forgave him and

(30:19):
understood some of his behaviorsaccording to the story that he
told me. Well, you can't have a
conceptual change and a change in how you see the world without
there being in attitude adjustment.
And I call that the axis of attitude.
So we've dropped the story and all the balls, They're not
moving, but there's great energyflowing through them.

(30:41):
Concept, worldview, and now attitude.
You can't have a worldview change and a conceptual change
without an attitude change. It's impossible.
The thing is, it doesn't just work positive, it can work in a
negative, as in I never wanted you.
I wish you were never born. You were not planned.
All you do is eat me out of house and home.

(31:01):
You say that enough to a kid andrelease those stories into them
on a regular basis. Their concept will be altered.
Their worldview of authority andparenting and parents and their
home life will radically be changed.
You're going to get a shifted attitude and it's not going to
be good. This is how I used story in my

(31:22):
work with youth. But in this way, we're talking
about it in a positive way. So my attitude changed, my
attitude changed. And when you have an attitude
changed, then you have a behavioral change.
I'm telling you, I'm talking 3 decades of using this, 20
decades of putting it in on paper and figuring it out and
then some studying and some workwith her.

(31:44):
It just, it's, it's radical. I tell people I'm going to give
you something that is worth so much money, and if you actually
take the time to utilize it and think through things before you
do them, release them, build them, business culture, home
culture, church culture, I don'tcare your own life, it will

(32:05):
radically change things because the axis of attitude is what
everything turns on. Everybody does things according
to their attitude. I don't like that people group.
And so this is how I'm going to behave towards that people
group. There's an attitude.
Well, where did that attitude come from?
Well, there's a skewed worldview.
Where'd the worldview come from?There's a concept.
Where did the concept come from?Stories they've been told,

(32:28):
stories they have heard, seen orallowed themselves to to eat,
right. And so my attitude towards my
dad changed. And then the next thing that
happened was my behaviors started to change.
I'd send him cards for no reason.
I tried to touch him more when Iwas near him, like touch his

(32:49):
back or grab his arm and be like, oh, dad, just be a little
more physical. I talked to him more on the
phone. Just my behaviors began to
change because there'd been a whole shift in my human psyche.
And the the ball that swings outafter that is then actions.

(33:10):
And you may say, well, you just said behaviors.
Well that's me. But the action that happened is
that my dad after about 8 months, because I watched it,
began to have actions back towards me like sending me texts
telling me he loved me more. And so my dad and his

(33:31):
relationship near almost, I didn't have too long with him
after that. Our relationship changed because
of that one little 45 second, one minute authentic story that
he dropped into me. And then all of those shiftings
happened. And the important thing to
recognize is that with the Newton's Cradle, you release

(33:54):
that first ball and it looks like nothing's happening till
that final ball. The actions come, fly out and
come back to you. But there's a lot of energy
flowing. You know, I don't want to get
religious, but, you know, don't let your right hand know what
your left hand is doing. Or, you know, we, we don't sow

(34:15):
the seed to see instant fruit. Some sow it, some water it.
There are a lot of kids I've worked with for 20 years.
Why where I implemented this very thing without quite having
a name for it, but understandingit because I'd watched it.
And I also studied story long before I got into this world and
I didn't see the fruit ever or long, long time afterwards.

(34:39):
And that's OK. But I didn't get to see the ball
swing back immediately. That's not why we do it.
And it takes patience. You know, this isn't a quick fix
it. Some people pay 22 grand to have
a person come in and, and and completely pull apart everything
and interview everybody. And then they're like, here's
what you need to do. ABCD OK, Implement those things

(35:00):
and you're good. Story takes a little longer, and
that's one of the things I tell people.
When you start releasing storiesinto your people group, no
matter what that is, you have got to be patient because in
some cases you're trying to completely change an attitude
and a concept and a worldview that is really rooted deep.
The deeper it's rooter, the rooted, the longer it takes and

(35:23):
you just have to be patient. That's such an incredible light
just process to go through. And I think some of the things I
was thinking about, like as you were talking there, you you had
said a few seconds ago or just acouple minutes before you said
that, that, you know, men in particular.
And I would 100% agree with that.
I was preaching at a buddy's church a few weeks ago on

(35:44):
journaling and I was like, maybeI'm 100% wrong, but I think
we've kind of set journaling up to be a more female, you know,
Diaries and you know, those types of things and, and dudes
kind of tend to go, but it's oneof those moments of why, why do
you think? Because I'm, I'm listening to
what you're saying here. And so the application of this
process that you have been able to create and you now walk in

(36:08):
and teach individuals and companies, organizations across
the globe. Like, you know, you see, like
like I say that I would agree men would go hate story, but
then we would be the first ones to stand inside of A room or in
front of a team that we're leading or something and go, you
know, what you do in life echoesin eternity or we tell the be

(36:29):
curious, not judgmental scene from Ted Lasso.
And you know, we're quick to quote Gladiator or Braveheart or
Ted Lasso and things like that at which are just stories that
have been recorded in a camera that somebody's good at telling.
And we sit and watch TV and movies.
We watch SEAL Team or whatever because it meets the emotional

(36:49):
need that we're at or it allows us to disengage maybe in a way
that it helps us think. But yet when it comes to someone
giving us something that, and I'm not saying that movies are
inauthentic because I love movies and TV shows, but like it
does feel a touch more raw and inauthentic when you sit in

(37:10):
front of someone who's a real storyteller that's telling real
stories, or at least make them feel real.
I know you guys are are great, you know, workers of words, but
like, why do you think that connection is so hard for people
to take that step? Because they don't.
They don't get it. They don't.
They're not around it. That's the biggest problem.

(37:33):
Every human that I've had come to a storytelling festival who
never knew anything about it, male and female fall in love
with it and a story fall in lovewith it.
They're like, I never knew this existed.
I can't believe this. You know, they, they don't take
any coercing once they've been there.
It does to get them there, but then they are, they're sold

(37:57):
hook, line and sinker. They're sold and I think it's
because they're not around it. And I say that because I
wouldn't have said this before 2010, I'll say 2010, but we have
become so digital and so technological.
I mean, I the other day we were out to dinner and I watched a

(38:20):
whole family. The kids each had iPads.
The parents had their phones on the table.
They looked at the menus, put them down, pick up their
equipment and then put their order in, then kept on their
technological devices. And then the food came and they

(38:41):
kept on them, kept being on themwhile they ate.
And I'm just like, what the IT took everything in me not to go
over and go, dude, do you guys recognize you've got a mom and a
dad and and you've got these beautiful kids and you haven't
once looked each other in the eye and said, tell me the best

(39:02):
part of your day today. Tell me the worst part of your
day today. Like we're not around it.
That to me is the biggest issue right now is that we do have
access to so many stories digitally.
We think we're getting filled and we are, you know, like you
said, a, a movie, it may not be a human being, but there's very

(39:23):
authentic truths, very authentictruths in, in every story that
comes across our screen, whetherit be TV, MacBook, iPad,
whatever. So there are authentic truths
and we think, oh good, well, youknow, that was great.
But we are, we, I think we're, Idon't even think it, I know it

(39:43):
because I researched it. I've been doing research on that
for like 3 years. I mean, we have the loneliest
generation coming. We have the most medicated
generation coming and most disattached.
You know, I'm like, I have friends that are teachers and
they're like, the kids sit thereand stare at me like they don't
even know what to do with me. And I can't even get them to
quite grasp what's happening. But I think a lot of the problem

(40:06):
now is that we don't do it. You know, it used to be we, they
men around the campfires. And then it was, well, we men
around, you know, under the quilts in the church basement,
the children and the women and the men would work together and
they'd eat together in their communities.
And then it switched over to around the dining room table.

(40:27):
And then the family structure has fallen apart.
And that's, I'm not here to say what's right and wrong for other
people's lives, but it's just a basic truth.
We've got one parent homes working 2 jobs, two parent homes
working three jobs. Lot kids are doing more
extracurricular activities than ever.
And so dinner's on the run and then they're thrown in the car

(40:50):
or their grandmother has them and and there's just no place
for them to gather and to look at each other with no equipment
in front of them that'll distract them and say, here is
what happened at my work today and here's how I handled it.
And their kids learn things fromthat.
What happened in your day-to-day, or guess what your

(41:10):
mother did today? Or you know, there's just none
of that. There's just, it's really,
really lacking. It's very sadly lacking.
And we're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back
with more from Kim White Count. At Higher Ministries, they
believe strong leaders build strong ministries.
That's why they're committed to empowering pastors and ministry

(41:30):
leaders with the tools they needto succeed.
Whether you're navigating challenges or looking to expand
your impacts, their team can guide you every step of the way.
Check out higherministries.com and discover how they can
support your ministry journey. So we're back on the porch with
Kim Whitekamp. And Kim, you talked a little
while ago in our conversation about some of the corporations

(41:50):
that you've worked with, and there's some major, major
international corporations. There has been so much research
that has been done on the power,the science of storytelling and
why stories work from neurocoupling and how the
listener's brain mirrors that ofthe storytellers when they're
listening to a story, to the oxytocin that's released when we

(42:12):
listen to a story. I've, I've read studies that
show that stories are 22 times more memorable than facts.
Why do you think that story is just as powerful in the
boardroom as it is around the campfire?

(42:34):
Because we're all trying to do the same thing, and that's be
successful in our endeavor. And the way to be successful in
your endeavor is to, one, have something that you're willing to
live and die for. And it's hard to have something
you want to live or die for if you do not feel a great passion
for it. And the best way to make

(42:56):
somebody passionate about something is to wrap the
ideology in a authentic and welltold story that sounded so
smart. That was incredible.
I was sitting here going. Like I want that on a T-shirt.
I never said that. I'm sitting here and I'm just
talking out of my brain and I'm.Like notes.

(43:18):
I got to write that one down andreally think that one through,
but I was. Like if we had, if we had teaser
clips at the beginning that I would have been like, that's the
clip right there. That was incredible what you
just said. So good.
That's funny. Sorry, I do.
I believe it, though. It's true.
Every person wants to be the hero of a story, and they're

(43:42):
just looking for somebody or some experience or even
something within themselves to call that out.
And so in a boardroom, you know,let's decide what we're talking
about here at Purina. Their goal is to be the hero of
the dog food industry. That sounds silly, but it's the

(44:03):
truth. They want to be the one that
everybody champions, that everybody applauds for that
everybody picks off the shelf, right?
And the way to do that and the way to get people into that
place. And by the way, I'm not, I'm not
being paid for this. I'm telling you, they're a great
company. They they are a great company.
I'm very particular who I work with.
There's companies I've turned down financially, it was a tough

(44:26):
decision, but it was the right decision.
I really believe in that company.
They have good heart. But anyways, that's theirs.
And so they have to release those stories.
They release them through packaging, social media,
advertisements, articles. So that's how they get people to
herald their calls to champion their their journey to let them

(44:50):
be the hero of, of that community of in the in the dog
food world, which is more cutthroat than comedy.
And but it works the same in in your home.
You know, what do you want? What is, what is the thing that
you want your family to really be championing A cause for?

(45:12):
Well, for the family safety, forthe family stability for the
family to be successful. We don't quit.
We don't give up on each other. We're here for each other.
I'm going to be forgiving whenever you fail me because you
will. Those are all the things we want
to have happen. Well, how do you have how do you
make that become a reality? We have to release those
stories, whether it's at the dinner table or whether it's

(45:35):
during a kind of time of disciplining when you can say,
you know, once when I was your age or that's the one thing kid
didn't ever want to hear. But when I was 8 or when I was
14. And then you share a story.
But in this house, what we do isand that's how you how you can
do that. It's how you align culture in a
business. You know, you can run around and

(45:56):
say you believe anything that you want, but until you really
put that into a good story form and then do the steps to act
that out, to align that story, that's the whole thing I teach.
It's not going to happen. And what'll happen is people
hear you flapping at the gums from the higher up offices, but
they're not seeing it down at what level they're on.

(46:17):
And then you have people rating the supply closet and stealing
and overturn and they don't knowwhy and it's because you've not
aligned the story properly. So it's not just telling a good
authentic story. Sometimes it takes more work
than that, depending if it's a boardroom or whatever, or around
the campfire. But yeah, that's why I think it

(46:39):
works. Any I actually know it works
anywhere because the Newton's Cradle story, which is basically
the human psyche, the effective story on the human psyche.
If you want to make it simplistic, I've told to
educators, dentists, huge marketing companies, churches,

(47:01):
people I coach who are having family issues and it's not even
supposed to be that kind of coaching.
People believing story alignmentin their own life.
I actually call myself a story alignment coach.
So it's, it's, I don't know. I just think it's one of the
most powerful tools that we haveas humans.
Actually, I don't believe it. I know it is because all I have

(47:22):
to do is look at the world and even where we're at now and know
that stories that are being put out, even when they're not
authentic, are extremely powerful if you look worldwide.
One of the things I was thinkingabout is like CEOs and leaders
of organizations, nobody wants to walk in and blow their
company up. But the, the problem is most

(47:44):
people don't wake up going, how do I not blow it up?
How do I not? And so that intentionality of
how do you walk into a moment? Nobody wants to destroy their
family. Nobody wants to see things go.
I think that a lot of those moments start with just a lack
of focus or a lack of awareness that then maybe ultimately down

(48:06):
the road, the, you know, cart gets ahead of the horse or
whatever and they can't stop themachine from running.
And then they, they then intentionally keep a bad thing
going. But no, you're so right.
And helping people to tell a better story early on helps them
create a better culture that leads to a better, a better
company, a better house, a better family environment.

(48:29):
And it's just no, everything yousaid is so good.
And it would be a very long shirt to read, but you should
really put it on a shirt. It's it's, it's really a good
thought of just how to process and go through that.
I'm working with a company rightnow and I call it doggy paddling
on the surface. And they're just the sweetest.

(48:50):
I'm not going to get into who itis because I can't, but these
two women run this company such a good product and it's doing
extremely well, but they can't keep workers.
And I call it doggy paddling. So on the surface there, there
you see that slow motion of movement and just these gentle

(49:11):
ripples and it looks like they've got it all together.
They have their marketing is clean and beautiful and
pertinent and contemporary. Their, what they say out of
their mouths and even their mission statement is just on
key. It's super Gen.
Xe. I freaking love it.

(49:32):
It's just palatable and I would work there if I read it.
But underneath the water they are paddling furiously because
they can't keep anybody long term.
There's so much turnover, especially in the factories.
And the problem is all that you see on the surface, the story
that they want to have happen isn't they have not put the

(49:55):
things in order to align the story top to bottom.
So the people down here, and I'mnot saying as in a less land
then I'm saying in an authority role, the people down here hear
these things and see them on their website and see them even
when they come to work. They read it, they hear it, but
it's not happening. And so they're just they're not

(50:18):
sticking around. They're like, they don't have it
together. What they say is not who they
are. So even though they are
authentically wanting to be thatthey have not aligned their
story appropriately. So to actually become that with
everybody at every level. And I'm going to tell you as a
pastor, I watched that in homes many times where the father and

(50:41):
mother would come to church. Everything looks great.
The kids are squeaky clean and they're worshipping and they're
tithing. And then when they leave, the
father is completely belittling the mother.
There's no time with the children.
The mother is just worn down forher own reasons and the family
starts to fall apart because thestory was not what they want to

(51:03):
be. And what they think they want to
be or are is not aligned with who they really are.
And kids are the absolute keenness for calling out BS.
But they can't quit the job, they can't leave the facility,
and so they internalize it and end up hating everything their

(51:26):
parents are trying to make them to believe because they see it
is not authentic. Which is why we see that 80% of
kids that grow up in the church are walking away from the church
and walking away from faith. 100%.
Which just to kind of play off of that a little bit, Kim, after
that interaction that I had withyou, that first meeting that I
had with you that you don't remember back at the the banquet

(51:49):
that we had 15 or so years ago. Turn the knife.
Just dig a little deeper. There we go it.
Got me thinking about the trajectory of my life.
And at the time, I was a lead pastor that was speaking every
week. And it, it prompted me to start
exploring storytelling a little bit more from a different angle

(52:10):
than just what I'd been doing onSunday, Sunday mornings.
And I begin to learn as I begin to see more and more into this
world, You were a pastor. Donald Davis was a pastor.
Bill Lepp was a pastor. Tim Lowry has a ministry
background. And it caused me to have this
real shift in my life of saying every single week I'm speaking,

(52:33):
I'm telling stories that come in.
They punch it off of their To DoList and then they go back home
and I went to my first festival and you were on stage there,
Bill was on stage there, Donald was on stage there.
And I walked away from that saying they just had more impact
in the lives of people in this weekend than I've had in the

(52:55):
last year. And it caused me to really have
this self reflection on what am I doing with the gifts that God
has given me? Am am I just continuing to use
these gifts to speak to people who turn and and walk away and
never think again of the things that I said?
Or are there other avenues whereyou can reach people who maybe

(53:17):
didn't even know what they were looking for, didn't even know
that something was missing in their lives.
And now they've walked away motivated, encouraged, and with
something deep within them stirred to where they're now
asking questions and looking foranswers to questions that they
didn't even know that they had. I'm wondering how faith has
played into your journey with story, both on a stage and in a

(53:44):
boardroom. Tony, Tony, Tony.
Well, that's like, that's the groan of the old, old pastor in

(54:04):
me. First of all, I want to say
something about what you just said.
I want to, I want to talk about that for a quick second, if you
don't mind. Absolutely.

(54:31):
Put together. OK, I'm OK, now let me take a
drink of coffee. Mushroom Aptogenic coffee, not

(54:59):
psychedelic, just brain healthy.OK, well, Tony, I just want to
talk about what you said for a minute.
And this is where my 20 years asa pastor starts to kick in
because one of the reasons that I'm still not a pastor rests on
this. The people in those festival

(55:20):
seats and the people in the church Pew are equally.
And I know you know this valuable and anything shared
from the pulpit, and I'm not saying religiously, I'm talking
like you're allowed to speak into a pulpit from into their
lives carries the same weight and it can have the same effect.

(55:45):
So why do we see such a different reaction or chain
reaction between what we talked about storytelling, the way we
do it here and within the church?
And I truly believe it's becausethe organized church has created
a community that allows people to turn and walk away and live a
decompartmentalized faith. I don't want to put the whole

(56:12):
blame on that, but it's it's a huge part of it.
I watched it happen. It's one of the reasons why I
never truly fit into the cookie cutter of what was expected of
me as a pastor, and I make no apologies for that.
Didn't make people happy on one level, but they loved the

(56:34):
numbers. I mean, I had.
It's not even important. Numbers out of numbers aren't
important. One is as important as 1000.
But every ministry grew lines ofkids, everything grew and but I,
I, and it's not a pat on my backin any way.
I am so faulty. But that's what I showed them my

(56:56):
faultiness. I showed them that you're
allowed to be real and you're not going to be looked at
different or judged differently when you when you come.
There is such a community that has been created within the
church where it is you must be this or you're one of the cool
people there or you know, you dress this way or well, they

(57:18):
like me and so I'm OK or or or Icould just make a list of like
100 things that that incubates aculture where you have to be one
way to walk through the doors and feel accepted.
Even though many churches say that is not true.
They're lying by what I see, andthey know it themselves.

(57:39):
And so the person has to act a certain way.
They have to be a certain way, dress a certain way, whatever it
is, say the right things, act, make their kids say certain
things and act certain ways whenthey're in the church because
they aren't allowed to be in a community where they can just
take a deep breath and go, Oh mydamn, I'm screwing it up this

(57:59):
week. And there's not going to be any
judgment. Or in a men's group, if a man
says, I am so hot for that girl on the worship team and I got to
get some help because I am struggling in my marriage and I
am having issues with that. And without anybody judging, you

(58:21):
know, whatever it is, there's not really a culture in the
organized church where you can absolutely be your authentic
self and not have some kind of repercussion.
And that grieves me. And that is one of the reasons
why I stepped away. And a half a million people or

(58:45):
more, I've had the opportunity to let them know.
And this is what I try and do inmy stories without saying it or
preaching it at all. Is it?
They're not alone in their struggle.
And when you go every week to some place that doesn't allow

(59:07):
you to show your struggle the way you need to, you think
you're alone in it. And that's when things start to
crumble. It's one of the I'm going to
talk Christianese again. I hate it.
But one of the biggest tricks ofthe enemy is making us think
we're alone in our struggle. And because we tend to sit in

(59:34):
church trying to appear holy so that we are accepted, then we
don't know that the guy right next to us or the lady right in
front of me is dealing with the same thing.
Because God forbid we get judged.
Because when you're not allowed to be authentically who you are,
guess what you do? You judge everybody else because

(59:55):
that's how you can make what you're doing palatable, that
you're decompartmentalizing truespiritual, deep relationship
with Christ. And so that's my belief.
Not asking anyone else to believe it, but 20 years of
pastoring. I, I don't know, I, I just

(01:00:20):
people would say, how'd you get your youth group to grow like
that? How you got kids lined up at
3:00 for 7:00? How you, because we're real.
It's just, no, I don't fake anything, nothing.
And so they never had a fake anything.
And so it was a safe place. We would have nights where I'd
put a silver big bowl on the floor and they could put any

(01:00:40):
question in the world in there. It didn't matter what it was
anything. And we would talk about it and
there was no judgement. Kids raising their hands, just
admitting that they were struggling with these things.
Never in my life have I seen that in adult services.
So there was no judgement with those kids.
I had kids in black trench coatsand girls in fishnet stockings

(01:01:04):
and Christian kids and alligatorgolf shirts.
There was no judgement. It was just a real place and I
never quite fit the stereotype to pastor.
But I don't know, whatever, I'm just chattering now.

(01:01:27):
But you are still pastoring. You are.
You are still doing that throughthe work that you're doing both
on stages, off stage, in board rooms, in coffee shops, in your
your interactions, your one-on-one coaching.
You are still pastoring, you arestill having that impact.
And Kim, I think one of the things that makes you so popular

(01:01:50):
with audiences and around the world and so sought after by
major corporations is your vulnerability.
I think the fact that you are soauthentic and vulnerable when
people hear you talk, when people hear you tell a story, I
think that they feel, well, I don't think I know because I've
sat in those seats before. You feel laughter and tears

(01:02:15):
because you're so open, you're so honest, you're so real.
You're so vulnerable with yourself and with your with your
listener. Why do you think that
combination is so powerful? And why do you think that
authenticity and vulnerability is so critical in storytelling?
Well, any story told that's not authentic.

(01:02:38):
And when I say authentic, it just means, you know, you're
being real. I mean, that's the most profound
story of all. You know, it's, it's like
there's a group called The AvettBrothers that I adore.
Mm hmm. And I used to live near Floyd,
VA, and then I lived in Asheville, so I got to see them

(01:02:59):
perform a lot before they were popular.
And one of the reasons I loved them is that they were just this
messy. Probably hadn't showered for a
day or two group of guys that just loved making music and
there would be wrong notes and everything.
You know, there'd be like, oh, that was a quirky note like that

(01:03:19):
was wrong, but you didn't care because they were just sweating
it out and playing music for thecomplete love of it.
To just show us who they were, to open themselves up lyrically
and musically and just dump it all out, be completely naked on
stage emotionally. And it made you forgive all the

(01:03:39):
rest. All the things, the times they
made mistakes and things before they got produced and picked up
by a record label. It was just raw and authentic,
and everybody longs for that. If you get a singer in front of
a group of people who might not be the best singer, but they are
singing with every fiber of their being, it is coming out of

(01:04:01):
their pores. They mean every word, and it is
so palpable that the audience ismoved by that energy.
That's authenticity, and that's the way it is with story.
It is if you are truly authentic.
It might not be the best writtenstory, but it'll be the most
relatable story. And I hide nothing.

(01:04:24):
I I talk about things on stage and share things because I don't
want people thinking they're alone in their struggles.
And granted, I put humor througheverything that I do.
This has been a little bit of a heavy interview here, but I put
humor in everything I do. People are laughing, laughing,
laughing, and then one minute they're crying.
But tears and laughter are just twins, right?

(01:04:47):
They're twins, and when you cry from laughter and you cry from
tears, it's it's it's both of them are tears, but the
molecular makeup is completely different.
If you freeze a tear from cryingout of pain, agony, loss,
defeat, and then you freeze a tear that is out of laughter and

(01:05:07):
joy and happiness and love, theyactually have a different
molecular structure. And so they're twins, but very,
very different makeup, a very different makeup of sorts.
And so. Yeah.
Well, Kim, you did talk about how this episode has been a
little on the heavy side, so whydon't we take a minute and

(01:05:31):
switch this up and go a little bit lighter on some things.
We're going to do what has become our listeners favorite
episode of the show, and that istruth or trash.
Now Kim and truth are trash. We're going to shout out some
statements for you and your roleis very simple.
This is going to be rapid fire. You're just going to simply

(01:05:51):
answer whether you think that this is truth or absolute trash.
OK, truth or trash, I'm ready. All right, here we go with truth
or trash. The best ideas always come in
the shower. Oh, truth, for me at least, you.

(01:06:12):
Can't handle the truth? You can tell everything you need
to know about someone by how they order their coffee.
Oh trash. Trash.
The older we get, the funnier our childhood stories become.

(01:06:38):
Trash. Seems like you've got more to
that one. What do you think of behind that
one? Well, you know, I tell a lot of
stories that from my childhood, and I've heard a lot of people's
childhood stories just because of the work I've done in my
life. And I feel like the order you
get, the more wisdom you have and you see them differently.
And suddenly things that you hadthought were kind of like not a

(01:07:01):
big deal. You realize how profound they
were. Good job Tony, making the one
fun segment we had super. Heavy.
It continuing. You can't see her.
I can see her here. Our listeners can't see her.
She was she was contemplating her answer.
To that one I knew. I could hear, I could feel the.
I could feel the contemplation. I didn't mean to take it down.

(01:07:24):
OK, go ahead, give me another. One, we'll keep this going.
Pets secretly understand more English than we give them credit
for. Oh, absolutely true.
You can't handle the truth. Small talk is more exhausting
than public speaking. Trash.
Trash. The best storytellers are
actually the best listeners. Trash.

(01:07:48):
She's got some personal experience in that one.
The best front porch conversation start with You're
not going to believe this, but. Truth.
You can't handle the truth. French fries taste better when
stolen from someone else's plate.
Truth. You can't handle the.
Truth. People don't really want truth,
they just want a good story. Trash.

(01:08:13):
Trash. Every family has that one story
they've told so many times that it's practically folklore.
Truth. You can't handle the truth.
You never outgrow the fear of being picked last.
True. You can't handle the truth.
And that is truth or trash. All right, now we're going to go

(01:08:37):
to another segment of our show where we get our listeners to
have a little bit more insight into the things that are
inspiring, motivating, and moving you.
Kim, this is porch pics. All right folks, pull up a
rocking chair and grab yourself a glass of sweet tea.
It's time for porch pics. This is where we give you our
top recommendations on, well, just about anything.

(01:08:57):
If we like it, we're picking it.No deep theology here, just good
old fashioned opinions. So sit back, relax, and get
ready for this week's porch pics.
So Kim, is there anything that you were reading right now,
watching right now, any great movie that you've seen, any
wonderful cup of coffee that you've had, anything that is
really moving you or causing youto just enjoy life right now?

(01:09:19):
Oh gosh, so many things. I'm going to be 60 next year.
Can you believe that? I cannot believe that.
I know, right? I feel like I'm hanging in there
pretty good. So, you know, from the neck down
it's starting to show pretty hard.
But I'm hanging out OK up here. I'm not real Gray yet, so.
All right, so there's so many things because I actually teach

(01:09:42):
this and it's called an aesthetic life and it's living
intentionally. And so I, I have so many things.
Can I just do a quick list? Absolutely yes.
My my kids got me an espresso machine and it has changed my
life. It is such good coffee.
And then I add this mushroom aptogenic healthy stuff for my

(01:10:05):
brain and then my favorite Creamer.
And then I froth my Creamer and I, I can't tell you how I wait
for that coffee in the morning because I have to take a thyroid
pill and I have to wait an hour and I'm literally countdown
until I can have my coffee. I love it that much.
That has made my mornings just take it to a different level.

(01:10:27):
And then I'm constantly reading books.
I so and I can't even pick one. I have to say that probably one
of my favorite books that I readevery year and people are
surprised at this is called The Book Thief One.
It's narrated by Death, which I love.
I think that's just a cool concept.
But one of the things I've struggled with my whole life is

(01:10:48):
how people can stand by and watch evil or wrongdoing and not
get involved. And in many cases, there's no
excuse for that. But what that book did is it
made me realize, for instance, during Nazi Germany is that see
way to bring the party up again.Kim is that during Nazi Germany

(01:11:10):
in that book, it shows people that wanted to help, but then
they knew their daughter could be taken and killed or raped or
whatever, or they knew that their father could be killed if
they intervened in these situations.
And it it just helps me realize I read it once a year.

(01:11:30):
It helps me realize why some people don't want to walk into
the spotlight of the battle, because it's out of concern for
their own. That I can forgive.
But standing idly by with not a profound reason like that, I
don't. So that's one of my favorite
books. Right now I'm reading a book
called Let Them. I like it. 80% of it I like.

(01:11:56):
It's good. I love books, I love music, I
love everything from 21 Pilots. I'm a huge 21 pilots fan, but I
also like yes, what am I listening to now?
Oh, Ray. There's a artist called Ray that
did a show with the orchestra. Just know that there there are
some interesting subject mattersand lyrics that may upset

(01:12:19):
people, but it's brilliant. I the brilliancy of it is, is
par none. There's a jazz album, the Cone
concert where this guy's piano wasn't ready and he completely
did this 2 hour concert improvising around the keys that
weren't in tune. And that is a life lesson for
everybody. So I love music.

(01:12:42):
If you could see my studio rightnow, we're in the office part,
but I make a lot of art. I've had art, hanging galleries
and everywhere I turn there's either my art or the art of
friends that makes me happy and my grandkids and kids make me
happy and my flower garden makesme happy and just there's too
many things. My 2 dearest friends, I have a a

(01:13:06):
quad of four women that are the pillars in my life.
They make me happy and make my life better.
There's so many things Tony. This makes me happy.
The fact that anybody would TuneIn to even hear me talk
makes me happy. You know, I, I aesthetically, if
you just look, there's so many things, I can't even name them
all, but that's a few. Yeah.

(01:13:28):
You know, a conversation I've been having with people recently
is just around that whole idea of we just don't pursue joy
enough. Like we get so caught up in the,
in the hurt and the pain and that I'm not saying that those
things shouldn't be addressed, but we live in that and we just
don't step back and, and look and go, man, there's a lot of

(01:13:50):
things that I can be joyful about and thankful for today.
And I think that it's something that I'm, I'm trying to do
better at because as our wives have told us, like we can be a
little grumpy and I'm definitelygrumpy.
And so I'm, I'm, I'm looking into like, where do I see joy in

(01:14:11):
moments, not just be frustrated about things.
I think that's incredible that you had a list that lengthy on
the top of your head just by looking around your, your house
and the, you know, the, the rooms inside of your brain that
you were able to, to pull a lot together.
Hey, you mentioned the book thief.
Is that Marcus Zusak? Is that who wrote that?

(01:14:37):
I can't tell you who wrote it. That's so funny.
Well, I pulled it up on Amazon, so I was like, I'm going to save
that. And there's like two or three
different ones. And so I didn't know if that was
the one or not. This one is like a New York
Times best seller, best seller and stuff like that.
So it probably is the one. That is incredible.

(01:14:58):
It is so incredible. And it is, Yeah.
That's it. Even though there's different
versions, I I see what you're, what you're looking at, but the
Book Thief. Yeah.
And so. Oh my.
And we will drop all of King's recommendations in the show
notes so that if you're listening and you were trying to
rewind and take notes as quicklyas you can, just scroll to the

(01:15:20):
bottom of the show notes and those will all be there for you.
Except for her address, so they can't go see her flower garden.
They won't be able to hang out and meet her grandkids and that
kind of stuff. I have a massive COVID flower
garden that's fenced in with a pergola like 20 and 2020 and
2021. That's what I spent my time
doing. And it is a place of great

(01:15:42):
solitude and beauty. But you know, I want to say
something to what Robert said. I think the reason I can rattle
it off is because I I, I truly believe in living an aesthetic
life, meaning that you always look for the things that are
beautiful. When you start prepping yourself
to do that, it doesn't. It doesn't.
It's not hard anymore. It comes easy.

(01:16:03):
And if I catch myself going downa rabbit hole of poor me or
victim me or why does this tend to happen, I actually stop
myself and make myself do one ofthose exercises that I've
created. And I also do that with writers
when I teach writers because to be an interesting writer, you
have to live an interesting life.

(01:16:24):
And to live an interesting life,you need to do interesting
things and you need to be aware of interesting things around
you. But it is so important to do it.
My my friend Karen, who's an author, texted me and was like,
you need to give me reasons why I like winter because she she
hates it. And I just laid it in there on
her like the Cardinals have a chance to show off.

(01:16:46):
The sun becomes diamonds on a white blanket of snow, the sound
of a crunch in the midst of the silence of winter and all of
this stuff. And she's like, I hate you so
much. She's like, I can't stand you
that you do that to me. But I said, it's you got to or
life. Life is heavy.
It is hard. Sometimes you have to even look
at your kid and go, I need to think about all the reasons why

(01:17:08):
I like them because right now it's true.
Yep, you can't handle the truth.I was just getting ready to hit
the button and that couldn't beat me to it.
That is, that is so true. You said, you said something
there that I think sometimes I forget about because in in the
season 2019, heading into 2020, my wife and I were leading this

(01:17:32):
gathering at our house. And so I had kind of stepped out
of what people would consider vocational church ministry for a
season. I was doing mostly sports
photography and in that world. And so a lot like what I would
assume you, I went to bed one night with this murmur of this

(01:17:53):
virus. And you were probably more aware
of it than I was because my world's pretty contained to my
world, my little area here. But like, and then I woke up the
next day to text messages and emails of cancellation after
cancellation after, hey, the season's over.
Hey, we can't book you now. Hey, this is gone.
This is done and I sometimes kind of forget like, and so I, I

(01:18:18):
guess I've got 2 parts to this one.
How, how was that coming back for you?
Like what was that like to be able to take time to create a
garden to reflect in and then the, the kind of coming back and
how has that shaped how you are leading people now as you're

(01:18:41):
coaching and leading and doing these, these trainings that you
that you invest in? And, and I'm telling you that
the Newton's cradle of story, like it's just, it's breaking my
brain a little bit trying to process everything you said
earlier. But how has it shaped how you
approach people and their their stories inside of this post

(01:19:01):
COVID thing? Well, it was an interesting
thing because when the when the virus map started to show, do
you remember the map they'd showlike in China and here and other
places? And at first you're like, oh,
wow, OK. And then you're like, is this
going to be like a Will Smith movie?

(01:19:21):
Like this? Is it like this is actually it?
And then you realized, OK, so this is serious, but I know it's
not the end of the world. I lost all of 2020 gigs up until
that point in March. Last one I did was in Georgia.
And then that was it. And then people started booking

(01:19:42):
again in the fall of 2020. And then there was that COVID
rise again. Do you remember that?
And they cancelled again. And then they just did a lot of
online streaming where you had to perform online, you know?
That was so much fun. Oh, I hated it, and I'd much

(01:20:06):
rather have the interview of a real audience.
But so it was 2 years, two yearsof not doing what I had done for
15 years, I guess at that point.And I did a lot of soul
searching. And The thing is, I actually
made an album during that time called Just Another Day because

(01:20:29):
I realized it wasn't being on stage, it wasn't the travel, it
wasn't even what I do and what Icreate that I missed the most.
What shocked me in some ways andother ways not, it was the
people I missed. I really missed the people.
And so the album I created, JustAnother Day are I think it's

(01:20:52):
five stories and then some songs.
There's always music I write of stories from people and or
interactions with people I'd hadon the road during my years of
traveling to kind of honor them and to honor the fact that
that's what I missed the most. And that has changed me because
when I do a gig now, I I kind oftend to recognize the most

(01:21:15):
valuable part of it is the people.
But I think that we all came outof that like introverts found
out they weren't so introverted.Boy, introverts loved it when it
kind of came back and we had to sit 6 feet apart in church.
I've got a friend who's like we should normalize elbow bumps.
Like don't even fist bump anymore.
I don't want a handshake. I don't want a fist bump.

(01:21:37):
We should just touch elbows all the time when we walk just.
Like, I love the Six Feet Apart thing, joking that I'm not an
introvert because I really need people.
Yeah. So I think there came a great
awareness amongst humanity how much we needed each other, but
how quickly we've forgotten it. Like they're all the memes of,
oh, you know, I'm reading bedtime stories to my children

(01:22:00):
now or this or that and all of these poetic things.
And, you know, maybe we are going to become a rise out of
this differently. And it's just like a, we're just
like not a naughty humanity is like a naughty kid who got a
severe correction. And the minute we're away from
the power and authority of that,we go right back to our

(01:22:20):
behaviors. And I'm not saying everybody,
but it's, I mean, take a look around.
We've kind of forgotten what we thought we were going to do.
I remember my husband's an avid gardener.
He handles the vegetables, I handle the flowers.
But I'm talking a massive garden.
We can, we freeze, we eat, we give away and still plow some

(01:22:43):
under. And we could not find jars and
lids because everybody during COVID was gonna plant something
and save it because they recognized what a dire situation
it is whenever food chains and supply chains breakdown and
people were buying real estate outside of the city in the

(01:23:05):
second year of 202122. And now it's like nobody,
they're all my they've stopped growing their gardens.
It's just a simple a simple example of how quickly we we
revert back even though disasteris right around the corner at
any minute in our lives of some sort of the other as much as

(01:23:25):
there is joy. But I I has changed how I I view
my gigs and people in general. Now I treasure them more than
what I did before. We bought goats and then to
protect our goats we had to buy Great Pyrenees, and then we got
rid of the goats and the dogs. The dogs.
The dogs are pretty cool. Why did you buy goats for the

(01:23:47):
milk? No, no, no, because we were
bored. Yeah, we were bored.
And we thought that we wanted tobe farmers.
And that didn't last very long before we realized that we are
not farmers. A lot of.
Speaking of Great Pyrenees. Melissa thinks my wife thinks
she wants to be a farmer, but I'll just tell you, like I grew

(01:24:08):
up with a granddad who was a dairy farmer and had goats and
all that kind of stuff. And it's it's all fun and games
till I mean, I was watching, I never got involved.
You're watching them deliver a cow in the middle of the field.
Goats are. Gross.
They the boy groats. They pee all over themselves
because they think it's sexy, and then they rear up on their

(01:24:30):
hind legs and ram you. There's nothing sexy about
peeing all over your beard and then ramming you.
Any kind of farm life if you if you watch it on Pinterest seems
magical and fairy tale like. It is not.
No. I can't Amanda a shirt that year
that said goat Mama. We burned that shirt.
Did you really burn it? No longer goat Mama.

(01:24:53):
It was such a bad experience. It was it was fun.
It was a fun experience, but manwas it a lot of work.
Goats, they don't like to stay within their area.
And they can climb. They can climb fences, they can
climb trees. They can climb barns.
They can climb anything. They want to escape.
And then they get out and then they look at you and cry because
they want back in. Kim, I think that a lot of

(01:25:16):
people listening to this are saying, yeah, that sounds great
for someone who's a world class storyteller, but my story is too
messy, too boring, too ordinary.What would you say to someone
who's thinking that listening tothis?
You are incorrect. You're very simple.
Very. Simple.

(01:25:37):
Tony hears that a lot. I thought you're talking about
the. I hear that you're incorrect.
Tony, but you're talking. About the thing he was talking
about, not Tony himself, so. No, they're they're wrong.
The the difference is that I take the same stories that they
have. Let's just look, get ready
really quick. I have a story about my dad

(01:25:58):
teaching me to ride my bike without training wheels.
I have a story about breast cancer.
I have a story about someone I met who is going to
contemplating suicide. I have a story about going to
the grocery store. I have a story about my parents
trying to find time to connect, we'll put it that way, and

(01:26:22):
sending us to the candy store. I have a story about How I Met
my husband. I have a story about I, I can
just think of a million things. Somebody I met on the road, just
a guy who had an interesting story about his parents.
They're not profound. They're not anything like, Oh,
my goodness. The difference is, is that I

(01:26:44):
take them, I write them out. I'm a writer and a storyteller
and I write them out and I infuse them with humor and I
figure out the ebb and flow of the story.
And I, because I'm people are paying to be entertained by me.
And so I am required to show up prepared with something that is
entertaining as well as valuableto them as a human.

(01:27:07):
So the stories, your stories aren't any bet you know any
better or worse than mine, or valuable or invaluable than
mine. I just take mine to a different
level. And The thing is, it starts out
as a story that is on equal ground as yours, with just as
much value as far as the impact.We just tell it differently.

(01:27:32):
Or you haven't really given yourstory the value it deserves,
recognized it's worth, let me put it that way.
And if you did, you'd recognize how powerful it can be.
I'm actually teaching that at the National Storytelling
Festival. I'm doing a workshop there
before. I think it's on a Thursday.
But it's, it's how to mine your family stories, your own stories

(01:27:54):
to start sharing them. And it's, it's pretty simple.
It's really pretty simple. I think the biggest struggle is
letting people know that a moment doesn't make a story.
So you had that funny moment. That doesn't mean it's a whole
story. And that's one of the things I
love to do is when people have amoment that is really great,

(01:28:15):
teach them them how to work thatinto a story, that then it's a
whole piece rather than just a moment.
But yeah. And so every, everybody's
stories are valuable, not only for the listener, but for the
teller, because we all want to be heard.
We need to be heard in, in relationship counseling.

(01:28:37):
The number one thing is they don't hear me.
And we need to be heard as humans.
And so it's so important to tellyour story, especially with
what's happening, because it's like we've got all these people
walking around with all of thesethings they've learned or

(01:28:57):
suffered through or celebrated through.
And they're like a walking medicine cabinet for the people
around us who are lonely and connecting only through
technology, never having deep relationships because
everything's done by text or through Snapchat or whatever,
and we have what is needed to connect.

(01:29:20):
The surgeon general said that there's an absolute epidemic of
connection among people within the United States.
It's all over. But that's what he has
jurisdiction over. And that they actually are
calling the next generation coming the loneliest generation,
because the relationships never go deep.
And one of the things I teach isthat there is so much scientific

(01:29:45):
proof that what makes for a resilient, happy human being is
somebody who is rooted in who they are, in their identity,
deep roots and understanding of the people that have gone before
them and their family in the past.
The struggles of those people, no matter what the struggles
look like, and fully understanding who they are.
And that is highly missing. And so we just have this

(01:30:09):
generation that is lonely without deep roots and who are
struggling and and everybody, Robert, Tony, me, the listener,
all have things that we can share that help them come to
learn about themselves and even just listen to them because they
need to be heard. So every single human is.

(01:30:31):
It is valuable in that aspect ofstory, give and take.
Well, Kim, you may have just answered this question, but as
we leave the porch today, what is one thing that you would like
our listeners to take with them?See, I knew this question was
coming and I just like struggle with it.

(01:31:02):
You know what I want them to take?
I want them to take two things away today.
And I'm talking directly to thatperson who is listening.
You are. You are worthy exactly as you
are, as is as you are in this moment, with all the faults, all

(01:31:25):
the battles, the victories, the defeats, the joys, the sorrow,
everything. In your loneliness, in your
addiction, in your conquering work, in your getting out of
bed, in your leaving beauty behind.
You will, however you are right in this moment.
You are worthy of all the love in the world.

(01:31:48):
That's the one thing, but I havea second one.
You're not alone. Every person that you pass, no
matter how well dressed they are, no matter what kind of car
they're driving, no matter how they show up at church, no
matter how much how they show upat the PTA meeting or the person
in your office who constantly makes you feel less than, all

(01:32:10):
you have to do is scratch the card of their life and you will
find their issues too. And so you have to release that.
Because we don't want to live inthe kind of hope that comes from
a scratch card. We want to live in a deep hope
of understanding our worth and value at every minute as we are.

(01:32:30):
As is is the same as it was yesterday, today, and forever.
The worth in you does not change.
I used to hold up a $20 bill in front of my kids and I'd say,
isn't this a great $20 bill? It'd be pristine.
I'm like, who wants it? And they're like, oh, I do, I
do, I do. And I'm like, OK, and I'd
crumble it up and I'd go, who wants it now?

(01:32:53):
And they're like, I do, I do, I do.
And I'm like, OK, and then I'd like put it on the floor and I'd
step all over it and I'd pick itup and I'm like, who wants it
now? I do, I do, I do.
And I'm like, I could take this $20 bill and drop it in the
toilet and pull it out. I could take it through the the
goat mud in the pan. Doesn't matter.
The the value does not change. And that's what I want people to
understand is that their worth does not change according to how

(01:33:16):
things are right now or how theywere or how they're going to be.
As is in every second of your life, your worth does not
change. You are valuable and loved.
That's what I want them to take away.
That is wonderful. That's a great way to end this.
Now, Kim, before we do say goodbye, if our listeners want
to connect with you, where can they hear you?

(01:33:38):
Where can they find you? How can they hire you to come in
and talk about all of the different things that you've
discussed with us here today? Give us give us all of your
details and all of the ways thatour listeners could connect with
you. OK, so my website, despite this

(01:33:59):
interview is Kim, is funny.com and you can find out where I'm
going to be. I'd love to see you come up, say
hi, tell me that you, you heard me talking to Tony and Robert.
I'd love that. My, my calendar's on there of
where I'm going to be all over from Saint Louis to just, it's
all over Nebraska, whatever, it's all over.

(01:34:22):
Also, though, there's profitablestory.com and that's
the company I own for keynote speaking or teaching or training
or consulting. That's where you might want to
go is profitable story.com. I do want to let them know that
if they would like to e-mail me with one question, I will give
that to them. Be patient because Ioffer this a

(01:34:45):
lot and it takes me a while to work through them, but I'll get
to it. And if they have a question,
they're like, you know, something you said did this or
that. I I just want to ask this, it's
kim.whitekamp@gmail.com and it'sspelled odd.
So, you know, you might want to check that out.

(01:35:05):
Kim WEITK AM p@gmail.com becauseI'm, I'm, I'm not just talk.
I I believe in connecting so. Well, that is all the time that
we have for this edition of the Pulpit and Porch Podcast.
We want to thank Kim for pullingup a chair with us today.
Kim, you have reminded us that stories aren't just something

(01:35:27):
that we tell. Stories are something that we
live. But you've given us more than
stories. You've given us permission to
live and to share our own stories.
And so for everyone listening today, don't forget the porch is
always open and your story is always worth telling.
We do want to remind you to likethe Pulpit and Porch Podcast,
share the Pulpit and Porch podcast, subscribe to our show.

(01:35:51):
You can find us on Facebook and Instagram at the Pulpit and
Porch, Like us and share us withyour friends.
People need to hear this conversation with Kim.
And so the more that you like and subscribe, the more people
that will be able to find our show and listen to her words of
wisdom and take from her what wehave here today.
And so again, Kim, we want to thank you so much.

(01:36:11):
Be sure to visit kimisfunny.com,connect with her on her
channels, like and subscribe to all of her channels.
And we will see you next week onthe porch.

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