How to Catch Your Stories With Aaron Calafato

What if the shortest distance between two souls is a story?

That’s the big idea we explore today on The Business of Story with my guest, Aaron Calafato,

Aaron is a master of short-form, autobiographical storytelling. His podcast, 7 Minute Stories, has reached over 30 million people worldwide.

From performing off-the-cuff monologues in NYC cafés to now coaching C-suite execs and fast-growing startups, Aaron teaches the art of “story catching.”

It’s about paying attention to the world around you and harvesting those meaningful moments most people miss.

Aaron shares how to catch compelling stories in the wild, build a mental library of moments, and use those short, powerful narratives to connect deeply with audiences — from the boardroom to the podcast booth.

If you think storytelling is just for marketers or performers, think again. Aaron will show you how narrative is the key to authentic business communication.

What’s In It For You:

• Story catching is about capturing moments in time.
• Short stories can convey deep meaning and connection.
• Anecdotes can help bridge understanding in conversations.
• Moments of change are powerful in narratives.
• Storytelling can tap into universal human experiences.

Chapters:

Links:

• AaronCalafato.com
• Aaron Calafatos’ YouTube Channel
• Aaron on LinkedIn
• Aaron on Instagram
• 7 Minute Stories Podcast
• StoryCycle Genie™

Popular Related Episodes You’ll Love:

• How to Develop Your Business Strategy Story to Grow Your Brand and Your People with Shawn Callahan
• How to Clarify Your Brand Story for Deliberate Growth with Park Howell
• How to Refine Your Brand Story Strategy in Minutes, Not Months, to Rocket Your Revenue with Sean Schroeder

Your Storytelling Resources:

 

 

Connect with me:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parkhowell/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BusinessOfStory

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0ssjBuBiQjG9PHRgq4Fu6A

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ParkHowell

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/parkhowell/

Website: https://businessofstory.com/abt/

Transcript of Show:

Park Howell (00:01.442)

Good morning, Aaron. Let me do that again. Good morning, Aaron. Welcome to the show.

Aaron Calafato (00:08.892)

Thank you, Park. I appreciate you having me. It’s morning over there, right? Like early. What time is it for you over there?

Park Howell (00:12.906)

Well, it’s 9 a.m., so it’s not so early, but it is a Monday, so that makes it a little bit earlier. But I got my exercises in, I got my yoga in, I’ve already had a chance to go out and mess with all my sprinkler systems because we’re just firing them back up up here in Flagstaff area. And so, yeah, I’ve been already pretty industrious before 9 a.m. How about you?

Aaron Calafato (00:26.504)

Woo!

Aaron Calafato (00:35.688)

That’s me. I’m hanging in there. I’m a late night owl actually. And so I have a pattern of since I’ve been a kid, I go to sleep at about 2 30 a.m. every morning and I wake up at about nine. So you have been I’m sure by 9 a.m. much more industrious than I have, but I’m usually very industrious between the hours of 10 p.m. and midnight. That’s my that’s my time of creation and story and all that kind of stuff. But I’m really great to connect with you.

Park Howell (00:44.258)

Mm-hmm.

Park Howell (00:50.776)

Ha ha ha ha.

Park Howell (00:59.03)

Yeah, I’m dead by then. I’m like 10 PM, boom, I’m in bed because I’m a very early riser between four and five. What did I say? I got to get up and get after it. And you’re coming to me, to all of us, south of Cleveland.

Aaron Calafato (01:11.112)

Yeah, man.

Aaron Calafato (01:16.552)

Yeah, 20 minutes south of Cleveland. It’s in a little, I should say, you know, I say little, it’s grown a lot since I grew up here. It’s about 30, 35,000 people. It’s a town called Medina. In Ohio, say things, know, it’s Medina is the pronunciation, right? But it’s Medina, Ohio. It’s 20 minutes south of Cleveland and about 20 minutes west of Akron. So about 20 minutes down the road, actually, LeBron James has his, one of his homes right down the road.

Park Howell (01:44.344)

Hmm.

Aaron Calafato (01:45.736)

And so big sports fans here, but Medina is interesting because Northeast Ohio in general, a lot of people don’t know, it was part of the Connecticut Western Reserve. So when the colonies and all that kind of stuff were forming, folks in Connecticut that wanted to get out there on the frontier settled in Northeast Ohio. so, you know, Cleveland takes a lot of crap and Northeast Ohio does. It’s like New Jersey. I lived out there too. The two places I’ve lived, Park, everyone’s like, ah.

But there’s so many beautiful qualities about it. One is that there is this kind of gateway to the Midwest with an East Coast sort of essence. There’s an aesthetic here and the Art Deco. There’s kind of a vibe with the New England kind of town. So our city square is very reminiscent of a lot of little towns in Connecticut. So it’s very interesting, really great place to live.

Park Howell (02:32.942)

I’ve only been to Cleveland once, but next time I’m out in Cleveland, I’m going to come down and check it out. Sounds pretty interesting place.

Aaron Calafato (02:40.103)

I’d love to have you down here in days. A 20 minute, I’ll even come and pick you up and I take you around our little town. It’s very, it’s very nostalgic. The, the historical society preserved all of the town square from the 1800s. So when you’re walking through, kind of have, it’s clearly, it’s not like a, you’re not going back in time. It’s not like homesteaders walking around saying like, Hey, let’s bake bread and do our.

Park Howell (02:43.608)

Ha ha.

Park Howell (02:54.434)

Wow.

Park Howell (03:03.138)

Bet you got the cobblestone streets and the storefronts and yeah.

Aaron Calafato (03:05.851)

The firehouse, that’s right, the firehouse and all that stuff. So it’s a beautiful juncture position of the past and the present. So love being here.

Park Howell (03:12.386)

Gotcha. And they’re making mead and bread and all that stuff, is that right? You got pilgrims running around?

Aaron Calafato (03:15.815)

Yeah, you know, it’s funny every September they do a thing called spirits of the past and it’s and it’s wonderful. The local theater community does it and you go on a tour and they take you through all the different modern current businesses, but they have people dressed up telling stories from actual historical figures. So it’s like.

Park Howell (03:38.956)

Yeah.

Aaron Calafato (03:39.624)

Yeah, we’re all about the past and the present here. So it’s a wonderful place to live. As a kid, I wanted to get out of here. You know, I was like Jimmy Stewart, like, I’m going to shake the dust from, this little town off my boots. And then I realized I came back full circle, not intentionally. It’s like a happy accident. And I live about 10 minutes from my elementary school. And as a storyteller, I got to tell you, it’s beautiful because I’m in the present. I got a family. I’m very blessed. I have a home right across from where I grew up, but I’m also walking in memories.

every single day walking around where I grew up and seeing new people and people who’ve been here for a while. So it’s a beautiful sort of place to cultivate stories, honestly. Yeah.

Park Howell (04:16.814)

Well, and you are a story catcher. And that’s the main focus of our show today. So for our listeners, what is story catching?

Aaron Calafato (04:28.519)

So it’s probably nothing new. And as you are, you’ve built a whole business around story, how it applies to companies and businesses creating a brand of authenticity and things like that. for me, I come from a performative standpoint. So I’m an extemporaneous autobiographical storyteller. So we can get into that in a bit. But basically, my form of expression is

extemporaneous storytelling. I don’t write any of my stories. Haven’t written a word in my entire life regarding that type of storytelling. I found my niche when I was in New York training as an actor and going to different cafes and just doing monologues off the top of my head. But what I realized was just like a writer, just like a comedian, just like a painter, just like anybody, there is a form of story architecture that happens a priority prior to the actual storytelling action. So,

There’s a ton of philosophy here behind it. There’s a ton of thought that goes into stories. And one of the things I don’t see enough of, at least in my experience crossing from sort of the performative aspect of being on the road for three years, I toured doing monologues and then doing my podcast, is in the business world, when I started doing consulting work, I had to learn the language of business, because I didn’t know what they were talking about. I came from the theater. So it was like…

I kind of had, it was an advantage, but it was also a curse because they were talking about data story and at the end of the quarter do all this stuff. That’s all important stuff. I had to learn it. But what I didn’t see a lot of when people talked about story, even in the artistic world was how one catches a story. And it’s, it’s it’s kind of amorphous. It’s kind of hard to define, but for me, I’ve put together at least a process for myself and I’ve shared it with different clients and I do seminars about it. It’s just the idea of if you don’t already,

either rewiring your brain or opening up the wiring that’s naturally there. In the same way, you know, I know you have used Joseph Campbell and stuff like that to build some of the architecture of your work, your business, honoring sort of this myth that keeps occurring in human history and the hero’s journey, right? It’s like, well, for that to happen, you have to catch it and create the architecture before you express it. So,

Aaron Calafato (06:47.065)

Story catching for me, everyone does it differently, but it really is a mental sort of awareness moment. is rewiring or strengthening the wiring of your brain to catch stories every single day. So you’re looking around the world and you’re looking at it in stories rather than logistics. You’re looking at transactional spaces and you’re kind of in on the joke, right? So like you’re talking to the bank teller, you’re going in there.

And of course, there’s a transactional opportunity. They are there, you’re doing here, you got the bank. Hey, can I do this thing? Cool. But underneath that, what is he or she doing? Why are they there? Why do they have that mascara that’s running a little bit on the side of their face? Was it because they were crying or was that just an accident that they yawn? Were they tired? Did they go to sleep late last night? How do you feel about that? What kind of vibe are you getting from them? All these sort of almost Larry David, kind of like idiosyncrasies that we think about.

That is the first start of story catching, which is purely curiosity. How’d that person get there? What do they feel? How do you feel? And just turning that curiosity on without an expectation. You’re not writing anything yet. It’s just the exercise of doing that if you already aren’t. And most people are. That’s the other thing. Like I said, it’s nothing new. I just tried to put a name on it because it was something that I did and strengthened as an intentional exercise every day. And what I noticed was,

Park Howell (08:02.316)

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Calafato (08:13.071)

When I did that every day, if I made that part of my life, one, it enriched my life regardless of my work. Two, it strengthened the stories as an extemporaneous storyteller, because I was catching so many of them. And I’m going, I want to tell a story about this that happened. I want to tell a story about this. And now I’m building an archive of narratives and stories and fables and anecdotes and all that stuff for my output. And I kind of drew the connection between those two. And that’s kind of what story catching is.

Park Howell (08:40.074)

Yeah, OK, that’s great. So let’s step back just a second. I just want to unpack a few things here. Story catching is about capturing that moment in time when something changes and to do that, you’re paying attention to it. So you had mentioned, yes, my work with the hero’s journey, and there’s some of these large epic story frameworks. But that’s not really what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about scenes.

within that framework. And there’s a great line in photography, my good buddy, Paul Herrick, who’s a photographer like I am, street photography, he hears me say this all the time. It’s not mine, but I think it was, I’ve heard the lore of some guy standing on top of Mount Everest, he gets this most amazing sunrise shot and everybody asked him, how in the hell did you get that shot? And he’s like, F8 and be there. Meaning get your ass off the couch, set your.

camera fully automatic and then pay attention. And when it comes down to capturing those stories, those moments in time that you’re going to talk about, it means paying attention, just being there. And so I love street photography and I’ll run around and I’ll get these pictures and whatever. And sometimes, you know, one out of a hundred will come out really amazing. And they’re like, how did you get that shot? Like, well, I’ll give you an example. On a train, I’d flown from Phoenix

Aaron Calafato (09:58.426)

right.

Park Howell (10:06.318)

to London, then I jumped on a train for a three and a half hour trip out to Liverpool, which actually took like five and a half hours because the train kept stopping for no particular reason. And so I was pretty tired by the time we were pulling into the Liverpool station and the rain’s coming down and you’re seeing, you know, the drips on the outside of my window and I’m there, my coffee’s empty and I got my little camera right there and I’m half awake and I see a train pulling out and

this guy and this little boy, and it was the colors of their jackets they were wearing, caught my attention. And that train pulled by and I wheeled up and got that picture and it went by and then I pulled up that picture and it was phenomenal. mean, phenomenal. Little boy’s looking out, he’s cupped his hands, he’s looking outside the window. This big guy kind of looks like a brutish dude behind him. I’ve got in a profile.

And because I’m shooting through this rain strewn window, it looks like a watercolor. And without touching a thing, I’m like, this is an unbelievable shot because I got lucky. I was there F8 and be there. But to your point, it’s the same like catching a story. That little moment in time where you follow your curiosity like Larry David, I thought that was a wonderful idea. And then see where it goes now. How

Aaron Calafato (11:08.839)

Mmm.

Aaron Calafato (11:20.475)

That’s right.

Park Howell (11:32.066)

Can people use this in business?

Aaron Calafato (11:35.56)

Well, I think it fuels every anecdote, every story. And I think for me, again, like I said, I came at it from one, a performative standpoint and then also an autobiographical storytelling aspect of it. So it’s like, how does it fuel business? As you know, like businesses, people, right? And so, so you just told me that story. I was with you, right? I’m on the train with you. I’m looking out the, the, the, the dripping of the, of the rain. see the boy, by the way, there’s stories.

upon stories within just you telling the story. It reminds me of David Lynch, where he’s like, there are universes within universes. He’s right, rest in peace, right? And so are you. When you just focus your attention and your curiosity to your point, start observing the possibilities and the meaning. So now what you’re tapping into actually is meaning. Meaning not that it’s not homogenized and it’s not one thing. It’s the possibility for what it means to you.

So you’re looking through that and you’re seeing the father and the son. Are you looking at it through your prism? Are you a father? Are you a son? Right? What is the relationship between fathers and son in your life? That’s a private thing, but I’m saying that opens up that channel. When you start projecting it and sharing it, now we’re opening up a whole possible world of what is that son going through? What is that father going through? Where are they going?

Like, is it a friendly trip? Is he dropping? It makes a total difference, right? If he’s dropping his son off to the aunt and the uncles because he can’t be a father anymore because the mother passed away. Now he has to find a way to make a living. That’s a different story than a father and a son taking a trip every single day and having a tradition that they built their relationship on. You have these two possibilities. By the way, both are fictionalized. We don’t know. It just opens it up. So how does it affect business?

It taps you into the human freaking condition. And I think the problem with so much of the perception as I know it, again, I would say I’m a storyteller rather than a business person, but what I’ve realized in the world of the corporation, can haul out, it can hollow out the humanity if you allow it. And I think the most refreshing thing when you talk with people who are

Aaron Calafato (13:53.456)

It’s just people in this apparatus, just people in a corporation. It’s just people trying not to get fired. It’s people trying to make their boss happy. It’s people providing their own security. It’s people trying to be authentic in a transactional space. And it’s people trying to create a real value through the apparatus of a business. They’re trying to create something good. That’s a good thing. All of those things are existing. So we talked about the world of possibilities through that window and that father and that son.

If you just open up the world that way to your coworkers, to the C-suite executive, you talk to them like human beings, now they’re going, oh, they feel that connection as opposed to one that is artificial. They feel that too. And I think, listen, some people operate in the world of artifice. And as you know, as a business person, have to realize, is this person able to connect? If they want to do performance art, we can do that, right? But I would say in my experience, it’s like 80-20 rule.

80 % of the people I come into contact with are refreshed when it’s like, Hey, this person is buttoned up. They’re professional. They’re going to deliver and we’re going to build something here and make profit. And we’re going to create value for people, but they also are human beings. So that’s what it does. It just, it literally just sends a sign. It, at first one, it can be verbal, but it’s also a non-verbal. It sends a sign that you are a full three-dimensional human being who is seeking the humanity in another person. And when someone senses that they drop in and they go,

Hey, and then now you can really have a conversation. We can drop all the bullshit. Sorry, you you can, and we can just have a real conversation. Does this work? Does this not work? Should we partner together? And then you’re human beings first rather than business first. So that’s how I think it works.

Park Howell (15:34.766)

Okay, so then let’s drop into how do you do it? Because I’m sure I’ve got a lot of listeners right now going, yeah, that sounds like philosophy. That sounds lovely and wonderful. But Aaron, I’m not sure I could pull that off at a sales presentation or a meeting with my mean boss or trying to get along with that ordinary associate I got to deliver. how do you teach people to catch these stories? What do they look for?

Aaron Calafato (15:43.291)

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Aaron Calafato (15:59.666)

Well, when you’re walking around your everyday life, we’ve already talked about it, you gotta see one, the things that affect you generally affect other people. And so if you can, in a meeting, in a moment, so for example, I have so many here. Okay, so I have a client. Part of, as you know, business is like education. So like, a lot of it is educating someone to a perspective. You might want the same thing.

but they see it through one prism and you see it through another prism. And sometimes people are focused on trying to get that person to your prism. And so the act of telling a story is an offering. So for example, I have a client I’ve been working with and I didn’t know this was going to happen. I was just going to produce their podcast, but I ended up Glassdoor is a company that I came in and I pitched them a podcast and Glassdoor

partnered with me and they said, hey, listen, we want you to also co-host it as well. I had Glassdoor is that, well, for a long time, for about a decade, they were that, know, SEO engine where you would go and you could find salaries at companies that offers transparency as well as anonymity. So you could go in and essentially seek competitive, right? So they’ve had…

Park Howell (17:01.634)

What does Glassdoor do?

Park Howell (17:18.294)

Okay, right. That’s I forgot about them.

Aaron Calafato (17:20.911)

Yeah, so well, one of the reasons why is because they’re trying to kind of update their experience and their brand. So now they have more. They have an app now and the app is something where you can explore that same thing, but it’s more of a community rather than an SEO or just Google destination or a website. I say all that to say a lot of the conversations I’ve had in that company talking about the power of this podcast is literally just about telling stories. And so when I’m in meetings,

And you’re asking like, how do you like, how do you actually do it? One, just go off script. And listen, see, they’re going to have a certain amount of time, but if you can take 10 to 15 seconds to make an observation or tell a story, you’re going to be able to write off the bat, communicate with people. started the podcast by talking about Medina before the thing you’re like, Hey, that was a really good thing. We should. It’s because it’s just, but I didn’t plan that. You just asked me, where do you live? And now there’s two ways of doing it.

I could go, I live in Medina, it’s 20 minutes south of Cleveland. Cool, bro. Thank you so much, Aaron. That was such a thoughtful response. And the problem is people either get nervous, they don’t want to share too much. They get nervous because of the thing they want. And so I, again, my only goal as a storyteller has always been connection and expression and art. I never have had a business objective with being a storyteller.

Park Howell (18:37.23)

Mm-hmm.

Park Howell (18:46.53)

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Calafato (18:50.585)

It wasn’t. Even my podcast, Free and Open to the Public, There’s No Paywall, I made a distinct choice that my storytelling as an art is going to remain art. And that when I got into the world of business, that if you can keep that framework, that changes the conversation level. If you’re in a conversation, I’m talking to Glassdoor, I’m not talking about I’m going to sell you this, I want to try to do this, I want to have you triple your budget. I’m saying,

How can we leverage all of these viral stories on your app? And how can we honor the stories of people who are in the digital landscape of hybrid work and return to office and what we’re doing now in 2025? How do we honor those stories and have meta conversations that deepen that community and make it more sticky? So how do you do that? And then they go, give me an example. And then I share a story. So it is hard, right? And that’s why I’m still working on myself. When I get into meetings, people want to,

create a formula on how you how you use it. It’s one of these things where I think ultimately there is kind of an amorphous thing where it’s a discovery and then you find your way in to making it work. But there isn’t really a set approach. It’s not like everyone everyone does it differently. The way you told the story about streets photography is different than I told the story about growing up in Medina. But the point is we’re both aiming

Park Howell (20:10.05)

Yeah.

Aaron Calafato (20:19.567)

at the same thing. So I think when you’re in those conversations, like you want to talk practically if you’re in those conversations, if you’re dealing with that, that objective or that boss, or you’re trying to, think ultimately trying to look at it first in the same way that you look at the world, you’re not looking at it transactionally first transaction comes second. And this is a hard thing to do because

Park Howell (20:41.334)

Yeah, you want a connection story. You want to be able to sit there and connect deeply with them. And I think really the way to do that is it’s as simple as pay attention as you.

Yeah, but before that, before that, I think you need to have this story library in your mind. you, you know, again, you’re talking about Larry David, he’s famous for walking around with a little notebook and he jots down funny things, you know, the teller with the little mascara dripping down and stuff like that, that he goes to that you don’t necessarily have to run around with a notebook. I certainly don’t. But when I see something that like catches me like, oh, that’s interesting. I will put it in my mental bank or I will make a little note on my phone or whatever, and it’ll go in and I’ll just think through that so that it is installed in my brain. And then when I’m in a situation where I’m sitting across from a prospect or I don’t have any bosses, I’m my own boss, well, I guess my wife, Michelle, that then like you, I can’t say that word, extemporaneously, you sit there and you feel the vibe as you are communicating with these people. And if you see an opening,

Aaron Calafato (21:38.146)

You

Extemporaneous. Yeah.

Park Howell (21:52.076)

You don’t always have to insert a story, but if you see an opening or they’re not really fully engaged or bought in, or maybe you haven’t really built that trust with them yet, then find that connection story, that little anecdote. And it’s not a long Joseph Campbell hero’s journey arc. It’s a little moment in time that you can tell that they can connect with. But you got to have them in the first place.

Aaron Calafato (21:52.135)

That’s right.

Aaron Calafato (22:07.249)

That’s right.

Aaron Calafato (22:15.889)

See, you’re great at articulating that. That’s what I’ve noticed too, even with the formula, I don’t get into it. I just met you really today. We’ve talked via email and stuff like that. And I know about the podcast and I’ve listened to episodes, but you’re really good in all your episodes at articulating sometimes the inarticulatable. So for me, I know the things I’m good at.

Park Howell (22:38.005)

Thank you.

Aaron Calafato (22:40.869)

I’m good at telling a short story to your point. We get in that in a second because short narratives to me are the key. So when you asked me earlier, how do you how do you do it for me? I know how to tell short stories. Well, I know how to build connection. Well, I know how to connect with people using narrative. What you do really well is kind of say, well, this is how you do that. And you answered your own question better than I did. But I would say the one the one through line the in-robe when you asked how can someone do it?

Park Howell (23:06.286)

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Calafato (23:10.211)

I would say the first step is one, what you said and what we’ve articulated. Be curious and observant of the world and build a library. And I have, I won’t move the camera, dozens, hundreds of bullet points of, I’m gonna tell the story about 90s commercials and how that helped me fall asleep. I have a story I’m gonna tell called the case against text threads. So these are all things that just kind of pop, pop. And I don’t let the, I never let them go away.

Park Howell (23:18.638)

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Calafato (23:38.46)

because one, I have a show that I use them for, but to your point, even if it’s business and you’re not doing a story, if you’re not a performer, having that in your back pocket for a dinner conversation, for even the personal stuff, it’s so, it fleshes out, creates a world. That’s the first thing. The second thing is, to your point, how do you do it? Insert short stories. Short narratives to me are the key to everything.

Park Howell (23:52.312)

Mm-hmm.

Park Howell (24:03.764)

Anecdotes. Yeah.

Aaron Calafato (24:04.679)

It is, yeah, man, and some people call anecdotes, you know, when you get into the didactic world, you can talk about parables, you can talk about whatever you wanna talk about. The point is the short stories, that’s I’m a short storyteller and you can pack a lot and a little, and when it comes to business, why it works so well is it’s pretty intuitive. You’re right. You only have a certain amount of time. You only have the CEOs, the CMO, the CTO or whoever, you got a 20 minute Zoom meeting or you got a 45 minute meeting.

Park Howell (24:17.069)

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Calafato (24:32.325)

and you can’t take them on a novel. They’re gonna say, hey, listen, let’s get to work. Podcasts like this, we have a little bit more depth, but even now I’m aware, okay, we’re 20 minutes, 28 minutes in. So you have to use these short narratives. And if you, one, if you have them in your back pocket, you’re pulling from them. How did you get them in your back pocket? You were a story catcher.

Park Howell (24:54.478)

Mm hmm. Yeah. And so I asked people to think about a moment. I was dealing with a big sales team once and I got a call. was doing a whole ton of training for them and I got a call from my main sponsor in there and she goes, you know, a lot of these people just aren’t buying into it because they don’t believe they’re storytellers. They don’t know how to tell a long story. And I said, it’s not a long story to your point, Aaron. It’s a moment in time when something changed. And I come back and I said, oh, I have to reframe this.

And when I started looking into that, this idea of moment, I looked up the origin of the word moment, and I was so surprised to find that it comes from the Latin word of momentum, which initially meant, of course, movement, motion, or moving power. And then I thought that juxtaposition, a lot of times people think a moment in time is static. It just happened right now, nothing happened, and yet that moment is filled.

with momentum. And by sharing that moment in an anecdote, you build that momentum and that energy with your audience. And then the second thing I would say, have a point. You’re going to be sharing this anecdote. It can’t come from left field. It has to be relevant to the person you’re talking to. So now, as you had said earlier, Aaron, that we use stories as learning devices to educate people. What you’re doing is

connecting their view through their prism or prison. It could go either way with your prism and hopefully it’s not a prison that you can now collectively come to that realization together that, yeah, this appears to be the truth in this situation and I got it through the use of a very interesting little anecdote to help me picture it, help me experience, help me feel it.

Aaron Calafato (26:47.857)

Well, your your points well taken. The other thing is, I think what you’re tapping into is what I always think of as the universal human experience. And so what the the phenomenon is connectivity, even through different prisms, there are universal truths. know that. I mean, a universal experience is I know anger, you know, anger. I know resentment, you know, resentment, different ways, different shades. We know these things.

What blocks us is the prisms from which we see it. Our perspectives, our upbringing, all the things that go into that are psychology. But if you can get there, then you’re in a shared space. You’re not in a prison. You’re in a shared space. And if you think about this, anyone listening, any big moment that you’ve ever had, for the most part, I would venture to say came to you or it opened up because of something small. It’s look,

You would talk about like the physics of things, right? You have the biggest, biggest, biggest, biggest, infinite to me. When I look at it, the infinite actually ends up recycling into the smallest. So human beings for me, you look through human history, the way we’ve translated information, but also meanings through story, the shortest distance, if you will, between two souls is a story you cut through all of the stuff. And when you have that, I think aha moment, it’s

I see you, you see me, we’re in this shared place together. How can that be possible? How is it possible that I’m from this part of the world and I’ve had this experience and there are these things and policies and politics and you’re from that world, but we’re sharing it here. Even if we don’t agree on all these other places we came from, we can understand that. That’s what you’re establishing. So what’s the vehicle to do it? For me, it’s a short story.

For me, now there’s other forms, which I love. There’s novels, there’s movies, there’s art. I’m all about it. For me, I have found that my form artistically and now what’s served my business, short stories, because you can take that and you package it in the same way that the great myths and the great faith leaders over time used parables. That’s how they did it. And you go, how could you encompass the meaning of all of this into this one story? It’s because,

Aaron Calafato (29:05.211)

The story is the vessel. The meaning is infinite in your consciousness, but you can’t translate infinite to infinite. That’s why you can’t translate even numbers. Numbers and logistics are fantastic, but the way our lizard brains work, we don’t see it that way. You could, I’ll give you one quick example and I’ll stop occupying the space. So there was this monologue I did and it doesn’t matter. It’s not.

here and there, but it’s a monologue I did and it took into account the student debt crisis that was happening in America, right? So no matter where you stand at, the whole point is there’s this big thing that’s happening. There’s trillions of dollars of debt and people are being affected by it. Okay, that’s the point. You could say, hey, statistically, no matter what you’re trying to say, you could say, hey, student debt has this many trillions of dollars in debt. It is the second most highest form of debt next to credit card debt. Now I could tell you that in that stat and that graph,

could mean something, but numbers actually don’t mean that much to people. We see them all the time. They come on our screens, like, one trillionth, that’s, I know that’s big, but here’s where it does mean something. You could do that, or you could say, hey, I know this kid, he went to school, he ended up getting $50,000 in student debt from going to a technical institute that was predatory.

It came into his neighborhood and it kind of sucked him in. He ended up taking this thing. And by the way, they weren’t accredited. And he ended up getting a degree that’s not valuable. To pay off the degree, he had to work full time. But what he didn’t tell people was that his mom, who was in her sixties, secretly took a job working in a kitchen at a nursing home and cleaning up the floors and mopping the floors at night to pay off his student debt. regardless of your position, that’s different than, have one trillion dollars to those in America. My point is, it’s the story, it’s the parable, it’s the tiny moment in time to your language that makes us at least consider it differently. You’re gonna consider it differently before I said one trillion, you go, because it’s a human story, it’s a moment of time. That is the secret.

Aaron Calafato (31:23.035)

That unlocks a thing. whether it’s the result you want, whether it’s the perspective you want, not interested in that. I’m interested in being a place where we consider our humanity and that’s when you have connection and trust.

Park Howell (31:23.064)

Mm-hmm.

Park Howell (31:33.58)

Yeah, well, and you were talking about the numbers versus the narrative. What’s the first syllable in the word numbers?

Aaron Calafato (31:41.073)

Numbers. Take me back to school now. Is it numb? Yes. That’s true.

Park Howell (31:44.718)

No, they’re numb. They mean they mean nothing to us unless we put them in the context of a story, you know. So absolutely. And as I’ve been doing, Aaron, with all of our guests, I ran your brand through our story cycle. Genie, I knew nothing about you. What did I do? I uploaded definitely your URL. Let me look at my my list here. Aaron Calafato dot com. I also uploaded your seven minutes story.

Aaron Calafato (31:51.527)

Good point.

Aaron Calafato (32:08.334)

Mm-hmm.

Park Howell (32:13.71)

Podcast and I uploaded your LinkedIn profile. So I’m just like who is this guy? What does he stand for and how does he tell his story to the world? I did have a chance to send it to you So you’ve looked at it, but let me real quick just this little paragraph of brand assessment I’m curious if this really Covers who you are and what you do and then of course, I’d love to hear a little bit more about your seven minutes stories, but it says

Aaron Califato positions himself as an expert storyteller and podcast consultant who helps executives and companies harness the power of authentic narrative. His brand demonstrates storytelling mastery through a successful seven minutes stories podcast while offering consulting services that translate this expertise to business and leaders.

Aaron Calafato (33:05.765)

Yeah, gotta be honest, was a little, at first I was like, yeah, let’s see. And whatever magic and prompt you’re using for this thing, I would say, I heard some other guests on your show as well say like, it’s pretty close. I mean, to your point, like that first draft, if you will, that’s, you know, a lot of the times you’d say, okay, if you do your own first draft, that takes you about 30%, that’s about 80%. So that, yeah, man, that’s pretty spot on for sure.

Park Howell (33:28.782)

You’re about 80 % there, yeah. So then you can apply 100 % of your creative energy on the last 20%, which will give you about a 200 % ROI, think, or something like that.

Aaron Calafato (33:38.215)

That’s right.

Aaron Calafato (33:42.864)

It was, no, it’s fantastic. And it’s funny because I actually look back at some of the work that I put in early on when starting my business and the amount of time, even pre-Chat GPT and stuff like that, as that, I introduce AI into my work. That’s helped accelerate things as well. But I just think about the time and labor, man, if, and listen, we just met today and I would tell you, I’m not trying to, I would tell you if it sucked.

But man, I wish I had this when I started my LLC five years ago, because at least it would cut down on the time for a copy and going back, because what it did was it took what was already there and it just got to that place where human beings can be creative. And it took away sort of that heavy lift, because the heavy lift isn’t making things up. It was already there. Like the things I was doing, everything it articulated, then to that 20 %

Park Howell (34:28.835)

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Calafato (34:33.849)

Now I can go with that human touch and go, yeah, it got the infrastructure, it got the skeletal system right. Now how do I even get this more, how do I differentiate this even more? How do I articulate more? So no, was very, it was really compelling to read that part, to be honest with you.

Park Howell (34:46.222)

You know what I found interesting with yours is the genie always comes back with three primary audiences with you. It only came back with two. And then I thought, is that a hiccup in the genie or is it in how you’re communicating? And maybe you truly only have two primary audience. One is the C-suite executives and the second one is fast growing companies. And I’d like to even boil that down a little bit more. It’s like owners of fast

Aaron Calafato (34:58.215)

Mm.

Park Howell (35:16.024)

growing companies or who would that be? And so that’s my question to you. Are those your two primary audiences or are we missing some?

Aaron Calafato (35:25.755)

Well, no, it’s interesting because I think maybe the hiccup comes from the fact that I have operated my work, my consulting work came accidentally. So that’s maybe why the, and I say accidentally in the sense that, and I’ll keep it short, because I started off in the theater and because I then took my storytelling on the road, I did that for about three years. I did monologues around the country. That’s how I made my living.

And then I got into the podcasting space because I didn’t want to travel and stay in Red Roof Inn hotels and be in hotel lobbies anymore. And I wanted to tell more stories quicker, faster. And that library we talked about, I wanted to get that out there. So I kind of had to restart from scratch about five years ago, but that’s when I started Seven Minute Stories. But my idea with that was I just had this love. I have a proven, it’s not even, it’s something where it’s, I have a proof of concept that worked where I was able to like,

Take away monetization, I could keep people’s attention, I could tell stories and I know they would stick around. And I had the love of it, I loved doing it. So I positioned Seven Minute Stories not as a business endeavor, but as an art endeavor. In the sense that I didn’t know where it would go, but the only KPI, the only thing I wanted to do was I wanted to see where the ceiling was with a niche audience like that. Like how many people can I get to engage with someone

who likes to tell autobiographical, extemporaneous short stories every week. And so far there’s like 300 something I’ve done in a row. I do it every single week. I tell a story every single week. And that grew. So what happened there at the park was that because of that, that’s when I started interacting with folks. At first I was in an agency internally. They were going, well, how did you get that attention?

How did you get the episode retention that you have? We have a 92 % episode retention rate on my seven minute stories. I’ll go, wow, people are listening all the way up until the credits. Every single listener we have, that’s the average. And so I’m going, okay. And then you can say, that’s just the first year. There’s only a thousand people. last two years, we’ve touched over 30 million ears and eyes with the content. And the retention rate is the same. It’s 90 plus.

Aaron Calafato (37:42.812)

So what happened was then there was a business case where C-suite executives to your point and companies who are looking to build and get attention. I started interacting with them and they weren’t interested in me becoming a storyteller for them. They were interested in the architecture, the infrastructure and the story catching philosophy and ability to help fortify the story they’re telling. So maybe that’s why I came up with two, but as of now, yeah, really my audiences are companies that are looking whether it’s campaign.

podcast or whatever, are looking to build stories. And a lot of that decision making, as you know, comes from the C-suite. So that’s what it is. It’s the CMOs, it’s different folks. So that’s one audience. And the other audience that’s emerging is startups. So startups have been bringing me in in more of a consulting way because they’re looking to seed investment. They’re working, you know, trying to attract, you know, they’re talking with venture capital firms and they’re looking to one with their pitches say, hey, I get brought in four times a year to George Washington University.

Park Howell (38:37.196)

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Calafato (38:42.343)

to their investment institute to talk with students who are coming out to say, it’s your point park. A lot of folks are, they got all the data, they got the decks. They don’t, they need to tell stories. And so that’s where I found those two audiences have emerged. And so, yeah.

Park Howell (38:50.659)

Yeah.

Park Howell (38:55.522)

Well, then in your communication, you might want to, according to the genie of what it revealed, put a bit more emphasis at some point on startups. That could be your third audience. And when I go back and look at C-Suite with the genie, it pulls out the emotional drivers that you are selling to and for and against. And these are where you find these little stories that you’re talking about. For the C-Suite executives, challenges are communicating complex ideas in a compelling way.

Aaron Calafato (39:04.455)

Startups, yeah. That’s right.

Park Howell (39:25.624)

connecting authentically with employees and stakeholders, standing out in a crowded marketplace and translating vision into stories that inspire action. So that sounds pretty much what you do. If you know that that’s what they’re looking for, then you can storytell against those or embrace those through your storytelling. The fears they have being perceived as inauthentic or out of touch, failing to engage audiences effectively.

Aaron Calafato (39:34.533)

Yes, sir.

Park Howell (39:52.758)

losing market position due to poor communication, missing opportunities due to ineffective storytelling. So when you are connecting with them, are you playing to those fears and saying, look, we can get rid of those for you?

Aaron Calafato (40:06.617)

Absolutely. And part of it’s standing out in the white noise and answering all those fears. One fear though that that gets articulated that I would put a touch on there is when we start talking about, and again, campaign and content is this giant umbrella now, as you know, it’s like, can be a podcast. It’s very amorphous. But the point is ultimately, no matter what you call it, it’s everything you said. It’s articulating a message to an audience, getting trust and ensuring that trust and contract between them.

Park Howell (40:21.932)

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Calafato (40:36.615)

And, constantly having that pulse to let them know we’re here and we’re human and we’re trying to provide a service to you. And ultimately what I find to be the biggest challenge is when you introduce certain campaigns, be it a podcast, there’s usually a fear. And again, it’s numbers, right? Numb. They, there is a fear for, I call it deferred revenue or deferred retention or deferred, whatever. Ultimately, if you do something true, it doesn’t happen right away.

Park Howell (40:55.662)

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Calafato (41:06.641)

This is my philosophy. If you do something true, it usually doesn’t have a short term right off the bat game. It can, doesn’t mean that it can, but usually good things take time. So one of the things that’s the hardest thing to do is to say, if you’re building something that’s a bit more authentic from the traditional marketing engine you’ve used before, it’s gonna take a little time, one, to get that trust, two,

People need time to ingest that in their daily activities and their lives. And so one of the hardest part is getting people to stick with that three to six month range on average, where they kind of have this moment of transition. That’s been the hardest part. And I still have to educate folks all the time where it’s like, wait a second, why didn’t I receive a sale on the launch of this podcast?

Park Howell (41:55.87)

So you’re talking about building a culture out of it. It’s not a quick hit. Sometimes it is. Sometimes you can tell an amazing story and boom, it does. But it’s got to be indoctrinated into a culture. Yeah.

Aaron Calafato (41:58.428)

Yes.

Aaron Calafato (42:06.513)

Culture, you’re absolutely right. And that takes a little bit of time. So what I try to work with CMOs particularly, because they have to answer to folks, they go, okay, well, this quarter we need to see this much growth. And it goes, can do that, but remember what we’re doing here. Because ultimately you can tell the data story till you’re blue in the face, but a data story doesn’t necessarily tell the truth of what’s actually happening. There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors. There’s a lot of things you can do to tell a great data story.

But the real story is to your point is, you building a culture of retention? And that’s why the metric is the new, let’s say in the podcast space particularly, the metric isn’t downloads anymore. The metric, know, one of the reasons why, let’s say you’re in the top 10 % of global podcasts that are downloaded, isn’t just ultimate downloads. It actually has a lot to do with retention per episode, that the audience you’ve cultivated is sticking with you at least through 60 % of the episodes that you’re doing. So.

Park Howell (43:01.347)

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Calafato (43:02.095)

What I talk with companies about in particular is, hey, downloads we can get, that’s great. But if you actually wanna know the truth, podcasts are like truth serum, because you can look under the hood. And it’s not like websites with impressions and all this kind of stuff where you can say, it’s really nice. It actually can show you the behavior of your listeners. My only concern as a storyteller is, do I have your attention? Are you with me to the end? And did I leave you better than I found you?

And on a one to one ratio, whether it’s a content marketing campaign, commercial, whatever podcasts, I can tell them through the lens of let’s say analytics that say, Hey, people are listening to 70 % of this thing. We now have a formula to your point for success and we can build on that. That’s the metric to hit. Don’t freak out. If your top line volume numbers don’t hit right away when you’re introducing a new campaign. The real truth is.

does the actual human being that’s engaging with it actually give a you know what? And are they listening for whatever the duration is, whether it’s seven minutes or 70 minutes, do you have them and are they engaged? And if those numbers are flush and they show you that they’re at least they’re more 60%, more than halfway, that means you have a foundation to build on. If they’re not, we got to retool. That’s the metric I look for is audience retention rate. That’s the key. And that’s what I use as an education piece.

Park Howell (44:23.182)

Yeah.

Aaron Calafato (44:25.735)

to bridge that gap that we were talking about with those fears is let’s stop looking here and trying to compete with the Joe Rogan’s and all these kinds of folks. Let’s look here at retention. And that’s usually where we can win and build numbers ultimately.

Park Howell (44:38.35)

And these CEOs, again, according to the genie through your website, they’re frustrated. And the genie looks not only at your website, but it also looks out at the market, the industry you’re in. And even some of your competitors will look at and then it’ll come in. That’s what informs the thinking around your website or your brand story as developed through your website. Frustrations they have traditional communication methods, not yielding results, difficulty translating expertise into relatable stories.

Aaron Calafato (44:47.495)

Mm-hmm.

Park Howell (45:06.67)

time constraints, limiting ability to develop storytelling skills, and lack of measurable impact from communication efforts. And I think that’s kind of what you’re talking about is maybe they are looking through the wrong prism, the wrong prison, at what they think is effective. And it’s not just downloads, but it’s actually audience connection.

Aaron Calafato (45:17.275)

percent.

Aaron Calafato (45:26.769)

Well, in your point, the other word you said there was we’ve said it’s a whole, you know, it’s in the title of your show story. One of the, you know, again, being kind of one of the things that also said, which is we’ll get to it in a second was like one of my, guess, value propositions is kind of a relatability. I started talking about Ohio and all that kind of stuff. It’s not really a shtick. mean, here’s the thing. There is something about being relatable. It’s just.

I don’t know if that’s, it’s part of the nature that I have, which is I try not to be, I just, I’m just me. I try not to be pretentious. I try not to pretend that I know things I don’t know, but I’m very convicted about the things that I know to be true. I think this is a thing. And one thing I know to be true is that there aren’t a ton of prolific storytellers in the, in, only in the world, but in the business space. That’s not a bad thing. It’s just that in our culture over time, there hasn’t been really an incentive to be storytellers. There’s been an incentive to be, you know, industry leaders and convert, you know, conversion, mavericks and all that. But to be a storyteller, that’s the secret sauce. So the frustration is they come in with this going, why can’t we, why can’t we connect using this traditional method, blah? Well, the differentiator is, are you telling good stories? Whatever that platform is, are you going back to the thing that we know that, that the ancient thing that has been happening?

since the beginning of time, the very foundation that we started around campfires as human beings. Are you going back to that methodology? Are you going back to the Joseph Campbell architecture? Are you going back to the parable? Most of them are not. Most of them are going to the top line sort of thing and they’re expecting a human reaction from a numeric approach. And I think that’s where it hits.

Park Howell (47:12.878)

Well, and I think the reason why that is, and I’ve seen in my work with them, they don’t have time to understand the theory. They don’t even really care about the theory. Just help me be better at connecting in their aspirations, according to the genie. Becoming a thought leader in their industry, inspiring teams through authentic leadership, creating memorable brand experiences, and driving business growth through effective communication. So, Aaron, when I started my work in business of story, really it’s back in the…

Aaron Calafato (47:19.622)

Mm-hmm.

Park Howell (47:42.638)

late 2000 aughts and then I was all in in 2016 when I transitioned out of my agency into doing just this. I was so enamored with the theory of storytelling and how it worked and why it worked and where it worked and going back to the ages and all that sort of thing. And I would passionately share that with my audiences. And I could tell I wasn’t totally connecting with them and I was sprinkling stories in there or whatever.

But what I finally realized, especially in the business world, is 95 % of those people do not care about the theory and that’s okay. They don’t have to. They’re like, I don’t wanna be you. I don’t wanna be a story theorist. I just wanna know how do you story as a secret weapon. What I like to say is you have to understand the magic if you’re going to cast the spell. And the magic is in what you teach and what I teach starting with the and but therefore the algorithm.

Aaron Calafato (48:22.097)

That’s okay, right.

Aaron Calafato (48:35.163)

Mm-hmm.

Park Howell (48:41.592)

that actually speaks to the logic brain as saying, here’s how you put together the story puzzle from catching a story in the wild to assembling it so you can tell it quickly to underscoring your main point. And I find that’s what business people actually care about. Have you come across that?

Aaron Calafato (48:59.323)

You’re spot on. Yeah, I 100 % and also is that where the at least the inspiration for the title of your I think was the first book you did. It’s like the bewitching. It’s the magic, right? Yeah. Yeah, there’s something there. It’s magic.

Park Howell (49:08.568)

Brand bewitchery, yeah. Because there is magic to it. It’s absolutely, if you think bad stories for yourself, bad shit’s gonna happen to you. If you think good stories, it’s not woo woo. Good stuff happens.

Aaron Calafato (49:18.695)

That’s right. Yes. No.

you’re spot on and the magic in it, and you’ve seen this too, where you will have, let’s say, theorists or folks who understand the architecture of a story. for, I guess maybe for a bigger umbrella, think about music, right? You have people who can understand the music and they can understand the theory and you need that. It’s an important thing. But you know,

Park Howell (49:46.998)

I got a degree in music composition and theory and now I’m teaching story composition and theory. How weird is that?

Aaron Calafato (49:49.64)

That’s amazing. Well, it’s funny. I actually started my storytelling career because I was kicked out of a music program before I started because I auditioned for a jazz guitar program. And for five to eight years prior to that, I just learned to play by ear. So again, sort of the extemporaneous improvisation, I could do all that. But when I went to audition for this program, the teacher that I auditioned for,

Park Howell (50:12.972)

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Calafato (50:18.691)

as I was already entered into the school, was one of the schools where you get in, but then you have to audition to get into the specific school. So I was accepted into the school, but he found out that I didn’t read music and he goes, can’t let you in the program. So I was, found myself walking around campus and I, and just like, what am I going to do with my life? And I knew I would still play guitar and stuff, but something shifted. And I remember seeing an audition for a play and I went out for the play. got the role and I said, I guess this is what I’m doing now. So, but you know, it’s funny.

Park Howell (50:24.942)

Mm-hmm.

Park Howell (50:45.966)

The universe answered.

Aaron Calafato (50:48.475)

The universe answers, but you know, it’s funny. Look, you can understand the infrastructure of it, but you have seen and you know there are people, you can’t just do it through the architecture. And I would argue you also can’t just do it through the magic. It is the synergy between the two because there is a formula to it, but there is something performative. There’s something deeply human. There’s something meta that is involved in what you bring to the formula.

And that’s absolutely true. And when it comes to the business world, I found that to be the case too, which is I’ve learned early on to surrender to the fact that not everyone’s like part, not everyone can just jam on a call for an hour. Like I could talk stories with you forever. And what I’ve tried to do, I guess maybe this is great for anyone listening who is trying to sell a service or you’re passionate about something, whether it’s.

product service, even if you’re selling just storytelling or consulting services. I’ve learned to show that passion, but rein it in to a point where it fuels my conversations, but it doesn’t overwhelm the conversations. Find the right audience and know your audience. That’s another thing is knowing your audience right off the bat. If I can tell you can jam about stories, let’s go there. But if I’m talking to a CMO or whoever or someone who’s a decision maker and they’re going

And I can tell it’s an observing thing. It’s a curiosity. How are they responding to this? If they’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but like, what is our Q1 numbers gonna be? Now what I can do here is I can pivot to data story. So what I can say is, listen, we know this story is the most powerful phenomenon on earth. People have been using this to the beginning of time. And I don’t know much, but I make my whole life around that. But here’s how we can influence the data story of your company. And if you let me, give me five minutes, I can actually walk you through.

a way to de-risk this campaign so that we can tell a great story, which I love, and you can trust me to help build that architecture. At the end of the day, we can hit the numbers you’re looking for. Now that’s different, right? Turn that data into drama. That’s right. So, yeah.

Park Howell (52:51.244)

Yeah, turn that data into drama. So finally, and then we’ll wrap up on this, it came up with your UVP, your unique value proposition, which from everything you’ve told me today, sounds like it’s pretty spot on and it is. Aaron Califato is a proven storytelling as a proven storytelling expertise that transforms business communication into audience connection.

Aaron Calafato (53:18.213)

I think that’s pretty spot on. That’s pretty spot on. Yeah, it is. It is a transformative power and the medium there is just story, right? It just kind of it taps into the universal nature of how people engage with other people. And the one thing I’ll add to that and then we can jet there is a unique proposition about being an autobiographical storyteller that positions me in the market. And what I would say to anyone listening, think about what your unique position is.

Park Howell (53:19.906)

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Calafato (53:44.636)

whether you’re running it through this, this genie or whether you’re even just analyzing yourself. One thing I’ve noticed is that the way in which you tell stories can really have an impact on how you can convert and build a business. And what I leaned on was, listen, I don’t write, I didn’t write war and peace. I’m not a novelist. I’m not a painter. I’m not a writer. How can I use autobiographical storytelling that I do on my show?

And how can I translate that into the business world? Well, one, when you’re telling autobiographical stories, you have to do another layer of work, which is most people, when you’re saying it from your perspective, they’re skeptical. Like you have to win over folks right away. As opposed to, it’s a little bit different when you say, I’m going to tell you a story about someone else. More people are going, okay, who are we talking about? Because you’re not saying, look at me. So in autobiographical storytelling, you have to say one, I need you to look at me.

but I’m gonna tell you at the end of the day, this isn’t about me. This is about a story and ultimately it’s about you. To break through that threshold, that’s the same thing that you have in business conversations because you’re not talking about someone else. You’re saying, I’m here to give you a value. I need you to listen to me for a few minutes, but I’m gonna make it worth your while. So the act of storytelling in the way that I do it, autobiographical storytelling, literally something that I help share and teach folks because that’s the same thing you’re doing every single day in relationships and in business.

Park Howell (55:06.849)

then what I would say is to pull that out in your brand story because I don’t see it in the genie and that’s the beautiful thing about the genie. It validates what you’re doing really well. It highlights the gaps and the missed opportunities and I think maybe there’s a gap there in your ability and your skills around being an autobiographical storytelling coach. And then the third thing it does is it provides you inspirations, new ways of thinking and telling.

Aaron Calafato (55:14.247)

Mmm.

Park Howell (55:33.888)

your story that we’re all so close to our own stories that like, yeah, that’s great. I had never thought of it that way. So with everything in your passion behind being an autobiographical storytelling coach, I think I would have you go back in and look and see if you might not punch that up a little bit more in your marketing materials.

Aaron Calafato (55:53.351)

I think it’s a great point of action. feel like I owe you something here in the mail, like a check, because that is something because even I’ve been five years in and I’ve had the last two years have been great years. But your point, you always want to improve. That’s the challenge as well is the story on the story, right? It’s the brand story. That’s your expertise. You’re fantastic with that. And I think all to know it is a skill set, because like I said, David Lynch, there’s universes on universes. What I’ve established early on was like, you know,

Park Howell (55:58.477)

Ha ha.

Park Howell (56:13.784)

Thank you.

Aaron Calafato (56:21.871)

I have an audience that we’ve grown, a loyal audience that we grow with this podcast. And then I’ve been able to make some inroads into the business world. Now the question is, as I’m building is to your point, here are the key things that I do, but that’s even more unique. Articulating saying it’s a differentiator. That’s right. So that’s helpful. I appreciate that.

Park Howell (56:35.882)

Yeah, it’s a differentiator. yeah. So where can people learn more about you?

Aaron Calafato (56:42.715)

Yeah, you get just two places. You can go to AaronColofato.com. That’s kind of the overview of everything I do. And pretty soon, next couple of months, you’ll see a couple of lines in there because of the genie that’s gonna highlight that unique value proposition. Thank you, Park. Most importantly, though, for me is I’d love for you to go to 7minutestories.com or just look wherever you find podcasts, type in 7 Minute Stories. Or if you go to Google, put the number 7 Minute Stories in there. It owns the first three pages of Google.

Park Howell (56:53.326)

Awesome.

Park Howell (57:08.824)

Beautiful

Aaron Calafato (57:09.095)

And it’s wonderful. Yeah, I tell a seven minute story every week. If you love stories, that’s all it’s there for. There’s no thing at the end. There’s no one eight hundred number. It’s just a story. And that’s my art form. That’s my love. And right now I’m doing 60 percent of my day. I’m dedicating to universe building around seven minute stories. My goal in the next five years is to do 80 percent of my day doing that. So that’s my love, my art, my way of connecting with people. So thank you.

Park Howell (57:28.376)

Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for being here, Aaron. I really appreciate it.

Aaron Calafato (57:33.756)

Thanks for having me, Park, appreciate it.

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