Rain Bennett

#466: The Secret to Six-Second Video Storytelling

I have taken a number on the internal sales teams at The Home Depot through The Business of Story mastery course.

If you have ever taken it then you know I always start by showing them how to use the ABT (And, But, Therefore) narrative framework as the foundation to grow their storytelling skill.

In a virtual training session, one guy asked me, “What is the shortest ABT you know, Park?”

Now I realize that my answer was basically a six-second story. I told him that the shortest ABT goes like this…

“You communicate and care but bore, so tell a story.”

Ten short words that actually come in at about four seconds in the telling.

It works because it uses the three forces of story of agreement, contradiction and consequence that the primal pattern-seeking, problem-solving, decision-making buying limbic brain adores.

The ABT framework is ideal for your six-second video storytelling.

That’s why I’m excited to have Rain Bennett, author of Six Second Stories and host of the popular The Storytelling Lab podcast with us today sharing how to craft your short video stories.

It’s one thing to make your storytelling clear, concise and compelling using the ABT, but where do you find your stories?  Rain Bennet is here to show you how.

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Celisa Steele

#465: The 3 Keys to Engaging Your Audience With Your Learning Content

When you reflect on some of your favorite teachers, I bet you remember how they taught you through the stories they told.

Leroy Ashby comes to my mind. He was a remarkable history teacher at Washington State University who had students lining up to take his class because he was an incredible storyteller.

But corporate training and executive development often miss the mark because it’s dry, logic-driven drivel.

You’d rather take a meeting with your most difficult client than sit through another mundane course.

If you’re in learning development or just want to teach something important to someone, then you’re in luck because we have a brilliant training professional for you.

Celisa Steele is the co-founder and managing director of Tagoras.

Tagoras partners with professional and trade associations, continuing education units, training firms, and other learning businesses to help them to understand market realities and potential, to connect better with existing customers and find new ones, and to make smart investment decisions around product development and portfolio management.

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Jonathan Gottschall

#464: The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human

One of my favorite books that I introduce in every one of my Business of Story mastery courses is Jonathan Gottschall’s, The Storytelling Animal: Why Stories Make Us Human.

It is a fun and enlightening read about the intersection of brain structure and story structure.

I think of it like stories being the software that drives the hardware of our primal pattern-seeking, problem-solving, decision-making buying limbic brain.

The human minds yields helplessly to the suction of story.

Homo sapiens – we storytelling apes – are the only creatures we know that plan, organize and act using storytelling.

Stories are the very first technology our ancestors used to survive and thrive in the Savannah.

Stories were around before fire, agriculture, the wheel, you name it. In fact, it was probably a story, grunted or drawn out in the dirt, that led to each of these evolutionary innovations.

Stories are what we use today to navigate the onslaught of information, media and the internet.

That’s why I’m excited to bring you an interview I did with Jonathan several years ago.

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Cheryl Hunter

#463: How to Use Your Personal Brand Story as a Superpower

You, like everyone, has had highs and lows in your life. These are the moments that shape who you are and inform your unique expertise the world needs to hear about.

But sharing your story, especially the unsettling dark days, is often hard because you’re afraid that people won’t respect you for what you’ve been through.

Cheryl Hunter hid her story of being abducted, abused and left for dead for years because she feared what people would think.

But it is this event in her life that has shaped her expertise as model, media personality, and personal branding coach.

Now she freely shares her story everywhere to help others find the courage to do the same.

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Robert McKee

#462: How to Replace Mind-Numbing Business Rhetoric With Inspiring Storytelling

You want to inspire your people with a gripping story that paints your company’s compelling vision and mission.

But you may be losing your team because so many leaders try to coerce with rhetoric rather than cajole with a story.

Legendary Hollywood story consultant and author of Storynomics: Story-Driven Marketing in the Post-Advertising World, Robert McKee illustrates the difference between the typical boring-2-bored business communications and the enchanting power of brand storytelling.

This is an encore replay of my interview with McKee from 2017 when he launched Storynomics. 

The beautiful thing about the timeless nature of storytelling is that his insights from this show are more relevant today than ever.

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Ashley Stahl

#461: Learn the Presentation Secrets of a Viral TEDx Creator

We all have been there: you have a big-time presentation to make, the stakes are high, and if you nail it, then your career, company or brand will be propelled forward.

But you’re terrified because you’re not sure you have clarified your central point enough to make it compelling and memorable

So why not let a former counterterrorism expert with the Pentagon turned viral TEDx Talk creator help you calm down and *own* the room with your presentation?

Following her work in international intrigue, Ashley Stahl has become a career expert, author, podcaster and speaker. She wrote the international best-selling book YOU Turn, and is a top 100 TEDx speaker.

She has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, The Steve Harvey Show and so many more.

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Glenn Ginsburg

#460: How to Use the Creator Economy to Build Belief in Your Brand Story

In his memoir Shoe Dog, NIKE Founder, Phil Knight said, “People, sensing my belief, wanted some of that belief for themselves. Belief, I decided. Belief is irresistible.”

How well have you built belief in your brand through the stories you tell?

Or maybe the more important question is, “How do you build belief in your brand through the stories you tell?

Glenn Ginsburg, President of QYOU Media, Inc., an award-winning, full-service media and marketing company that creates influential, digitally native and creator-centric marketing and social campaigns for some of the most beloved entertainment franchises in the world, will show you how they build belief in the movies they market.

With experience across the creator economy and entertainment industry, Glenn joined the QYOU team in 2015 and oversees brand partnerships, strategy, creative content development and distribution for campaigns for a client roster that includes Warner Bros, Disney, Universal Pictures, Activision, Ubisoft, Capcom, MGA and more

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Julienne Ryan

#459: How to Win Against Digital Distraction With Your Storytelling

Do you remember the campy TV series from the 1960’s called Lost In Space?

When I was interviewing Organizational Storyteller and humorist, Julienne Ryan, for this week’s episode on winning against digital distraction, I couldn’t help but think of the corny robotic dialogue on that show.

So I had fun with the opening of this podcast featuring the confrontation between the main robot and its arch-villain Robotoid, because it reminded me of so many of the corporate meetings I’ve experienced.

Plus, I knew our guest would appreciate the humor and the point it makes about humanizing your communications to overcome digital distraction and the destruction it reaps.

Julienne Ryan grew up in Queens having three communication choices: be funny, fight, or run really fast.

She is author of the popular I Learned-it-in-Queens Communications Playbook, a book that teaches how to win the day against digital distraction. Julienne is organizational storyteller, keynote speaker, and soft-skills trainer.

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Jackie Cross

#458: How to Use Your Personal Passions to Propel Your Professional Pursuits

How effective is your personal brand in propelling your professional pursuits?

As a business leader, you know that it’s what you stand for that makes you stand out.

But we all can get lost in the mire of marketing when we don’t clearly communicate our compelling personal and professional brand story.

We’re going to show you how to fix that today with an influencer who has combined her love of physics, real estate and roller skating to create a marvelous brand in Austin, Texas.

You’re going to love Jackie Cross on this special edition of the Business of Story.

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Roger Sorkin

#457: The Trick to Producing Viral, Resilient Stories

As storytellers, we want to produce viral, resilient stories that captivate and move our audiences to action. Right?

But that’s way harder than we think it is.

So I’m excited to have highly-award-winning documentarian, Roger Sorkin, with us today to share how he approaches his storytelling to make as big of an impact on the world as possible.

Roger is the founder of the American Resilience Project, a nonprofit that produces award-winning, mission-driven films focused on practical solutions to environmental challenges.

“The American Resilience Project wields the power of strategic narratives to meet the greatest threats to human security and civilizational stability. Our work is designed to strengthen civic engagement for achieving the energy transition, adapting to sea level rise, managing the climate crisis, strengthening food security, and more.”

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