People don't think they have stories because they don't perceive themselves as either worthy or exciting. But your point of view, what you're observing in the world, what you're seeing. Those are stories. The way in which you taught your son to be respectful to another human being, that's a story. The way you failed at something is a story.
The way you are experiencing struggle is a story. You are, you are made of stories. Hello and welcome to Advice Column, where we share crowdsourced ideas for living with intention.
Hey everybody and welcome. To do our quick panel introductions, we have Brad Tunis, mindfulness coach and hypnotherapist. Justin Reden, attorney and father. Laura C. Reden, author of the Tethered Soul and Phantom book series. Rico Molden, doing our technical production, and myself, Lisa Liguori. I did that holding my breath, so now I have to breathe.
I need mindfulness coaching. Um, 27 years ago, in a conference room in a downtown Chicago high rise, a stranger shared a piece of his story with me, and I recognized in it a piece of my own story. In that exact instant, I went from feeling isolated to feeling free and connected. And that's when I knew my mission in life.
I want you to have that same experience, which is the whole reason I started Advice Column. The idea behind this community is that we share our stories with one another and we, in doing so, remember that we're not alone and we give each other ideas for navigating the adventure of life. So that brings me to today.
I could not sleep last night. I was super giddy. Because I get to introduce you to our guest who's going to share with you the neuroscience of why storytelling is so powerful and how it connects us with one another, what those mechanisms are, and then give you some tips for how to make stories even more engaging so you can help others by sharing your experiences.
Anne Marie Houghtailing is the co founder of Story Imprinting, which is a company that teaches people, teams, and really iconic organizations how to use storytelling to improve their lives. That can be having difficult conversations more effectively, communicating their mission, or changing the world. One of the neat things she does is she works in a California prison to bring storytelling to incarcerated men as a tool for learning and empowerment.
And I think that's so special. Annemarie, thanks for being here. Hi, thank you for having me. This is a new format for us because we have four panelists and one interviewee for the first time. So I thought I would ask you a first question and then panel if you guys want to just jump in and Tag right on.
Feel free at any time. Thank you. So, Anne Marie, first of all, how did you come to get into storytelling or understand its importance? Yeah, that's, um, an excellent question. So, I Came from a background from a sales and business development background and in 2009 everybody might have remembered we had a terrible recession.
Um, it was awful You would be watching tv and they would be like it's worse than it's ever been and it would drive me to drink So i'd go get a glass of wine in the kitchen and i'd come back and they're like girl It was worst when you left, you know It just was horrendous and one of the things I did in that time is I went to the university of san diego and I pitched the idea of One of the first academic Certification programs in the country for sales and business development and they said yes, and in the process of developing this program I had always just used storytelling as a business development tool and presentations and this is what I taught clients to do I didn't know why that worked I just was doing it intuitively.
Um, my own background is I have a graduate degree in English so I could write you a really lovely email. You know, it's not like I have an MBA or anything. Um, and I had always sort of integrated and threaded storytelling inside of all of the work I did. And then I stumbled upon some research which sent me down this rabbit hole of storytelling in the brain and the way in which we Are all storytelling animals and what that did for me is it allowed me to take what I was already doing in sort of support it with this kind of scaffolding of neuroscience and social science.
And I learned so much about the way storytelling can be used as a tool of influence. So many of our clients are people like attorneys and accountants and big tech. And, um, you know, I've presented to climate scientists. Why? Because we have an enormous. amount of research. But what we really need to be doing is telling the story and the singular story, storytelling of one fisherman, who for the first time in eight generations cannot feed his family is the universal story.
So that was really how I came upon storytelling. And then my business really shifted to a storytelling heartbeat kind of business, which means we do a lot of leadership work. We do a lot of business development work. Um, And a lot of training, but all, most of it, the vast majority of that has storytelling as its root.
What is that neuroscience that you discovered that underpins or kind of proves the power of storytelling? So there are a couple of really core pieces. One is Jennifer Auker's work. She wrote The Butterfly Effect. And one of the things she noted was that people remember things 22 times I have 22 times higher memory of something when it's a story versus a fact pattern.
So there was that. Um, Yuri Hassan's work out of Princeton, he talks about it is only when someone is sharing a story that the speaker and listener's brain are synchronized. So if I'm just reporting information to you that synchronicity does not happen. It only happens when I'm sharing a story Um, the london school of business also shows that if you look at facts alone facts with stories or story Storytelling is by far.
It has a 30 retention over just facts alone, which is five percent retention, but really the most impressive And for me deep kind of um, resonant work was paul zack's work who wrote the moral molecule and he wanted to understand If indeed storytelling changed the way we bond with one another and could change the way we behaved And so he was looking at oxytocin and for those of you who are listening or those of you on the panel who may not remember Oxytocin is released when we fall in love Oxytocin is released when a mother is breastfeeding her baby.
It is critical to human bonding It is what connects us to one another and he did this by having People watch a video He took their blood spun their blood to see if oxytocin was released to watch a video about saint jude's And to see if any oxytocin was released and if they were willing to write a check to donate money And what he found is in the first video where the storytelling was very loose and not very well prepared there was No oxytocin or little oxytocin and people gave very little money or no money at all The second time what they did is they had something that we would refer to as a high level of narrative fidelity which means very sort of strict adherence to structure of storytelling powerful storytelling personal storytelling a father a son And what happened was the body flooded with oxytocin And more interesting to me Is the higher the rate of oxytocin, the more likely they were to give, and the more they they gave, the bigger the check.
So, Story, we are storytelling animals. We do this naturally. But what I want people to understand is this is an incredible power tool. And by the way, it can be wielded for evil and it can be quite sinister and has, historically. And has in business. Theranos is a perfect example of this. With Elizabeth Holmes.
So, all that does is make my case stronger for the fact that storytelling is powerful. Invades, it taps into the physiology of our body and the way we respond to one another. That's so neat. And I think what's cool is that there's science to support what we kind of know in our gut. That there's actually, you can measure hormones.
I'm just, this is, I'm just blown away. That I can see like the whole universe coming together at once with the connection between the storytelling. And people feeling good, and then wanting to reciprocate things. That's amazing. Is it any story, Anne Marie? It's a good question. Um, I think it's, you know, I think you have to have certain Important elements of story.
It's not that it's any story. It's that it's a well structured story It has to have resonance. It has to have a theme when you think of every any world religion Um, all of them have an origin story. All of them have storytelling as their root Why because storytellings are something we pass along. It is the earliest form of something that is viral Um, so storytelling, you know, look at nursery rhymes, right?
What are those largely about? They're largely about how to behave, how to be safe, how to keep yourself protected. Um, you know, if you look at Hansel and Gretel, things like that, right? The most important piece of storytelling is that it has a beginning and middle and an end. It has a theme and that it has emotional resonance and that it is authentic.
Mm-hmm. . So will that emotional resonance happen? Um, with oxytocin, if it's not, um, if it's not a story of joy, if it's a tragedy. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. If I tell you right now, if I, you know, if I tell you right now sort of a story about my mother, all of you will think of your mother. You can't help that you you can't help it.
It's what ha it's the yuri hassan It's what happens in your brain We will become synchronized if I tell you about my mother dying And I walk you through that process and tell you that it was terrible and beautiful and all the ways in which that occurred Of course, you will feel all those things tragedy can be incredibly powerful And it has a place in storytelling.
It is what teaches, you know Sometimes it teaches us I mean, nursery rhymes are incredible for this. Think of Grimm's fairy tales, right? I mean, I used to use this example all the time in corporate training. I mean, we talk about Hansel and Gretel, right? It's about a boy and a girl. Does anybody remember?
Like, the old woman is fattening up the brother to cook him and eat him. That's pretty damn dark, you know? It's like we're telling our preschoolers this and we're like, Good night, honey. Oh my gosh. You're not is dark, heavy stuff, but why? Because the stakes are so high. It's about how to protect yourself.
Wow. So maybe the oxytocin is about relatability and connection, not just love and joy. Oh, absolutely. I think it's about the human experience. I also don't know if anyone here has read Sapiens, but he too talks about the importance of storytelling in community. Um, and Paul Zak refers to this as well.
Storytelling makes us more combat, compatible, compassionate, more collaborative, and more connected. And this is also something that is referred to in Sapiens. It is what, it is sort of what, Connects us as a community. Our sort of narrative work. No society has, there, I think it's Ursula Le Guin who says there have been societies without the wheel, but no society has existed without storytelling.
Can I ask a personal question? How come I only like happy movies and I don't want to ever watch sad movies? Well, maybe it's just too much for you emotionally and energetically. Is it? Cause I think that that's possible. Are there some people like me that only want to hear happy stories? Sure. I think there are people that.
That are seeking that kind of feeling and I think that there are some people who, I mean, it's interesting. I, I mean, this is a whole other area of research that I'm less familiar with, but I will tell you, I do know that, um, You know, if you get, it's counterintuitive, but people who are in struggle, sometimes really sad songs or sad movies.
Um, going deeper inside of that struggle, um, can actually be very healing. So it's just different for different people, I think. It's funny that you mentioned that because I always make David watch movies before I watch them and tell me if there's anything sad. You don't want to watch the sad ones either?
I think, I think I need to learn to, but I was at a stoplight one time and I was listening to this sad country song and I just started bawling and the person, I looked over and this guy is in his truck and he's looking at me and I'm just sobbing and I'm like, this guy probably thinks something horrible just happened to me and all I'm doing is listening to a country song.
You're like, it's just country. Don't worry. It's a two minute song. You know what? I'd be interested in Emory. Maybe, you know, if there's studies on this, but. I wonder if you took like the country song, right? So if you just played the music with no words and measure people's oxy, whatever, to the reaction to that, and then you, and then you played it with the words, with the actual story being conveyed in words, if it changes.
Yeah, just super interesting question. I mean, I don't know. I think music in general has a very emotional component, you know, I, and then when you layer on top of that narrative, it's really powerful. It's why opera is so powerful. You know, it's, it's, it's tapping into human struggle and pain and joy and exaltation, and, you know, I, I was recently saying to somebody, I don't so much.
Listen to Edith Piaf, but I feel her in my bones, you know, it's like there's some, there's some music that's transcendent. And so I think, you know, if you get music that has both of those components, there's little else that's more powerful to move people. If we want to engender trust with people just for human life or for connection, what's a good way to use stories to do that without.
Well, I, I won't even qualify it. What's a good way to start using stories to be more effective communicators? So I'll talk about this in sort of a business context. I think that what often happens in business is when you have an opportunity. To stand on a stage and do a talk, be in a panel, um, deliver a, uh, you know, a continuing education workshop, uh, talk to a client.
There is sometimes this weird sort of tendency to share a story that makes you look shiny and perfect. Those are the least connecting stories. I think the stories that are the most powerful are the stories where we are learning. Where we are. Skinning our knees and getting up anyway. People want to see your humanity.
They're not interested in sort of why you're perfect. People are interested in the fact that you've fallen down and gotten up. And I always share stories where I am the one learning the lesson and not the hero. I think that in finding stories that are audience centric, what is the story about? Um, you know, when we were, when you came to the event, I told the story, I frequently tell at the end of trainings and engagements.
And I tell that story because it's a leadership based story and my audience is generally Um an audience that are operating in or striving to be in leadership roles So that story is very powerful to them I'm, not telling a story that's outside of the context of the topic. It has to be resonant to them So I think you have to think about like what am I trying to do here?
And you have like ask yourself the question is the information what I should I be reporting information? Or can I tell a story about this? So for example, I had a Forensic accountant and they had him. He was the expert. So he's traveling all over the country delivering this Delivering this talk. He was out of New York and they said, you know, he's converting.
No one nobody is converting there He's you know, we need help. And so they sent me a sec I get on the first call and I said so Michael who is your audience and he said attorneys I said human attorneys Because they're all human attorneys. They're not dinosaurs or anything. I said, okay, I said, because when I'm looking at this, I said, this seems like hyper, hyper, hyper technical, which is super disconnecting.
So I'm looking at this really complicated, you know, graph on slide five. He said, yeah. He said, tell me what that is. So he starts reporting what that is. I said, I want you to stop right there. Did this happen to people? He goes, yeah, it happened to people. He goes. There was a brother and a sister and they inherited this company and one was embezzling from the other and one was and I was Like whoa, now we have something going on And so we shifted the entire way he delivered the information the information remained the same But but we did it through a narrative form and he went from a 0% Conversion rate to very very quickly about a 38% conversion rate Wow Um, what about people who say, I don't have any stories?
Yeah, that's the most common response. Nothing happens to me. I eat my breakfast. I go to work. Nothing, nothing. I just, but every experience when you go home and you tell your partner about what happened at the end of the day. You share that in a narrative structure when you go on vacation You do not say I left terminal 2 at 8 45 on american airlines 153 If that's how you're reporting your vacation, it's super weird.
You probably don't have a lot of friends That's not what happens Like you talk about the struggle you talk about something that happened you talk about your observation People don't think they have stories because they don't perceive themselves as either worthy or exciting. But your point of view, what you're observing in the world, what you're seeing, those are stories.
The way in which you taught your son to be respectful to another human being. That's a story. The way you failed at something is a story. The way you are experiencing struggle is a story. You are, you are made of stories. And it's a matter of sort of tapping into those and honoring those. And not feeling as if your stories aren't about you traveling to some exotic land and doing something spectacular.
Your stories about are about you being a human, trying to exist in this world at your highest and greatest self and struggling. Yeah, that's beautiful. That is. Do you do a lot of work with jury consulting to help attorneys on how to pitch their case to the jury and tell their story to the jury? We do do litigation work.
We do pitching work with big tech. We do litigation work and talk about, you know, because I mean, it's a perfect example of there is a fact pattern, right? Now my version of that fact pattern and your version of that fact pattern is different. And there is not an attor I mean, I've been working with attorneys for 15 years.
There's not an attorney in the world who's gonna
And what I will say to you is there's not an attorney in the world who is a litigator who won't tell you, Listen, you can have all the facts on your side. That doesn't mean you're going to win like that is not there are all these other human variables And it has to do with building what is referred to in nature's habitual trust So habitual trust is the the adult duck a little a baby chick following the adult duck and going.
Oh, you're a duck I'm a duck and I'm going to follow you and if you were if your Argument comes from a place that feels arrogant that feels certain that doesn't feel like I'm just like you Then you're going to disconnect from those people. I mean, one of the, this isn't about storytelling, um, so much, but about language, one of the things I always say when I'm training attorneys is do not say she exited the vehicle.
No one talks that way. She got out of the car. And so like you want to write that way. That's fine. But if you talk to somebody like that, it is totally disconnecting. She got out of the car. She didn't exit the vehicle.
You're a hundred percent right. I was just going to ask Laura, as a writer, how she captures real language, you know, versus exiting the car. Um, well, as we were talking earlier, um, my last series, I, I, um, I spoke it all through the microphone and had a special program called, um, Dragon, naturally speaking, write what I was saying, um, through dictation.
And I found that that helped a lot with the natural dialogue versus she exited through the, she exited the vehicle. I know cause sometimes when I, you know, you learn in school how to write and it's a certain, you have to stagger the structure so it's not repetitive and all this stuff, but then sometimes I'll write a script to read in a podcast and I, then when I read it out loud, I go, that's.
Really funky. That is not how a person talks like Ann-Marie is saying. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I think capturing that honest realness, like, like you're saying Ann-Marie, um, makes it so much more attractive and makes us wanna lean in and hear more. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things, I mean, I've done coaching for TED Talks and they are called to talk for a reason.
They're not called TED lectures. Mm-hmm. , they're, and they don't, they don't care. If you're an economist, if you're a neuroscientist, they want it to be a talk and one of the Ted Commandments is thou shalt tell a story. They insist upon it. Why? Because stories become viral and reporting information does not.
And so one of the things I will often say to people who are doing story sharing, and I did this when we were in our, Or in our workshop is i'll say pretend you and I are just having a glass of wine Like how would you tell that story? And some of what happens is There is less ego and we just become like a human to a human telling a story.
That is the intimacy I'm always trying to get out with people. But for most people it's scary. But what I want to do is I want to say like I'm a human and you're a human and we're just going to sit here and we're going to share this experience together. And when people do that, it's jaw dropping and it's.
Radical because we don't see it a lot and a great example of this that I really recommend is Arnie Sorenson um, who was the ceo of the Marriott when the pandemic hit was in the middle of fighting cancer and of course The impact of the pandemic on hotels was enormous and he did a video direct to camera That was just very earnest and talking about the employees and it is raw and it is human and it feels like he's talking just to you.
That is what authentic leadership looks like, and that is what connectivity looks like. Wow. Yeah. I want to check that out. Yeah. I want to get a list of all these, these books and these videos. Yeah. We'll link everything up in the show notes so we can do a deep dive into all of it. I started reading The Moral Molecule based on Anne Marie's recommendation and it's really interesting.
Really? Yeah. Brad, do you have any It's a surprisingly easily read as well, I was going to say, it's a really, it's a great read. It's like, it sounds like, uh, it's actually a lovely read. I'm just at a part where he's doing this experiment and he, you can, they give the participants some money and they can give some of it to someone else.
They're all anonymous. And then that person, it gets tripled. Automatically, if whatever portion they give, and then they can decide to give some back or not, so they basically have to trust another human that is randomized, and they're measuring their blood levels. So it's like this totally complicated, cool experiment to see what trust does in the bloodstream.
Wow. Mm hmm. I'm trying to figure out, and I don't know if I'm going to articulate this well enough. I'll try. I'm trying to figure out what comes first, the chicken or the egg. Does someone, does someone relate to or like a story because the story comes in and connects with what they believe or want? Or does the story, I guess, open up new horizons or change what they believe or want, and then that makes them want to relate to it?
Or is it like everything and it's both or neither? Does that make sense? Maybe I'll try and you can tell me if I'm answering your question. How about that? Sure. Um. I think what it really is is I think it's about whether or not There is a recognition of humanity in the story. It's not whether I agree with you.
It's whether or not I Connect to some peace with some piece of what you're saying I another ted talk that I highly recommend as brian stevenson's ted talk in his book just mercy He is the reason I went into men's prisons and worked with incarcerated men. He's talking about An incredibly divisive issue, which is the death penalty in the United States, and he's talking about law in history.
He's argued in front of the Supreme Court, but it's the stories he's telling. What's interesting about Brian, Steven, it is considered one of the, one of the most successful TED talks of its time. But what's interesting is it very much supports. Paul Zack's work in that you are not allowed to pitch from the podium at TED You cannot talk about your book You cannot talk about but he does talk about the work his organization's done after 21 minutes of that talk his organ organization organically generated a million dollars in Donations he didn't ask for that money ever and you're not allowed to what he did was he told the story of What it was like when?
You know, he had to defend a 14 year old boy and from the death penalty and that boy was too small for the electric chair. So they had to get books for him to sit on. And like, is this the society we want to become? That story and that image is incredibly powerful. It is not, it is not an intellectual debate anymore.
It is the story of one boy, one child. Wow. That's amazing. That is. Does, do any of you want to share a little story and have Anne Marie give some pointers through the process? I will, if no one else wants to, but I'd love to. It's also okay if you don't. And I'm also happy to do some story sharing, whatever you'd like, whatever feels most comfortable.
Well, when we wrap up, I would love if you'd be willing to share the story of what happened to you on the airplane. I will. Yeah. Fantastic. For sure. You going to share a story, Lisa? Unless you have one teed up that you want to. The one I had teed up was a story of my grandfather told me. Oh, I want to hear it.
So it wasn't even my own story. So I don't know if it worked. That's perfect. Let's do it. It's still a story. Well, okay. I apologize if this isn't the right format, but when we were, so we have a lot of grandkids in our family and my dad's dad, Vern was like, he was like that grandfather just, it was magical to all of us kids.
And so they had a lake house. So. Every summer when the kids got a certain age, one of us would end up at, at Nana and Vern's house on the lake for a week. And then my grandfather Vern would take that week and every night he would come, he would come into the room and then he would tell this story about how he and his brother started in St.
Louis, Missouri and then made their way out to Glendale, California. And the and so every night was a different kind of chapter in the story and so I have older cousins who would always talk about burn story about how they came out here. And it's like this famous thing in our family. So, so you would talk about how they played minor league baseball and all these different towns and then they would, they were basically hobos.
So they would jump on trains illegally. And then his stories would entail riding the trains out and I just remember as a kid and still now, that's one of the, the largest things that stand out to me about my grandfather. I mean, there's a million things I could go on with how wonderful he was, but. But Vern telling me those, that story throughout that week while I was at Bass Lake, still I'm 45 years old and I think about it all the time and I don't even remember all the details of the story, but it was, it had such an impact on me.
The fact of him telling that story, and that's all I really wanted to do while I was up there for the week that I was fishing during the day and doing things. And I didn't really care as much about that. I wanted it to get nighttime. So Vern would pick up the rest of his story. That's so cool. So it's just one of those things where a story by him has stood out for my entire life.
And it didn't really, I guess, matter the exact contents of the story because I don't remember them all. But I very much remember the event of him doing that, so I'm sure he made it all up and didn't even come out here that way. So first of all, it's gorgeous and how lucky you are. I mean, truly, like that is just such a beautiful way to connect to.
You know, our grandparents and parents, and I always say, like, story listening is its own pleasure, like the ability to listen deeply to one's stories. So if we were gonna, sort of, if you were to tell me that story and say, I wanted to integrate this story and say, I don't know, um, the keynote, like I'm going to deliver this speech on, you know, there would be a couple things I would want to do.
Um, I would want to say, okay, so why are we choosing this story? And what did Vern mean to you? What did your grandfather mean to you? And we would tease out sort of this, Profile, we would give a little bit more background of your instead of telling me he's magical show me He's magical and this is a very english majory thing, right?
Show don't tell instead of saying so when I talk about my aunt I grew up in a culture of poverty Um, and when I talk about my aunt b who was as poor as poor could be I never say she was extremely generous What 20 she'd give you 15. Do you see the distinction? So instead of saying vern is magical Show me Verna's Magical, whatever that is.
However, that is one way I would turn up the volume there. I would also set the scene a little bit. Like, you tell me, you couldn't wait for it to be night. But like, take us there. Like, are you in bed? Are you in a living room? Flesh the scene out. Bring us into, are you in a tent? I have no idea. Bring us into the house.
Bring us into the room. Are you under blankets? Are you on top? Are you sunburned? Give me those little bit of details so that we are together with you And if you were going to share this story and and of course we're making this up right in a keynote context What we would do is what did he teach you?
About being a leader or a man or a grandfather or a parent? What did that teach you? And what it might have taught you Was to take the time to tell a bunch of kids a story every night. So the last thing you heard where this man's words in your ear, the power of that fantastic. Thank you. And it, you know, it reminds me, I mean, literature is full of this too.
I mean, think of a, you know, I mean, I don't know how many of you are familiar with the Arabian Nights, but that's a perfect example. She keeps herself alive by never ending the story. She keeps herself from being killed by, by telling the king a story and then maintaining it. And so that it never, ever, ever has an end.
So that keeps him wanting more. So is that something to do? Not have the story end? No. No, no. I mean, in this context, right? In this summary context, yes. But that story is about the importance of resolution. You know, um, that story is also about the power of story. It's about being able to mesmerize someone.
So much so that it keeps them from killing you. Because they want your story so desperately. Yeah. You mentioned, Annemarie, a wet fish that's been in my mind, um, when I asked you, yes, about, about what, when maybe not to share a story. So could you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. So, um, I had done a one woman show and I took that show to New York and to Chicago and San Francisco and Santa Fe and San Diego.
And in the process of doing that show, I did a, um, A festival of solo shows and one of the people in that festival Had done a radio interview and I was listening to her interview and I thought she Talked about this in such a beautiful way. She talked about like you have to process your story You can talk about big Deep hard dark things if you have crossed about and processed them but you can't just deliver it to people if not, she said it's sort of like going out into the river and Pulling out a wriggling live fish and slapping it down in front of somebody and going go ahead and eat it instead of Taking that fish, gutting it, filleting it, grilling it, plating it, squeezing it with lemon, and putting parsley over, on it, so that it feels more consumable and less raw.
Yeah, so it's not the, the, how personal the story is, it's how, it's what place you're at with it. Yeah, so I'm gonna, I'll give you two examples of this because I think that it's important to model it. So, um, right around, right sort of before and in the midst of the pandemic, in an 18 month period, I lost four members of my family.
My 44 year old nephew died of a massive heart attack, um, and several months later, when I was in Portugal, On Celebrating my 50th birthday. My sister called me to tell me my brother had died in a mother motorcycle accident Um that following august my mother died at home and then that december my brother in law who I had known From the time I was born died and In as everybody knows we were also homebound.
There was nowhere to go. So everybody was navigating these Well for part of it, um when my nephew and brother died the pandemic had not yet hit so I had just made this internal decision that I wasn't going to pretend that I wasn't having these experiences, number one, and number two, that it was an opportunity to tell people to bring their entire self, okay?
To begin with, I remember I did a safety and assurance, um, training for Uber in Arizona and this was right after my brother died. I had flown from Portugal. I had to apply to this training before coming back home. My sister had come down to San Diego to tell my mother and be with her while I was in the midst of this.
And the training was wildly successful. There's this huge group of 250 people. They were having the time of their lives. And I just made this decision at the very end. And I said, you know, we talked a lot today about leadership and compassion and understanding that people are walking through the world with a wound you cannot see.
And I just want to share with all of you that. Five days ago, my brother died in a motorcycle accident and you wouldn't know that based on the last two hours I spent with you. But it's important that you walk through the world with the understanding that that, that everyone in this room is struggling to have a child, has a child with drug addiction, or learning disabilities, is managing aging of parents, or is managing their own emotional struggle in some way.
And if you were able to do that, It will change the way you respond to the world and the impact you will have. I didn't cry. It wasn't emotional because I was able to do that in a way that was in service to others and I was okay. If I had fallen apart, the outcome would be very different. What was fascinating to me was not just how many people waited to talk to me, but how many men were there.
Men who said, you know, when my father died, I was crying in the bathroom alone because I didn't want anybody to know that I was in struggle. And that was the bravest thing I've ever seen anybody do. And I know you think women are trapped by this, but men are trapped by this too. And I just wanted to share my story.
And because it didn't, because even though it was. a tender moment. I was not fragile. They were not emotionally responsible for me. That's unbelievable. I'm sorry all that happened, but thank you for sharing. That is, it's unbelievable. Thank you. It's, it's how we walk through and I will say, you know, it's the other thing is just how that when you crack yourself open, it's an invitation for someone else to do the same.
And It was so interesting to me and, you know, when my mom was dying, it was harder because she died at home in hospice. Downstairs while I was upstairs, you know, having conference calls and I just would say I would jump on a conference call and these were clients that were some, some of whom were brand new to us.
And I would say, hi, thank you so much for meeting. I just want to let you know, um, in full transparency and disclosure here. My mom is actually actively dying downstairs. And I may be taken away from this call. My business partner will take over if that should happen. And I thank you in advance for your understanding.
And we didn't lose a single client, and what we got instead were people who were profoundly grateful for that level of just truth. So if somebody is not at that place yet where they are okay with a really, really difficult situation, I guess I'm wondering if maybe storytelling is a good way, but not to other people, but just to an inner circle or to...
Um, because I understand we don't want to give someone a live squirming, wet fish, um, and, and also I, I remark at how you're able to process so quickly, you know, um, those kind of traumas. Yeah. So it's interesting you asked this question and super, um, Interesting question because there is something called narrative therapy and the idea is exactly that it's journaling and telling yourself this story and writing your way through to a place where you feel more whole.
And you can find the lesson in it and the way to talk about it and talk through it that it is not just this thing that happened to you, but it becomes part of the tapestry of your life that makes you. And I think that journaling is a great way to do it and story sharing inside, you know, there are, listen, it's like, I say this all the time, you know, if you've ever been with somebody who's dying, it is terrible and beautiful, you know, and It's incredible if you can sit with people, and this is the other thing I will say, be the kind of human that people want to share their story with.
Listen, you know, be quiet. You still allow people to, like, invite that in, um, because it's incredible when you're able to do that, and I think that, you know, you may not be able to, for me, I think, um, it's because I've had a lot of loss over the course of my life that I've been able to I know how to process and and i'm a storyteller But also I think for people you need time to heal give yourself the time But know that storytelling is a tool to help you heal and one of the things I think is really really important is I would tell anybody who's going through something really really hard.
Um You're having you know Your marriage is falling apart. You're struggling with your teenage kid. Um, your parent has dementia. Journal and or and if you can't write at length in narrative form, write down just interesting things. It will trigger your memory. I mean, I remember when my mom was dying at one point.
She was super drugged up and she just opened her eyes and looked at me and I said, hey mom. What are you doing? She goes, driving. I said, yeah. I said, where are you going? I said, where are you going? She goes backwards. I said, that's good, mom. That's really good. And then she just closed her eyes. And I wrote that down.
Like, it's a way to capture your life. And there's something really comforting about those moments and you will lose them if you don't. And the other thing is when you are going through incredibly difficult things, going back reminds you of how far you have come and how strong and resilient you are.
Yeah, that's such a great point. It's so easy to forget those things. Yeah. Emery, when did it all start for you? When did you know you were like a storyteller for life? And that was your, your path. It's interesting when I was really little. So I grew up in like, um, Northern California and we would sometimes go to Tahoe and my mom would say, always tell me the story, she would say.
You were super little and you know, this is like a long drive many hours I would not have been this patient of a parent and she said I remember you told this story about a bug Floating down the river on a leaf and it lasted the entire drive Never stopped talking And to me that sounds like terrible That sounds wretched But I think what my mom was telling me is you were a storyteller.
My mom grew up on a sugarcane plantation in hawaii Um You know, during Pearl Harbor and all of that. And you know, in Hawaii, nobody says we're going to go visit Lisa. They say, we're going to go talk story. So storytelling was always very much a part of my. You know, family and my culture and, you know, it's a part of every, I mean, you were really lucky to have your grandfather, you know, that was sort of the way you connected the way you, his stories are your stories, they belong to you, they get passed along.
And I think, you know, I was always an English major, I went to drama school. So. When I think about all the work I do, it came from storytelling. All of my work came from storytelling. You know, everything I learned about the human condition came from real stories and fictional stories. Everything I've learned about human struggle, I think I've always known I was a storyteller.
I just didn't know that it could be a business. That's so cool. That's a different question. Well, I know we don't have too much more time. Does anyone have anything bubbling up that you're, you have to have answered right now? No. No, I've really enjoyed, uh, listening to Anne Marie. This is... Confirming and very interesting, the work that you do as a coach and a hypnotherapist is I've joked before that.
So what are you doing? I said, well, I'm a professional storyteller and this because yeah, story and metaphor bypasses the conscious critical mind and lands in places that change people on a very deep level. And so. Just listening to you talk has been really confirming and, um, inspiring, you know, as you were talking to, and I think, you know, what is a story, what isn't a of Barack Obama, he was an awesome storyteller, and his speeches a lot of the times involved stories, and it was his delivery that, even if the story didn't quite connect, I think the delivery of the story of a, of a storyteller or writer is, is something that really can, you know, And, and he used the word, uh, mesmerized and mesmer was one of the founders of hypnosis and trance work.
And that's really what happens when you hook people into a story and they can, they may even pull meanings from it that weren't the intended meanings. It's the story as a whole and the pieces of the story that I think's really interesting and you've kind of spoke to a lot of that. So thanks for your time.
That was, that was great. Oh, thank you so much. Any other questions before we do a story to close? I have a question. Um, yeah. So I think when we think of story, we think of books, um, movies, music. Um, but I teach my daughters to use story, uh, when they study for a test. Um, I think it helps to, like you said, it helps the memory.
Um, and that really helps for them. And I recently heard that like in interviews, um, Um, an interviewer will take their questions and form a story. To help the whole interview take on a story of itself. So, uh, my question to you would be where else in life can we apply story? Yeah. I mean, I think that if you want to become more connected to anyone in your personal life or your professional life, understanding their story is the most important way to do that.
Asking questions that allows them to reveal their story at the rate at which they are comfortable doing so is the most powerful thing you can do. I think we are in a particular time in this country, um, and globally as well, where there's a lot of conflict and an enormous amount of discontent. And I always say, if you want to do really radical work, sit and listen to the story of someone.
With whom you do not agree That is powerful work. It changes the way we treat each other. It changes the way we see the world. It doesn't mean it will change your mind, but no one wants to be convinced. We all want to be understood. Can we extend this to like five hours? Yes, please. Oh, thank you. That's a lovely thing to say.
I do really want, I would love for Anne Marie to share her airplane story. Um, if Anne Marie you'll indulge me because. It had an effect on me. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, um, I always say that pre pandemic, um, literally 95% of my work was traveling. I was in, and that was true for a good portion of my career.
I've spent a lot of my life in solitude, um, in airports, and Hotels and on airplanes and conference rooms. And I was on this one particular flight that was five hours long. And there was a woman on that flight at the very, very last row in the plane with a baby that was probably about 15 months old and, you know.
Everybody is always stressed out when a baby comes on the plane. Like, oh my gosh, I'm going to cry. Like, yes, this baby's going to cry. Cause it's a human baby. And you were a human baby too. Cool. Like we've all been given baby, but that's not what we do. We just, we think about ourselves and we get frustrated and angry.
So this woman gets on the plane. She's young. She's the new mother. And this baby's probably 15 months old, 18 months old. I'm a mom. There's a real difference between a baby who's just upset or cranky and one who's in distress and this baby was clearly in distress because for five solid hours This baby howled and screamed and passengers were terrible.
They were cool Um, they said things Very loudly with in the earshot of her and I was only a few rows up from her and they would say things like she should have drugged that baby before she brought it on. She has no business being on this plane with this baby and they made sure she heard every one of these things and you know, as each hour passed, this only escalated and the tension was really thick and it was exhausting for everyone in all directions.
And once we landed, and the wheels, you know, sort of hit the ground, the flight attendant gets on the PA system and says, I would like everyone to please remain seated. We have a young mother with a baby in distress at the back of the plane. We would like her to be able to get off the plane first, if you don't mind.
Thank you so much for your understanding. And people continued to be terrible and they would say, good, gladly you should have left her and let them off the plane an hour ago while we were in the air. And I turn and I watch this young mother get up with her baby and she is crying and this baby is crying and her neck is red and it's covered in her tears and her baby's tears and her baby's arching its back, howling.
And she's trying to carry this diaper bag and manage this and it's hitting every seat. And I see this very old man in an aisle seat a little further up, and he's the kind of old where like his suit is wearing him and he's getting smaller by the moment. It's significant that he's old because in our culture, we sort of don't think that old people have any power and they become invisible.
And he does this really small and remarkable thing. And he puts his hand on the back of this mother's back and he said, good job, mama. Good job. You're doing a fine job. But he doesn't stop there. He stays standing, this little tiny old man, and he claps as loud as he can, and I hear him clapping, and I watch him, and he yells, Good job, Mama!
Good job! And he chants this. And every single person on that plane, 200 plus people, rise to their feet and start clapping too. And they go, Good job, Mama! Good job! Well done! You're gonna do okay! You're gonna be just fine! I carry that little old man in my back pocket everywhere I go, because that is what leadership is.
He had no authority over any of us. He showed us how to be better people, by behaving like a better person. And he saved that woman, and he made all of us better people. By one small, and we all have that power. And we just have to take the opportunity when it comes. Oh, my gosh. Wow. So good. I'm holding back tears.
I'm holding back tears. Wow. Oh, thank you, Anne Marie. Yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity. It was a pleasure to speak with all of you today. So grateful. Thank you. Thank you. And, um, to you listening, my friend, the show notes are where you can find links to learn more about Anne Marie and story imprinting.
Thank you. As well as to get in touch with the rest of the panel. We'll see you in the next episode and until then live a great story.
Thank you for spending this time with us. My prayer is that this conversation gives you ideas and inspiration for living the kind of life that is meaningful to you. See you in the next
episode.
