The Magic of Strategic Storytelling in Business - REPLAY - | RR272

You're all up. Hello everyone, and welcome to

the relationships rule podcast. I am really excited about my

guest this week, Jeff barch. And Jeff is a visionary storyteller

and marketing strategist who founded story Greenlight with

over 20 years of experience in the entertainment industry. Jeff

has worked with some of the largest media outlets in the

world, and has established himself as a leader in his field

through story green light. Jeff empowers experts and

professional advisors to tell their stories, expand their

impact and serve more clients. His book edit better Hollywood

tested strategies for powerful edit, video editing, and his

commentary on the entertainment industry in major publications

like Time Magazine and USA Today showcase Jeff's expertise and

commitment to human connection. And thank you first of all for

being here, Jeff. Welcome to the show.

Glad to be here, looking forward to this jazz

thank you so

much. So Jeff and I were introduced as he was

basically introduced to me by interview valet, one of the

companies that I really enjoy working with their clients. And

so I was going to say we met on LinkedIn, because that happens

so often for me, but that wasn't the case this time, full

disclosure, but I love Jeff's work. When I took a look at it,

I had a call with Jeff. I loved what he had to say, and we kind

of hit it off, I think, right away, in lots of ways. And it

all came down to rapport, building relationship,

connection, and all of the good things that I'm all about and I

love, and Jeff is an expert in this field, because he's been

doing it for so long. So what? Before we get into the real crux

of what you do now, Jeff, I want you to just tell me, you know,

through your work in television, because it's still pretty I'm

not sure I think you're, still doing it. I think, right? You're

still, yes,

I do still do some, do some work for different

entertainment networks.

Yes, right. And I think the most recent one was

doing some the story, back stories for the show American

Ninja. Is that American

Ninja Warrior? That's true. Yes. So I'm

thinking, and I'm not sure if this is what you do,

but I want to just be what you do with them, because I want to

be clear that, you know, when they do the back stories on the

athletes that are about to perform, there's a story that's

built, you know, from what you've somebody has written it.

I don't know if or whether you've interviewed them, or you

just do the video, but you make it into an interesting story.

That's what you do, right?

Among many other things, that's, that's what I

happen to focus on when I'm working for American Ninja

Warrior, right? And

I just wanted the clarity. There you go ahead,

sure, yeah,

well, and the whole thing is, if you're

familiar with the show, it's all about athletes, basically

ordinary people, getting on this crazy obstacle course and

seeing, can they overcome these physical obstacles? And the real

power of the show, and the reason that it's been on the air

for well, it's it's actually shot 15 seasons as of this

recording. The reason that it's been so powerful, it's been so

popular is because it shows physical obstacles, but it tells

the stories of people overcoming obstacles in their own life, and

it makes that connection between the two, and that's what the

stories do, before you see the people get on that course. And I

have, I've been working with the show for good grief almost 10

years now, at different points throughout, throughout those

years, telling literally hundreds of short form stories

that make you care about that person, so you care what they do

on the course. And that's what story does. It makes us care. It

builds that human connection.

They do it in all these reality shows, American

Idol, the voice all of these shows, they do that with the

back stories, right? And you get you, you, you hook into those

people, and especially if they continue down the road, you get

more story and more story right to do it. So you have now

through story green light, and I'm not quite sure how long

you've had that company, but, but what you're doing now, which

I want to really get into here, is strategic storytelling,

basically, for business, right? In business, somehow? Yes. So

tell me what strategic storytelling

is, sure. So here's the thing, when we are in

business, we all want to succeed in business. And if we work in a

business that works with people, there has to be at some point

human connection in some way, yeah, and but it's really easy

to communicate. In ways that don't that just kind of land

flat, they don't build that communication. And when that

happens, that means our network suffers, that means our business

suffers, and our business could even die without that human

communication. So that's why it's so incredibly important to

communicate in a way that does elevate the ordinary to

something more. It builds that human connection, and that's

exactly what strategic storytelling does. Well, to

me, it's an art because I'm I struggle with it,

and I I listened to you. I'm going to learn from you, I

think, because I want to, and because I get it when I read

somebody's email or watch somebody's video on, you know,

on a post, on LinkedIn or on facebook or anything that does

have story, I notice it because it's it, it. I pay attention to

it because it's, it's, I guess it's talking to my heart,

because I'm heart centered, right? The other piece involved

in that for me, and I wanted to share that, because I think it's

important here, is like when we met for the first time. I'm

going to use this example. Maybe it's a story, I don't know.

Okay, so when you and I met on Zoom for the first time, I was

getting to know you. I'd looked at your LinkedIn profile. I was

feeling you out a little bit to try and get inside. You know who

you were, and, and I noticed, and, and I say this with love,

okay, I noticed you have really large hands, long hands. When we

were talking, we were talking, and I said, Okay, I'm going to

ask you, you're either a basketball player or you were

piano, a pianist, right? And I said, I have to ask you this.

I'm just curious, because that's where I come from. My curiosity,

and that's what I wanted to point out there. But maybe it's

this is telling a story in the sense that that I didn't realize

until, aha, the lights just gone on, because that story that I'm

just telling now and relaying to you again could be the basis for

teaching someone how to build rapport.

Well, it, you know, it's interesting. It's

really interesting that you noticed that, because not a lot

of people, not a lot of people, pick that out. But the fact the

matter is, the matter the fact the matter is, I have played

piano, literally since almost my whole life. I started playing at

the age of four. And if you, if you'll indulge me, in a moment,

I there, there's, there's a way that this all ties together that

and it actually started with piano playing. And something

told me, I think, I think based on our previous conversation, I

know that you have heard this story before, but I'll bet you

your audience has, so the connection between this is when

I actually it wasn't me spending 20 years in Hollywood that this

really all started. It actually started when I was four years

old learning to play the piano. And I don't know if anyone had

really noticed that my hands were were large or whatever, but

I hadn't hit my growth spread. I was long time before hitting my

growth spread at that point. But mom heard me playing Old

MacDonald had a farm on the piano, and she said, get this

kid some lessons. And so that's how it started. But I was known

as being Jeff the piano guy for about 20 years, my first 20

years my life. And I really enjoyed playing. I kind of

gravitated towards bak and Mozart because they, if you're

for people who are familiar with classical music, Bach and Mozart

are super technical and they're clean. You can just play the

notes on the page. And that I was a very logical, okay, let's

just play the notes on the page. Let's just do this and not worry

about this squishy emotion stuff. Emotion is stupid, so at

least that's what I thought at the time. And the more I learned

about piano, the more frustrated I got about another area of my

life, which was the fact that I grew up going to church every

Sunday morning, every Sunday morning, and every time I went

to church, every song we sang had five verses, and every verse

of this of every verse of these songs were played the same every

single time. And it just drove me absolutely nuts. Drove me

nuts as a kid, and I'm in an elementary school, I'm going,

please. I'm bored out of my mind. And there was actually a

day when I was at the church, after hours, I was proudly

playing one of my Mozart pieces, and this lady, who's one of the

church musicians, she comes up to me and she says, you know,

Jeff, it's all well and good to play the notes on the page, but

when you get older, you need to learn to play from your soul.

Mm. Now, I was in fourth grade, so I was maybe 11 years old at

that point, and I at that point, I wasn't about to say this out

loud, but I thought that was the stupidest thing ever play from

your soul. What I got, I got the notes on the page, I'm good, and

there was no specific moment when I realized that she was

right, because the fact the matter was, I was doing my best,

but I really was missing that next level of where the truly

powerful stuff happens. And I only discovered that over years

of people's reactions that they went from people saying, Hey,

Jeff, you're a really great piano player. I'm like, sweet,

I'm amazing, I'm great, you know. And it went to Jeff, thank

you for the way you played that piece. You really made that

piece come to life in a new way for me, I thought, Whoa, this

isn't just about me playing the piano. There's something else

going on here. And every once in a while, every once in a while,

there's someone who said, Jeff, the way you played that piece

brought me into an encounter with God today. Thank you so

much. Thank you. Thank you. And that kind of idea of taking the

ordinary and not just playing the notes on the page and

elevating it to something that connects, truly connects with

people. That's what that's really the core of what I've

been doing my whole life. And it's shown up a whole bunch of

different ways. It showed up with me learning about video

production in high school when it was still really hard to do

that. You couldn't just pick up your phone. You had to get this

great big camera and edit with all the fancy machines. I went

into radio and college. I'd gone to film school, and then I did

the 20 years shaping content for ABC and NBC and universal and

Disney and apple and all these folks. So the thing that I was

learning and the thing that I really want to really. Thing I

want to really bring out here in our conversation is that it's

really easy to just play the notes on the page, and we are,

you know, we're all doing the best that we can, and yet, if we

only play the notes on the page, if we only do the general basic

areas of communication, we're missing that Lex, that next

level of communication, of true human connection, where all the

powerful things happens, and it happens in any medium, but when

we stand out, when we elevate our message, when we use

something like strategic storytelling, incredible things

happen and It is available to any of us.

Is it a muscle, though, that we have to tweak,

or because I think it's a learned skill, I think it's a

skill that we don't all have, and we have to learn it if we

want to, right? And I agree with you that I think it can elevate

so I'm not a writer. I'd rather talk, but talking, I think you

the same thing applies, right in that 100% our good story to to

illustrate a point, people remember it better than the five

steps to do it are, Yeah, so, so that's okay. So, so you, um, so

I, I don't know, I had a aha moment after talking to you, and

just recently saw an instance of an a little experience with my

granddaughter that I turned into an email to my list, and so I

was very nervous about doing it one because if my daughter knew

I'd put her picture, my granddaughter's picture in the

email, I would be in trouble. But I took a risk, because it

wasn't on Facebook or it LinkedIn, it was in a private

email. So who

better hope your daughter doesn't listen to your

podcast. Yeah, well,

okay, so then I crafted this story and attached

it to a lesson in business, and you actually saw it. And I was

just thrilled that you comment, that you wrote back to me and

said you paid attention and saw that it worked, and you gave me

a couple of pointers around it, but those things don't come to

me very often, you know, like, I guess I illustrated the story

part in a descriptive way, and then I wanted to make this point

about Business and about being in the moment, and about going,

if you if you're in the moment, sometimes you're going to learn

something that you never thought you would learn because you

didn't give yourself that opportunity to do so. So that

was kind of the message. And you made a comment about if I had

done something more in the business lesson part. It would

have been more evocative. I love that word. I don't know it would

have evoked more feeling right in the reader or the Yeah, in

the reader. So can you talk to me about that? Because I think

it will illustrate a point. Sure.

So let's, before going into this specific let's

rewind a little bit, and let's talk a little bit about, you

know, let's, let's go a little inside baseball on the story

that I just told about playing piano. So one of the things

that, one of the things that you have to realize is that

storytelling can feel very familiar. And it's easy for

people to say, Okay, I'm just gonna, oh yeah, that I stand at

the water cooler and talk to people. You know, post covid, we

had water coolers and all that. And pre covid, oh, right, pre

covid. And, you know, it's, it feels very familiar. But I just

want, want to be very clear, there is an everyday, kind of

blase just kind of, I'll just randomly throw it out, drop a

story nugget here or there, and then there is strategic

storytelling. And that's what I define as storytelling on

purpose for a specific goal. And that's a very you know that

covers a lot of ground, but in the case of something like what

we're talking about here, so just conversation you if the

goal is to say, I want the audience, I want Janice's

audience to get to know a little bit more about Jeff, about Me,

and how I, you know, where I come from, where what makes me

tick, and where all this story stuff came from. So, okay, so

that that's the goal. So that's what I'm driving towards with

all of this. And so I'm, I'm thinking about, what is the,

what is the correlation between something that I've experienced

in my own life that might have parallels with what you and your

audience have experienced. So I picked the idea of this lady

telling me, Jeff, you got to play from your soul. And I

thought that was just pretty dumb. Of course, I was because

guys in elementary school and and it was the idea of, I was

playing the notes on the page. I was doing the best I could, but

I didn't know there was another level. That's, that's the

message right there. So that's, that's, that's the starting

point. Then I started, I had a framework in mind, and it was

based around before twist and after. This is based around

something called the stellar storytelling framework, taught

by a lady researcher and an author by the name of Kendra

Hall. She's fantastic. So the idea of before twist and after.

And so before I was talking about I was learning how to play

the piano. I thought I was really great. And everyone told

me I was really great. Then there was a moment, one specific

moment, where the lady says, Yeah, you're missing the next

level Jeff. And I didn't agree. And then it was the the after

was me eventually learning that the lady was right. And then

after that, you connect that to whatever you want, and you

connect that to to the lesson that you want the audience to

know. And through that process, when you do that, and you

include very specific elements, you include one specific

character. You include one specific moment. You include

actual details. You talk about, hey, I was playing block and

Mozart because they were super clean and technical. I could do

that. Didn't have to worry about all that other mushy emotion

stuff. And then you talk about a genuine human emotion. And this

doesn't have to be ugly crying or feelings of Rapture. It can

just be me looking at an elderly lady thinking that she's done

Dick, or that you don't know what you're talking about, but

really I was the one who was clueless kind of a thing. And

and then you also add in the L, you add in the emotion from the

people who eventually they were experiencing what I was doing,

and that's how I learned, yes, so you have those elements, and

if you're looking at that, and if you're looking at that, and

you're saying, well, that's a lot of stuff, well, if this is

the first time, if this is the first time that That one is

engaging with the concept of strategic storytelling. It can

seem like a lot, but I promise you, we all do this all the

time, and sometimes we stumble into genius, and everyone says,

oh, that's an incredible story. Most of the times, it has all

that stuff that I just talked about, okay, but it is. 100% a

skill. It can be learned if you are a human being, if you are

alive and you have a pulse, you can do this. You can do this.

You can learn this. So to apply this to your story about your

granddaughter, can you just restate, restate the story as

you initially told it in your email. Yeah, basically,

we took my granddaughter down to the local

park to play at the playground there. But before we got to the

playground, there was this huge pile of sand that the gardeners,

I guess, had dumped in the parking lot that they were going

to use on the grass field. Well, she saw, she took one look at

that, that pile of sand, and she was up it before I could count

to 10, right? This is amazing. Oh yeah. She was in her glory.

Loves to get dirty, loves to play in the sand and everything.

So that was where she spent the next, you know, 15 minutes

before we could get her over to the swings, and by that time,

she was a mess, right? So that was the story, yeah, but, but to

see her just be in the moment really was, you know, kids are

in the moment. She's three years, eight months, you know,

she's just whatever's in front of her right, and it was

delightful.

So then you attach that, you attach that to an idea

for your audience, correct

around how and my goal was that I had a my monthly

LinkedIn training group class, which I hold once a month, like

a mastermind or a drop in, you know, office hours type of

thing, bring your questions. And the goal was to try and

encourage more people to come to that. And so the idea was, if

you can, you know, you thought you you know, at the last

minute, maybe you're free and you can come. So the idea was,

you know, you never know what you might learn if you just are

just do something out of the ordinary, or, you know, in the

moment. And that was kind of the connection, okay, in front of

me. So I can't remember exactly what I said, but that's the

idea. Okay, so

then, yeah, so my, so, my, my reaction to that was,

this is super cool. I love that you're doing this, and it's

super relatable, because kids are awesome. Kids are fantastic.

And they, you know, they, they have this purity of experiencing

the world that we can all benefit from. And so I and so

what I'd said was, if you had the opportunity to focus more on

the emotion involved in that story, you could you could have

that kind of, you could have that kind of. You could have

that potential for that emotion to connect more specifically

with your audience. So how to put more emotion into a story

like that? First, when you you have to understand that the

whole point of this is to get the audience to pay attention.

You have to. You want to do everything possible to get their

their very clear and focused attention. And the very best way

to do that is to not go broad. You go super narrow. So when you

do that, that's why you focus on one character, one moment. Get

details about that again, get details about what was happening

and and that sort of a thing, and you have, and you need to

include genuine emotion of some kind. So were we to, were we to

sit down for an ex, for for period, and say, Okay, how can

we craft this story? You would say, Okay, how, how were we

feeling? How are you feeling after? How are you feeling

before? And if you were feeling, if you were feeling kind of

frustrated or hurried, or something like that, and if, for

instance, you had a moment where, where your your

granddaughter, got up in that pile of sand, and you were

feeling frustration, that's something that could be, that's

something that could be your Before state in the story. And

you know what, even if you weren't completely annoyed, if

you wanted to craft the story and say it's like, he's like,

Well, hey, well, sweetheart, you wanted to, you wanted to get,

you wanted to get over to the swings. Why are you climbing up

on the sand right now? Kind of a thing. So it could be some kind

of a, what, what's going on here? What? What's, you know.

Know, question mark of some kind, then you have the moment

where she's up there on the on the hill, and she's having a

blast, and that is the catalyst for you to learn in that moment.

Know, What? What? Why am I so worried about this? Why? If she

changes her mind if she wants to be in the moment. That's really

cool and and so that that contrast between you before you

go through the moment, and then that moment is the catalyst for

you to learn. And it's that it brings the internal change. If

you want to talk about a little bit about film a tiny, tiny

little bit of film school snobbery here, snobbery,

geekery, film school can get super, super down in the weeds.

90% of it does not apply to us. But something that I will say is

the entire point of story is change. When people ask what a

story is, I always say a story is a is where a character wants

something, overcomes obstacles to get it, and experiences

transformation as a result. The entire point of story is to show

change. And there are two main kinds of change that you'll hear

screenwriters talk about. You'll hear about external change,

change that happens around us, outside us, and that's stuff

that's usually it's super easy to talk about or describe

because it's visual. The flip side to that is your audience is

not going to get much emotional connection to that. However, the

stuff that happens on the inside internal change, that's where

the good stuff is. That's where the meat of everything, of

connecting all these emotions, it all happens inside our hearts

and minds. The flip side to that is it all happens inside us. So

it's, it's not like you're watching Star Wars and you see

the Death Star blow up, boom, it's gone. Kind of a thing. So

it really focuses on the change, the change of mind, the change

of heart and the change of emotion. So that in broad

strokes, is how I would talk about how to add, how to add

human connection to any strategically crafted story is

to really drill into that change of emotion.

So in telling that story part about my

granddaughter on the pile of sand. I did some of that, and

you did about bringing more emotion into the business piece

that I related it to, and that's where I think I got stuck.

Okay, so do something

when you can't see it in front of you at the

moment or anything, but you know, just if you recall it all

but

all good. That's we're we're a workshop in real

time out on the tightrope. I dig it. So when we talk about

storytelling, one of the main functions of storytelling is of

strategic storytelling is to create connections. This

parallels this. This is like this. This compares to that. So

I want to actually challenge what you're talking about a

little bit based on your something you said earlier, you

said something about you want to get people to join your monthly

your monthly meeting for your monthly LinkedIn training. What

is the mental or emotional state of the person who is or isn't

thinking about joining that meeting?

Well, it could be one of many things depending on,

right, like, if they haven't, if they they haven't planned it for

next month, you know, and put it on their calendar. It could be

many things. Because the whole point is that this was, you

know, Monday of the Friday when that meeting was, it was

happening. So it was like that last week of a push to say, hey,

if you're not doing anything, maybe it was Tuesday, I don't

know, but it was close enough to say, you know, switch gears if

you're not doing anything now, or something's falling through

and you now have the time. So you don't know what their

emotion is, but you might, and you might, you might hit

somebody just at the right time where they're saying, You know

what? Maybe I'll go this, I don't have anything on Friday.

Maybe I'll, maybe I'll go this month and see what, what it's

like. So I don't know how to so okay,

and that that's, that's 100% legit. And the

reason I ask is the point. Point of the story needs to directly

correspond with the goal of the of what you're wanting the

people to do. So if the people are saying, my life is booked up

and I'm feeling like I'm in a rut or, you know what, maybe I

just need to live in the moment. Maybe I just need to be in the

moment. Okay, you know what? I'm gonna clear off my schedule and

I'm gonna go to this LinkedIn training with Janice then that

that that's something that could, that that's something

that that that comparison could be made, and you could actually,

you could actually craft that together. Would refer to

the sand, the sand pile story in that second

half, in a way, like to bring it together.

The goal in crafting that would be to

connect the message of the story, yes, with the message of

you're wanting to get people to do something. Okay? So if the,

if your overall, if your overall message at the end was going to

was going to be saying, Okay, I want people to get, I want

people to come to this LinkedIn training. If you are feeling,

you know what? What's, what's a specific reason that people say

that they show up to these trainings, in your experience,

that they've done the training, they've done

LinkedIn training with me, and they're not really using

LinkedIn as much as they would like to be, or they want to know

more about LinkedIn, and they haven't done training with me,

so they want to see, you know what I'm about.

Okay, so that is where, instead of telling a

story about living in a moment, about kids living in a moment,

that's where you would tell a story about I did. I was working

on something, but I didn't quite get it. I was working on, I I

was, you know, it's, that's the kind of story where you might

talk about driving a stick shift car that had five speeds, and

you're driving it in first gear the whole time, and you just

didn't know how to access the power that was already there all

the time. It's the, it's the whole idea of Dorothy wearing

the red slippers in The Wizard of Oz, she had the power all

along. She just didn't know how to use it. That's why you need

to come to this training with Janice, because she knows how to

help you unlock that power that you've already had.

Okay, so, so if I'm getting this right, that one

aspect of learning how to tell stories in relation to business,

and relate them to business. Really think about the result

I'm looking for in the business piece

first and then backwards, backwards,

because the story might come to me. That's

something I've experienced in something else in life that

could relate. Don't start, start with the end in mind.

Okay, now, yeah, that's because, because I'm

sitting here thinking about, okay, what are ways that we can

make that What are ways that we can wait make that idea of live

in the moment work for showing up? So live. She's living in the

moment. So you need to live in the moment. So let's show up in

the LinkedIn training. But that's where I see, to me,

that's where I feel there's a bit of a disconnect in terms of

the overall impact. But that's why, that's why it's so this

stuff is so cool because we always get another shot. It's so

rare that we don't get another shot stuff like this.

Yeah, so again, it's it's practice and it's

awareness first, then practice. Okay, so you, do you teach? Do

you teach? Like, courses on how to do this. Like, do you?

Because I would think that it's getting into people's minds and

trying to train them to think differently, which is kind of

fascinating. I like the idea,

yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely.

So weaving story into the fabric of business, a

guide to integrating story into your brand. That's one of the

bullets that was on your one sheet, your speaker sheet,

weaving story into the fabric of business, a guide to integrating

story into your brand. Do you teach this? Is this what you do

with green story green light?

Tell me that is. That is what I'll tell you. The

things that story green light has offered have changed over

the years as the market for who story green light serves has

changed, okay, so that the but it's becoming more and more

clear that this is this really is the core of of how this. Can

really be helpful for a lot of people, because this is so

powerful. It is so incredibly powerful, and it is so within

reach of anyone. It's it just takes, it just takes some

guidance.

Okay, so, so I have to ask you this, though,

because there's so much noise out there. And by noise, I mean

emails in my inbox every day. And, you know, another new

podcast in the works for somebody, and blogs and and

YouTube and like, we're just inundated with stuff. So, so you

have to do something to stand out from the crowd, and your

idea that story, story driven marketing pieces are the way to

go correct

that is, that is definitely a way to that is that

is an important part that must be present. Now I will say, I'm

not gonna, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that all you

have to do is tell stories and your business is guaranteed,

guaranteed to succeed. Because clearly, just because you have

gas, just because you have great, great quality gas in a

car, doesn't mean that all the systems of the car are working

the way they need to. You have to have everything working

right. Having said that, I would say that strategic storytelling

is like having it's like going from the really cheap, low

quality gas and replacing it with jet fuel in your car in a

way that doesn't blow up your engine. But, you know, just go

with me here, you know, yeah, and so when you're talking about

messagings and standing out there will always have to be a

balance between the the questions that your audience is

asking. So the idea of number one, should I even listen to

this person? Do I care? And then the next question is, okay, if

I'm willing to listen, then do they know what they're talking

about? So clearly, a successful business has to have an area of

expertise, or some or some kind of a product or service that

specifically solves the problem, that kind of a thing for which

people are willing to trade money and all that kind of

thing. So there's the balance between, should I care? Should I

listen? Do they know what they're talking about? And then,

okay, what's the next steps? To work forward, to move forward,

to work with you, to buy your product or service, right? But

if people don't care, that's a problem, yeah, and, and so I

will say just as a specific example, because my email inbox

is as clogged as anyone else's, you know, in these days. And I

will tell you, there are some people who write emails and I

know their sales emails. I get hundreds of sales emails in my

email box, but there are some that I still open them up

anyway, because I know this guy tells stories, this guy, this

gal, says stuff that's fun and entertaining or thought

provoking. And so when you become known for someone who

provides that kind of value, that is a that is a huge step

forward to getting people's attention to say, Hey, I'm here.

I have something that can really benefit you. Let's talk about

this. Let's keep the conversation going. Yeah,

you can definitely tell when somebody

has put some thought behind what they're writing, for sure, those

that do, you can see, you can definitely see it. Well, we

could go on forever. And I, because I'm fascinated by the

work that you do and the passion that you have for it, that's

what I love as well. And I think that's for me. It's all about

that. It's, you know, it's, it's, I have to feel a

connection with somebody. Now you're saying the storytelling

is going to give that, bring that connection to the right

people. And I see that, but I like to see the whites of your

eyes, and I like to, you know, so it, the stories come out in

podcasts, they come out in blog posts, they come out in in

emails. You have to find what works for you. One last

question, and then, then I'm going to ask you to tell my

audience where they can find you sure my last question is a two

part question, and I feel the need to ask you this. I ask most

of my guests on the show this question, but I'm curious to

know what you will say, and it's about curiosity, because that's

my favorite word. So the two part question is number one, do

you believe curiosity is innate or learned. And part two, what

are you most curious about these days?

Well, to answer this, you have to know that

you're talking to the guy where my dad, to this day, will tell

about the moment when I was born. No Joe. Look the moment I

was born and put on my mom's tummy, and the first thing I did

was I just started looking around, looking, looking,

looking, and they started calling me curious Jeff. And

I've been called curious Jeff by my parents pretty much my whole

life. So that's where I'm coming from. I have always been

curious. I do believe that curiosity is more innate

than not.

And the reason is, if you look at kids, they are

the most curious folks you're ever going to find. And I find,

you know, my personal theory with this is that the farther

along in life we get, the easier it is to think, Okay, I got this

figured out. I don't have to keep searching, I don't have to

keep wondering. And I think that's when we start dying,

is when we stop learning. So

I think there, there, there's a balance between

that. I believe that we all begin with it. And I think the

older we get, the farther along in life we get, the more

important it is that we continue to cultivate that. And for

myself, I'm I'm curious about people. I'm curious about the

world. I'm curious about how people see the world, especially

how people see the world differently than I do, because

it it is so easy to be looking through our own eyes at the

world, and to say, this is how the world is, when all of a

sudden, when you hear the stories from other people about

this is how I experience the world, and you say, Whoa, that

is completely different from my life experience. How is that?

That that's the kind of stuff I mean that that I I could keep

listening to that stuff and thinking about it for a long

time.

That's good, though, that's really good. So

do you read biographies of people or listen to biographies

of people?

I do some biographies. I'm a big, big non

fiction audiobook guy. I'm listening to lots of podcasts. I

listen to lots of audio books, human psychology, sociology,

business, marketing, sales, all that kind of stuff, mixing it

all together, and say, Okay, how, what? What parts can I take

from this, and how can I put this into my understanding and

of the world? And how can I offer that? How can I package

that off into something that's valuable for the people that I

serve? Fantastic.

Well, I see one question for me leads to

another, to another, and I promise that was my last

question before So, and we should wrap up, because this has

been a long episode, so, but, but a good episode. So I

appreciate what you've shown, what you've shared. So where can

my audience find you? Jeff, sure

have some special resources, especially for

listeners of this podcast. And there's one URL to go to. It is

story, greenlight.com/relationship and

that is story, greenlight.com/relationship dot

com slash relationship, and that'll give you some resources

on how to dig more into this story stuff and how to keep the

conversation going.

Fantastic. Thank you so much. I appreciate that,

and I will put that in the show notes. So this has been a

delight, and I have a feeling that you might have to come back

at some point, because I do enjoy talking to a lot, and I

hope that my audience has through the stories that you you

got it, that you got what's so important, that that Jeff is so

passionate about, and that you take the opportunity to go and

check out his resources on the website. And thank you again for

listening. You know that I couldn't do this without you,

and I appreciate my audience very much. If you like what you

heard, please leave a five star review. We'd like that, and

remember to stay connected, connected and be remembered.

You.