The Hero's Two Journeys

Welcome to Marketing in Your Car, the podcast for funnel hackers everywhere. You're now part of a small group of underground entrepreneurs who are trying to change the world through the products and the services that we believe in. But because we don't rely on venture capitalists, we don't have financial safety nets. So we have to do things differently. We have to do things smarter. We do that through an art and a science we call funnel hacking. This podcast will give you a glimpse at the daily life of a funnel hacker. So let's get started. Hey everyone, it is a beautiful snowy, snowy day. I love the snow, it's so much fun. Hope you guys are having a good time wherever you are at in the world. And for some of you guys it's probably super hot and you're on the beach hanging out, which is cool. For me, I am here driving off in the snow. It's about 12:30 in the afternoon. I'm going late because I've been writing, trying to get the book done. So I've been spending a lot of time at home locked away and anyway, trying to get things done without people around me and then I have to go and like share the ideas because it gets, The energy of everyone in my office gets me fired up and gets me motivated to keep writing, keep creating, stuff like that. But it's kind of fun, like, the last 3 days, oh, I was supposed to have the book done last week. Last 3, almost 4 days now, I'm focusing on this one chapter and it's the epiphany bridge. And if you've listened to the podcast, you've heard me talk about epiphany bridge. And as I'm explaining it, it's tough 'cause when you explain things live, it's one way, you know, there's an easy way to do it. You guys probably heard me explain epiphany bridge on the podcast and I think that most people probably got it, but Writing, there's a lot of things you have to fill in because your audience may not have the context, right? When you guys are hanging out with me, we have some context. We know, there's understanding you kinda have. So when I share something, it's like, oh, that's how it fits in the context of all this other stuff Russell's been sharing with me. But in a book, a lot of times you're in this vacuum where someone could be getting off a bookshelf, they have no idea who you are, and so there's more filling in between the lines that you have to do. And so the Pivoting Bridge, I could explain it really easily, but it's like to get the full impact that I need, I need more. So I spent the first night, I can't remember if I told you guys or not, but I spent like 3 hours studying story just to get back into that state of like, how do you actually tell a good story? What's the structure? And I think I mentioned there's a really good audio called The Hero's Two Journeys, and Michael Hauge and Chris Vogler teach story. And Michael Hauge is like a consultant for scriptwriters in Hollywood, and Chris Vogler does similar stuff for novelists. And I kind of resonate a lot more with Michael Hauge. In fact, we had Michael come speak at one of our events, Dagan Smith and I, couple years ago and he taught this concept called the Hero's Two Journeys. And it was cool because I listened to the audio of it and then he spoke at our event and I like, it was cool, like it was super awesome to see story, right? And you look at all movies, all books, like they follow a very similar story structure. And so that was fascinating back then but I didn't really know how to apply it. 'Cause like I'm not telling Hollywood productions or Hollywood movies, so I'm like, how does this actually, how does this apply to our world, right? And I mean that was probably 5 or 6 years ago that he spoke at our event so it's just like, it's been kind of up in the air for me for a long time and this week 'cause I've gone back through it and I've been looking at it and listening to it through a different lens. I have a structure for my Epiphany Bridge story, so how does, like, is it the same as the Hero's Journey? Is it different? What things am I missing that I should be bringing over? And it's turned into this 4-day geek-out session on story, which has been so much fun. But now that it's happening, I'm seeing this clear picture of just, it's amazing. So I'm gonna give Michael Hauge credit for a lot of this stuff 'cause I'm learning it again through him, and I'm trying tweak it in a way that fits into my lens that I view the world through. But some cool things, so I'll share a couple of them. I probably don't have time to go through all of them, but the cool thing is, first off, every good story, there's 3 core components. There's a character, then there's the desire of the character, like where he's going, the visible desire, like I need to go over there, and then there's a conflict. That's it. So if you have those 3, you've got a story. So you've got a character, right? Little Red Riding Hood. She has a desire, I wanna take my grandma bag of goodies and they conflict, the big bad wolf wants to eat her along the way. Okay, and that's the story. And if you have those 3 elements, you got a story. So that's the core, the 3 core things. And what's interesting is that typically as marketers, we look at the desire is where we try to create desire in people's minds, right? Like I want the big house or the car or the, wherever this thing you're trying to get to is. I wanna lose weight, so like we try to create desire in that. But what's interesting is in a story, desire's not created by the desire. Emotion's not created by the desire. Like the desire or the emotion we want in a story, The emotion comes from the conflict. That's what people actually care about. If there's no conflict, people won't care about the story. Right? Like if my story is like, I woke up and I went to the, and I drove to the office, like there's no conflict there. Nobody cares. It's boring. So the conflict is what creates emotion, which makes the story actually interesting. And so there's kind of that. So, you know, we talk about characters, always backstory, and I've kind of pulled out, there's about 5 or 6 ways you can build rapport with a character. And in a movie, they try to do those things prior to It gets to the first 10% of the movie, so prior to the attractive character, or the character, or the hero, whatever you wanna call it, leaving on this journey. And so you try and build rapport, and usually it's happening in a spot, right? And then about 10% into the movie, there's this thing that happens, right, that takes, usually physically they leave the location that they're at and they go somewhere else, right? Frodo leaves the Shire and he goes on this journey, right? And what happens is there's always like this visible desire we have, we call this the journey of accomplishment, it's the hero's first step, journey, the journey of accomplishment. I need to accomplish this thing. I gotta take the ring to Mordor and throw it in the lava pit, right? Or like every story's got that, right? There's this journey. And so that's the journey that we're all watching and we're visible and we're aware of and we're going with the character on this journey trying to help them to achieve, right? But then there's also this second journey, which is why he calls it the hero's two journeys. And the second journey isn't visible to the naked eye. Like we don't see it like, oh cool, Frodo's gotta become a man, or what, you know, like we don't see that piece of it. All we see is like the desire or the where they're trying to get to, and then the conflict that's happening along the way, right? And so that's what's fascinating is there's a second journey happening, and that second journey is the journey of transformation. So first journey is journey of accomplishment, second journey is the journey of transformation, them becoming a different person. So if you look at the backstory of the story, what's happening is that we're creating the identity that this character believes about themselves, right? It's all their old beliefs, or all their current beliefs, but it's their beliefs. They believe that this and this, and all these things are important, and they have created their identity identity, right? And then they go on this journey of accomplishment and during the process, they have this journey of transformation where this identity of who they think they are breaks away and these old beliefs fall off and then these new beliefs are born and it shifts from their identity to their essence. And essence is the key. That's where we want to get to is that essence of who we actually are and having the hero discover that during this journey. And what's interesting is that in good stories, the hero will will accomplish the thing that they wanted to, right? They went on this journey of accomplishment, they accomplished that thing, but then usually, like, it doesn't matter, they throw it away or they don't care because the real journey was this journey of transformation where the character became something more, right? And so as I was, yesterday as I came to the office, I started like, I was geeking out, so I mapped out on a whiteboard, I showed this whole thing to a bunch of guys on my team and I was explaining it all to them and they were just kinda like, well, how do, like, give me an example, example of this, of that, of this journey of transformation. And I was thinking also, like it popped in my head, and I remembered the story of Cars, right? So Cars is, we just watched it on the Disney cruise with my kids like 25 times, so it's top of mind for me right now. Lightning McQueen is this hero, right? There's this backstory, we hear all this stuff, and he almost wins the Piston Cup, there's a 3-way tie so they can do the race, and so now he's gotta leave, like he's physically leaving this spot. During the backstory, we understood his identity, what's important to him, he's a rookie, he's gonna be the first time to win the Piston Cup, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We also see his character flaws. We find out before he leaves on his journey, he actually doesn't have any friends. Even Harv, his manager, who he thinks is his friend, isn't actually his friend. Doesn't really like him. And he's getting in his car and we realize that, man, he's actually, there's this pain that he has and he doesn't know who he is. He's gonna win this thing and that's his identity. He has to win the Piston Cup or else he's a failure in life. He's gonna be the first rookie ever. So he jumps in, he jumps in, into Harv and they start on this journey, like physical journey, leaving the current location somewhere else, right? And the desire's for him to go I'm gonna go to California to win the Piston Cup. Boom, that's the visual goal we all see. And then what happens? Harv falls asleep, falls out of the car, gets stuck in Radiator Springs, and introduces conflict, and all this conflict starts happening. And through this conflict, he becomes a different person, right? But then what happens at the end of the story, he gets the ability to go accomplish his desire. So he leaves Radiator Springs, he goes to the race, he gets in the thing, he's doing this race, and he has this opportunity to win, right? And he's out there racing the track. They go through and it comes down to like the last minutes of the race. He's going through and he passes everybody. He's in the front and he has become the victor. He's gonna win his desires that he's been trying to accomplish this entire movie. This— the whole journey of accomplishment is now his. He owns it. And then all of a sudden Chick Hicks hits the King's wheel. The King flips up. Boom, boom, boom. Car wreck. Smashes everything. He looks up and as he's about to cross the finish line, looks up and he sees in the monitor, he sees he sees the king destroyed and he remembers the story about Doc and him being destroyed and all of a sudden he realizes and in that moment he changes and he realizes that this journey of accomplishment, things he's trying to accomplish does not actually matter and he throws it away. He slams on his brakes and stops an inch in front of the finish line and he sits there and then Chick Hicks flies past him, wins the race. And then what does he do? He backs up, he goes back, he finds the king, goes behind him and he starts pushing the king to the finish line. And the king says something to him. He says, what are you doing, rookie? He's like, you just threw away the Piston Cup. And then we have this glimpse of the transformation that Lightning McQueen has. He says, oh, you know, an old race car once told me all it is is an empty cup. And he pushes the king through the finish line. And the story and the hero's second journey, that transformation, he accomplished it. He became somebody more, something different, something better. Isn't that amazing? And it's like, that is the storyline for movies, right? It's the hero's two journeys. And when you see it, it starts becoming so clear that like all these, like every movie there's this external journey, the external desire they're going for, but then there's this internal journey that happens. And I want you to think about this for yourself because we'll get more when you get the book. It'll explain how this fits into the epiphany bridge and all other stuff. But for all of us, like that's our life, right? Like we all get into whatever we're doing 'cause we have this thing. Like I got into wrestling because I wanted to be I wanna be first a state champ, then I wanna be a national champ, right? Here's my journey of achievement. That was all I lived for, I thought about, that was the only thing that mattered. And I went on this journey and I hit my state champ, I became an All-American, I went to college, and my last goal was to become an All-American in college. And my whole life, everything rode on this journey. I was going on this thing. And I didn't hit it. I fell short. I didn't even qualify for the national tournament my senior year. Fell short and it was over. And I didn't get my, the thing that I'd been trying to achieve. But then like, for me as a person, I step back and I look and I said, like what happened in the last 12 years of me pursuing this dream? And like what was the journey of transformation for me? Like who did I become because of that? Like if I didn't go on this journey, even though I didn't I didn't hit my desire, even if I would have hit my desire, like what was put in my path? Who did I meet? How did I change my, like who I am? How did I become someone different, someone better because of that? Like if I hadn't gone on that journey, where would I be today? It'd be different, a whole different trajectory, but the journey of transformation happened because I was chasing that desire, right? So let's get into business, wanna make money, like that's the desire, but then what happens along the way? Holy cow, you feel, you realize, and this is true for me, you realize that the things you create actually have an impact on people and it can change their life. And suddenly it shifts from like, I need to make money, to like, how do I have an impact and a transformation? Like, that's the switch, right? That's why so many people who go through weight loss, right, this desire to lose weight, and in the process they learn something about themselves, and then they have so much passion that they wanna share with other people, and that's why they become trainers and coaches and experts and all these crazy things. Ah, it's just so fascinating. So it's in movies, it's in life, it's all over the place, the hero's two journeys, and it's exciting. So that's what I got for you guys today. I'm almost to the office. I have more I wanna share, but I'll have to save it for another podcast. Maybe I'll do one on the drive home tonight. 'Cause I have the paper right here. 'Cause the next thing I'm looking at is like, okay, the conflict. How do you break down the actual conflict that's happening inside of this story, right? Well, the hero's, after he's left home, he's going through this thing, like what are the levels of the conflict? I actually have the sketch out right here. It'll be in the new book. I'm calling it the 5 Turning Points of Conflict. And it's awesome. So maybe I'll share that tonight or whenever the next podcast comes out. At least that's the game plan. And if not, then go read my book because it'll be in there for sure. Anyway, I hope that is exciting for you guys, gets you a little pumped up about story and thinking through that as you're telling your stories. Because at the end of the day, no one really cares if the hero achieves the accomplishment. The audience cares that the hero becomes something and gets the journey of achievement, or the journey of transformation. That's what we actually care about. Root for. That's how we fall in love with characters. Rocky Part 1, Rocky didn't win, right? Who did he become? That's why we love Rocky. All right, I'm at the office, guys. Appreciate you all. Have an amazing day, and I'll talk to you guys probably later on tonight. All right, bye. Thanks so much for listening. 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