Kymberlee Weil of Storytelling School: Changing People’s Lives One Story at a Time

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. You want tech and tacos Tacos in tech you know we got tacos and tech is on smash border green guacamole keeper captains counting beans Contador quentan frijoles found us trying to raise some queso la vida San Diego school of rappy rapping fire tortillas round jalapenos in these modern times a crappy and coffee my coding yoga posse fold the body origami we be surfing coronado eating tacos el gordo the tacos standing puesto lucha libre and sombrero Got a shout out to cost angels by the ocean Watch the sunset la Jolla shores Entrepreneurs trying to get funded When San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside, the Tijuana esti be full of hustlers from couch surfing to penthouses right on the beach Tech leaders believe stars are within reach we interview and founders who be shooting for the moon SD Tecos with your host, Neil Bloom. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started.

Welcome to the Tacos and Tech Podcast. I'm your host, Neil Bloom, and I'm thrilled to have you here. On the Tacos and Tech Podcast. We interview builders of technologies, of companies, of communities, and we do it weekly. So thanks for tuning in. Every Tuesday, a new interview and on Fridays we talk about what's new in the San Diego tech ecosystem from a news perspective. So make sure you join us there as well too. We also have a tech newsletter that comes out every other week@freshbroodtech.com you can subscribe to listen to it without further ado. Enjoy this episode and welcome back to the Tacos and Tech Podcast. I am your host, Neil Bloom, and I'm thrilled to have on my coach, Kimberly Weil, the speech strategist. Kimberly, thank you so much for being on my podcast.

It's an absolute honor to be here, Neil.

Well, the honor is all mine and I am so glad we met. And that all came to be because of Tyson McDowell, who I've gotten to know in San Diego and we were sharing notes on who we knew in Santa Barbara. Cause I was starting to spend time there and lo and behold, I got to meet you and your husband Mark. And I've now gotten to spend some time with you in Santa Barbara as well too. So it's been a pleasure over the last year to get to know you and spend time with you, so thank you.

Oh, well, thank you. The pleasure is absolutely mine.

Well, I'm really excited to get to know a bit of your story because you are so good at pulling our stories out of us. This is a time to get to know Kimberly here on our podcast. Do you want to give us a quick overview of kind of your focus in being a speaking strategist?

Sure thing. I'm building a movement of master storytellers to affect change in our world through strategic vision and short form communications.

I love it and we are amplifying it and we are all becoming storytellers because of it. So thank you for tying us all together. I've had the honor of working with four other entre or three other entrepreneurs together in a mastermind group. So excited for us to have new connections there. But how'd you get started on this? Were you born just speaking and telling amazing stories or where did it all begin?

Oh, don't I wish, don't I wish.

The journey, right?

Oh yes, the adventure. So the adventure begins in 2003. So it's my first time at the annual TED Conference and this was during back in Monterey, California. And so this was before there were TEDx events and before there were TED talks online. It was just a private invite only event. So I'm there at my very first TED event and I'm sitting on the edge of my seat, absolutely enraptured, listening to Wade Davis own the stage and deliver a talk on indigenous cultures. And his images are mesmerizing and his ideas are mind blowing. I am in awe. And then towards the end of the talk, he says something just offhand that gives me chills. Storytelling can change the world. Yes, I know. In that moment, I want to change the world too. Only I don't know how to tell his stories. I mean, I'm in the technology industry. We focus on ones and zeros, not plots and characters. Yet I can't get his words out of my mind. So my secret obsession begins and I become like a detective of stories and I start studying story. And I noticed that people remember talks that use story and forget those that don't. And I see speakers and leaders and business owners inspire tremendous action with story and watch those with brilliant ideas fall flat without one. So over the years that follow, I start digging into the anatomy of why stories work. And soon I find myself producing my own TEDx events and working with other TEDx events around the world as a speaking strategist, which is when I discover there's a big problem in my years of story studying, there are plenty of formulas for telling long, in depth stories. But in the TED world, you can only have 18 minutes or less for your entire talk. And within that, you might only have two minutes or even one minute to tell a story. And I can't find anything in my research that gives people a process to follow to tell compelling stories in only a few minutes. So I roll up my sleeves and create my own methodology for what I call short form storytelling. And I began sharing this process with business owners and entrepreneurs and thought leaders and influencers across the globe. And everything starts changing from that moment in time. And people start telling me, wow, I started using your techniques and I've 10x'd my Instagram following. Or because of your storytelling approach, we were able to raise more funds for our nonprofit than we've ever been able to raise before. And so storytelling can change beliefs, storytelling can change outcomes, and it can even change the world. And those five words have now become my mission in life.

Amazing. Yeah. And like you said, people needed a framework or needed a way to do it and, but then also make it personal and kind of own it with themselves. What did that really come from when you were doing TEDx Santa Barbara and the TEDx events within Santa Barbara. Right. That's where the TEDx events have been.

That you've produced all over the world. Oh, so I, so yeah. So what happened? So I, at the time, and back in 2003, I had my own software company and that's how I got involved with TED in the beginning. And, and when the TEDx event started happening, my husband ended up taking over the majority of the focus on the software company and I started working with other TEDx events all over the world, helping them as a speaking strategist. And I think it's really Neil, because I grew up with Ted. From 2003 forward, every year what would happen is I'd go to ted, it'd be exposed to a cross pollination of ideas, my life would change, I'd look forward to TED all year. Go to ted. My life would change, I'd look forward to TED all year, I'd go to ted. It just happened like that. And I really grew up with this short form talk format. And I just really kind of naturally. What do I want to say here? It just blossomed and I really understood it and I really understood the difference between the long form styles of communication versus the short form.

Got it. Okay, so one, you've seen so many TED events and TEDx, and we're really excited to have a whole new group of leaders for our TEDx in San Diego this year, which has been really great to see. What have you seen? I'm curious what you've seen come out of like for you. It changed your life and you keep coming back. Any other pieces that you've seen come out of TEDx, like people who've gone through the process? I mean, even Tyson, I could say, I would imagine it was a life changing experience for him. Is that how it is for a lot of people who go through and present at TEDx, TED and TEDx events?

It really is. Many people tell me that it is one of the most challenging things they've ever done in their life and it's the most transformative thing they've ever experienced in their life for many people. And what happens is you spend so much time. Many TEDx speakers will spend anywhere from six months to a year on a 12 minute talk. You know, it's TED, the limit is 18 minutes. But nowadays what we're seeing is more talks that are 12 minutes or less are the ones that are really being watched. So a lot of TEDx organizers are focusing on the 12 minute or less format. And you spend so much time every waking hour thinking about this talk, working about this talk, dreaming about this talk. It really does change you because a TED Talk is about an idea worth spreading. So you are birthing this idea into the world. And it matters to you because you're putting this much of your life focus into this one talk on this one day. And as a result, to your question, it changes people on the other side. Because that's our intention. Our intention is to spread ideas so that we can leave people even better than we found them. And so TED talks, just like storytelling, can change beliefs, one sentence on one day can change someone's life or even save it. I've seen this happen multiple times.

Ooh, I feel like there's a story to be told about that given instance.

Ding, ding, ding.

Yes, tell me. I mean, I'm curious to hear how has stories, how have you seen stories save someone's life?

So I work a lot with the military population and I have had multiple clients who are Special Forces or who are veterans of the military. And there is an epidemic of veteran suicide happening in our country right here, right now. And a lot of people don't even realize this. The numbers are just nauseating of how bad this really is. And so I have been in multiple situations where given the tools to tell a story of a different possibility A different outcome that someone experienced has resulted in someone else putting the gun away or putting the pills down or asking for help. And I get chills when I say that just because I've been way, way too close to this on a number of circumstances. Likewise, hearing that one sentence can cause someone to act in a different way. For my nonprofit clients that I work with, hearing a story about why the founder of this nonprofit is focusing their life's work on human trafficking, let's say, or combating human trafficking, to be specific and clarify there. Combating human trafficking. If you hear it through a story rather than just stats, the stats we kind of just our brains gloss over when we tell a story. It can light up seven regions of our brain, and those regions can help us understand the story, feel the story, taste the story. It can ignite all the senses, which then can connect us to that other human even deeper because we relate and we trust and we care.

Wow. Super impactful. But also some science to it, I think as well. Right? There's some real chemistry that story finds way to actually connect. That's really interesting. You mentioned something about a tech company that you started. What was that about?

It was crazy is what it was about. It was one crazy kid's back of the napkin idea. And we were in kind of the right place at the right time and had this idea, this is again dating me. So this is way, way back in the day when there were so no such things initially as a rich Internet application. Right. So this was again back in the flash days and the so cold fusion, a layer had just. Macromedia had bought a layer and you know, so it was this early, early days and in the 2000s, and we had a vision for what a rich Internet application could be. And so we had this back of the napkin idea, right place, right time, pitched it to Chris Anderson, who owns ted, and he really was interested in the idea and had his own kind of take on it and put his own twist on it. And all of a sudden we were green lit to build this software application. We had eight weeks to do it. We had no team, we didn't. We barely even knew each other. The person and I who came up with this back of the napkin idea and I was running technology conferences at the time. So we sent an email out and the subject line was want to play? And we sent our email out to the best of the best designer developers in the world that we knew. And in a weekend, we instantly had our team from all over the world.

Wow.

And what we would do is we would every week go up to Macromedia in San Francisco and work on the software, and then come home on the weekends and go back up and work on software. And so the night before Ted opened that year, that was in 2003, we were in the hotel room. We had servers in the hotel rooms. It was nuts. And our own servers, I mean, it was just madness. And we said, all right, what is success? And we said, if just 30% of the attendees at TED would try this software application, that would be successful. And we ended up having 78% opt in. We were written up in Forbes and the New York Times, and we had orders for this software on the show floor at ted. And we're like, no, no, no, no. This was just a fun thing to do. At ted, we don't even hardly know each other. We don't have a company. And companies like Sony and United Way at the time were like, nope, we want one of these. Here's a check. And we're like, oh, okay. Well, we all of a sudden have a company. You can just make the checkout, too. And so that's how it started. And it just was crazy. And so we formed a company around the software because of the success it had.

Wow. Like a lot of startup stories, it is craziness, for sure. It really is, you know, like ringing a. Ringling a circus together and just pointing it in a specific direction. Yeah.

But I will tell you, Neil, if I knew then what I know now about storytelling, I wish I would have had the story skills, particularly when we were raising money, because we went through multiple rounds of fundraising, and we could have told a better story, I believe. And I think that that would have changed our trajectory even more if we had been able to do that. And so, you know, I. The hearing Wade Davis talk at that very first TED sparked the idea of storytelling, but it was many, many years later before I dove headfirst into it.

Got it. Yeah. The fundraise piece is a really interesting way to obviously do story. Right. Whether it's fundraising for your own company or, you know, you're raising funds to invest in companies. Because if you ask any investor, what do you look for, Everyone will actually come up with a lot of different things. Right. They've got a whole different algorithm, but all will get caught up in a tizzy almost in a FOMO if they hear something that, like, I have to be in that and throw out their algorithm out the window even to say, yes, I want that. And that is a story. Right. Do you have some examples of have you seen that specifically in the fundraise?

Oh, many, many stories. Storytelling is the fastest way to build trust between two humans. There is no faster way to build trust than through a story. And so just that alone can allow someone, an investor, someone we're hiring, it can allow any person to know how we think, what our values are, what matters to us. All of this can come through in a story. And it's drastically different than talking about facts. You know, I just did a masterclass training earlier today and I of course opened it with a story. And I could have said, hi, I'm Kimberly, I've coached over 600 speakers internationally and I've done this and I've done that, but that is just stats, it's just facts. But instead I opened with a story that was a little self deprecating, a little funny, and it allowed everyone else to drop their guard on that CL in that class because I was being vulnerable myself and letting them get to know me, know my humor, know my values, know, you know, my competitive edge. All these things came out in the story without me having to state these things.

Really interesting. Yeah. I'm seeing it more and more in my area because I'm getting pitched so many times by so many different companies. I'm starting to see the same idea, right? Multiple ways in multiple ways. And originally I've always said, well, that's. There's always the jockey or the horse mentality, right? It's the people who are running it or it's the idea. And maybe it's a mix of both. I like to sometimes think it's 75% of the people, 25% idea at the earliest stages. But that people piece, there's a lot of layers to the onion of kind of what you just said around the storytelling part. And it's interesting because now as the investor, I have to look and be like, am I getting caught up in the story? Right. I get him pulled along for something and I have to obviously do the due diligence. Says, is this real? Right. Are you telling a great story or are you telling a great narrative of why you are the total package? Because it's true as well. So, you know, it can be used in for good and for bad in a certain way on the investment.

Isn't that true about so many things in life? And to kind of expand that out, you know, if we think about it right now in our world today, stories are being told, not all of them are true. Right. And they influence us, they influence how we think, they influence Our behavior, they influence our outcomes. And so we have to be careful about that. So as the storytellers, I feel like it's our responsibility to tell real true stories and we have an unlimited amount of stories to draw from. Because anytime something happened in our life of any magnitude that has the potential to turn into a story.

Absolutely, absolutely. That's for real. And I think on the technology side, more and more we're going to see that come to fruition in a few different ways as well too. We saw it first on the deep fakes where images could be different. Yes, but you're right, like the elements of story which tug at trust and other things are going to come to fruition or are going to be tested in other ways as well too. So that'll be really interesting to see where technology plays in that. I think ChatGPT is already showing us that maybe, you know, an AI could write a story. Right, but so now, absolutely, now we'll start asking, well, what are the other elements that make a good story? And it could be the person. Right. And obviously the deliverance of it as well too. And that kind of brings me to my next point with you. Like, once you mastered a bit of how to tell good stories, how did you master being a good coach? Because that is not always a given. Right to learn master something doesn't mean you can master the teaching of it. How did that come to fruition and change for you?

I think I have a never ending point of view of curiosity. So, you know, I try the best I can to not take myself too seriously and I put myself on the front lines as often as I can so that I can make mistakes, try stuff out and teach that as a result. So I come from a family of educators and so it's kind of. I grew up that way and it's really funny because I thought, oh, I'm never going to be a teacher, I'm not going to do that. And here I am. So I don't know why I've been an athlete all my life, but I just never saw myself in that role and I feel like it's such a beautiful circle. I'm a martial artist as well and I practice dynamic circle hapkido. And it's the circular motion is in our art. So using force and relaxation and, you know, it's fascinating and I think it's the same with being the student and being the teacher. So the more that I'm a student and I speak and I'm out there and I try things, the Better. I can be a teacher and then I can teach and I can share and I can help someone improve even more, which helps me want to try more things and push the limit even more, which helps me that, you know. So it's this beautiful circle that never ends. I think Sun Tzu has a great quote about that. It's either Musashi or Sun Tzu. I'd have to look that up. But he says surprise and direct action give birth to one another. They are like a circle without end. You cannot exhaust all of the possible combinations. And I love that idea of surprise and direct action and surprise and direct action. Surprise and direct action. And that's probably why I'm so drawn to improv as well, being an improv instructor and an improv performer. So I teach to the best of my ability and I put myself out there in a really scary way and perform to the best of my ability, which then allows me to teach and the circle continues.

Hmm. Really interesting. Which also allows you to just see so many different situations, which is, I'm guessing, what your clients bring you. No, no one is the same. Even within our group we had Olympic athletes to cybersecurity or identity management and.

Venture capital and financial planning. Right.

Financial planning. Right. Being able to take the situation that you handle with and coach people through that is really interesting. What does that look like day to day now? Like, what is coaching like for you?

It is a wild adventure and I would have it no other way. So. One of the many things I love about my life, Neil, is no two days are ever the same. Which is probably why I loved CrossFit so much because there's never two classes that are exactly the same. And so some days I work one on one with people and we're getting ready for a very high stakes talk of some kind. Other times like I have a local tech company actually local to me, which is really rare. I normally don't get to work with clients in the same zip code. So I'm working with a local tech company and helping all of their C suite of executives, getting them ready for a big online summit that they're doing. And a lot of these individuals don't have story or even speaking experience. So they're great at their role within the tech organization, but they don't have these skills. So getting them ready, giving them a confidence, teaching them storytelling, short form storytelling, all of the great pieces that they need to be unforgettable when they are on stage. So. So some days I'm working in the corporate clients, some Days I'm running the mastermind programs. I have two different mastermind programs that you were a part of one of them. And some days I'm working with one on one clients and some days I'm on site with clients. Sometimes I go on site with clients when they have a speaking opportunity and I'm backstage with them holding the water bottle and wiping the sweat off their brow and pushing them out onto the stage in some cases because it's scary up there.

Yeah. Oh wow. Really fascinating. And so all of that's leading to like where are you headed? Where are some things upcoming that working on? And I know you're, you've got to be thinking about kind of short term, maybe one year out and beyond.

Absolutely. And I think that's very smart to plan that way. And it's also a great choice as entrepreneurs as we are and business owners to also diversify and have multiple revenue streams. So I've surrounded and built my life around everything I love to do. So I'm coming up, I'm headed to, I'm working with nine speakers speaking at a TEDx event in March. So we're really in the final countdown and so they're training really hard. I've got my corporate clients getting them ready for events that they have coming up. I'm getting individual, I have executive coaching clients who I'm ongoing. Every month is some a new challenge and so where things are going is expansion and so replicating me, which is tough. Right. For most entrepreneurs hit against this is capacity. So that means more classes, more training, more online classes that I'm offering. It used to be when I started my business I really took care of more of the very highest level of client and did a lot of one on one training and then I kind of backfilled that and then I started doing events and then I started doing online programs and so now I'm really spinning up some really fun new valuable programs that people can take and have the training and have the story training and I don't necessarily need to be present for that.

Ah, that is the entrepreneur's dilemma. Always right?

Always, always.

Why scalable? I guess venture backed startups are attractive because we think, you know, we can use technology to scale things that normally wouldn't be scaled or would be used be thrown bodies at. Instead we're using tech. But really cool to hear that you're doing it kind of in a service manner of teaching some really human skills in that regard.

Well, it's that I think that really matters Neil, because one of My names or people think of me is strategic. Samurai. And samurai means to serve and the samurai and the everything of who a samurai was and what it means is really evident in my work today. You know, I love to serve and to take care of and to help people reach completely different levels. And so everything I'm offering, no matter if you, if it's me live or not me live, I'm still driving towards adding value to people's lives.

Absolutely. I mean, I know that having in our Mastermind, which was every other week, like something really tangible that we would work on, whether it was 10 podcasts that we knew we wanted to go and get on, like, you know, that's a curriculum that you didn't need to be there to say that per se. You needed to impart why it's so important to us.

Sure.

Right. And maybe that was through examples of your own of when it worked. So, yeah, I can totally understand how one, you have just mastered and honed this curriculum. You've put in the 10,000 hours on it, so no one can replicate that anyway. Right. Based on the experiences that you've, you have kind of hammered out that you know that they work. But it's pretty cool to see it scaling in that regard. Anywhere that people can kind of come and interface with that coming up, can they see your body of work at a TEDX coming up or anything like that?

Absolutely. And I just do want to comment on that as well. One of my mantras is to never settle. So. And I think this is just such a good lesson for all of us to remember as business owners and entrepreneurs, because even though I have developed this curriculum, every single time I run a new Mastermind program, I am updating it, changing it. Depending on who's in the program, I'll change the curriculum itself. So I think that a lot of us can fall into a trap of, okay, it's working, okay, it's we're done. And I don't think we're ever really done. I think that there's an opportunity to train and there's an opportunity to always enhance and uplevel and enhance an up level and continue to add value. So just wanted to respond to that. Yes. What do I have coming up? Well, what's really exciting in my life, once a year I do a live event. And this is only once and that's it. So at the end of February every year, I do a three day immersive live event. And it's for business owners. Most of the people who come are business owners. Or C suite level people or entrepreneurs. People who want to use storytelling and communication, short form communications as an edge in their business. And so we go deep. It's all in three days in Santa Barbara and I have that coming up at the end of February.

Ah, awesome. We'll make sure we link to it. Or you want to also give a shout out on.

Yeah, it's really Easy. It's storytelling school.com/event because it's the only event I do live. So storytelling school.com event. And it's called Story to standing ovation. It's a speaker boot camp.

Awesome. And in beautiful Santa Barbara, so.

Right. And you get to be in Santa Barbara. Come on.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, something obviously that we have in common between San Diego and Santa Barbara is pretty good Mexican food, like tacos. Do you have a favorite taco spot? Is it local or where is it?

Yes. You know, it's funny, I'm very discerning with my tacos and there is a place that is not one that you're going to hear in the mainstream or in the. You know, if you Google, you may not find it. So this is insider information here, Neil.

I like it.

So this is a restaurant in Carpinteria. So Santa Barbara county is very big. Carpinteria is kind of at the southern tip of Santa Barbara County. And in Carpinteria there's a little spot called Teddy's by the Sea. And Teddy's by the Sea has salmon tacos that just may be the best ever.

Really? Wow.

Claim salmon tacos with guacamole and the whole thing. So come on. Right.

Is this a different Teddy's than Teddy's Burgers? That's around there too.

Yeah, there. There's not a Teddy's Burgers that I'm aware of.

Oh, maybe that's what's the next town south of Carpenteria.

So Ventura or Oxnard or.

I was right next to a coffee shop. I had a coffee in and I thought it was. It was right there. But no, Teddy's is Teddy's by the Sea. Okay. Yeah. Love it. Well, we have to go try it, obviously.

And obviously tell them Kimberly sent you. Yes.

Okay. We're adding it to our taco database, which we do have.

Oh, nice.

And obviously the first time it's been mentioned. So very excited.

Yes. The salmon melts in your mouth. So get ready.

Love it.

Who's hungry?

Yeah, I know. Especially for tacos and at the water right there. Well, Kimberly, it's been a pleasure having you on, obviously and been pleasure. Been working with you as well too. So thank you and all the best on the big event that's coming up pretty soon.

Well, thank you, Neil. And thank you for all you do in our world today. I mean, thank you for sharing your stories and sharing your knowledge and helping so, so many. We appreciate you.

I appreciate that. Well, thank you. We're cut from the same cloth in that regard for sure, in helping people. So we will both get back to doing that. So thanks again, Kimberly. Appreciate it.

You're so welcome. Have a great day.

Cheers. Bye. Thanks for tuning in to Tacos and Tech Podcasts. You can find all of our episodes on freshbroodtech.com as well as on Twitter at Tacos and Tech Pod. Also follow Fresh Food Tech coming all your social platforms and make sure to share and give a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify or Google Play. Thanks again.

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