243: The Journey Series - Ann Imig on Embracing Story

Today on the show, we are continuing our journey series with Ann Imig, and together we are embracing the journey of our own stories. Let's do it. Hey, movers, it's Sally Koering Zimney with Be Moved. Let's go create some talks that will move this world. We're going to talk with amazing speakers, share tips, tricks, resources. And we are going to be moved so that our audience can be moved. This moved me. What is moving you? Well, hello, movers, and welcome back to another episode here on This Moved Me. We are on episode number 8 of 10 in the journey series. We've had some really incredible— I've like dug some awesome episodes out of the archive. And we've heard from Brad Montague, we've heard from Vikas Narula, Jeff Goins, Jenny Evans, Angela Lucier, B.T. Harmon, Amina Brown. I mean, these people are epic, and we are not done. This week is fab. And today we are focusing on one of my all-time favorite topics, which is story. Story is what it is all about. And I happened upon Anne a few years ago at our neighborhood picnic, kind of the yearly picnic where, you know, the police officers and the firefighters come out and all the neighbors come out. And it's just, it's always one of my favorite nights. And I was talking with a neighbor who was new to me. I hadn't, I hadn't chatted with her before. And she said, after a very short time, she said, you have got to audition for Listen to Your Mother. And I was like, "I don't know what that is, but it sounds awesome. So I would really like my kids to listen to me more, so tell me more." And she shared with me a little bit about it, but really just said, "You've got to go check it out." So I went home and did a little research, and I was like, "Yes, yes, yes! I want to do this show," which is essentially stories about motherhood. On stage, and those are all things that I love. So I auditioned, I got in the show, and in that process got to interview the founder of the whole concept, who is my guest for today, Ann Imig. And Ann is a writer, she's a speaker, and she has empowered people, women in particular, to share their stories. So together in this episode, Anne and I took a deep dive into how and why stories are one of the most essential parts of our journey as leaders and speakers. I cannot wait for you to check it out. And if you check out the show notes, you can go watch my piece and listen to your mother, which is delightful. I have to say, it's a favorite motherhood moment of mine. All right, here she is, Ann Imig.

Are you still in— are you in the Twin Cities?

I live in St. Paul, yes, with the Twin Cities.

Great. Um, well, and that's the thing too, is it's a one-time, once-a-year event, so it's like either it works or it doesn't for people's schedules. And yeah, it's a lot of hype and a ton of preparation for a very ephemeral thing. And thank goodness we record all these shows and we have our YouTube channel, so they do get to live on there and people can interface with the stories, you know, in that way.

Right. Well, that's kind of where I want to start, and I just want to jump right in. And what I'd love to hear is kind of the story of this event, your bringing this to life and wanting to share women's stories and stories of motherhood. Where did that all come from?

So it was a genesis of a few things combined. Um, I had fallen down the rabbit hole of blogging. Um, I started a blog called Anne's Rants in 2008, and, um, I had never heard of blogs before. I had started writing sort of humorous moments of my day and turned my desperation of parenting young children into humor and emailed them to just friends, and someone encouraged me to blog, and I didn't know anything about it. And like so many, at this point millions of other people, um, what I found online was this tremendous peer support among parents and creative vitality. And I started out my professional life as a stage actress, um, and I thought that that part of my life was over. I thought I was done with performing and Through writing and blogging, I really reconnected with an audience and just, like, fell, you know, madly, passionately back in love with being on stage, but in this new way through my writing. And then eventually I did take it from the page to the stage in 2010 with just one first Listen to Your Mother show here in Madison. And from the very conception of the idea to the show, it was all took place within less than 8 weeks. It was just a madcap-like adventure. And the literal inspiration for this specific event kind of began when I went to the BlogHer conference in 2009 in Chicago, and they had an event called Voices of the Year. Where members of the community read their own blog posts out loud, just from the page. And, um, I also have a social work background. I have a varied background.

I love it.

Social work and acting and advertising sales and writing and motherhood. And oddly, it all comes together in Listen to Your Mother. So if you still don't know what you want to be when you grow up, there is hope that you might find some convergence in your very disparate life if you're like me.

I love it. That's great.

So I was sitting in this room completely captivated. My theater brain couldn't believe the simplicity of literally just a microphone, a podium, and people reading from a page, not even memorized, not professionals, not people who've ever performed before. And it was completely mesmerizing and captivating and heartbreaking and hilarious. And there was this feeling in the audience, and the social worker part of my, of my brain was really taken by the giving voice to some very personal hard stuff and the bearing witness by the audience. There was a, there was a collective experience happening live and in person. So that kind of planted a seed because I thought that would be really easy to do, and I didn't leave. That was in the summer, and I didn't leave saying I'm gonna do that. But like I said, about 8 weeks before Mother's Day, I thought, I do want to do that. When I was doing my own blogging and writing, I was influenced by like David Sedaris and people who read their work out loud, and I had wanted to do that. Yeah. Um, and I knew enough bloggers at the time in town that I thought, I'm just gonna do a show. And then the timing was an accident, and my ad sales brain kicked in, and I'm like, oh, Mother's Day, Oh my gosh, wait a minute. Like, what do we do for motherhood? Like, we have brunch. That is not enough.

No.

And I wanted my real life community. And in Madison, it's really not a blogging town. I mean, there are people who blog, there are some big bloggers, but it's not, especially at the time. And I wanted Madison to be able to experience that vitality I knew was happening online in real life. So I just I quickly found a venue. I threw auditions knowing that even if people didn't come, I knew enough people that we could have a show. But the people who came were amazing. And then it was the very reason that I was so connected to a community online that I started to get these emails of people saying, "I want to do this too." Oh, I love that the way that it grew so organically because you experience something like that in the audience.

And it is one of those moments where like, this is amazing. There's something so special about live theater. I have a theater background too, or a live event, anything that you're seeing something happen in front of you and you know this is a once in a lifetime thing. Like the way it's happening right now, the people in the room, the lights, the atmosphere, like, you know, that's what's so addictive about these kind of live events.

Well, absolutely. But what— and what I didn't anticipate— so you and I are theater people, so that's electricity to us. That is totally a lifeline, right?

Yeah.

If you're at a Broadway show or a touring show, mostly if you're not a theater person, you're sitting in the audience going, I would not get up there if you paid me, right?

Right.

But at Alyssa Dzur-Mother's show, because it is your friends and neighbors and they are simply reading from a page, not only are people like, I would do that, they're already composing their stories before they're even out the door. It's incredible.

Well, what do you think that, that is? You know, if you were to kind of dig into that a little bit.

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's, it's intentional piece of the model of what I'm doing that there's no memorization and that Everyone has a story, and that's really the message that we're sending. Like, you don't— we've had actresses and actors and famous writers in the show, but mostly it's a show for every person, and that's the heart of the show. And we say that over and over again. You don't have to be a mom. You don't have to be a woman. You don't have to have liked your mom. You know, like, we embrace all of it, and— nobody's even like allowed to memorize because— and the way we structure, we have a couple of rehearsals so that it's really structured for that person who's terrified of public speaking.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

So let's talk about that a little bit. There's so much I want to ask you, but I think it'd be really helpful to hear about some of the things that you do to help give these regular people, quote unquote, right now, these people who might not otherwise, choose to stand in the spotlight, how do you help them find their confidence, find their feet?

Well, again, this is in part where my social work training comes in handy and how to work with groups and how to create safety in groups. And there's little things that you can do that have a big impact. Simply gathering as a group twice before show day giving people an opportunity to bond so that when they're backstage and they're terrified, they have each other. Like, even just that makes a huge difference. And then saying to them the opposite— like, perfection is the opposite of our mission. It's about process. It's not about perfection. It's not even about performance. We want you to be authentic. We want you to just be you. And get your message out. And if you cry and if you flub your words, you know what? That just makes you that much more accessible to that person seated in the audience who will never have the courage and really needs to hear what you're going to say. So we really talk about the message behind the words instead of like all the speaking tips you might normally give someone. I mean, we talk about breathing. We talk about a very select number of things for them to focus on because this is the first time a lot of people are using a microphone. This is the first time that they're dealing with stage lights. So we definitely have a tech rehearsal. It's just preparation is really important and minimizing variables, keeping things really simple and straightforward and just telling them it's the message behind their piece and, you know, try to slow down. Try to breathe, but you do not need to deliver a perfect package. We want to hear your heart.

Mm-hmm. So you're kind of getting at this a little bit, but you've obviously seen so many of these stories come to life and hear them come out of these really brave people who are putting themselves out there and sharing their heart. So If you were to sort of describe the kind of stories that have stayed with you, that have really sunk into you, that you've walked away with and said, "Oh my gosh, I'll never forget that," like, what do those stories typically look like or sound like or kind of what are they, what's in them that sticks with you so much?

When somebody's fully in their words, when they're just dropped in, to their words and their story is so specific. A moment in time, and they're back there describing it, is so profound to me versus more of a like, what is motherhood piece. We always say when people are selecting what they're going to audition with, don't try to like say what motherhood is. Like, pick the story that only you can tell. Whether it's about you being a parent or your parent or your grandparents. And it's often a small moment, a quiet moment that somebody has carried with them often for years. And then they see an announcement and it's like pressing right there, like, oh, I need to do this.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh my gosh. I'm really excited to see this all happen. It sounds so cool. So to step back for a moment, you said something earlier and I thought it was really interesting. You know, you were, I'm assuming you were at home with your kids and you said you just started doing some writing and then you had this instinct to email it out to some friends. And I'm curious about that because I think you're right, we all have our stories But not everybody has that sort of instinct of like, I want other people to hear this story. So I'm curious, like, why did you want to write up that experience and share it?

Well, I'm kind of an intimacy freak, and by intimacy I mean like connecting with people is— just really fuels me. And that was a very isolating time in my life.

Yeah.

And, um, Also, I wasn't, nor most people were not, that social media was not really a thing yet in 2008. It was becoming a thing, but most people were just figuring out Facebook. We weren't constantly updating our lives all day with people. So email really was the primary vehicle. So it evolved naturally. I'd have a friend email me, so how's it going? And I'd say, Well, let's see, this morning started at 4:45 AM when my child came and pulled my armpits double to wake me up, you know, like things like that. Um, and so it would just be certain friends that I would— now it's so clear to me that this creative catharsis was so— it was an outlet for me, um, and it really sustained me. And again, it was re— It was reconnecting with an audience I did not even know that I missed. I really thought I had found my calling in motherhood and that was going to be completely sustaining for me for the rest of my life. I didn't know that there was anything missing until I started on this journey.

Mm-hmm. Mm. There's something so universal about what you're talking about in that by sharing the particulars of our life, the particulars of our story, it's like a direct line into somebody else whose story may not have anything to do with yours. And whatever that is, I'm so fascinated by that.

We call those "me too" moments. Yeah. So that when you're at a Listen to Your Mother show, almost as amazing as what happens on stage is what happens in the lobby afterward when audience can talk to people who were in the show and shared, and they say, "Me too." "that happened to me too," and people feel less alone and connections are made. It's really powerful.

How does that— I mean, it's got to be so cool for you to see how this grew from your one stage show, your one staging in Madison, to now you've got shows all over the country and those #MeToo moments are happening all over the country.

Yeah, we're in 41 cities in North America. In 2016, and I can't— I cannot process it at all. Like, there are a few moments that penetrate. Like, sometimes I go back and I watch, like, there was an NBC Nightly News feature in 2013, and there we have a book, and like all this stuff has happened, and it just has been such a steam train, like, that I think it might not be something that I can really process until I'm way past it.

Mm-hmm.

Because I'm still so in it and it's very demanding and always evolving and growing.

Mm-hmm.

And it's just, it's such an— it's such a truly ensemble piece. I mean, speaking to another theater person, it's been so interesting, my own personal journey from wanting to be the ingenue and the leading lady and never really feeling comfortable in my own voice. Or having something of my own to say as a young person, and now loving the ensemble nature of this project. There's 100 women bloggers all over the country who are directing and producing these shows for the first time. So it's a major female empowerment moment too. It's not just the people that are being empowered to get on stage. It's also the people who are being empowered through producing and directing these local shows to become leaders in their community, to become speakers in their own right.

Mm-hmm.

Um, So it's just a lot, a lot going on and a lot to process. And it, it's all because of investing in other people and their dreams that has helped me find and realize my own.

I love it. Are— do you have— I'm just curious, are there other live events that you really love to go see? Like, is anything You know, what sort of keeps you in terms of how you continue to evolve or grow, listen to your mother? Where do you see that cutting edge happening?

You know, I search out— one thing I've focused on is leadership training because it's kind of a role that I fell into. I never sought out leading an organization. In fact, it's actively something I did not want.

That's usually the way it works. Isn't it?

Oh, so I've done some really wonderful trainings here in Madison with, um, Brava Magazine has a Thrive Career Workshop series. Um, and Darcy Loma is the name of a, she's a master coach who's local and, um, has done some leadership-focused trainings that have been really beneficial to me. Um, I do go see speakers all the time locally. Um, and the YWCA does a lot of work around, um, social justice and issues around race and privilege. That's really important to me. And to listen to your mother, diversity inclusion is a huge part of our mission. And so I'm constantly trying to build my own skills around those issues so I can empower my directors and producers to do the same.

Nice.

And they have something called the MOXIE Conference, which is also women and empowerment. And it's not just like— you don't have to consider yourself a leader because everyone's leading their own life, right? So, um, and, you know, I am so inundated with storytelling online still. I still blog. I still— you know, we have a YouTube just with Listen to Your Mother. We have nearly 1,500 videos on that, on that channel. Um, and I love to go see comedians. I'm a humor writer, so That's inspiring and interesting to me that I still work with BlogHer. They're now part of SheKnows, but there's always amazing guest speakers at the annual BlogHer conference. I mean, I've seen everyone from Tig Notaro to Kerry Washington to Ava DuVernay, who directed Selma, to, like, Katie Couric and Martha Stewart. You know, I mean, wow. This blogging world has just, either directly or indirectly, I've been able to see and learn from so many amazing women and men.

Yeah, I mean, blogging used to be just kind of a cute little thing that people did. And now it's really— it's a business expectation, truly.

Yeah.

Aside from a creative endeavor, it's, it's good business too. And what I love about it is it keeps people focused on creative content because that's the kind of work that— or that's the kind of stuff that I think people really appreciate and share. And so I think it's just a fascinating art form and it's evolved so much. And oh my gosh, just staying on top of the latest industry, I don't know, expert.

Oh yeah.

This and that is—

Things are changing so quickly. I mean, social media and video really is taking over. So, you know, there's no stopping really. It just continues to evolve. And I feel really lucky to have existed in a moment in time where my mothering coming of age sidoled up with the, the mom blogging coming of age. And it's, you know, because of just how that lined up chronologically and because of privilege, um, and because of a lot of things. But it's obviously really impacted my life.

I know, it's so exciting. So, okay, what I think would be really fun to do— and, and I know we're gonna get to a This Moved Me moment here, but I thought before we did that, I'm I'm curious if you have a favorite listen to your mother story that you think of a lot that you might be willing to share with us now. And then we can include the link to the video maybe on YouTube if that exists. So what do you think?

That is the hardest question.

I'm sure.

Ever ask me.

Maybe favorite is the wrong word because that's not fair. I know you don't want to play favorites, but a memorable one, one that that sort of you take with you or— Yeah.

You think of a lot? Well, the Madison shows, I still do my own Madison show. Oh, cool. This will be our 7th Madison show. So those stories stick with me because I'm so closely associated with those stories, you know, from auditions to show rehearsals and show day. So it's impossible. I have a few that I think about. One woman who's become a speaker and author, her name is Liz Simpson. She doesn't live in Madison anymore. She read a spoken word poem called Yellow that traced her family's history from slavery and Jim Crow all the way to her current day and the different associations with that color.

Mm.

And it was breathtaking. She's an incredible speaker, um, just so full of passion. And so I guess one of the things that really moves me, I'm realizing as I say this, is people talking about really hard things and holding so much hope and the effect that that has in the audience, that even if it's not the same hard thing you're going through, that delivering somebody through a really hard story and with so much hope is so powerful. Um, similarly, we had a woman named Esmeret Yosef who has a very, very hard story about having her immigration status revoked because of a clerical error, and she was deported and actually, um, incarcerated and separated from her very young children for years. And, um, it's sadly— it's actually not that uncommon. But we heard her story firsthand in Madison a few years ago, and it was so painful. But she is a beacon of hope, and That was her message. And just to lighten it up, just to lighten up, there's— I mean, hearing an audience erupt with laughter, especially when it's somebody who's maybe never been on stage before, and seeing what that does to them is so amazing. There's a woman, Deb Nice, and I didn't know until the second rehearsal, she confided in me that this was her phobia, public speaking. And you never would have had any idea. Shared a hilarious story about the first time her daughter got her period. And just, I mean, she, she brought the house down. What was cool is a couple of years later, her daughter did sort of a response piece to it.

Oh, that's awesome.

But, and I mean, we've had— so I, I just could go on and on, but, but I won't. So that's a few, that's a few examples.

I love, I love all those. And if you send me links to them, I will put them all in the show notes so that people can go really watch it for themselves and, and experience that.

Yeah, I will. And we've had people of all ages. I mean, because you're in Twin Cities, you have to see this woman from northern Wisconsin who read about COVID missions that she used to run going across the line to Illinois in the 1950s for some business. I won't give it away, but she's a child of a gangster. And this was a very typical covert operation that many Midwestern women went through to provide one of the staples on their table that was not legal in America's Dairyland.

Really?

I'll leave it at that. But we've also had grandmothers read memories of their mother's clichés that they were raised on. I mean, it just runs the gamut.

Aw, I love the passion in your voice and the excitement in your voice and the pride that I hear in your voice is totally getting me jazzed. Just so you know, I'm like, woo!

It's awesome.

Okay, well, Ann, we are at the time where we're going to do this moved me moment, something that has moved you recently so that we as speakers and creatives, writers, performers, can continue to move our own audiences. So what do you think? What has this— what has moved you recently?

There is a viral video that I just saw go around again that I've seen before, and I can't watch it without sobbing, which often does not mean sad. It can also mean just powerful.

Mm-hmm.

It's a spoken word performance of 3 young girls teen girls called Somewhere in America, and their names are Belissa Escobedo, Rhiannon McGavin, and Zariah Allen, I think. Um, often when I see things shared online, it just says something like 3 girls, and it drives me crazy. So I researched to get their names, and I hope I'm saying them right. Um, and it's these young women, probably high school teenagers. Basically, the, the thesis statement is their last, their last sentence is, "The greatest lessons are the ones you don't remember learning." And it's a very powerful sort of indictment of everything from race and feminism and consumerism and poverty and white supremacy and the power of these young women and the artistic way that they delivered this in their most empowered voices is so moving and so incredible. Cool. So I have seen your mom piece that you know.

That's okay. Yeah, that's okay. Anything that just spoke to you that made you pause for a moment and think about the world a little bit, that's what it's all about. I love that. I, I have seen that too. And you're right, it's just one of those where you like stand up and Claude, that's how you—

it takes your breath away. I kind of feel like that there's a power that young women have, and they— and that I had, that I almost feel like I— you begin to lose touch with, whether it's motherhood or middle age. In a way, it's part of the humbling, um, process that makes you a better person. I would argue it's not a bad thing, but 'Cause you're, as you get older and things happen to you, you're not so sure about things. But I think that, that confidence that these women, these young women have, there's something we can learn from that. They are owning and so in their power in a way that I don't see older, middle-aged or older women. I think much older. I think you kind of get through it and you get back to it, but these girls have it and It just leaves you breathless.

Yeah, it just—

it—

the— my word for it was brave. They were just so strongly standing in their two feet and speaking their truths. And I, yeah, love it. Cool. Well, um, thank you for sharing that.

Yeah, sure.

My This Moved Me moment happened yesterday, happened yesterday, and I thought, oh my gosh, this is And the timing of this is crazy because I know I was talking to you today. Well, I finally happened upon the Dear Sugar podcast. Have you been listening to it?

I haven't, but I got to hear Cheryl Strayed do a keynote with a pretty small group, and she's pretty amazing. In fact, I had a— a friend of mine has a plaque made for me from when I heard her speak called Surrender to Your Own Mediocrity. She's a powerful, inspiring—

Totally, right? Like everything that she's ever written, I'm just like, "Ah, this is so good." I'm a huge fan. And I don't know why I hadn't heard or listened to the podcast. I don't know why it took me so long to find it, but I found it the other day. And so I've just been obsessively listening to a bunch of episodes and she treats it much like um, she did when she had the advice column. People write in letters and then she and her co-host, who's I think the current Sugar, and I can't remember his name, which I feel really bad about right now, um, but anyway, it's a man. So it's the two of them, people write in and then they respond. And the topic of the show yesterday that I listened to was about mothers who hate motherhood. And it was so brutal and honest and brave and heartbreaking. And the women who wrote in, I, I, I was crying in the car listening to them for two reasons. One, it resonated.

Yes.

And it was like the, the lift the hood up and look under the hood of the car and you're like, oh yeah, motherhood freaking sucks. It's like on and— I mean, this one woman, she just wrote this litany of everything that is so hard. And then the other reason I was crying is because it struck me as just so sad. And because, yes, it is so hard and by far the hardest thing that I've ever done and continue to do. And every day I feel like a failure and Luckily, I feel so lucky that I've never had the depth of sadness that these women are carrying with them as they are mothers. And they love their kids so much and they absolutely hate the day-to-day life that they are living. And it's just, oh, it's heartbreaking. And it's, I feel like every mother should go listen to it because it will just bring us to that brink in the, in a good way where we're reminded of, uh, the collective. We are all in that place. It is so hard, and we are here together, and we have to support each other and remind each other that things are hard so that you don't feel so alone when you feel that way.

It's like, oh yeah, um, on a lighter note but related, so heavy. Sorry. No, no, because it made me think of a woman named Kate Pugino who in Madison a couple of years ago, and she does not have children. And it was about her coming to terms and now peace with that decision. And one of the defining and hilarious, like, showstopping moments was when she said, I always wanted to be a mom. And then I had to ask myself, do I actually want the kid? And it was, like, hilarious because she was just going through, like, I didn't really want to feed the baby. I didn't really want to sleep. Sleep with the baby. Yeah. And I knew that tons of moms and grandmas in the audience who love their children were not right around with her and going, oh, maybe I should have asked myself that.

I know.

If we—

if you knew how hard it was, I don't think anybody would do it. And, and luckily you walk into it and you fall in love with your little person. And so, you know, you do what you need to do.

The thing is, is something is going to come along and do that to your life anyway, whether it's caring for a parent or dealing with a disability, you know. So it's like, I can say that now because I'm through the baby years. I have a third grader and a middle schooler, a sixth grader, and it's still so hard and grueling and exhausting. But like Now I can just see that, like, if you knew, you know, anything about life, you would just stay in the womb.

That's true. That's exactly right. Oh my gosh, you are so funny. Right? We would just cuddle in where it's safe and warm and no one can hurt us.

Right.

But that's not life.

No, that's boring. You know, it is. It is.

We got to go out and get just sucker punched every once in a while.

Yep. And have amazing adventures and connect with people. I mean, we live in this time where it's amazingly easy to connect with people from everywhere. And the accessibility of that, you know, bring this conversation very full circle, is what has enabled Listen to Your Mother to happen. I never could have done this on my own. I don't know anything about throwing a show in, you know, Spokane, Washington, or Valparaiso, Indiana, or, you know, Austin, Texas.

Yeah. So, and it's happening. Oh yeah, right.

Yeah.

Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening along with us on the Journey series. I am loving bringing back up these incredible conversations, some of them I had years ago, and they're just buried in a pile that is way too big of other great conversations. But I thought, oh my gosh, as we are are really being challenged in the journey right now, I wanted to just super serve you with inspiration, ahas, and all kinds of good stuff. So the best of the best are coming to you in this journey series. It's gonna be so good. I hope you're loving it. I hope you're feeling it. And I have for you a quick workbook that I would love for you to go download. It's kind of like a study guide for you as you're walking through this. So you can go to bmoove.com/journey and download this beautiful study guide with some of the key inspiration as we move along, a way for you to capture your ahas, the quotes that have jumped out at you, and how you're going to apply these to your own journey because really that's that's what it's all about, okay? I'm here to empower you, to continue to push you out front so that as you are moving along on this journey, you are doing the big important work. And just reminding yourself, the journey is the there. That's what we're— that's our job right now is to just be on the journey. So I hope these conversations help you with that. We've got some— another one coming up for you that's going to be fabulous. And I know that because they're all fabulous. Yes? All right. This moved me. What's moving you? I can't wait to hear. Hit subscribe so that you do not miss an episode as we stick on the journey together. Reach out on all the socials and love your journey. See you next time.