Don't Be Boring, Here's the Fix: Storytelling 101 - ep54 Hardcore and At Ease

This show is powered by Others Over Self. Hit that subscribe button to keep training your brain. If you tell your story well, the hard parts included, what do you win? You're not gonna win universal approval, and you're not gonna win everyone's understanding, and you're definitely not gonna win everyone's kindness. From others over self, it's Hardcore and At Ease, a show about people who are keeping their edge without going over the edge. I'm host Shelly Rood, and today we tackle what's holding you back when you open your mouth, whether it's a job interview, a first date, dinner with old friends. We're exploring what it means to trust the process, even when your own story falls falls flat and a storytelling principle that goes back to Aristotle, you'll walk away with the exact shift that turns what you have to say into a story that has people leaning in instead of tuning out. This is Hardcore and At Ease. Celebration is in the air because we are closing in on a full year of this show. That's right, Hardcore and At Ease turns 1 in mid-July. This is a full year of sitting across from people, asking questions, listening for the moment in conversation when something real breaks open. I've been looking back through all of it this week, every conversation, every question, every guest, and out of all of it, there's two interviews that keep pulling my attention because they felt awful. And I believe in exposing our faults just as much as our successes. So we're going to be clear about why these two interviews felt so awful for me. The guests were not the problem. You see, as the interviewer in the room in real time, as these conversations are happening, both of them felt like they were just slipping through my hands. This is what makes it strange. I was so excited. To land both of these conversations. I mean, these are people that you dream about when you start a show like this. I studied everything that I could about these high-profile people. And you know that to be on my show, you have to do mission work that's very commending. We're talking about real service here. We're talking about lives that are spent showing up for other people. And so when the moment of conversation came, And it felt like a failure. That's not just something that was undelivered. It felt like failure. Sitting mid-conversation with somebody that I admire and respect, watching something in that moment that I had worked really hard for just slipping away. I wanna hold that feeling against something else because very early in this show, in one of the first episodes, I sat down with a man that most of you know through his work, even if his name doesn't ring a bell. Donald Miller, he's an 11-time New York Times bestselling author. He's the founder of StoryBrand, the marketing framework that I was personally trained on this year by his own team down in Nashville. Now, the questions and answers, the framework for this podcast hasn't changed significantly, and I prepared just as much for my interview with Don that I did the other two, and yet the conversation felt completely different. With Don, it was alive. It was forward moving. It was the conversation that you don't want to end. And near the close of it, Don said something that I don't think fully registered with me until I sat down with these much harder interviews this year. And I wanted to figure out what went wrong and compare it with what goes right. So I'm going to stop talking here and I'm going to play the clip from Donald Miller that I'm talking about.

Yeah, I think it's— it's— you have to hold two things in your hand. At the same time, your complete and total insignificance and your extreme importance. And your total insignificance is that your story really doesn't matter. Your importance is that you can actually help other people live a better story themselves. And that my daughter's story depends heavily on whether or not I show up heavily. And that makes me feel important, right? That makes, that gives me a purpose to living. When it's my story, you know, I'm not very motivated, but when I realize how important I am and can be in the stories of my friends, my coworkers, my customers, my family.

What you just heard is the difference right there in that one clip. When it's Don's story, he's not motivated. When it's the story of the people around him, that's where it elevates. So today I want to unpack exactly what that difference is so that when we open our mouths, any of us, whether you're the one being interviewed or even the one asking the questions, the story lands the way that it's intended to. Underneath all of this is a question that I used to think was a standard principle: Does someone have to earn the right to hear your story? I hear that a lot in the veteran landscape, and I used to believe it, but I'm not so sure anymore. So on that note, let's get into it. Here is what we love about story in the first place. Movies, podcasts, the book that you just can't put down, We're not chasing information. We're chasing the feeling of being inside something, a narrative, wondering what happens next, wanting something for the person that we're following. Christopher Booker, he spent years studying nearly every story that humans return to, and he found the same handful of shapes exist underneath all of these stories. I'm talking about stories of rags to riches or overcoming the monster. What about a story that you can think of that involves a quest? You see, every one of these stories has an outside stake. Something changes. Something is at risk. And I just mentioned 3 plots, and in Booker's book, The Seven Basic Plots, he goes even deeper. Look at how thick this book is. This is really the textbook that we're leaning into today, because what Booker teaches us is that when we just talk about a recited routine, well, that doesn't carry any of those details. When you're just spitting out facts laid end to end, it's not interesting. Now, similar to Booker, there's another book that's much, much smaller, and this one is called Save the Cat. It's by Blake Snyder, and he spent his career studying what makes screenplays work for an audience. Now with Save the Cat, early in a movie, we learned that the hero does something small and human. So the audience decides that they want something for that person before the story ever even starts to flow and asks the watcher to follow. That's the mechanism. Without that mechanism, you can sit through a technically perfect film. And not feel anything. That is what I'm feeling was missing in these two difficult interviews this year. Both of my guests were remarkable. They're doing incredible work, and I respect them deeply, but neither one gave me or you, the listener, a reason to feel something or to want something for them. They talked about their routine, they talked about their wins, maybe even a little bit of loss, But it was mostly a process, how they got to A to B. And a listener can only sit with that for so long before they check out, myself included as an interviewer. Sometimes when you're talking to somebody, it's just boring. And this isn't because we dislike the person. Hear me out here. It's because the story never asked for the listener to want something. And so that's the piece that that clip of Donald Miller you just heard, it names it so clearly. You see, when it's Don's story, he's not motivated. When it's someone else's story that he gets to be a part of, that's where it elevates. He built his career and he trained me and a room full of coaches under the same roof in Nashville on the idea that every story has to give the listener somewhere to stand inside of it. Now, I'm not walking you through his entire framework today. StoryBrand is a whole different conversation for a different time. Here, I just want you to take away that one truth from Don. Now, before we go any further on this topic, it's worth focusing on a question that'll bring some clarity to the rest of the conversation. That question is, whose story is it? And who decides? You see, there's a bigger idea here that's happening underneath the frame. Your entire life is one long narrative. It always has been. It's either crafted as a narrative, you know what you want and you go after it, or it's not crafted. We can be very reactionary with our lives. Now our life story, it gets written, it gets rewritten, and we look at again every day how it stands. Inside of that life story are millions of other stories. We can stand today looking back at everything that already happened. We can stand today and look forward at everything that hasn't happened yet. All those are stories. Now that crafting is a power that you already hold. The million smaller stories that live inside that one long narrative, those are all individual pivotal moments for us. Some of those moments can be traumatic. It can span more than one event. Maybe it's a whole season of life, or maybe it's a relationship that shaped you more than you realized at the time. You see, nobody tells their whole life in one sitting. That would take, well, the amount of time of a lifetime. And so the craft is choosing which piece to zoom into. You know that I'm former intelligence and I love looking for gaps. So that is the gap that I'm looking for. And that's the gap that I witnessed with these two interviews. Neither of these guests were able to zoom in on something specific. Both of them gestured at more of the whole shape of their life and their career instead of cropping it down to a moment with a stake in it. That's the same mistake as never crafting the bigger narrative at all. Now here's where it gets uncomfortable, so stay with me. The reason that most of us don't zoom in on the hard parts— I'm talking about the failures, the stakes, the moments that scared us— it is judgment. We're afraid of what we will think about ourselves and our actions. We're also afraid of what people will think if they see the real version. So we leave it out. And the problem is that leaving it out doesn't protect us. It just means that the story has nothing left for the listener to hold onto. So I wanna ask you something that I've been sitting with myself. Does someone have to earn the right to hear your story? I used to think that was a standard principle, but for me, I'm not really sure that it is anymore. You see, yes, your story, it is yours. Every piece of it, the lived experience, the big narrative, and every smaller one that's cropped out of it. Nobody has to qualify for that. Nobody has to prove that they deserve it before you're allowed to tell it. That's intellectual capital, that's creative capital, and it belongs to you completely. What you choose to craft and share is entirely within your own control. Here's what is not in control: the person receiving it. You can shape the story with them in mind, But you cannot decide how it lands inside of them. Somebody will hear it wrong. Somebody will hear it exactly right. Somebody won't be ready for it yet. And yet none of those reactions is a failure on your part. So if earning the right isn't the real question, here's one that might replace it for me: craft is not permission. Craft is care. You don't need anyone's approval to tell your story. You do need to have shaped it and chosen the right piece of it with enough care that when it reaches the person who needed it, it does something for them. Now, I've leaned on this next idea before, way back when I talked about observation and listening: Simon Sinek's Infinite Game. It's well known that the best stories, the best books, they've been banned and they've been burned. And they still matter generations later. Because haters are gonna hate in every direction and every time, so no matter how carefully we craft it, this isn't something that we can run away from. You see, you're not playing to win one clean reception from every possible listener. That's not the game we're playing. You're playing to keep being someone who tells the truth well enough to get to do it again. It's the infinite game. So does someone have to earn your story? No, but the receiver still shapes how you tell it and which piece of the narrative you choose to crop in. This is the difference between ownership and audience awareness. These aren't opposites. We're talking about crafting the story for them, releasing the outcome to them. These are two different jobs, and only one of them is really ever ours to control. And here's a really cool caveat to this question of whose story is it. Keep in mind here that I am not a shock jock on this podcast. I have no interest in saying or pushing my guests to reveal anything that's beyond what they agreed to come on and talk about. But what can happen, if you let it, Every now and then, a person that I interview will make a self-discovery during the interview, and it brings a whole new layer of meaningfulness and even internal healing to their story. For example, if you go back to episode 6, I interviewed Andy Matthews, and as he's talking, you can hear him having a revelation about how his journey from being a pro golfer, top 10 in the Canadian PGA, to now he's a breathwork coach for the athletes. Well, that transition from athlete to coach, it's not just a label change. He says it out loud as he's recognizing it, that he is elevating the entire game of golf. That moment right there, for me to play a tiny part in him having that recognition, I will cherish that moment of his story. For the rest of my life, because that gives me purpose. So now that you understand whose story it is and who decides, let's shift our focus off of ourselves as the storyteller, and let's take another look at the other person, because the interviewer has a skill gap that needs to be talked about. Let me turn this back on myself, because it would be very easy to sit here and talk about what my two guests could have done differently, but that's not fair, and it's also not true. You see, when an interview goes badly, some of that does belong to me. Interviewing is a trained skill. I went to Western Michigan University and I went for journalism. Literally took class after class after class on how to interview. I worked in broadcast television. I've worked in radio. Interviewing is not an instinct. That people have. It's a skill. Some hosts have it and others don't. Health professionals and even coaches, they spend years working on something called motivational interviewing. This is a discipline that's built entirely around the goal of helping someone carry their own words and thoughts forward in a positive direction. Motivational interviewing. It's a documented craft and it's the same craft that I'm still building on and fine-tuning every week. So if you have a pen handy, go ahead and grab it because I'm gonna give you 3 amazing questions right now that I have learned over the years that can help others open up while they're sharing. The first question is, in that moment, how did that feel? Now you wanna use this question when a guest reveals a moment and you wish that you were in the room with them. You can't make the mistake of assuming that you knew how they felt in that moment, because when you ask them the actual question, "How did that feel?" they might say something totally different than what you heard. Now, the second question to ask is, "What do you mean when you say that?" When we ask someone this question, what we're doing is trying to get them to clarify. You can restate something that they recently said or said a couple of sentences ago, and then challenge them with, "What do you mean when you say that?" This question does two things. It reinforces a point that they did make, and it also helps them to define what their intent was in the moment. And the third question I want you to learn is really more of a statement. It's not a question. I want you to say to them, tell me more. Simply said, tell me more. And then pause. Big pause. My good friend Christopher Lockhead, he has a podcast called Follow Your Different, and I asked him his advice on interviewing. And the first thing that he said is watch for that big pause. And as an interviewer, hold that pause because when you allow the other person to speak, they will fill the gap. That pause is very uncomfortable, just as much for the guest as you. And so if you say, "Tell me more," or you simply leave the space for them to talk, then they will fill it. So here's a quick recap of those 3 story-opening phrases to use: "In that moment, how did that feel?" "What do you mean when you say that?" And "Tell me more." Now here's my own hard moment, and it's more recent than you might think. So 20 minutes into an interview, I know exactly who I was sitting with. I was here in my studio. The room was even a little bit chilly because I've got the air conditioning on. And I just remember thinking very clearly, "I am just done." I wasn't angry. It wasn't a matter of drama. It wasn't like anything notable happened in the conversation. I just simply didn't want to continue this moment of talking to this person, particularly in this way. It was a moment of certainty just sitting in my chest that this conversation was just dead. It had obviously gone somewhere that neither of us felt like we could pull it back from. And in that moment, I really didn't have the tools or the desire to redirect it. Now, being 20 minutes into an interview and feeling like I am just done, well, that's not a story that I love telling. And I certainly don't wanna scare off any of my guests that are thinking about coming on my show. But on the other hand, maybe I do, because I love it when people do think intentionally about how they share stories and they craft it with the listener in mind. So for me to tell you that sometimes I feel this way when I'm interviewing, it is a failure of sorts. But you see, leaving it out and not sharing that with my audience, it would be exactly the same mistake. That I've been describing. So I wanna own this moment completely because I can't control how you receive this notice of your host admitting to a failure in the middle of a recording. But I am telling you anyway, because that's a potential negative outcome that all of us face when we choose to engage in storytelling, or if it's not storytelling, when we just converse with one another socially. I want you to know that I do fail sometimes, and it is very uncomfortable, and maybe you'll be rooting for me just a little bit more in the next interview that you listen to. With that being said, we're gonna take a moment to talk about what this looks like in practice. Here's what I want you to walk away with today. 3 things to consider before you tell your next story, whether you're telling it in an interview setting, whether you're just at a dinner table, or maybe you're even taking stage. Where's the moment that you almost quit, you almost failed, or you didn't make it? And are you willing to leave that in? One more time, I want you to really consider thinking about the moment that you almost quit, that you almost failed, that you didn't make it, or you almost didn't make it. And are you willing to leave that in your storytelling? You see, Donald Miller, he didn't have to tell me about the bad business deal that he made a few years ago. About how he lost his finances and, quite frankly, his entire purpose as a result. But I am so glad that he did, because now I'm cheering for Don even harder in his current business venture. And with every success that he has— like right now, he's getting a new corporate headquarters building put up in downtown Nashville— and I feel like I'm right there with him. I get to be a part of his story, and no matter how small my actual part is, Now, the second thing that I want you to consider is, have you been withholding a detail because you're waiting for permission that you don't need? In the military, we have another way to say this: it's better to ask forgiveness than permission. This is how we get things done. We get amazing revolutionary things done that others, quite frankly, say are impossible. We do these things anyway. And yes, Sometimes we do find ourselves asking for forgiveness after the fact, and that's okay. Have you been withholding a detail because you're waiting for permission that you don't need? And finally, the third thing that I want you to consider is this: What is one small shift in how you're telling this that would let somebody want something for you instead of just learning about you? You see, I've learned that these hidden details, or what we know as Easter eggs in the movie process, these are the key to a deeper, more meaningful story. Like mentioning that you have a child or a former spouse, that you're dating someone new, or you're thinking about starting a podcast of your own. It might sound trivial, but these are the common life experiences that draw us deeper into each other. And they can make what we're saying instantly more meaningful to the other person. Now, on one final note, we're bringing this episode to a close. If you tell your story well, the hard parts included, what do you win? You're not gonna win universal approval, and you're not gonna win everyone's understanding, and you're definitely not gonna win everyone's kindness. What you will win by telling your story well is the chance to be able to tell the next one. And that's the game. It's an infinite one that just keeps going. Tell your story once, craft it, tell it again, craft it for a different audience, tell it again. You can win that game over and over if you want to keep playing. Today's episode is giving you something to carry into your next story. Your next story. You can bring that with you to join.othersoverself.com. We're a community of ambitious people just like you, and we're putting these same ideas into practice every day. I'm your host, Shelly Rood, and next week I have a ringer of a guest for you. Are you ready for this? Next Tuesday, he served with the elite SEAL Team Six. That's right, retired U.S. Navy SEAL Andy Stumpf. He's on Hardcore and At Ease. An elite counterterrorism operator, public speaker, host of Cleared Hot. Andy is our celebrity guest interview that's bringing in our first year of being on air. So join me next Tuesday to hear a few of his stories. We're talking about the veteran lifestyle and entrepreneurship, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and what it's like to be married to one of the strongest women on the planet. Both literally and figuratively. So with that, I will see you next week. Thanks for being with me today. Until then, stay hardcore, be at ease, and trust the process.

You're listening to Hardcore and At Ease. Keep the conversation going at join.othersoverself.com.