138. How Storytelling Creates Powerful Connections with Mark Carpenter

💭 How do you tap into the power of storytelling to get your message across effectively?

Mark Carpenter is a master storyteller. He has decades of experience in corporate marketing, public relations, training and facilitation. This led him to inspire people in turning their everyday experiences into meaningful and impactful stories. 

Mark Carpenter describes storytelling as our way of connecting to the world, and it is how we communicate ideas. Relatability is a key aspect of storytelling, as people are more likely to engage with a story that they can see themselves in or relate to the characters through a similar experience.

🎧 Download this episode to discover how storytelling can help create a meaningful connection with your teams.

🌐 Connect with Mark: 

• Website: https://master-storytelling.com/ 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-carpenter-0b55221/
• Master Storytelling: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07K2DM927/

Book Reference:

• Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:26

Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project with your host, Mick Spiers. We bring you thought provoking guests and topics every week to challenge your thinking about leadership. Our aim is to help you become the leader that you wish you always had, as we learn together, and lead together. Hey, it's Mick here breaking in with an exciting announcement. This episode is brought to you by our new business partner, The Lighthouse Group, we have joined forces with The Lighthouse Group to multiply the impact we're having on the world. The Lighthouse Group work with strategic business leaders who want to make change leaders who recognize that leadership is the key lever of organizational performance. The Lighthouse Group is the how to your why working with you to develop a leadership system that forges a high performance culture, across the breadth and depth of your organization, from the CEO and executive leadership team, through senior and middle management, and all the way to aspiring leaders, those with high potential that will form the next generation of leaders in your business, The Lighthouse Group, accelerating transformation through leadership. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. Got a really interesting guest today, we're joined by Mark Carpenter. Mark is a Master Storyteller. And we're going to unpack that quite a bit. And he's the best selling author of the book, Master Storytelling. We're gonna talk about the role of storytelling in leadership about how you use that very intentionally, to communicate with people around you. And it's not just your team, it's also externally how do you tap into the power of storytelling to get your message across and to be an effective communicator, on the way to being an effective leader, we're going to connect all of those dots together, we're going to talk about some of the things that hold people back from storytelling that everyone knows that it's a powerful mechanism. And it's a powerful medium to get messages across and to communicate with people. But there's many people out there that have limiting beliefs about whether they can do it themselves, and where to even begin. So I don't want to steal the whole show in the intro. So let's get into it. Mark, I'd love it, if you would start with your introduction, your background, and what inspired you to be focused on storytelling as a big part of what you do in your business.

Mark Carpenter: 3:03

Thank you, Mick. It's a privilege to be on here with you. And I love the work that you're doing. And talking about leadership. You mentioned that word, intentional intentionality. And that's one of the big things that I focus on as well. I think I've been a storyteller kind of all my life as a kid, it was more to get attention. Then I had a 20 year career in corporate marketing and public relations, where you use a lot of storytelling to convey your company to its various publics. Then I got into training and facilitation, which is another great place to use storytelling to teach and to lead and to inspire people to action. I got to a point where I had a conversation with my wife one time about, I feel like I need to write my book, but I'm not sure what it is. And she looked at me and she says, Oh, I know what it is, which is always irritating when your significant other knows things about you that you don't know. And so I said, I'll come on, how can you know what it is she's now you need to write a book about how you take everyday experiences, and turn them into meaningful and impactful stories. And my first reaction to that was, that's not a book. That's just what people do. And she said, No, that's what you do. But you need to unpack that for people, you need to get some clarity for people who don't know how to do that skill, and how you can do that. And so that led me to get into the research for it. Of course, I didn't completely trust my wife in that moment. So I started talking to other people about it. And they said, Oh, yeah, that'd be a great idea. That'd be a great book collaborated with my good friend, Darrell Harmon, and who's another expert facilitator. And we wrote the book back in 2018, and developed a workshop around that and do coaching around it now. And so that's that's kind of how we got to where we are today.

Mick Spiers: 4:34

Well, awesome, Mark. Thank you for what you do to help people to get into this and to start their journey towards mastery of storytelling. I think that's wonderful. There was a few things that popped into my mind as I heard you speaking there. First one, I feel like this might be the most overused quote on this show. We talk about it all the time. But he's a dear friend of ours, Stephen shed Leschi talks about you know, it's hard to say the label on the jar from inside the jar. So your wife was able to see something in you that maybe you hadn't seen yourself, first of all, and the second one, we talk a lot about gifts and superpowers on this show. And people don't always know what their gift and superpower is. But listen to what Mark was just saying your gift and superpower is the thing that you find completely natural. It's something that you have no problems getting into you find it really I'm not going to say easy because it doesn't always have To be easy, but for you, it's natural, and you can just do it. And you don't have to force yourself to do it. It's just something that comes to you. And it's something that other people don't find natural. And that's, to me the definition of a gift or a superpower. And you found yours, Mark. And the other thing that you said, but I'm gonna save this one for later in the show was about turning everyday events, everyday life events into a story. And I think there's a key there. Let's park that one too. Later. Okay, so you've found your gift. And I'm gonna start with the basics. Why do you think storytelling works?

Mark Carpenter: 6:00

Yeah, you made this comment in your introduction that we all know storytelling is impactful. We all know it does. And I think that's because this is how we make sense of things as human beings. This is how we connect to the world is how we make sense of information that we get. If you go back evolutionarily, back in early man in the ancient the interest of days, how did you relate to other people by talking by sharing stories with each other spoken language existed long before written language did. So this is how we communicated ideas, we communicated it in the form of stories. So I think there's an evolutionary component of that. The cool thing is that we live in a day in a time where we have the technology and the research capability that bears out why that was so important to us. And a lot of it has to do with how our brains work. And it's how we connect to things. There's been some research done with functional MRI, where they hook people up to the functional MRI machines that will light up the show switch part of your brains light up at different times. And then they give them information, just data just in the form of just straight sentences and information. And the show lights up a couple of places in their brain, the auditory centers that were just processing the information coming in, and then some of the reasoning centers or your brain, well, then they share the information in a form of a story. And they found that there were five different parts of your brain that light up in that moment, including the memory section of your brain, because you're trying to connect that story to your experiences into your life. It also connects into the emotional centers of your brain, because the memory and the emotions are so closely related to each other. So think about this, if you want to have an impact on people and help them remember what you're saying, Do you want to light up two parts of their brain or five, you're gonna have a lot better chance if you're lighting up five. So this is why storytelling is so impactful.

Mick Spiers: 7:45

Yeah, really, really good Mark. So clearly it does work, we've known it's worked for decades, or hundreds eccentrics, let's say. And people do pass down stories from generation to generation to generation as a way of something that's got a message in there, there's a story for you to remember. But there's usually some kind of takeaway or message or meaning behind that story. And now with advances in science, we can see it as well, we can just see it and the things that I'm taking away. So far, this making sense of the world, a story helps us make sense of the world, you would use the word connection or being connected, being able to connect dots being connected to the story in some way. And the word relatability, that a story somehow helps us relate to the meaning of the story relate to the story, et cetera, et cetera. Let's talk more about that.

Mark Carpenter: 8:36

And I'd love to follow up on two things you just said there, the relatability and the connection, because there's not only relatability into the experiencing connection to the experience, but it's relatability and connection to the person who's telling you the story to Dr. Paul Zak at Claremont Graduate University has done this research brand around the brain chemistry that happens when you're hearing a well told story. And one of the first things that you get when you hear a story that you can relate to you can relate to the characters in the story. And the challenges that they're facing is your brain gets an increase in oxytocin, you may have heard of oxytocin as the trust hormone. So think about that. Who do people buy from they buy from people they know, trust in like you want people to know, trust and like you, and what do you need to do as a leader, you need to get your people to know trust and like you, storytelling is one of the great ways to build that trust between you because it's going to increase oxytocin in the brains of the listener, because they're not only relating to the experience into the situation, but they're relating to you as a person. And it connects the two of you as people.

Mick Spiers: 9:36

Yeah, this is really powerful. So the first level of relatability, or it doesn't have to be in this order. But one of the levels of relatability is can you see yourself in that situation? Right? So the person is telling a story? Do you see yourself in that situation? Do you get it? Does it make sense to you? And the second one is you're seeing the person that's telling you that story, whether they're on a stage or standing in front of you, you're connecting to them because you're seeing them as a human being, you're seeing their life experience, you're seeing the emotion that they might have gone through and you're going Oh, I like this person. They like me. They're a little bit like me, I can see myself in them. At least some use the word again connection, I can now see a connection between me and Mark. Oh, we've got similar thoughts or we've got similar experiences or oh, he grew up in a family like mine or whatever the case might be. There's it's that building of I'm gonna go Hold on almost micro connections to show that the person in front of me is a human being.

Mark Carpenter: 10:32

Yeah, and that's what it is. And that's the one thing that connects all of us. We're humans, we're human beings, we have human emotions. I've never been to Melbourne, Australia where you are. But if you talk to me about being stuck in traffic in Melbourne, I can still relate to that. Because I've been stuck in traffic, many other places. This is a human condition. If you talk about a frustration that you have with a neighbor, well, I don't know your neighbor, but I know mine. And I know that I've had neighbors that I've been frustrated with in the past. And so I can relate to those very simple things. And this is one of the things the reasons that I focus on those everyday experiences, because those are the most relatable ones that we can teach, lead and inspire from, because we're all human. So we all have these experiences. Think about what your life is, it's just a collection of little stories along the way that make up your day to day life. And everybody else has those two. So if we find those intersecting points where we're intersecting on the same emotion or a similar experience, you can really powerfully connect with other people.

Mick Spiers: 11:32

Yeah, I love this and converting everyday life things, there's a good chance that people will be able to relate to it. This is where I think we do have to be a bit careful, maybe we'll come back to this a bit later, as well. Maybe one of the examples I share with this, if you stand up on a stage, and you're in front of a bunch of let's say, normal people, I'm at risk here of offending half my audience here. But if you let's say people that come from a relatively normal life, and you start telling a story about oh, there was this one time that my friends and I, we were on a 50 meter yacht off the coast of Khan, and you wouldn't believe that we ran out of caviar, and you know how it feels when you run out of like, that's not a relatable story to 99.9% of the population. So yes, it needs to be every day. But it also needs to be relatable to those common points. And the example you gave where you've never been to Melbourne, but you instantly we connected on traffic, we could connect on weather, we could connect on things about relationships, because everyone has relationships. So what are the everyday things that most people find themselves in that you could use as a catalyst in your story? How does that sit with you?

Mark Carpenter: 12:39

Absolutely! And even when you're looking at experiences that maybe nobody else has ever had, why they'll say going to the moon? Okay, so you've seen the movie Apollo 13? Yeah, okay, we haven't been on spaceship. I haven't, I'm assuming you haven't, because that's very small bit of the population that's been on that spaceship. But have we ever been in a situation where something went wrong, and it was really important for us that I can relate to, and that's the humaneness. That's where the humanity comes in. So if I need to share an experience about something that happened on my 50 foot yacht with the caviar, I need to bring that into a relatable way that connects with us as people because there could be something that happened there, that relates to everyone. The other thing I like to emphasize, using your example there, if I'm telling a story about a 50 foot yacht, where we were short, on Caviar, this story is about me. But the stories that I encourage people to tell you're not the hero of the story, the lesson is the hero of the story. So don't focus on the things that highlight you and how wonderful you are. But focus on the lesson that came out of this story, this is going to be important for your listeners to hear. That's the hero of the story. It's not you, it's the lesson learned from that experience. That's the hero of the story.

Mick Spiers: 13:52

That's a really powerful takeaway there, too, Mark, this is another potentially limiting belief where some people get unstuck with storytelling as well. And I'm going to use the word connection again. Now, what is the connection of the story that you're trying to tell to the message that you're trying to convey and then make sure that the message is connected and threaded through not like you say, the experience on the yacht off con, that's got nothing to do with whatever the message was going to end up be? So you, you make the message, the hero, that's really cool. And that's going to help you get to the connection and the relatability. With people? That's really cool. One question I want to dig into mark is about what storytelling is. And that's going to sound like a strange question, but then I'm going to explain where I'm coming from here. And I'm wondering whether this is a limiting belief for many in the audience as well. How far do we have to go. So for me, storytelling can be as simple as a great metaphor to help get your message across a metaphor that you might be able to say in three seconds or 10 seconds through to a full blown Hey, I'm gonna take you on a journey. I'm gonna give you an intro. I'm going to build suspense. I'm going to have a few twists, etc. And then I'm going to have an outro with some kind of takeaway message or call to action, where it's a full almost theatrical storytelling. Alright, so what is storytelling to you, and where does it sit in in that kind of spectrum for you?

Mark Carpenter: 15:16

And I liked that you framed that with what is storytelling to you, where does it sit with me? Because story can be interpreted so many different ways. I mean, you get Talk about epic movies or novels or things like that, that are stories you mentioned, even just analogies or comparisons that we make could be small stories or fairy tales or anything like that. The focus that we have, or the type of story that we focus on are those everyday experiences that teach a lesson where there is a beginning, middle and end, there's an introduction, there's a conflict. And there's a change as the way that we'd like to put that in, because the change gets you focused on what's the lesson learned there. And so it's not just sharing the experience. So it's translating it in a way that it's understandable, relatable, and really hits the point home, you hinted at this, and one of the things that you were saying is by focusing on what's that change that I want to focus on at the end, that allows me to edit myself in that story, I'm sharing the experience, and I've had the experience. So I could share every single detail every step I took every minute of that day, but are those things relevant to the change that I want to get to at the end to the lesson learned, and that's the way that you help edit yourself is that you use the Stephen Covey principle beginning with the end in mind that if I'm clear on what my point is that I'm trying to make in this story, I might look at the experience and go, Oh, I don't need to share that. But this is completely irrelevant to that point. And that will help you consolidate those. Now, to your point, there are times maybe when you're speaking from the stage, and you have a big story that you need to tell the you're going to tell a portion of that and leave it hanging, you're gonna leave the cliffhanger there on the conflict. And you'll come back to it at the end of the speech or the end of the chapter. And in the book. There's other times when you're just in a meeting, and you're trying to convey the importance of I don't know, let's say following a process or following safety protocols. And you want to tell just a fairly simple story to illustrate that this may be two or three minutes long. And you're gonna get it done in that time. But you're still going to use that structure of an introduction, a conflict and a change.

Mick Spiers: 17:17

Yeah, that's really cool. And what I'm picking out there is that ability to filter the substance from the content, right? So if you are thinking about an experience that you had last weekend, or three weeks ago, no, people do not need to know what you had for cereal that morning or for breakfast that morning, unless it impacts the story in some way. Alright, so it's that ability to go back and retell the story in a way where the thread is the message, right, that's connecting the message throughout. And there might be little playbacks where you go. And that's when what happened that morning made sense, or whatever the case might be. So there might be little connections back there. That's really cool. Alright, so the next trap that I see a lot of people fall into then and want to play on this everyday life thing. And I want to play on selecting the story. We do have a lot of people out there, they get told storytelling is the best medium for getting your message across. So they almost force it, they almost force it. So they go, Oh, okay, I'm doing a mini presentation in front of my team today. What story am I going to tell I have to use storytelling, and they end up telling a story that's not connected to the message at all. So how to someone who's not a master storyteller? Like you, they might be somewhere along their storytelling journey? What tips can you give to people to identify an everyday life event that connects to the message that they're trying to get across that time?

Mark Carpenter: 18:37

Yeah, and I'll take this from two different directions. Because I hear this all the time. I hear it all the time. Well, I had nothing interesting happens to me. There's nothing that happens in my life that could turn into a good story. So and I think people use that I'll go back to the phrase you've used several times as their limiting belief, because it gets them off the hook. It says, Well, I don't have to use stories, because nothing important happens to me. Well, I like to emphasize the extraordinary lives inside those ordinary moments, those extraordinary lessons that we've learned can live in those ordinary moments. So which of those moments are they because it's not I had this cereal for breakfast this morning, I encourage people to look at two different directions in this number one, look for those moments in your life, that you have an emotional reaction to something, if you have any kind of emotional reaction to something, there's probably a lesson embedded in that experience that you can extract from that experience. Okay, let me give you a quick example of this. A friend of mine told about an experience driving down the freeway, and he was just about to get over to his lane to exit and somebody slipped in front of him and made it impossible for him to get over. And so then he had to kind of force his way over into traffic. And he was so angry with that person that cut him off that he made it a point to pull up alongside that person as they got to the traffic light at the end of the off ramp. And he was going to look over and kind of give this person a piece of his mind. And he looked in the car, and it was his next door neighbor who had helped him build a fence the weekend before, all of a sudden did his emotions change in that moment from this is a bad guy who's cutting me off in traffic to oh, this is my neighbor, he must have had a good reason for doing that. But he had that emotional reaction there in the moment. And so there's a lesson in there. And that lesson is don't judge too quickly. The character of people based on little things that you see them do. And so you can extract that lesson from that moment because you had that emotional reaction. And then the moment that will trigger it for you. Okay, so there's one way to look at it look for things that you have an emotional reaction to. The second direction I look at is, what's the point that you need to make? What's the lesson that you need to teach to other people, or that you need to embed into your team's mind. And if you start looking for experiences that teach that lesson, a guarantee, you'll find it, it's almost like the universe sends it to you. And really, it's just a matter of being aware of it. It's an awareness thing, if I am looking for an example of why it's important to follow policy, and I just keep that in the top of my mind, I'm going to find it, it may not even be my experience it maybe somebody else's experiences they share with me, but now I've got an experience that I can turn into a story.

Mick Spiers: 21:08

Yeah, really good. Starting with the end in mind, what is the message that ongoing, it might even be worthwhile thinking back into your own memories? When was the moment that I came to that conclusion that that message was important? So when did I learned that lesson, and it could be a good example of the one in traffic, I learned not to judge too quickly that day that my neighbor cut me off, right? So it could be when did I learn that lesson, and then second, connecting to emotion because if you connected if you had an emotional experience, there's a good chance that when you tell the story people will empathize with you will connect to you will connect to the story through a motion. So let's unpack that a little bit more. So emotional storytelling and how to use it right. So if and I'm not talking manipulation, I'm trying to how to use it for best effect. You spoke about oxytocin before he spoke back about chemical reactions. And it is true, like Mark was referring to studies related to this, that when we have these chemicals released in our brain, that our brains do almost light up, and we're ready for memories to be created. And there's all kinds of ones that we can talk about. We can talk about dopamine, we can talk about oxytocin, we can talk about cortisol, all kinds of chemical reactions into the brain. So what role does your storytelling man play as to whether you are trying to get someone to connect in terms of what motion you want them to carry out could be anything from you want them to laugh through to the you want them to almost cry? Because they're so connected to the story? Tell me about how we do that.

Mark Carpenter: 22:38

You know, and if you're concerned about eliciting a certain emotion, people, I'm concerned that you maybe are focusing on the wrong thing, because we should be focusing on what's the lesson that I want to get across to these people? What's the learning point? Honestly, I can tell the same story, and people could laugh at it and have this humorous emotion, or they could be disgusted by it or upset about it, angry about it. But if they learned the lesson, it doesn't matter what emotion they felt, it matters that they got the lesson across the they got that point across, you made a reference to manipulation. And that goes back to intent, the intentionality of telling a story, what is our purpose in telling this? And I was worried about people to say, well, I want people to feel this emotion, saying, okay, so it seems like you're trying to manipulate an emotion. I'm not sure what your intent is in doing that. And so I tried to focus less on what's the emotion you want to elicit and more on you share your own honest emotion to get the story across to get the point across that you're trying to make in that lesson.

Mick Spiers: 23:42

All right. So I love your laser focus on the message. Right? So and the way I've always thought of this, as at the end of my presentation, at the end of my story, what do I want people to think and do differently? Right? What do I want them to think and do differently? And then along the way, I'm sharing a little of myself about how I feel about it. And that may influence how they feel about it. So I'm influencing in some respects, I'm trying to create an environment where they stop and reflect and rethink about what they will think and do. Right? So what are they thinking do today? What do I want them to think and do tomorrow, there's that journey that we're going on. And along the way, there's going to be emotional connections along the way that will make them feel either sad, or may feel happy. That's their emotion, that's their emotion, you're sharing their emotion that you took away from it, but you allow them to own their emotions. That was my take away from that rather than manipulate their emotion. You're sharing your emotions, and you allow them to own their own emotions.

Mark Carpenter: 24:38

Right on and whatever emotions they feel that is going to have that memory impact on their brains because of the connection between memory and emotion that we have. And so the story will have the impact if you are genuinely authentically sharing that emotion you have and I'll tell you this is another limiting belief that people have is they say, Wow, I can't get too emotional in my story, or I can't I can't share the depth of this, especially if maybe I made a bad decision in that moment. I don't want to look bad as a leader because I can't tell the story where I made a mistake because I look bad, but it's that vulnerability that actually connects you more to the people you're leading. And so we have to fight that limiting belief in us that if I show a made a mistake at some point, people are going to think less of me. They're going to do more of me if I learned a lesson from that, and help them to avoid the same problem that I had when they face a similar situation.

Mick Spiers: 25:35

Yeah, 1,000% Mark, if you're able to stand up and vulnerably share a lesson that you learned and a mistake that you made people connect to that it just shows that you're human once again, and people connect to that. And the funny thing is, is a John C. Maxwell quote, I might get it slightly wrong, but I'll do my best here. So he's talking about vulnerability with a group of very senior leaders and about getting people to admit their mistakes, whether it's in storytelling or in other modes, but getting them to admit their mistakes. And one of the CEOs in the room have a very high powerful company, high powered company in a powerful role, said all but you know, admitting mistakes is a sign of weakness. And John said, but that's because you don't think they already know. That's because you don't think they already know. So when you stand up and you're admit your shortcomings to admit your mistake, she admit what you're not good at, people generally already know. And then when they see you admit it, they connect you even more they know like and trust you come back to oxytocin again, or, or the boss knows that he's not good at all. She is not good at this bit. Wow, this is really cool. So it builds trust, when you're able to be just honest about your emotions, and what you're good at what you're not good at.

Mark Carpenter: 26:45

I want to take a pause there, because I want your listeners to just acknowledge what just happened. Did you hear Mick tell that little story, he told this John C. Maxwell story, and they just feel the emotion when he got to the quote of Oh, you're assuming that people don't know you have weaknesses? I felt the emotion of that. And you just demonstrated exactly what we're talking about. And how that lesson is going to stick with this better in the form of that story, rather than if you said, you know, it's okay to expose your weaknesses, because I mean, people already know what they are, I can share that with you as information is not going to stick with me. But in the form of that story. Now it's going to stick.

Mick Spiers: 27:21

Yeah, really cool. And I think we're now getting into an important message, which is about authenticity. And one of the ones that I do see come up on a regular occasion mark, and I were dying to know your thoughts on this is about authenticity in the story. So I've seen examples where people have gone Oh, I really, I really couldn't think of a story that illustrates my point. So I made one up or made one up. Now what happens then? What advice do you have to someone out there that might be on the cusp of do I tell my story? Do I tell someone else's story in like a second or third position view? Or do I make a story up any thoughts?

Mark Carpenter: 27:59

Well, I'll answer your question with a story, which is good, because that's what I do. I was leading a trainer certification. And as part of the Teach Back segment of this, everybody had to, as they taught their content share a story to illustrate their point. And I remember this one participant shared this story that was very funny, and it was exaggerated. Or you could tell it was exaggerated in a lot of ways. And people were laughing about it, the farther she went into the story, the more I went, This isn't ringing true for me. There's something wrong in this story. And I couldn't put my finger on it in the moment. Well, we got to the feedback portion, and we were just talking about it. And the story came up and somebody said, Did that really happen? And she said, No, no, I just made all that up. And I went, Oh, that's it. That's what wasn't sitting right with me. I couldn't even put my finger on it in the moment. But it didn't feel authentic. And so it didn't have the message didn't didn't ring true to me. And so that's what I always caution people on is it that authenticity of the message that makes it stick, I think it's fine to borrow other people's stories, I tell other people's stories all the time, I did it a little earlier about my friend who was getting off the freeway, the other thing I encourage people to do is don't tell other people's stories as if they're your own. I didn't take that story and say I was driving down the freeway. And this happened to me. And it was my neighbor who helped me build a fence, when I have a neighbor who didn't help me build a fence that's just not going to ring is true. It's okay to borrow other people's stories, just give credit to them, and give credit to the lesson that's learned from that. But those real life stories are the ones that are going to be most authentic, they're going to ring true to people and that you're going to really tie in to all that brain chemistry that we've been talking about. Whereas the made up stories won't do that as well. I mean, there's some great fables out there. There's some great stories that are made up that have great emotional impact. But for the purposes that I'm talking about, where you're leading people, and you're leading people with authenticity, tell real stories, real experiences.

Mick Spiers: 29:54

Yeah, I think it's the congruence and that's a great example. And I'm we've both done it, like I told him, John C. Maxwell story, I didn't tell my own story. I used his because it was a great story, right? And the part of that then is the congruence with emotion because then I'm sharing what I took away from John's story, and you can empathize with me or you can empathize with John or you can empathize with the CEO that was sitting in the audience when John had that response to him. All of those say you're now being very authentic about who it was, what they were feeling. You're trying and you're going to be Will those authentic connections? So I think that's it. So kind of the takeaway for me there mark is to almost prioritize first person stories. If you don't have a first person story, don't be shy to go with a second person story, but tell it as a second person story, the one I've seen works sometimes I've run this past year and see whether what you think of this one, if you are going to tell a make up story, that it's so ludicrous. Like it's so obvious that it's not true that sometimes that can be funny. And that can be that can like you see comedian sometimes do this. They'll stand up and they'll tell a story. Most comedians that connect really well tell real stories, but then they occasionally they'll tell something that's so outlandish that you instantly know that it's not true, but you still go on the journey with them. What about that technique?

Mark Carpenter: 31:12

Well, and again, it depends on what your intent is, what's your purpose, you use comedians is an example what what is their purpose? What's their intent in doing that, it's to get people to laugh, it's to make something funny. And that's fine, if that's your intent in doing that, but remember what your intent is in the story. Now, I'll also say some of the best comedians, some of the best comics that I've heard are the ones that I relate to most are the ones that take those everyday experiences. And they tend to exaggerate certain details. Now, I would say the same thing is going to happen in our stories that are designed to teach, lead, sell and inspire that we may emphasize certain points of the story above others in service to the message and service to the point that we're trying to make the intent of the story. And we're going to leave out certain things that happen that don't drive to that intent. And that's fine, too. But yeah, I think there's a purpose. There's a place for made up stories for invented stories. But if you're really trying to get people to take action on something, it's the real stories, I think they're going to have the most impact.

Mick Spiers: 32:12

Fully agree. And once again, we're letting What did you say think a moment ago, you said, I'm being a servant to the message room? What will serve the message best at this point? That's a really powerful message. Okay. All right. So next one I want to talk about is context. Because we've chopped and changed a little bit here, we've spoken about standing on a stage telling a story. But storytelling doesn't have to be a theatrical performance on a stage or a conference, etc. It could be two people like you and I, on a zoom call on your Friday night, my Saturday morning, it could be your next team meeting where there's seven people in a meeting, it could be the next barbecue or picnic that you're going to, it doesn't have to be the big setting. Tell us about storytelling in some of those more intimate settings versus the rehearse story that you might be doing on a stage.

Mark Carpenter: 32:59

And I like all of the examples that you gave, I would add to those examples in one on ones with your team members. If I've got a correction that I need to give to a team member, for example, maybe I need to tell a story to illustrate why that's so important to make that correction if you've got a team member that's a little lacks on hitting their deadlines, and I can share the experience of Yeah, you know what, I had a problem with that too, when I was in your similar position. And there were times that I missed deadlines. And I found out by doing that Mick got really behind on something and we lost an account over it. Well, okay, that's a little bit different than just saying, hey, you need to meet your deadlines, because I can feel the connection to that. So there's another situation when I want sales situations, I think are a great place to use storytelling. And I think it's an underutilized skill in the sales process. Rather than just giving facts and features and benefits and prices and comparisons with competitors. Take your prospect on the journey of where they could go with your product or service, I had a client who was in the similar situation that you're in, they were reluctant to get on board with this, they finally decided to try it on this level. And when they did, this was the change that they experienced. And now they're one of our best clients. And they endorse us. And they've had this wonderful experience that's changed their business in their lives. But I can take you as a prospect on that journey. I'm going to remember more you over your competition. And I'm going to remember the feeling of that journey is likely going to bring me back to you to become a customer use it to overcome objections that you have with potential clients. Oh, I just don't have the budget right now. Yeah, I had had another client who was in that same situation, here's how they got around it, you know, instead of saying, well, but it's just gonna be this much, or can we send it into payment plans. And we tend to jump into that we jump into these little solution things to try to get them done. And it doesn't always work doesn't always work very effectively. It reminds me this great quote from a neurologist, his name's Donald Cohen, he says the difference between reason and emotion is that reason leads to conclusions. And emotion leads to action. So wherever you want to get somebody to take action, you're going to want to give them the reasons that'll lead them to conclusions. But if you want to get them to act, you need something to kind of drive that emotional state. And that's where a story can help you to do that. So think about any of those situations where you want people to take action.

Mick Spiers: 35:20

Let's think of both of those now, here's how I'm going to tell you my takeaways from that whether it's the one on one or the sales environment. You are looking for action, right? So I love this statement that using reason leads to conclusion. And motion leads to action. And we are emotional creatures. We all make decisions, whether we like it or not, we make decisions emotionally, and we justify them rationally. So the reasoning in the story helps us calm our brain and go, Yeah, this is rational. But in reality, we make a decision about what we're going to do about it emotionally, right. So that's really powerful. So instead of just the client sits in front of you, they got a problem and you solve I know their solution to that problem, you just do this, there's no connection, there's no emotion, that's just a rational answer. What they want is the storytelling. They want the journey. So this reminds me of the time where we helped client X Y, Zed, and now we're having this problem. It sounds similar to yours, Mr. Customer, it sounds or Mrs. Customer, it sounds like they were having this, but what the real challenge for them was this. And then when we were able to help them with this, you know what, everything was better on, and they were able to achieve their goals that quarter, or whatever the case may be. But by doing so, A, you're tapping into our emotions. Second, you're tapping into empathy, because now the person is going to go, oh, oh, Mark, he really gets me he understands my real problem. He didn't just solve my the thing that I told him, he took the time to understand my real problem, he gets me. And now we're back to know like and trust, we know, like and trust.

Mark Carpenter: 36:51

And I love that point about, he understands my pain here. He understands what what I'm going through. And a lot of times in sales, they teach you that, you know, to look for the customer pain points and to ask the questions. And these are all valid things to do to ask questions to get to what are their real pains, but a lot of times we get to that point, and then we jump into super sales mode, oh, well, then you have to buy this. In fact, you need the upgraded version of that, because that's gonna get you these features and these features and these features and these features. And now we're back to kind of logic and reason. But that doesn't get people to action. So you'd share that information? Do you need to share the why with people people need to understand? What's that? What's that going to change? For me? What problem is it going to solve? Or what pain am I going to avoid by doing that, and a story is the best way to get that across to people?

Mick Spiers: 37:38

Awesome. I think this is taking us into another misconception about storytelling that I'd love to run past you. And that is the misconception that storytelling is somehow asynchronous that it's in a single direction, that storyteller to audience. But I think what we're touching on here is about the role of listening in storytelling, the role of listening and perceiving. So whether you are standing on a stage and you're tapped into the emotion of the room, and you're seeing what's learning, what's not learning, what are people connecting to, what are they not connecting to, or at sitting in front of that customer, that you're listening just as much or even more than what you're talking but then you're connecting your story to the person and to what they're going through. So we often think about storytelling as being from me to you tell us about the role of listening and powerful storytelling.

Mark Carpenter: 38:29

I love that you picked up on that, Mick, if we're thinking of storytelling, as this is just me to you. We're back in that mode, where the story's about me, because I'm just telling you stuff. But if we're really listening and paying attention, we're going to recognize this stories about them. As much as it is about me, one of the things that we have an entire chapter on this in the book, and we teach this in the workshop is the power of asking questions as part of your story, asking a question like, do you ever experienced something like that? Or when was the time that you felt that level of frustration that I'm just describing to you, but when you put that little question out there, all of a sudden, they're in the middle of your story, and it's your story, but it's their story to now because you're in the middle of it. And so you're you're making this much more about them, they can have what's termed a vicarious experience. They weren't exactly there with you. But it feels like they're standing next to you in that story as you're connecting them into their needs. And so even from the stage, if you're talking to 5000 people on a stage, you can pause and ask a little question like that, that can be just a rhetorical question, but it gets them thinking, connecting in a way that they don't make that connection without having that question asked.

Mick Spiers: 39:40

That's really powerful. So those questions are the things that get people to stop, reflect, think they start seeing themselves in the story, and it's a way of engaged connecting to them right there at that point, otherwise, they're just listening to an interesting story. Okay. Yeah, that's really powerful. Michael Porter, we've covered lots of really interesting ground, we do have a lot of people out there that have those limiting beliefs about even starting. Alright, so you and I, before we got on, we started talking about this, and I thought you had some really powerful points. I want to explore that right now. People that say, it's just not me. I'm not a storyteller. I don't know how to do that. You could call it a fixed mindset. You could call it all kinds of things. But how do you help people that just say, it's just not me? I don't know how to do.

Mark Carpenter: 40:23

Yeah, that's thinking that storytelling is a personality trait. A rather than a skill, and it's a skill. It's a skill like any other skill. And if you recognize that it's something that you want to be able to do you recognize the impact that we've been talking about here, you can build it just like any other skill. Jack. Mick, I'm going to pick on you a little bit. You weren't prepared for this question, but I'm going to I'm going to throw it at you. The very first time you hosted a podcast. How skilled were you as a podcast host?

Mick Spiers: 40:49

It's horrible hours horrible mic. I scripted everything. I was aiming for perfection the whole time. It was it was a train wreck.

Mark Carpenter: 40:56

Yeah. How did you get better?

Mick Spiers: 40:58

I intentionally practiced I worked on what was working well, what wasn't working? Well, I took one step at a time and went Okay, so in the next episode, I'm going to try this and see how that works, etc, etc. Yep.

Mark Carpenter: 41:11

Storytelling is exactly the same way you learn the process. And I'm sure before you started your podcast, you listen to other podcast hosts, you probably read some things about this is a good way to host a podcast, this is what I like this one comfortable with. And then you tried it, you weren't that great at it, but you kept working at it and you refined that skill. That's exactly the same way it is with storytelling, learn the structure, we teach very simple structure. In our book, there's some people that try to teach us really complicated, 12 step process and telling the perfect story, we have three sections that we focus on, because we want it to be simple and memorable and easy for you to do. But then you have to step out and try it. But it's not a personality trait. It's not I'm either a storyteller or I'm not. It's a skill that you can build just like any other skill. So for your listening, I picked on you about being a podcast host for your listeners, if you're having that belief that I'm just not a natural storyteller. Think about things that you are good at. And how did you develop that skill, you'll need to do the same thing with storytelling, learn about it, practice it, get feedback, get some coaching on it, and then just keep doing it and learn from those experiences, learn from those moments, turn your bad days into good data, where this went wrong, but what went wrong? And then you can fix it the next time. But if you throw up your hands and say, No, it's just not me, then you'll never get the advantage and the benefits that come from storytelling.

Mick Spiers: 42:35

So really powerful takeaways. So it's not a personality trait, it is a skill. It's not like you're a born storyteller, or you're not a storyteller that doesn't exist. So it's not a personality trait, it is a skill. It's a skill that can build up over time, when you're building up over time, be aware that it may not go right every day, right? So there will be times because that's another factor that could lead toward mock is that they stood on a stage one day, and they tried to tell a story and it just completely didn't land. So never try again. Well, you're never gonna get there if you if you take that attitude. So you just got to go day, the time and go, Okay, I'm going to try this. And then I'm going to learn from it and do those debriefs with yourself, do those debriefs, okay, what worked? What didn't work, or if you've got a trusted person that can advise you, they might have been in the audience when you gave a story, what parts of the story worked? What parts didn't? You know, and don't be self critical, be self aware. So it's not about beating yourself up? It's been it's about building your self awareness of what worked and what didn't work?

Mark Carpenter: 43:30

Yeah. And I would even say, before you go to tell the story, you can coach yourself really well, by using one of these, just record yourself on your phone, record yourself on your phone and play it back. Now, again, I loved your point there. Don't be self critical. Just be self aware. What are some things that you went, ooh, that didn't land, right, that sounded so much better in my head than it did on the recording here. Learn from those things. And I want to add to what you said, I have bombed a bunch of stories, I have told stories that I looked at I thought it was gonna go well, I thought it was gonna make a point. And people were like, what? And so then I had to just assess is it the experience that's not strong enough? Or is it the way that I told it? And sometimes it's one and sometimes it's the other there have been times, I'm not even tell that story that doesn't translate well to other people. And there's other times where I said, Oh, hey, just need to refine this point. And then it makes it a stronger story. So just learn from those things and develop it over time.

Mick Spiers: 44:21

All right, so many powerful takeaways from today's episode Mark, I want to round us out a little bit. So the message being key that it's not about you, it's about looking for a connection with your audience. It's about having a story that's relatable that connects your story to the message that you're trying to get that the message needs to be the thread throughout what you want people to think and do differently. And the fact that they're going to have emotions along the way is part of the process. But what you're going to do is authentically share your emotion. And then let them own their own emotions. Don't manipulate them, let them own their own emotions. And that will help them remember the story and remember the message that you're looking to get across and remember that it's a skill, it's not a personality trait, just start somewhere, start slow, and then just build it up time and time again and pay attention, pay attention and have that kind of cycle of self improvement where you get better and better each time and it won't always go right but it's super powerful when it does and when you build this skill up to a level of proficiency and then beyond that, Astri so thank you so much for absolutely adored our conversation today. I'd like to now crescendo us to our Rapid Round, which is the same four questions that we ask all of our guests. So first of all, what's the one thing you know, now that you wish you knew when you're 20?

Mark Carpenter: 45:41

The thing that keeps coming back to my mind is it's going to be okay. I think when I was in my 20s, I'd make one mistake, and this is going to kill my career, or this is just, this is just awful. It made me just not catastrophize things as much, it's going to be okay. Because in my history, everything has been okay. I've had problems, I've had failures, but things are going to turn out. Okay, so don't get don't stress the small stuff.

Mick Spiers: 46:04

I love it. It's gonna be okay. The sun still comes up tomorrow. And if you've had a bad day, what did you learn from it? Are you stronger today than you were 10 years ago? I'm gonna say most likely, yes, right here. Very good. Love it. What's your favorite book?

Mark Carpenter: 46:18

This is so hard, because I love books. And I have so many books that I love. I'm gonna go with one that you and I were talking about in our pre called the discussion. And that's crucial conversations, tools for talking when stakes are high, just so many powerful skills. And it really that book did change my life because it changed how I looked at things. I remember when I read it, my immediate reaction was, this is the source of every problem I've ever had is that I haven't been able to have these types of conversations effectively. So I love the book, Crucial Conversations.

Mick Spiers: 46:48

It's another one that's clouded with limiting beliefs that we need to address as well in our lives, and most of us have those Alright, so really good. What's your favorite quote?

Mark Carpenter: 46:57

I'm gonna go to a quote, that's not a well known quote, because it was my one of my favorite college professors that said, this, he was talking in our senior seminar class about, you're gonna get out there in the real world, now you're gonna go into real work, you're gonna have emergency situations come, and the quote that I remember was this one, when those situations Come, Hurry, But Don't Panic. And I just that advice has served me so well over the years, when I get into a situation where it's like, oh, no, we're in emergency mode. Okay, hurry, but don't panic, move fast. But the panic is what happens inside of our heads that makes us make more mistakes, and will create more problems than solve problems. If we're in panic mode, rather than just moving fast.

Mick Spiers: 47:39

Yeah, really good. I love it, Mark, and you know, all the things that go in your brain, when you're in panic mode, what part of your brain is really processing? It's going to be the root brain, it's not going to be the limbic or the neocortex. Yeah. When you get into those panic moments, is that really serving you really good, love it. And finally, people are going to be really interested in what we've shared today, there's going to be people in the audience that have always wanted to build the skill of storytelling, but have never never made the journey or there might be others that are already quite good. And they want to get to the level of mastery, how do people find you and take advantage of your services to take their storytelling to the next level?

Mark Carpenter: 48:15

Well, the best place to start is our website, which is master-storytelling.com, to get that little dash between master and storytelling. And I'd actually point people to the free stuff page. That's there. We have a download on there that's free. We call it the Story Catcher. And it really helps to drive people through some of these limiting beliefs that you've been talking about. But where do you find stories, well, how do I convert this experience into a good story? So it's a it's a free download there encourage you to get it master-storytelling.com, I'd also encourage you to look me up on LinkedIn and connect with me there, I put out a story based on a real experience that happened to me every week, just to prove that point that it these happened to us all the time. And there's always a lesson that's embedded in those stories. So I'd love to get your reactions to those as you as you go to my LinkedIn page. So look for Mark Carpenter, look for Master Storytelling, you find the link between those two, you'll find me on LinkedIn.

Mick Spiers: 49:11

Outstanding, Mark, I've thoroughly enjoyed our discussion today. It's been a journey for me as well. I always learned something new. And you've shared a lot with me around things like personality traits versus skill building, thinking about emotion versus manipulation. That was a really key one for me so many great takeaways today. Thank you so much for my personal lesson, and the fact that we get to share this with so many people. Thank you, Mark.

Mark Carpenter: 49:36

Thank you, Mick, I really do appreciate you having me on with your Mick to help the leaders lead more like people this is I think what we're both all about is trying to get people to humanize their leadership, and mechana. You're doing a lot of great work around that. And I appreciate you bringing me on to be part of that journey.

Mick Spiers: 49:55

Thank you, Mark. It was our pleasure. And thank you for sharing your wisdom and insights. This episode was brought to you by our new business partner, The Lighthouse Group. We have joined forces with The Lighthouse Group to multiply the impact we're having on the world. The Lighthouse Group work with strategic business leaders who want to make change leaders who recognize that leadership is the key lever of organizational performance. The Lighthouse Group is the how to your why, Working with you to develop a leadership system that forges a high performance culture, across the breadth and depth of your organization, from the CEO and executive leadership team, through senior and middle management and all the way to aspiring leaders, those with high potential that will form the next generation of leaders in your business. You can find more details about The Lighthouse Group in the show notes. And don't forget to tell them that I sent you, The Lighthouse Group accelerating transformation through leadership. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project that mickspiers.com A huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content. And to all of the team at TLP- Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel where we bring you interesting videos each and every week. And you can follow us on social particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Now in the meantime, please do take care. Look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.