One of our favorite kindness storytellers, Neal Foard joins us. We have been following Neal's messages on a variety of platforms and we were fortunate to land Neal as a guest. Sincerely great person making a difference in our world. Great get, Steve (our cold caller.) ;)
One of our favorite kindness storytellers, Neal Foard joins us. We have been following Neal's messages on a variety of platforms and we were fortunate to land Neal as a guest. Sincerely great person making a difference in our world. Great get, Steve (our cold caller.) ;)
Alrighty, welcome to the Kindness Chronicles, where once again we hope to inject the world with a dose of the Minnesota nice that it desperately needs. We are here with Steve Brown, Lead singer for the great band, Johnny Clueless. We've got me, uh, famous for not much at all. And then we've got Kevin Gorg, Bali sports, North Canterbury park, and a Culver's drive through near you. Thank goodness. It's getting close to that. We have a guest. Come on. We, yeah, we have a guest. let me give a little quick little introduction. So. Today we have the pleasure of introducing our audience to Neil Ford. He is a master storyteller whose tales are often woven with threads of kindness, compassion, and boundless imagination. Neil's storytelling prowessness goes far beyond mere entertainment. You like, um, I've written this. Yeah, you really practiced Instagram posts. serve as vessels for spreading messages of empathy and understanding. His stories not only captivate our minds, but also touch the heart. Through his work, Neil reminds us of the profound impact that acts of kindness can have both within our own lives and at the world at large. Welcome to the Kindness Chronicles, Mr. Neil Ford. Woo hoo. Thank you. I appreciate that. The beauty of this is, is I'm going to go through and edit that. So it sounds a hell of a lot better than it actually is. No, and that's the Kindness Chronicles for you. Neil, for starters, I'm just a huge fan of yours, and I just want to start with, the importance of storytelling that you refer to. Why is this such an important part of the way you operate? I come from a background in advertising where for 30 years I was on the creative end of the business and I had to do thousands and thousands of presentations to try to get our to try to win clients and try to get clients to agree to do our advertising concepts. And in the course of that experience discovered. That, you know what, um, you, you really do need to touch people emotionally to get them to feel good about the decisions they make. It isn't sufficient to give them a series of bullet points or a PowerPoint presentation that's all logic. It's just, that's not how the human creature works. with enough practice, I did, you know, the way that stand up comedians do, they sort of develop an instinct for what lands, what's funny. In my case, it wasn't necessarily what was funny. It's just what made sense and what touched people's hearts efficiently that they, that they felt confident that they could be making the right decision. So you obviously had some success with that. Like you, you obviously turned that into something. People started recognizing that you could spin a nice tale for your clients. Yeah. Uh, and it's funny, I was, you know. I wasn't, um, famous, but I did pretty well. I was a creative director and executive creative director in Los Angeles and New York and Hong Kong. And so it was back when the agency business was actually pretty cool. Um, it's, it's suffered a lot now because what has happened is because of Google and Facebook dealing, basically all of the advertising money. And then on top of that, most advertising agencies are owned by a holding company, which bought them by issuing debt. And so they have to strip off the top 15 percent just to pay down the, you know, the loan. So it's really become a kind of a shell of what it once was back in the day. It was quite an interesting and fun place. It was sort of show business life and. Stories figured very prominently in developing some of the best brands in the world. How did this start? Who was the inspiration for you way back when you were a youngster and maybe somebody that you had in your, in your circle of family or friends that maybe inspired you, but how did the whole thing begin? my sister Lily could really spin a yarn. She was great. Um, we weren't, you know, it's not like we come from a long line of Welsh poets or anything like that, but, but I was growing up, uh, back when Saturday Night Live really was live in the sense that you had to, you had to show up at 1130 to watch it because, um, the, uh, there was no VCR, there was no time shifting with, uh, you know, with TiVo or anything like that. And nobody in my family wanted to stay up to watch it. So I would stay up on Saturday night, watch the show, and then basically redo it in the morning for everybody at breakfast. It was a happening. Yeah, it was a happening. You had to be a part of it. And it was, it was delightful to try to, you know, get a laugh out of my father. and so that was the sort of, that was where you might say I got a, I had that emotional thing of, oh, I love it when people laugh. That's, that's pretty cool. And, um, then, you know, once it became a kind of career, uh, well, then I had the journeyman task of, okay, here we go. It's going to be 15 performances of this. You know, pitch this week and, uh, and so on. going back to your advertising career, is there a product or is there a, uh, here's what's so funny, Neil. I am a marketing major and I'm just going to tell you really quickly how I became a marketing major. I started out as a biology major and I took my first biology exam in college and I got a six on it. And I went to the professor and I said, Professor Scherer, I don't think that this is for me, and he said, neither do I. And, and he said, why are you a biology major? And I said, I thought it would be good for, You know, pre med for like picking up girls. And he said, you sound like a marketing major. So I went and became a marketing major. Turned out it was a very easy way to, uh, to get a college degree. I have always been enamored with people that do what you do. Do what you did, and I'm always just so like we always talk about when they came up with that ad campaign, they must have been high five in themselves because it was so, memorable, so compelling. It's sold the product in such a meaningful way. Are there any things in your history? That looking back, you're just the most proud of. Yeah. A few things. I do want to tack something onto the end of your story about switching from biology to, um, especially, you know, if your intention to being a doctor was to pick up, pick up when the phrase that we used in our end of the business was always, um, sales is asking for a date. Marketing is why they say yes. Great way to put it. And so, um, the, the great trick to the art and science of what we were doing in the creative department was trying to figure out some way that you could create a sufficiently emotional response to the message that it sort of gave you permission to be my friend. And I'm not sure that it really, not enough clients fully appreciate that life gets so much easier when people like you. You bet. Yeah. And. They overthink it because what they're cheaply interested in doing, and I've seen this again and again, is they really just want to use the real estate of a television ad or a banner or whatever. They just want to pack the real estate with as much as they can cram into it because they reckon, you know, as long as I'm renting the time, I want to make sure that I'm saying everything that I Consider persuasive. Yeah. And never, nevermind the fact that most of the time advertising is just such a blight. No, it's an interruption. It's unwelcome and you had given no permission for someone to market to you. And you know, you guys know that the fastest unit of time is the time between when it says skip ads and when somebody clicks on it. I don't know what you're talking about. I've never done that before. Yeah. Whereas, you know, the things that I was always proudest of was when I knew that that would really touch somebody in a way where they felt seen. So I'll give you an example. I was working on the Toyota account and we were selling their Sienna, which is their minivan. Now, just that year, that was the first time they had those push button automatic doors. So you could be standing on your porch and still close the entire vehicle or open it up just by hitting the key fob. And we had heard in this focus group, in the pre research, this woman said, you know, there are just days when I feel like I'm carrying the whole weight of the family. And I looked over at one of my copywriters and I could see in his eyes, he goes, got it. I got it. I already know what the idea is going to be. And so they crafted this very sweet commercial that featured as a soundtrack. That sort of xylophone like thing, you know how kids have those little xylophones and they'll play songs on them? And it was sort of that kind of, um, night night, uh, sound music. And this woman pulls up with her whole family in the Siena, she's driving, she's all of about 5'2 And, uh, Everybody is asleep in the vehicle. So what she does is very carefully She takes the little infant out of his car seat and she walks up the stairs with him And then she comes back and she gets her little toddler and she picks him up and takes him upstairs And then she's finally looking at her 260 pound husband and And the next thing you know, she's just carrying him up the stairs. And, and it, she stops at the top of the stairs, she turns to the vehicle, and then she just closes all the doors on it. and the, the entire ad is just the announcer going, Push button automatic doors on the new Toyota why I was proud of that was the fact that it made people laugh, but it also, they could see themselves in it and they, they would feel like, okay, they get it. They see that I'm carrying the whole family. Yeah, they see me, yeah. And to me, there's, there is a perfect example of when you guys are done putting that thing together, the high fives must be like, we nailed this one. I feel like I remember that commercial. What do, when was that? That was Quite a while ago, wasn't it? Oh, yeah, that was that was a while back. That would have been about 2010 I think you talk about commercials being a an interruption, but I think that yeah, they've become so creative, The progressive commercials with that guy that don't become your parents and stuff. Oh my god. Yeah, like yeah I was going to say that the insurance industry, it all started with the Geico Gecko and then they had the Geico Caveman and Geico just came rocketing out of nowhere. And that is what ultimately gave permission to every other, uh, whether it's Washington Mutual, is that what it's, you know, WAMU with the, or EMU. The EMU, yeah. And then, uh, the crazy, excuse me. Um, you know the progressive thing, which is very kooky at times, and they have the, uh, they got mayhem. They got the mayhem guy. They've got the mayhem guy. Right? Right. And so what happened was it just took somebody to just crack open the door because, you know, insurance advertising up till that time was a very boring, um, everybody thought that they had to represent stability and Yeah. And so forth, only to discover that Geico ate their lunch, so they all decided to jump in. Yep. Um, yeah, it's, it's, uh, not as common as it used to be. I mean, that kind of advertising used to be more common than it is now, but I applaud them for hanging on. Yeah, it's really, it, it has kind of turned the, the ad world upside down and in such a delightful way. In fact, I, my parents are not the most active people on media, you know, on the internet. And. When I go and show them the have you seen this progressive commercial? They're like, I don't know Well, you just got to Google it. I don't want to do Google. So I'll go over to their house and we'll sit for a half hour watching progressive commercials or Geico commercials. And you look in these commercials have been viewed six, seven, eight million times. Right. I mean, what a brilliant way to deliver eyeballs to a product, Kevin. And none bigger than the Superbowl where nobody wants to skip the ads. Half the reason the audience watches truthfully is to critique. The Superbowl ads. This is the best of the best. Have you ever been involved in any Superbowl commercials? Yeah, I've had a couple on, um, for Anheuser Busch. We did some Bud spots. It's a very interesting guy that used to be in charge of, uh, he used to be the vice president of marketing and Anheuser Busch was a guy named Bob Lackey back when I used to do that business. And, um, I don't think he particularly liked me, but I had a tremendous admiration for his sort of, he had a, an instinct for what was going to work. And, um, I remember he and I had a discussion once about there was a kind of lack of consistency in the, in Bud Light and Budweiser and Michelob advertising. And he said, Neil, you are just so overthinking this because I just do stuff that I think people are going to like. And if they like it, fantastic. If they don't like it, I skip it. But if they like it, I'll do it six different ways. Like, you know, um, the frogs, for example. The frogs, yeah. Yeah, he said, okay, the frogs worked once. Let's try, you know, five different versions of this and see what happens. And many of them were very funny, but he used to call it his mosaic strategy, which is I don't, I'm not interested in having this uniform single color. I want to build a picture of a brand that is interesting to lots of different people. And if it's a little fractured piece of ceramic over here, and then it's a different color there. I don't care as long as people are enjoying it. And I thought that's a good strategy. I just, uh, Kevin is our local, uh, we call him our local minor celebrity. He is a local sports caster. And if we don't get to sports at some point during the podcast, it just isn't, it isn't right. It says he, he, he tunes out. He's not interested. So thank you for allowing him to slip the super bowl into this, uh, into this one. Okay. So Neil, I'm probably the guy that is, I've seen the most of what you, you've done. I've seen your Ted talk. I've seen all the different things you've done. I'm, I, in awe of how you tell a story. So aside from advertising, obviously you've got some good training there, but I'm interested in we're, we're, our podcast is about kindness and highlighting kindness. We are just, you know, we're not, you know, you do a lot of, uh, Talk with talking with leaders and, and, you know, people in training and learning, this is really just about celebrating people that are doing kind things. And I want to get to that in that I'm noticing that a lot of your. Talks and your your clips that you put on your stories. They're very meaningful your stories. They're very meaningful and they have Hope and humanity and and talks of kindness and respect and I really just love how you deliver them So I want to know when and if you've always been that way But when did you cross over into doing these things that really are? Extremely touching and extremely thoughtful. And can I add to that, Steve? When I watch your stuff, Neil, I'm always wondering when the punchline of kindness or humanity is going to come into it. Because you have this ability to kind of draw us in with your storytelling. Yes. And you're, you're like on the edge of your seat and it's like, oh, here it comes. And then there's this, this moral to the story that you're telling. And it's just, it really is, you know how they talk about your algorithms? Um, You've made my algorithms, Neil, you're like, you're showing up on my, uh, on my, my, uh, YouTube algorithms. So I, I, yeah, I think that says, says more about you than it does me, than I'm showing up. No, it does. I agree with that. Yeah. So just how did it start? Yeah. The, uh, um, like the transition from advertising to, to, uh, to the storytelling. Yeah. I, I, I started, I left advertising to go into live events because. Advertising just wasn't the same thing as it once was. And live events were the case where you could actually see people's reaction to the creativity that you generated. And it was, it was really fun. It was filled with energetic, um, crazy people. And, you know, and I'm personally, I love, I love, Plumbers and electricians that my, my granddad was electrician. My dad was an architect. And when you're on site, you know, watching a build of a big event, like a Toyota auto show, it's really something to be there on the ground when they're putting together. But anyway, when I was in live events, um, I had just done that when COVID came along and it went to zero. I mean, it went to zero. Good timing. Talk about. Right? And so I just went, Oh, okay, well, I guess it's time to pivot. And I wound up doing a little, a little project with some friends. And because we didn't have any money for our startup for marketing, I would do the videos that you see now. I would sort of, that's where I started was doing those black background videos. And, um, as it happens, um, My kids never knew my father and it always kind of broke my heart because my daughter especially was so much like my dad. And I thought, what a shame they never get to meet him. And I started, when I would shoot one of these videos for our business, I would then stay on and tell another story about my father, like the two of us driving through Bakersfield in the middle of the California Central Valley in 1969. And, um, my kids really liked these videos because they, it sort of. made him them understand who he was and what he was like and what our relationship was. And we posted one of them on Tik TOK. Um, it was her idea. We were having, literally we're having pancakes in this little diner that we go to. And inside of about 40 minutes, she goes, Hey pop, I think, I think this is going viral. You know, it's got a couple hundred thousand views in 40 minutes. And, and then the next thing you know, it's got like 6 million. And what it, what I believe happened was, and you know, you guys probably. I've run into this yourself. Um, when you share a heartfelt story, it's not unique to you. It's a universal, it's when people do kindnesses for one another, it's quite common, we, but our news media and our algorithms seem determined to drive us apart and make us fear one another. Cause there's nothing like rage to induce engagement or fear to make you go down the rabbit hole to find out if you're, if you're like the spoof would be, uh, Find out why sitting on a, on a hotel bed, you know, the 10 ways that can kill you, you know, film at 11 and you're just like, Oh, really? This is what our news media is telling us. Well, it turns out, I'll give you one sort of homespun statistic that I like to give people to reassure them that, you know, the vast, vast majority of people are all right for every porch pirate or D bag on the freeway. Okay. There's literally a million other people that are cool. And so I'm driving on what we call the four Oh five, the four Oh five. Yes. All right. And, um, I've got a whole, I can tell you the whole reason why we do that. But anyway, so we're going down the four Oh five, which at part in Los Angeles is literally 16 lanes wide. It's eight going either way. And when you drive down over the course of, if you're an hour on that highway. You will have passed or had passed by, you know, a quarter of a million cars and of that total How many of them were jerks probably right? You know like and in that if that statistic, you know three out of a quarter of a million That we're going to reassure you. Yeah, but most of us are pretty cool. Yeah that You know, especially with the, Oh, somebody let me see. And so I had started because of that sort of homespun step. I, when I get on the road now, I count the number of people that are courteous. And then I do that sort of running total where, well, I'm up three on the courtesy meter, and then somebody will try to cut you off or they won't do, you know, they won't be nice or they won't signal and stuff. And I'll just knock it down one by the time I'm done with my drive. It's usually 15 in the positive. Wow. So, I think our nude media is giving us a distorted picture about how people really are. And what, what, what I'm doing is what you're doing, which is, I just want to be the antidote to the bile and to the vibrating anger weasels that are making their money by getting us upset with one another. And I saw, you know, uh, let's talk about commercials again, because I saw. The commercial that I so, so wish I had done, this was the premise. It was for a beer brand. They had these two people, uh, get together and they were, they were treating it like a reality show audition. And they had these two people go into a studio and their task was to follow the instructions and they don't know what they're building, but it turns out they're building a bar. And then there's a cooler in the room. And then after they get their instructions, they are the last part of the instructions that they're supposed to remove a beer from the cooler and take it and put it on the, Spot marked on the bar, which they then do. And then it says, and now we're going to watch some film. And what they do is they show each of the two people expressing a very definitive opinion about the other person in the room without knowing that's who it was. In other words, right. It would be like. Somebody who's like a hardline Trump or describing a Democrat and then vice versa. And then they said at the end of the commercials, now you can either decide to go or you can stay and finish your beer. And it was glorious to, to watch people who had been very cooperative with one another a minute ago and very sweet and cooperative a minute ago. And then they discovered that they are, Oh my God, I'm facing my most mortal enemy. Only to find. They're not really that far apart. Exactly. And, and, uh, there were a couple of them were just heartbreakingly beautiful, uh, to watch somebody go. I'm really sorry you saw that now because you've changed my mind about who I am. Well, yeah, and not just as much, you changed my mind about who you are, but, but who you are, you know, yourself as a person, by the way that you reacted to it. You know, Neil, I want to you see yourself, yeah, when you see yourself on display like that, you just go, Oh, Lord. Oh, God. Isn't that what I sound like? That's why I do all the editing on this. Yeah, exactly. So I want to troll the, I want to talk about story fire and your, your company. And one of the things that you've said, on a number of occasions is the most powerful invention in history is words. And the most enjoyable way to use them is in stories. And we had a guest on once upon a time by the name of Dr. Dave Walsh and Dave is a very well known in Minnesota. Yeah. Child psychologist. He's famous for, uh, playing a role in creating the video game report card and the impact of media on, on children and adolescents and so on and so forth. And his famous line is whoever tells the story defines the culture. And right now we live in a culture that is absolutely defined by divisiveness. Like you mentioned, you're a Trumper or you're a Biden person. And there's just, it's just awful the way that people treat each other. And story fire company that you have, tell us about how that works and how, you know, we hired Neil Ford to come and, uh, teach our organization the importance of storytelling and how to do it effectively. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'd be happy to. This is my favorite subject. So story. Storyfire. net, my website, um, is a, it's a course that comes in sort of three different levels. And basically is my distilled learning from 30 years in the advertising business so that I can take what it took the largest and most successful brands in the world, billions of dollars to learn. I will apply to you your own personal brand and the art of conversation and persuasion. That is the most effective way of reaching somebody else's soul. And the, you know, a lot of people see it as, Oh, fantastic. That will give me a business advantage. Well, yes, it does do that. But what you will discover if you take the story fire course, that has everything to do with you being a genuine and authentic person who has in mind that you are not alone on this planet and that your job is to carry and help the loads of other people, there is. You know, it's a funny thing about being a human being. We are all on a journey, all of us. And I think the saddest thing there is, is to feel like you are on that journey alone and because you're not, and, uh, there, uh, the, the great thing about stories, you know, if you don't mind my talking a little bit about our, our history about as a species is that, you know, 30, 000 years ago, we've been coming up with stories. Essentially, because when we learned to cook food, we did it around a campfire, and because we were able to consume more calories more easily, it aided in the growth and the size of our brain, and simultaneous to that ability to cook food in order to ingest more calories, you know, because our brains actually, they just munch calories. Um, the, the act of sitting around the fire turned out to be. A hardwired experiential way for us to talk about the events of the day, the hunt, and what is the meaning of things? You know, just consider, let's pretend all of us, us four, right? Imagine us 30, 000 years ago. And we're trying to make, we're trying to figure out why volcanoes erupt, and what lightning is, and why are there earthquakes. And why does it snow? And why do the stars move through the sky? And where do we go when we die? And why do we die? Right? We're all trying to figure this out. And we're just sleep bitten ignoramuses. Well, it's the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves that determined our attitude and our togetherness. And, you know, that it's, it is so hardwired into us. We are We react to one another based on how we feel, and we communicate how we feel when we are sitting around a fire. Remember I was telling you about that beer commercial? Um, I had the good fortune to work with the Heineken boys back in Amsterdam, and they explained to me that, Beer is actually a great public service when consumed, you know, in moderation. Yeah. It's a tremendous public service because it is a social lubricant. And they said, there are only two times when a man is allowed to hug another man in most Western culture. One, one is when they have scored some, uh, some triumphs like on the sporting field or the battlefield and the other is when they're drunk. And so, or, or at least a little bit lit. Yeah. And. That's when they finally recognize their humanity. Well, my story fire course is a way to try to increase the likelihood that you will be able to connect with another human being on an emotional level and to recognize That you and I, despite the fact that we are different people, we are sharing the human journey and we will be so much better off if we like one another. And, you know, what's that? Good timing. Good timing to have this kind of message. But I, again, I just want to return to the fact that I think that the division in our culture is, I think it's completely artificial. I think it's been brought up, I think it's been foisted on us. Absolutely. By an out of control media. You know, if I were going to pick the sociopaths and the Group. I know where I start. You can look, you can look left and you can look right and you can see sociopaths all over us, right? You know, they are everywhere. Um, so anyway, my story part of the thing is more than just to teach people the art of storytelling for business advantage, although it will do that. It is, it is about approaching what you talk about so that you are a powerful magnetic person and. You will have success in business because you want what's good for people. Uh, can I give you an example of a guy that was just a masterful storyteller where, uh, due to who I drew a lot of my. Lessons from very successful, very successful car dealer whose personal mantra, get this is I'll lose a little money to make a friend. And what, what he meant by that was, I am not going to grind you over the price of his car because any dealer worth his salt doesn't really make his money off the selling of the car. He makes it off the service. And if you don't like me. You're not going to come back for the service. Why would I want to alienate you? No, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to get as close as I can to profitable, but I'm not going to let you go. And I am going to treat my employees. So well that they're going to treat you the way I want them to treat you and what he would do as an example of his sort of thing is he ran an ad campaign on the radio Talking about how much he loved his service people and it went kind of like this. Hi I'm from such and such Toyota and uh, I own this place and let me tell you something You know, my favorite people in the world are mechanics partly because I am no good at it And I have nothing but respect for the guys that are, but also because I want to make sure that my customers, that by course me get taken care of and baby, a great mechanic. It's like finding a diamond. So I pay my mechanics top dollar and I insist that they be coached up to the absolute apex of greatness. Now, if you are in the top 3 percent of mechanics in the state of Pennsylvania, you call me. Cause I'm going to be really, you come to work for me now. He goes, I, he said, uh, it, It's cool in the summer and it's warm in the winter and you can eat off the floors and you use nothing but snap on tools. And I'll tell you, if you come to work for me for three years, I'll give you those tools. So, so here's a couple things that started to happen. The first is, um, he started getting a lot of phone calls from mechanics. And he also started getting visits from his own boys saying stuff like, uh, listen, I'm a little spooked that you're going to replace me because if you're getting all these top guys, i'm How do I know if i'm in the top three percent? He goes. Well, I tell you what Did you know that the region will train you for free? If you want to get good or better I it will tickle me pink to have you go out to the region because it cost me nothing And you come back certified on all the latest stuff. How does that sound? You And they would go, Oh man, so he really did have the tip cop guys. And then, then he would say, um, uh, his service manager came to him and said, Hey, by the way, um, I've started to notice we're selling a lot more uniform. What do you mean? Yeah, the guys, usually they'll have four shirts in rotation. There's one that's in the laundry, one that's in the dirty clothes, one that they're wearing and one in the locker. They're buying like six now. And what they discovered was the mechanics were wearing them out to dinner with their family. Come on They're celebrities. They wanted people They wanted people to see pride that they were a great mechanic and most of all He said that they would say I wanted my son to see that people respected their father. Wow. That's so cool That is very cool powerful. There's a go ahead. I'm, sorry Locally there is a um, there is a a company that sells downhill skis And they had a very similar ad campaign. And the owner of this company said, we spend a tremendous amount of money on training our people. And my friends will say to me, why are you spending so much money on this training? I mean, they're just going to get trained up and they're going to leave and go to work for your competitor. And his response was, you know, I would rather train them. You know, I'm going to edit that out because I'm ruining the punchline. Damn it. I am ruining the punchline. I need your course in storytelling. Damn it. And he said, he said, um, I would rather that I train them and then leave the not train them and they stay, you know, you don't train them and they stay and you've got, you've got the dead weight and it became kind of this premier place and people were going there because. They, you know, the, the story or the, the message of the ad campaign was we got the most trained people in helping you get the right skis and the right equipment. And we pay them well, and we train them up and so on and so forth. And it's funny that, you know, the, the by product of that. one, it was having, a staff that was very satisfied to work for the organization. But on top of that, the sales went through the roof. I just, I'm sorry, I have to switch gears real quick. I work for an organization called Minnesota Masonic Charities. And in the state of Minnesota, we have the Masonic Cancer Center, the Masonic Children's Hospital, Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain. We operate some nursing homes, a variety of different things. And what really makes those places special is fundraising. And I've always said to my team, you know, fundraising is really all about having a great story to tell, the ability to tell it well, and then have willing storytellers. So when I look at your company, I would think that nonprofit organizations would just be all over this, your program, because storytelling is at the heart of every non profit organization trying to differentiate themselves from the competition. Have you had much success with non profits? I can't say that I've had a whole lot of experience with non profits. Most of the time I'm dealing with sort of the C suite and sales organizations, but I will say this, that There is absolutely no reason on earth why a nonprofit is any different from anybody else when it comes to trying to craft their story, to be persuasive. And it's funny, the term storytelling now is kind of in vogue and I'm sure it won't be very long before it's out of fashion, but it really amounts to nothing more than the most effective way to persuade someone of what to do. You're hoping to sell. And the reason is that stories are the human operating system. I could give you a series of six numbers, not that big a deal. But if I give you those numbers and I say, Hey, please remember these by the time I have finished, you know, this, this podcast appearance with you guys, you won't remember those numbers, but you would remember, even if you hadn't heard it in 25 years, you can tell me, uh, what's going on. The story of David and Goliath, or Little Red Riding Hood, or the tortoise and the hare. Just the way our brains are wired. A non profit who is able to communicate, Can I tell you a story about the benefit of your donation? Uh, let's talk about who you are affecting. And we don't have to go, you know, I don't have to tell you the numbers. I'm just going to tell you a single story. Did you, did you guys ever see, because, you know, that Stalin quote, which, or maybe it was Lenin, a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. Yeah. It's because we can't wrap around our, we can't wrap our heads around a million deaths, but we do understand the plight of a little girl that's starved to death, or, Did you guys ever see the movie wag the dog? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah And so the premise of wag the dog is that in order to shield the president from a scandal They have ginned up a fake war that will occupy the press's attention for long enough to get them to the election Well, there is a scene in it where in order to keep this farce going they They make the case that there is an American soldier behind the lines, still, even though the tensions have gone down, and he is the, he is the captive of a bunch of terrorists. And in order to really sell it, you know, sell it emotionally, they, they put him on camera with a military sweater that he has defaced. It's sort of, it's got a lot of little tears in it. And the story that they tell is they say, Sergeant Shoemaker, who is, you know, being held by terrorists, they took a picture of him so that we would all see it, you know, that they had him unbeknownst to them. He had, he had defaced his sweater so that it would read in Morse code. And he sent us a message and the message was courage. Yep. Courage. Mom. And so what happens is you go. You go, Oh, that, that's pretty slick. I can keep you involved in this whole thing just by having one servicemen behind the line, trying to keep his mother from, you know, being destroyed and there you go. That's the way we react. Yeah. Um, and a nonprofit, nonprofit need only say, look, can we just tell you why we're in business? And let me give you an example. And if, after hearing this example, which is completely real, you still don't want to donate, I guess I understand. But you're going to have to live with yourself. You know, it's really funny. We have this new program that we're rolling out called Civility School. And essentially the purpose of the program is to get young people to just think about the role that they play as it relates to, connecting with others and, we talk about the importance of dignity and courtesy and honor and integrity and we use these stories from YouTube to connect with these young people. We want to be where they, where they live and we use these videos. And an example, you know, you talk about storytelling, uh, Steve Hartman, do you know Steve Hartman from CBS? Sure, yeah. Yeah, from, from, yeah. Steve Hartman, I could And he took over Charles Kuralt. He, he took over Charles Kuralt. And I could watch those Steve Hartman videos all day long. And what's really interesting is We use a number of Steve Hartman kind of videos during this program as we're trying to connect these people as examples of of humility, examples of honor. And the guy is just a, he is a brilliant storyteller. And what we found is the, the reaction that we get from these young people is when you introduce these compelling storytellers to them it changes their algorithms. Like they start watching those stories and the emotion that comes from seeing the story about it. You know, my favorite one is this, this wrestler that the guy who was wrestling against dislocated his elbow. The guy who dislocated his elbow was winning the match. And instead of pinning the guy, the guy said, I had no business winning that match by pinning him and he just forfeited and he just laid there. There's so many things that can come from that. And it really all starts with the story. And it starts with the storyteller and I am looking forward to going on your, uh, your, your, your website, storyfire. net it is, and I'm going to, I, you know, as a fundraising guy, I'm going to go on there and learn how to become a more effective fundraiser by being a better storyteller. Where else can our listeners find your stuff? Uh, on social media. Are there other platforms that you want to promote here? so much. Yeah, um, well, I, I'm kind of easy to find in a hard way, let me give you what I mean. My name is uniquely spelled to me, it's N E A L, Neil, F O A R D, Ford. That's too many vowels, that's a lot of vowels. Because of that A in Ford, um, nobody else has my name. So, if they go to, if they just typed into Google, You know, my name, they'll pretty much find me on TikTok Instagram, and I've got my own website. Um, besides Storypark, I also have neilford. com. Um, and, uh, I've got a kind of a fun audiobook for the Patreon page for anybody that wants to Now you're talking. I like the idea of an audiobook. Me too. it's got a kind of an interesting provenance, this story. But anyway, um, I want to go back to what you were saying before about Steve Hartman and, and the algorithm. Now, here's what happens is that I discovered, but I've always been such a huge fan of Kural. And, you know, he was motoring across America and what Steve Hartman does particularly well, I think maybe even better than Charles Kural, is that he sees the humanity. He just does such a good job of saying, um, you know, this is what happens. It shouldn't surprise you. This happens all the time. It's more common than it's not. And, um, my son is on the spectrum, the autism spectrum. And, uh, there was a story that he did about a young kid that was on the autism spectrum that was, he was basically the manager for the basketball, for a high school basketball team. And he had been the equipment guy and, you know, being very good about serving everybody's needs all during the season. And they finally decided, you know what we're gonna do? Uh, suit up and we'll let you play in the last game of the season. And He just lit up. He was choking, three pointers in a row. I know the story very well. Yeah. And the, and the part of the story that I like best was the reaction of the crowd, of his own people, they were going crazy. It was 150 decibels in there because with every three he drained, they went crazier and it was one of those things where it's like, see, people aren't The people aren't as bad as you think they are. They, they like, they like good guys and dislike bad guys. They can't stand bullies. It's just that we all feel like we're alone on this Jersey on this journey. And we're not, as soon as we start to feel like people are out to get us, that's when we're at our worst. Tell WWE wrestling match. Where there's the good guys against the bad guys in this tag team thing. And one of the good guys gets hit in the head. Is that one of your stories? Yeah. He gets hit in the head and the crowd goes wild when the bad guy helps the good guy. Because. They came there to see violence and what they witnessed was this kindness brought the crowd to, to like, just a crazy level of enthusiasm. that was the part that I was like, whoa, somebody just hit a nerve because what happened, what, what they were watching, it wasn't scripted. So ironic. The one thing that was real, you know, anyway, the heel. They really did clip this guy in the back of the head and and so he was real hazy and fuzzy and That's when the heel guys. Oh, you know, he's backing his other boys off and saying no. No. No, I think he's really hurt And so he's helping him up and what the audience thought they were watching was a scripted No, they thought it was still the care right? Yep So what they thought they were watching was this Greek drama where a bad guy was having a road to Damascus moment. They thought, they thought, Oh my God, it's a redemption story. And then they just loved it. Which is better than writing good versus evil. Yeah, right. This is better than the way better than the good guy. Winning is the bad guy turning good. That's what they believe exploited. They get their money's worth. That is hope in humanity. Yeah. Right, exactly. And it, and you know, like I say, and like you said, they were, they had paid to see violence and they got way more than they bargained for. Yeah, and I will tell you that I use that specific story. In our civility school program. And I don't say that it was you that told the story. I pretend it was mine. Change that. Yeah, you can see my lawyers about that one, Neil. Oh, brother. But yeah, that's, uh, I can't thank you enough for joining us. This was such a pleasure. And you're, you're exactly like I hoped you would be. This is so fantastic. Um, you fit this show so well. But I have a question. for you. This is not trying to be self serving or try to fish for a compliment. But why in the world did you say yes to my cold call to you about about joining us on this podcast? we're on the same vibe, right? It's the same mission, essentially. And so why would I, why would I say no, we're, you know, we're teammates in this thing. And it's, it's my great pleasure to meet, meet like minded people on the, on the journey. You know, you guys have probably started to notice. Uh, I noticed that a lot. Which is I need stories, right? So, and I'm not going to do stories about me being disappointed. I'm going to do the stories that are reflections of the good things that I'm starting to lose. When you go out in search of it everywhere, and that's when you go, Oh, how could I have been so, you know, cause I've wrestled with a temper my whole life, but I can honestly say that you can curb that if you just stay focused on. No, I'm going to look for the good today and I'm going to find it. So I, that's the thing that, uh, that I'm happiest about with story fire is. It isn't just telling stories, the kind of stories you tell become instrumental in achieving your, your wish to be more persuasive, which is when you tell uplifting stories, unifying stories, reassuring stories, what happens? People like you. And life gets so much easier when people like you. Well, once again, grateful for your time. I know we've, uh, we've kept you on longer than we, uh, than we promised, but, uh, please keep, please keep telling those stories. We'll keep watching you and we'll encourage our, our kindness chronicles people to, uh, tune into you too. Cause you're amazing to watch. So thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Bye bye. All right. And off we go boys..