#104: Unlock the Power of Your Story in Three Simple Steps with Mark Leruste

Do you have a story to tell but feel like it's too ordinary or boring?  Think again!

Join us as we chat with best-selling author Mark Leruste, who wrote the book "Glow In The Dark" to help people share their stories in a simple yet impactful way.

Mark breaks down the structure of a compelling story into three easy-to-follow steps that you can apply anytime, anywhere. As humans, storytelling is in our nature, and by mastering these techniques, you can craft a powerful narrative that resonates with your audience. Tune in to learn how to unleash the power of your story and inspire others with your words.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

• Why your story matters
• How Mark created a viral video CV Watch it here
• How to get a question answered by Tim Ferris
• How to unlock your story
• Source, Refine, Share
• The three C's of sharing your story

ACTION STEP FROM THE EPISODE:
Do the exercise Mark suggests and identify 3-5 stories from your own life where you learned a profound lesson. Then apply the 3C's formula and start sharing

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE

• Snag a copy of mark Leruste's book Glow In The Dark: How sharing your personal story can transform your business and change your life
• Watch Mark's Best Video CV ever 
• Learn more about Mark Leruste: Author, Podcaster, Coach
• Get 20% OFF our 7 day Habit Mastery course

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Transcript

Sheldon Millls: 0:00

welcome to habit masters. I'm Sheldon, I'm Jeff. And today we have a special guest. His name is Mark Leruste. He's from across the pond. He's father author, Ted Talk. He's got some viral videos, but his new book, we're gonna talk about a little more in depth., all about storytelling, cuz we all have stories to share.

Jeff Corrigan: 0:18

Yeah. Storytelling, but more specifically how to tell your story. And he has an amazing way of breaking it down to make, telling your stories of your life, not only in an interesting way, but in a simple, easy way.

Sheldon Millls: 0:30

Here we go. Mark Leruste.

Jeff Corrigan: 0:33

Welcome to the show

Mark Leruste: 0:35

thank you very much. Thanks for having me. And, and you know, for the record, I've gotta say you've both been absolute gens in your flexibility. I've had to cancel a bunch of times and reschedule and and I can now see your smiles on, on, on the video as we're, so I can just imagine the smiles on the email. So I appreciate both of you or your grace and your, and your patience.

Jeff Corrigan: 0:54

Hey guys. Our pleasure. Yeah. We're just excited to have you. You had all kinds of stuff going. What were you doing? You were doing some presentations for futball league,

Mark Leruste: 1:02

called Book, right? So, yeah, no. So yeah, so I did so I, a book, my book

Sheldon Millls: 1:05

just came out called little. Glow in the dark dimension. I wrote a book. Yeah. Glow in the dark's, showing you camera here. Yeah, it's it came out worldwide on the 11th of April, 2023. And so available in the US and Barnes and Nobles, all those kind of good stores. And

Mark Leruste: 1:20

yeah, so I've just been giving talks really.

Sheldon Millls: 1:22

That's kind of what I've been booked to do. So I was giving a, a, a session at the Premier League, which is for people listening to this who have the. Audacity to

Mark Leruste: 1:32

not be soccer fans. And

Sheldon Millls: 1:33

I'm using the word soccer cuz I'm being very graceful here. But we're gonna call it football cuz it makes sense, right? Like you're kicking with your foot, so there's a ball, but let's not get into that. And since the equivalent, like the nfl, but for soccer, I guess the soccer in England's kind of a huge league. So yeah, I I was kind of jugging that it was, it was all last minute, so, yeah. Premier League Sounds.

Jeff Corrigan: 1:51

Premier League is

Sheldon Millls: 1:51

the Premier League, though. So for most Americans who don't know that, but

Mark Leruste: 1:55

yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, no, it's like, it's like, yeah. The number one league. So for those of you who might be looking at, you know, Reham, thanks to Ryan Reynolds now, and you know, welcome to Rex on Disney Channel. That's like division, like five Premier League, premier league's, like Top Dog. That's kind of where the, the big teams, the Manchester, the City United Chelsea, ars, and all those kind of teams.

Jeff Corrigan: 2:17

Yeah, that's like, yeah, to, to give yourselves a reference here. If you're like American football fans, that's like the NFL

Mark Leruste: 2:24

yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was talking to the nfl, that was it. So I got brought in to go and give a talk, which was really cool actually. They were really good bunch. And and yeah, it's just mad. I, it's just add another talk for a business school and then I'm gonna be flying over to California to go and, and give some talks at San Diego State University. And run some workshops and meet some cool people. So yeah. Guns blaz. Great. Grateful. Yeah. Well, thank you

Sheldon Millls: 2:45

for coming on our show. Yeah. Wow, man. Of course. Happy to be here. Well, we, we wanna, well we wanna let you talk about your new book, but I, I had one question I just wanted to ask you about your, the best CV video ever. Yeah. Why did you make that? Like, what was, what's your story there?

Mark Leruste: 3:02

Yes, so, For those of you who don't me, which is 99.9999% of anybody listening to this. I was born and raised in France and I, I come from a Jewel heritage household, which is got like this weird kind of quintessential accent. That's cuz my mom's British, my dad's French, nobody's perfect, so don't hold it against me. But you know, I went to school in a real cake system and because I'm dyslexic and got a d d and none of that was diagnosed back then I really struggled in school. And in fact, what's interesting is that all the things that I was being reprimanded for, like I couldn't pay attention. I couldn't sit still. I couldn't read out loud, I couldn't spell, I couldn't do. All the things that I don't need when I'm a public speaker and an author, which is, which is hilarious, right? Like, I've got book published, one of the major published in the world called Hercher and I couldn't, I can't spell to save my life. So K kids, if you listen to this, like, don't worry, editors will save your life. That's just the world of the story. But anyway, so I, I've always had this kind of unconventional, I guess, approach to doing things. I found drama, which actually was where I found my home on stage. Cause my mom was a school teacher. She had. Put me and my brother during her rehearsals with the students to do something. I was like a bush on a play or like a dancer in the background or something. And I just fell in love with, with being on stage cuz I couldn't get criticized. Cause I was bullied by my French school teachers on a daily basis because of my inability to spell and read out loud. So that's quite traumatic, like looking back at it now. But I always felt like there's a different way to do things and I always question things like, why do we do this? I heard Sir Richard Branson talk about this in a podcast recently, and I really resonated. You know, it says the guy like, I'm clearly just like Sir Richard Branson. But I really resonated with his education and childhood of just not getting things and questioning things all the time. Like, why are we learning this? That makes no sense. Like why, how is this gonna be helpful? And I was that kid, that annoying kid. So, you know, eventually it was held back a year, which in France has got a huge stigma. It's basically means like you're stupid, and I was eventually kicked out of conventional education around 16 and went to this kind of school where some of my classmates were you know, robbing houses and selling drugs. And it was like a really rough school. And I adapted and I could talk about that, you know, at a later stage. But I learned a lot in that experience. I learned that actually there's always two, if not three sides to a. Because actually this, the reason why they were going and stealing people's stuff to sell them is cuz their dad had left when they were two or three, their moms had mental health illness. They didn't wanna call the social services cuz they'd little brother would be taken away. So they were at 16, 17 responsible for like the livelihood of the household, right? Like they, they had these really crazy stories. They've always been fascinated and deeply curious about people's stories and, and hearing people's stories. So, I went down the traditional conventional road of, ended up going to university, getting a corporate job, doing everything I was supposed to, right? And I don't think I, this, you know, typical kind of all like millennial, like quarter life crisis moment where I woke up and just like, what the hell am I doing? You know, like I'm, I was living at the time abroad, you know, I had the lifestyle that you could only dream of as a student, right? Cause I was a struggling student where I used to wash literally dishes on the side to pay for some of the stuff I was going through uni, right? Like I was a dish pig. Proud dish. Had a great time in restaurants. That's how I discovered food, but that's another story. And and I always just felt like there was this thing that wasn't right, like I know now it's cuz it's just my values weren't aligned with the values of the organization I was working with, but something was off. I went through this whole ordeal. I went through really bad breakup with my partner at the time, and ended up going back home. My grandfather got terminal cancer. Like, it just went back living with my parents. It was just like a really dark time. Mm-hmm. And, So I got a job. I got a job like, like you do, right? Like I, I got a job. I had a great job in a really reputable global business school. Really privileged and honored to have that job. I was learning lots, but there was always this thing inside of me that felt. It's a little bit more to me than, than what I feel like I'm currently doing. It's a little bit like if you're just in the wrong current or you're, you're playing the wrong sport, right? Mm-hmm. For example, you're a star soccer player, but you end up playing NFL or football, like, you're not gonna do that great. Like, you're not gonna feel, you're gonna feel, right. So you feel awkward the whole time. You a little awkward. Yeah. And so this is 2010, 2011, just to give people some context, right? Mm-hmm. This is gonna answer your story, by the way, your question. And and I had in my mind I was like, you know, I'm quite creative. I'm quite creative, like I think I'm pretty good at like coming up with like creative stuff. I think I should go in advertising. I, I think I'd be pretty good at that, right? So I reach out to a friend of mine, Andrea, who I knew, worked in an advertising agency in London. I think he was like one of the only ones I knew had a cool job and he kept on talking about it. And he basically said something along the lines of, yeah, I think you'd be great. There's, you've gotta find out there's all these different job types, which, you know, the creatives, the strategic, the strategic planners, the client relationship, business development, like all these different roles within an ad agency, which you could explore. So I started exploring that. He said, but if you want me to introduce you to our boss, like the founder, I can do that. But just so you know, he gets like hundreds of CVS a day. So if you wanna stand out, you're gonna do something different. And I remember that seed being planted and for me it was, Of course I, I'm gonna do something different. I'm gonna do a video cv and no one would like, really, no one would doing video cvs back then when I tell you no one, like there was nothing you could go online. You just, it wasn't a thing. Right? Yeah. And I remember when I first told people this idea, everyone said I was crazy. Everyone said like, they laughed at me. Even my family, I remember being in the God at my parents' house, they're having like, Wine or whatever. And I said this idea like, what did you mean you're gonna film yourself and talk about like what you've been up to? Like that's ridiculous. Haha. You know, I just like, but thankfully I had two, two of my best friends, Dennis Gi, Rochelle and Niki Mo, Dennis gi Rochelle happened to self-teach himself development and he's an amazing code and programmer now. And he offered to like, yeah, I'll help you build a website. It still works. I think to this day, I think it's a, Job would be nice. Dot com. Yeah, I think that's the website. A dream job would be nice.com. And and my friend Mi Mary, who's like a, a, a documentary maker filmmaker, said, yeah, I'll film it. And they believed in that. My ex at the time also was really supportive. El Elaine, I've gotta give a credit for that. And, And off I went, like it was a, a road a fill of self-doubt. I'm like, what am I doing? Writing the script saying it's a stupid. And I remember about two months into this writing process of trying to come up with like, what is it gonna look like? A friend of mine sends me a video CV of this guy who did a video CV who wanted to be hired by Google. And I was devastated. He thought he would inspire me and I thought, I'm now gonna not be the first person to do it. Right? Yeah. Because people are gonna think I'm copying and I I this, I didn't want to be that guy. But my film video maker's like, look, who cares what that person did you keep doing you? And we're just gonna get this done. Come on, let's just do it. So we recorded it over a couple of weekends and the funny thing is, is that I managed to get the keys to my office where I was working to film some of the footage. So a lot of the footage of that video CV is actually filmed when I had a, my current job, I often explained, it's a bit awkward. It's a bit like if you're trying to invite your new partner in your current household, looking for like this new relationship, but it feels all kind of wrong and. So the video CV comes out, this is early 2011. No, sorry, late 2011. That's it. 2012. I wasn't really that familiar with YouTube or how, not social media stuff, but I put my video on YouTube just thinking like, oh, it's, you know, this platform, you host a video. It was

Jeff Corrigan: 10:23

pretty new at the time, right? It was

Mark Leruste: 10:24

like, it was really, yeah. Yeah, it was. It was. I mean, it wasn't like it is today. I know for people listening to this is like, it's difficult to comprehend, but it just wasn't this big thing, and videos again weren't being done. So I put this video CV online and it kind of what, I guess what you would call today, starts going viral and. I hadn't really thought this through because I'm sitting in my open space office, right. With my manager and my colleagues. And I remember this other colleague from this different department, storms into the office and goes, oh my God, mark, I saw your video on YouTube. And I'm just, people can't see this. I'm doing like the, like the kind of stop sign. I'm like, and I'm like, oh, you mean the video of me when I used to be a skateboarder? And it's a terrible, like, do not sponsor me video cause I did the do not sponsor me video cause it was awful. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Trying to. Brush into the carpet and before you know it, people started tweeting like Tony Robbins, Oprah Winfrey, Dana White from the ufc, like all these, I had Royce Gracie from jujitsu kind of the Gracie Dynasty who kind of tweeted back saying like, awesome video C, all this kind of stuff. Like, it just was a bit crazy. And eventually I tweeted to Adam Garone, who is the co-founder, but was the c e o of the Movember Foundation at the. And a bit of cheek tongue kind of exchange. He basically says, are you based in London? I was like, no, but I could or say if I work for Movember lulls. And and I got invited to go to London on February the 14th on Valentine's Day, cuz my ex at the time flew in and she was awesome. She was just like, you've gotta go. You can't miss this opportunity. So I took the Eurostar, which is a train that goes from Paris to London under the channel. And no, you cannot see dolphins and fish. I'm just gonna out there, can you see anything under there again? No. No. You can't see Mermaid. And and I get to, and I get to London and yeah, I go through the interview process and they literally give me the job on the spot and they're like, you're gonna launch the Movember Foundation across Europe in Switzer and France, and you're gonna revive the campaign in Belgium and, and Spain and I was. I'm game, and I, I gave my resignation. I didn't even have a contract. Think about now, I was just so naive and foolish. Like I, I give in my resignation right at my job. I sell my car, my phone and my friend's like, do you have a contract with this charity? Because I was like, no, no, no, no. I think it's sound. I think it's gonna work out okay. And thankfully it did. I, I ended up joining the November Foundation as employee team unit number three. My team and I went on to raise 2.8 million euros for men's health, for prostate cancer, testic cancer, and, and suicide prevention, mental health. And, you know, won a bunch of awards along the way. Got 110,000 people to sign up and it was just one, one hell of an adventure. And it all, all thanks to this crazy video cv, which still, I think it's had over a million views now. Yeah. I still get random mails or messages from people saying you know what I'll tell, I'll tell you this here. The weirdest message that get, people say like, Hey, I saw video, cv. Can you do mine? I'm like, no. I dunno. Can you do mine? Yeah. Like, so, and there's been lots of people who've been inspired and wanna put air inspired to do, put air quotes, literally just copied the same thing. And I, and, and I love it. I'm just like, look, but now it's like, obviously it's not as original as it was back then. It's pretty common. It's common now. Yeah. Yeah. It is common now, right? But it was, back then, it just wasn. So anyway, that's a really long way to answer your question, Sheldon. So I hope, I hope you got the answer. You're looking

Jeff Corrigan: 13:38

for everybody. Amazing. We put a link in

Sheldon Millls: 13:40

the show notes, so you should watch it. Yeah. Two minutes.

Jeff Corrigan: 13:42

That's great. Yeah. Sheldon was showing me before the show and I was laughing my head off, so it's really good. Classic. It's, that was legendary.

Mark Leruste: 13:50

Yeah, that was it. The last one was that was like the one that people used to come, like if I used to meet people at conferences where events would see my videos, see if they look at me like, Hey Mark, hey. I'll be like, oh, oh, oh yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Jeff Corrigan: 14:01

So you got, so you really, like you became advertiser marketing all the stuff, right? Yeah. Like, it's funny because you know the, you tell that story. I always tell people, I'm like, look. It's a long journey. There's no overnight success. There's none of this. And then, and it wasn't overnight for success for you. I'm not saying that, but it's like, you're like, Hey, I'm gonna make this video. And, and there are those times, right?

Mark Leruste: 14:22

Yeah, but I'll tell you what, like, to illustrate, to illustrate your point is that it's the story. Have you, you've already heard about this urban story of Picasso kind of being in a restaurant and a woman seeing him and going up to him and saying, Oh my God. You know, Pablo Picasso, can you, can you do me like a drawing on this napkin? And so she gives him this napkin and does this little doodle, and he's like, that's gonna be like a hundred thousand dollars or whatever. He's like, what? Like a hundred thousand dollars? It just took you five seconds to draw it. And he goes, it took me a lifetime to draw it in five seconds. Yes. And I think that's, that's kind of where people can trip, is that Yeah, it from the idea. You know, the ideation, the script I wrote filming, the editing, all that took like few months and yeah, it went viral stuff. But I think it was also all the other stuff I did in my entire life that when I used to trade skateboarding gear when I was a kid and clean shoes and sell them for a higher price and buy two pairs and all the stuff that I always, I think had in some way developed that kind of creativity. Or like when I had my corporate job and we had to come up with these crazy. Ideas, I don't even how to say it. To be able to get to an interviewee who we were trying to get to, basically we were professional stalkers. I'd wait in car parks for like hours to get the Minister of Finance to be able to interview him, or I'd go like, this is a true story. I don't think I've shared this, but it's a true story. At one point, I became really good at reading rooms of understanding where people's movement would take them. So I'll, I'll give you an example. Tim Ferris came to talk in London in 2000. 13, I think it was a 2012, but don't quote me, I think it was 2012 or 2013. Anyway, my friend at the time, Jay, John says to me, Hey, I've got a ticket. Do you wanna come? I'm like, yeah. We go there, we have the event. And at the end he's like Q and a, right? Mm-hmm. And so I'm raising my hand. And I'm staying like every time he's answering somebody else's question, somebody's question. And there's a quote in his book, I think it's the Four Hour Work Week. And I could be butchering this cuz I read this 10 years ago, but I think he said it's a Mark Twain quote that says something like, if you find yourself in the majority, it's time to do something different or something like that. Right. And he goes, Ted Bury goes like, I agree with that. Why? I'll take the last, yeah. He goes, I'll take the last question. So I stand on the bench where I'm sitting and I'm literally. Everybody's laughing, right? But I'm just like, I'm gonna get this guy's attention. Like I am breaking the mold. I am following Mark's twin. And he goes, yeah, not you. And he goes to someone else. Oh geez. And I was so upset, right? I was so upset. I was just like, sulking and like for a few, like, I'm not gonna lie, few missed. I was like, I can't believe this. Like I'm just showing initiative and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then I kind of managed to recover and I went back to my training day, like my days as when I was a corporate media. And I had to understand where ministers would move and shake hands and where the exits were so that I could basically call them and say, I've been calling your office for two weeks and you're not answering, so you're gonna tell me now if you're gonna gimme an interview, yes or no. So I noticed where the exit was. I could see how Tim Ferris was moving, and I just went for it and I just stopped him. I was like, Hey Tim, I've got a question for you. Like, what's your relationship to failure? And so we had a chat. I have no idea why I've told that story, but there was a point, I'm sure of it at some point.

, Jeff Corrigan: 17:25

A lifetime of.

Mark Leruste: 17:27

To get to be able to, oh, five seconds. Yes. That was it. Yeah, that was it. That was exactly right. So the fact that I also got that question from Tim Ferris was because it was those years of training of trying to pinpoint busy professionals. We're talking about CEOs, chairmans of government companies or ministers or state heads of states who, who are notorious for dodging people. And I wanted to lock in an interview with 'em so I could interview them and then sell them a very, very expense. Editorial advertising section. And yeah. Did you wanna hear the answer of what Tim Ferriss told me about I do

Jeff Corrigan: 18:00

because, well, I, I honestly wanna know, so what, what's spurred the question number one, right? And then what was his response, if you can, I'm sure you remember

Mark Leruste: 18:09

he was pretty, yeah. So at the time I was, yeah, no, at the time I was kind of moonlighting as a life coach, as a professional coach. I remember, cuz I had a full-time job at Movember Foundation and then I'd wake up in the morning and I'd coach people in Vietnam and Sydney and then I'd go to. Really late cause I'd coach people in LA and and so I noticed that there was a common thread that

Sheldon Millls: 18:27

I would see among people was this fear of failure. Mm-hmm. Right? This, what if it goes wrong or what if, what if I fail in public? Or what if I look silly? You know, all these

Mark Leruste: 18:36

kind of

Sheldon Millls: 18:37

different ways of saying like, I'm just scared of what people will think like standing

Jeff Corrigan: 18:41

on the bench and waving.

Mark Leruste: 18:43

Yeah. Right.

Jeff Corrigan: 18:43

Like totally. Only to have him tell you no.

Mark Leruste: 18:46

Yeah. But even I, but even I was thinking like, this is gonna suck and I've just gone up and I did it. Right. But Right. So I just was, I was just curious because, you know, Tim, Tim Ferris is someone who, in my eyes, at least at the time, had been quite prolific in some of his projects. You know, he, he'd written a bunch of books, he'd been quite, the podcast didn't exist back then. And. He, he's much shorter in real life than I, I'll tell you that, that was like the biggest surprise that he was actually shorter in real life than I thought. But that's another conversation. And

Sheldon Millls: 19:17

it's always

Jeff Corrigan: 19:17

weird when you see like famous people

Mark Leruste: 19:19

on, well, I'll tell you what, look, cause I know his house, Louis houses. Really tall. Like really tall because he's a big unit, right? He, I mean he's, he's an athletic dude and he is like one, one and a half heads above me at least. Like he, he's, and I'm, I'm not sure, I'm about six foot, five foot 11 something that, and yeah, he's a big lad anyway. Love it. Yeah. So I asked us, I said to like, what's your relationship affair? And he said, and remember, and I remember it actually, I remember it like it was, yes, he said it's simple. It, he, he kind of approached the same. Process as as a scientific mindset, which is failure isn't failure, it's just a different way that isn't working yet. You've just gotta keep going until you find the solution. So that was like his mindset shift for me was around like, oh, but failure's just something you can cross off. Or from the list of things that don't work, but eventually you're gonna get it. You know? It's just a question of like, will you stick long? To go through that checklist so that you can find what works. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And I wrote about that in my first book. It's not you, it's me. And there's a picture of me actually with, with Tim, we're kind of like, you know, after all that I'm actually got a picture of him. So it's in the book. That's awesome. And I think, and I think I, I shared that quote as well.

Jeff Corrigan: 20:27

Awesome. That's fantastic. It's funny you brought up in there, this was totally side note, but you're like, I'm six foot five 11, something like that. And so I'm five 11, right? Yeah. And everybody and I, and anybody that I say, I'll be like, oh yeah. I'm like right around six feet. They're like, you're not six feet. It's like, like there is a threshold where people like, Will refuse to give you that. Yeah. They'll be like, no. So I know I stopped telling people that. I just like, yeah, I'm five 11, because yeah, yeah. That's, if I ever did, I was six foot, they'd all call me out like, no, no.

Mark Leruste: 20:55

With some good heels, some good heels, some good, good, good solid like soul on my shoe. Definitely in the six foot realm. But I think, yeah, I've shho, I've shortened with age, no jokes. When I was a kid, when I was at, like in my peak, I was , 1 meter, 83 centimeters, which is close to six foot. And now I'm one meter 82 at best. Mm-hmm. And so go figure out you're shrinking. Think it's like having, I'm shrinking. Yeah. I think I've just been longer enough. So the gravity is weight itself.

Jeff Corrigan: 21:19

It's just that, that must be it, right? There's, there's something to it. The gravity,

Sheldon Millls: 21:24

like, okay, this is totally random, but people are on the International Space Station it's like usually like close to like one to two inches. They'll get taller, but, but then when they come back to earth, like after a period of months, they like go back to, they come back what they were, but literally,

Mark Leruste: 21:37

Well, you know, fun fact, apparently you we're with, at the, we're at the tallest when we wake up. So when you wake up in the morning, and if you, me, if you people listening to this, please check this out and let me know if this is true or not, because I've been, I've, I've heard it. But apparently when you wake up, if you measure yourself and when you go to bed, you measure yourself like you're at your tallest when you wake up. Huh Gravity. One fact of the day. People who would the this, A school day habit? Masters monsters. One.

Jeff Corrigan: 22:02

If you only remember one thing from this podcast, write that down. Just kidding. Just gotta start doing

Sheldon Millls: 22:07

your, your inverted hang by your feet. You know what I mean?

Jeff Corrigan: 22:10

Yeah. And then you'll, you'll get back

Sheldon Millls: 22:11

Batman style. Batman. Yeah. I was gonna

Jeff Corrigan: 22:13

say. So so let's talk about the book here, because Yeah, I feel like Glow in the Dark. First of all. I love the title. Thank you. I think it's amazing. And I, so who did you write this for first off? Like who do you have in mind? So,

Mark Leruste: 22:27

yeah, so again, again, transparency. When I started this journey of writing a book it was a very, very different book and it was for a very, very different, Hmm. I think if I'm being truthful here and honest, I would have to say that part of me, part of my ego wanted to know that I could get a book deal. Like I wanted to have validation through a major traditional publishing deal to say like, I'm, I'm worthy. You know, like, I matter because I got a book deal. Like I'd lie to If I could stand here and tell you that it wasn't, that was what it started up, right? Like I needed to say that I got a traditional publishing deal. All that stuff. That was number one. Number two, because of that, I knew that I had to come up with a topic that was gonna be market. And that would therefore attract a publisher's interest. But it still had to be something I was interested in. Right. And so I originally, again, I wasn't like manipulating or, or being deceitful about it, but I truly believe that the book I wanted to write was helping entrepreneurs and business leaders overcome imposter syndrome. Hmm. That was kind of what I wanted to talk about cuz I did a lot of workshops and talks around personal branding, putting yourself out there, raising your profile. And what I realized is that people kept on tripping or staying stuck in the starting blocks and I just didn't understand why. And every time I dig deeper mm-hmm. I realized it was because there was this thing about like, who am I to put myself out there? And you know, again, fear, faith, all this stuff. So that was kind of the pitch and we got a bunch. You know, offers from different publishers. My book agent, literary agent in America, I think you call them you know, we ended up setting on this deal, which I, I really like the publisher was hase via the John Murray learning. Imprint and I mean, so we get the deal. So people who don't know how traditional publishing works, and this is, if you're lucky, you can negotiate in advance, most likely today you don't get an advance. You might get a slightly higher percentage on your royalties, but if you're a first time author published and you're not like a huge celebrity or huge influencer, or have a big press following of some kind, yeah, that's right. It's very difficult to get in advance Anyway, so for some strange reason I managed to get a small advance, but, and. And the way it works is they divide it into three. So they give you a third one, you sign the contract, a third one you deliver the manuscript. And a third one, they publish the book. Right? Mm-hmm. So we signed the contract. My agent's like, cool, the money's coming. Wire that through, why the money comes through. And I'm like, right now I gotta write this book. And I, and I start and I start, yeah. I'm like, oh,

Jeff Corrigan: 24:55

had you already started or where were you at in the process? This is an interesting, because Sheldon and I are in the process of, I had a,

Mark Leruste: 25:01

a note, I spent so much time. On the book proposal, the book, like if you go the traditional route, you need a book proposal. The book proposal is like a pitch deck. Mm-hmm. For like a startup. Mm-hmm. It is a hefty document and because I don't do things halfway, like my book proposal is legit, like it, it is an amazing document. I got a graphic designer to design it. Like it's just, it looks amazing. So much that my agent was like, I've never seen something like that. We're gonna get a book deal. And I got a lot of nos. Like a lot of people were saying his following's not big enough. We don't really see him as the expert on imposter syndrome, which actually later on I would agree with that. There was just not, but we got a, you know, we got enough yeses to have a bit of a bidding war and we, we ended up getting a deal. Right. So I get, I

Jeff Corrigan: 25:45

Can I infuse a question real quick? Yeah. After this. Cause I don't want you to lose your train of thought. Is I wanna ask you. What qualifies someone as an expert as far as like, cuz you said, oh, they don't see me as the expert on imposter syndrome, which is happy,

Mark Leruste: 25:59

which is probably true. Happy to, happy to give you my take on that. Yeah, yeah. But actually I'll, I'll answer it as I, as I continue cuz I think it actually fits in perfect. So I started writing about it and there was just something off about the whole process. I started reading other books about imposter syndrome. I started interviewing experts on ex imposter syndrome and I just kept on coming back to this thing. I like this topic, but it's, it's, it's not like if this was an Olympic sport mm-hmm. I'd be in the wrong sport. Mm-hmm. Does that make sense? If this was Olympic competition, I'd be competing in the wrong sport. Gotcha. Does that make sense? I, I can run, but it doesn't mean I'm elite level. Yeah. Right. What I am elite at and what I've always been passionate about deep down was story. It's why I launched my podcast, the Unconventionalists back in 2015, why I interviewed hundreds of unconventional thought leaders and, and, and pioneering business leaders, you know, influencers, politicians, activists, actors, et cetera. Why my podcasts won Best Interview Podcasts of the Year, the Business podcast Awards because I, I've always loved stories ever since I'm a child listening to my great grand, like listening to my grandparents talk about stories of war stories, my, my great-grandfather being a war hero. Like I've just always been around stories, always been fastened by stories, and what I realized is that when I was interviewing my guests on my podcast and working with clients, executive CEOs of typically six more seven figure kind of service businesses who wanted to put themselves a bit more out there was that they just didn't realize how powerful this story was. Like mm-hmm. Legit, right? I always say like, if you knew how powerful your story was, you wouldn't be sitting. Mm-hmm. And and so they would sometimes come on my podcast and I would distill their story and sometimes they'd be showing that for the first time. And at the end of day I'd be like, that was such an inspiring story. Have you ever shared it before? And they'd be like, no. I'm like, why not? Like, I don't think it's that interesting. And I was like, what? You know, like some crazy story that here. And then I was at this weird intersection of interviewing and distilling and sharing people's stories and hearing people on the receiving. Basically saying how those stories were impacting them. Mm-hmm. And how inspired they were, how they bought, you know, my guest book or, or joined their program or, you know what I mean, like taking action on the back of hearing their stories. So I just scratched my head going like, this is nuts. Right? Right. We are all sitting on this million dollar asset, but none of us are leveraging why. And so I started asking questions. I started. Going back to see my old clients. I started asking guests, I started asking friends, peers, could my community online following. And it was overwhelming. It was overwhelming. So I identified there were 10 effective story blockers that I talk about in my book, like 10 Reasons Why Most people don't Share their Stories. I won't go into them, but I'll tell you like the number one probably is one of them is they don't see why the story matters or how the story would be interesting to anybody else. Yeah. Now I explained this in the book, but the, the quick hack for people listening to this is, The phenomenon that you experience, it is called proximity bias. Proximity bias is the phenomenon when you're so close to something that you don't see as value. It's why we take relationships for granted. It's why we take our health for granted until something happens to us, but it's also why we don't see why our story matters. So I'll give you an example. Mm-hmm. Can you both think of like one of your favorite films? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. What's your favorite film? Both.

Sheldon Millls: 29:24

Nacho. Libre Nacho. Nacho Libre. Okay, cool.

Jeff Corrigan: 29:29

Oh, man. That's hilarious. Okay. Probably Braveheart. It's one of

Sheldon Millls: 29:34

mine. Braveheart cool for sure. Okay.

Mark Leruste: 29:35

Natural Libra, Braveheart. Do you, do you guys remember how you felt the first time you saw that film?

Jeff Corrigan: 29:42

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. What was it like, what was it like? Did, were you inspired? Like what were some of the feelings or words that you described to, like, why you enjoyed that? Definitely inspired, right? Yeah. And just amazed by the, the human spirit to overcome like Yeah. Almost insurmountable odds, right? So, yeah.

Sheldon Millls: 30:02

Yeah. Love it. Thank you. What about you, Sheldon? Just the, the quirkiness I've embraced the quirkiness of, of it and just made me quoted all the time. It's just, yeah. Makes me.

Mark Leruste: 30:12

Cool. So how many times would you say you've seen that film since the first time you saw it? Did you see it more than once? Have you seen it maybe twice, three times? Like how many times would you say you've seen that film? Doesn't,

Jeff Corrigan: 30:23

You know at least three. It's a long movie. At least three.

Mark Leruste: 30:25

At least three, yeah. So now imagine this, right? If I told you I'm gonna put you both in a room, you're gonna get snacks and water, you'll be good. But you're gonna have to watch that film back to back, not once. Not twice, not five times, not 10, not a hundred, a thousand times back to back without stopping. At what point or how many times would you need to see that film before you start losing the will to live?

Sheldon Millls: 30:51

Three times. Three times? Yeah. Three times, right?

Jeff Corrigan: 30:55

I mean, no more than three, right? You

Mark Leruste: 30:57

should be like, okay, well done. Here's the thing, it's the same thing with your. You've lived it so many times over and over again. You're so close to it that for you it's like a mega ball. But for someone who's never heard it, it's like them watching your movie for the first time. Yeah. And so you've gotta understand that you are the worst possible person to judge the value of your story because you're just so close to it. Okay. Yeah. So that's what I talk about. So the mission of my book is to try and unlock. The power of everyone's story, right? Because I believe that everyone has a story worth telling. And I say this, and every talk I give, I say the story that will change your life isn't the story that you hear. It's the story you'll share. And I want to go to my grave knowing that I've done everything I could to help you, help leaders, help entrepreneurs around the. Find the courage to share their story in an authentic way in a professional public setting so they can inspire someone else. Cuz what I say again, and this is where the other thing is where most people go wrong in my 10 story block, as I find is people say, I don't wanna be the center of attention. I don't want to be, look at me, me, me. I don't wanna melt my story that people think I'm taking advantage of it. And I say, you got it all wrong. Your story's about you, but it's not for you. Mm-hmm. Right? Like sharing your story isn't about being in the spotlight. It's about becoming the spotlight. By sharing your story, you effectively wrap up a message, a really powerful message through a vehicle that people understand. Cuz storytelling is our native language as humans. Yeah. And so if you want to land a message to your kids, to your, to your business partners, to your customers, to investors, like nothing conveys something better than a story. Right. And. I was just blown away by all of this that I'm sharing with you, because it's always been part of me. It's always been in like, I've, like my video cv. Yeah. My video CV was a story that I just felt like on paper would not work, but in a visual format would. Mm-hmm. And so I had to have a really uncomfortable conversation with my publisher. I had to go back and I

Sheldon Millls: 33:00

actually, you know, I wanna change the book. Yeah.

Mark Leruste: 33:02

Yeah. So Butran again, honest, honest, you know,

Sheldon Millls: 33:05

honesty

Mark Leruste: 33:06

time At one point thought, I'm just gonna write this other book, I'm not gonna tell them, and I'm just gonna submit it. And they'll say either yay, or they'll sue me and whatever, you know. And my wife was like, you probably should tell them like, I'm pretty sure it's in the contract. You know? Like I was like, yeah. So I had a really uncomfortable conversation, a difficult conversation. Confront publisher. Yeah. And I said, look, I gotta tell you something that I'm a little bit uncomfortable share, but I need to tell you. I knew it in my gut guys. Like I just knew it in my heart of hearts that this was the book I wanted to write. Mm-hmm. The other book was not the book I w i, cuz my first book, I know you shouldn't say this, but I am because, I believe that, you know, honesty and transparency is the best policy. I, unless your wife is asking me how those genes are making a look, that's another story. You but time and place I said, I said, I said to. I know in my heart of hearts that this is, this book is gonna work. Cause my first book I wrote by the time I published it, I just wasn't proud of it. I've never really spoken about my first book because it was more of a tick the box exercise. Still people get value out of it. People have really been generous with their words about my first book, but I'm not proud of it. But I wanted to be proud of this book. Like I, if I was gonna dedicate years of my life and time away from my kids and time away from clients and. Pouring my heart and soul. I wanted to be a book that I was proud and hand to heart could look at you in the eyes and say, I think this book will change your life. And I think in a year's time you'll come back and tell me you would've paid $10,000 for the information you got on that book. That was kind of what I was going for. And look, it's happened before. It's happened three times in my life. It's happened when, when my I knew the video cv, like I had to do this video cv. The second time was when my TEDx talk came. And the organizer sent me the original draft of my talk and it was dreadful. The screen was three quarters of slides and I was coming in and out of like focus on the side and I said to them, I almost wanted to cry. I was like, this is gonna bomb. This is not gonna work. You've gotta ask them to edit it, to change, like just do a normal TEDx talk where I'm just on the, the screen. I'm the screen, not these slides. I knew it in. My TEDx talk's been viewed over at 1.2 million times, so I was proven, right? Mm-hmm. And this was a third time in my book. I knew it. I just knew it. So I went in with that conviction where I knew in my gut that I was willing to walk away from the deal rather than writing the wrong book. Mm-hmm. He became the buyer. Yeah. And but, but I was just like, I told my publisher, I was like, I understand if you need to walk away from this deal, I get it. I won't hold it against you. My ego will be shattered a little bit, but I believe in this message so much. And they said, look, we understand. It's obviously never ideal to hear an author change of books, but look, if you believe in it, and kudos and credit to my team, they, they followed. And man, it's been like, it was an emotional rollercoaster. I talk about personal stories, so I had to share a lot about myself in this book. A lot of stories that I had never really spoken about before, but I used loads of case studies of other business leaders, entrepreneurs, founders, you know, thought leaders who kind of found the courage to share their personal story and against all odds transformed their impact and business. And you know, just cuz there's, there's a different energy about someone who owns their story when they show up in a room and when they lead a team or, or a project. And I wanted to capture that and then I wanted to put it in a really digestible way. And so the book. The reason why I'm proud about my book is that it's, I always say it's more than a book because it's divided into two parts. Part one is very much like trying to convince you about why your story matters, why personal stories can transform your business, boost your career, and change your life. And then the second part is very much how to, and I'd share everything. Like what I would, what, what literally CEOs and founders paid like tens of thousands of dollars to, to work with me on. I would, I just put it in the book. And then the really cool thing is that when you buy the. Nor did you get access to like a bunch of, of, of bonuses and resources where I literally walk you through some of the exercise by being the audio guide and some of the exercise and you get some webinars and blah, blah. But you get access to a score assessment where you can literally measure your ability to inspire and enroll and engage people with your story. Right now you get a score and then you read the book and you retake the exam and the the assessment, and then you can compare your score. So I wanted people to have an experience of growth by the end of their book. Awesome. And that's never really been done. And I, again, a bit like the video cv, I thought, well, why not? Why wouldn't you want to benchmark yourself when you start a book and benchmark yourself at the entity? Was this book really valuable? Did I really get something out of it? So far so good is what

Jeff Corrigan: 37:38

I'll say. That's fantastic. So that leads me, I think to the, we've only got a few minutes left. I was thinking about this as, as you've been telling us, you know, the different parts of your book, and one of my deepest studies has always been storytelling, right? It's like I, I'm a hundred percent believer in, in like you said, our native ability as humans too. Learn from stories. We remember stories it's just part of who we are. It's our, it's in our nature, literally. So I've also been very guilty of the, the thoughts that you were saying earlier about, oh, my story's boring. But at the same time like you just said, like there's parts of my story that are very different and unique and, and so I would love to have a moment where you on the show can walk us through a little bit how we happy to how we do this.

Mark Leruste: 38:24

Yes. I can do it in five. Yeah, I can do it in five. Okay. Let's do this. So, so this, this is very based, I'll try and condense part two of the book, but specifically the, the first section of part two. So the biggest problem that people have when they start off is that it go like, okay, I kind of get it. Or I think there's a part inside of me that knows there's a story, but I just dunno where to start. And I use the metaphor of a story of my nephew Liam and the Lego bag, that's kind of the title of the chapter in the book. But when we were kids, my brother and I used to play these Legos, right? My parents had collected these orphan pieces of Legos and, and like toys and stuff in this big. Dening bag that my mom's friend had built with like the string on, and they were literally just put on the floor, open up and it would just, you know, like Santa's bag, whatever it is, like when it opens up and it just flat. And and we would play with these Legos, right? And when my nephew was around four years old, my mom was like, to my brother and I, oh, you should go in the attic or in the barn and get that bag out. I went, oh yes, we went and found this bag. It just hadn't changed. It was the same bag. And you know, like he-man bits or whatever. And And GI Joe's. Wow. That was one. Anyway, so we put on the floor and , my nephew just instantly jumps in and grabs like all these different pieces of Legos and he just puts all the Legos on the floor. Right. Just puts more flat and he starts picking different pieces up and he starts building different structures. And , I'm fascinated cuz what I realize is that with the same piece of Lego, he, he ends up building different types of structure. And I think it's the same thing with our stories. I think we have all these stories inside of us that are all pieces of Lego, and right now they're all jumbled up into this big bag inside our brain or our hearts or our guts or whatever, and you need to put them all on the floor. And so that exercise is called the river of life. And the river of life is you effectively set 30 minutes at a minimum, take a big piece of paper, a four, a three, or whatever you. Mm-hmm. And you go through every influential, important, significant moment of your life from birth to date, you're professional, and your personal, your highs and your lows, your wins and your losses, your victories, and your failures, right? You literally do everything. Where most people go wrong in this point is that they are too far ahead and they're trying to think about what story would be relevant to my business story, whatever. Forget about it. They're editing. This is an exercise. Yeah, exactly. They're editing already. Yeah, that's exactly right. This is the part where no one's gonna see this. No one will see what you're gonna put down. But the fascinating thing is that I got this, like this, this parts of me, cuz I, I've turned my book into an online program called Own Your Story. And they said, oh my gosh. Like the more you start digging, the more you start finding. And so they start going through this process and I usually recommend you do it through decades. So, or either decades or life stages. So infant, childhood school, adolescents, you know, young adult, all that kinda stuff. Whatever, whatever works for you. I do it in decades. Cuz if you go on buy the the book, you go through the bonuses, you get templates or this kind of stuff that guides you through it, but effectively you're just gonna write things like. Your first heartbreak, your first memory of money, what it was like to grow up in your household. Is there a trauma Big T, little ty that happened in your life? Like all this stuff, you just put it all out. And again, I just wanna say this, my intention is not for then you to share everything. In fact, I believe there are stories , that I will never share in public cuz they hold a space in my heart that they don't need to. They don't until I can, like a story has to. Okay. It has to serve a purpose. It's not therapy. We're not bleeding emotionally on stage, right? We're we're serving people. So I talk about the four different types of stories. In my book, I talk about the open wound stories, I talk about the broken record stories, the interesting, but boring stories and the impact driven stories. It'll make sense if you read it. But the reason I'm saying this is that open wound stories or stories. We're still going through, we're still processing, you know, grief, loss, trauma, tragedy, whatever you wanna call it. They are some of the most potent stories that can have one of the most powerful messages, but only as you go through it and just start healing, right? Mm-hmm. Like so I talk about that those are best served in really safe space environments like therapy or mental health professionals, or a trusted friend or someone you really deeply intimately trust. So once you go through this exercise, it's a little bit like, Again, if the Lego metaphor doesn't work for you, think about your pantry, I think you call it pantry as well in America. Mm-hmm. But you know, if you wanna make something out of scratch, you're like, Hey honey, we're not gonna gonna get some groceries. We're gonna, we're gonna cook with what we have. Let's see what we have. You've gotta get everything out the pantry so that you can see what's off, what's still good, what goes with what. It's the same thing with your story. So once you've done. Right. That's the first, there's, there's three parts to glow in the dark. There's source, shape, and share. So that's part number one source. Mm-hmm. Is that cool? Yeah. Is that clear? Like number one, part one. Okay. Unpack it. Cool. Number two is shape. Okay. Number two, part of the process is shape. I talk about this in the book, so most if you are, if you're like me, a geek in storytelling, then you'll know a lot of the works of Robert McKee, Joseph Campbell Nancy Duarte, all these kind of like, you know. Yeah. And Donald Miller. So a lot of these are great storytelling formulas, if you're gonna be writing or marketing or copywriting, et cetera. I found them not to be that helpful when you're on the fly. Mm-hmm. If you're on a podcast, if you're on a panel, if you're talking to potential customers on the phone, if you're enrolling a new team member, I, I needed something much quicker than like a 12 or seven step. Yeah, I needed three

Jeff Corrigan: 43:48

steps, Kim. The whole hero's journey maybe doesn't say the whole

Mark Leruste: 43:51

hero's journey is like number one. It's a really fascinating module, but 12 steps, like when you're on the fly and like, tell me why you started the video. C v o, 12 steps. Here we go. You know? Yeah. I needed something really short and snappy, so I came up with a really simple three step process. Okay. I called 'em the three Cs. It's context, connection. Conclusion. That's it. So let me break it down for you. When you take a story, You gotta give me, first of all, the context. Where are you? Like, if you go back and listen to this interview, I'll tell you like, you know, it's 2009, I just broke up with my girlfriend. I'm going back home, I'm going through a tough time, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like I, I'll set the context. The context is give me enough information so that I understand where you are and I'm not spending my entire time thinking about. Wait, what was that? What year was this? What, where was where, where was the story taken? Just enough information. So my brain goes, but not too much, so I'm overwhelmed. I don't need to know what color trousers you were unless it was relevant for the story. So that's the first one. Set up the context number two connection. That's when you bring me into the emotional resonance of your story. What is the pinnacle moment of your story? What is the moment? So for example in the talk I give around humanizing leadership, you know, I might tell a story about what I learned about pitching. Accidentally to an mba pitch fest when I was a staff and all this stuff. And I'm talking about this moment where I'm walking down the stairs and my heart's beating, and I realize that I've just volunteered to do something I've never done and I don't even understand what it is. So that's just like the emotional peak, right? When, when I told you the story about Tim Ferris mm-hmm. And I told you like, I raised my hand, I'm on the bench. And and he says, no, not you. Right. That's like, that's like the emotional resonance. If you go back to all the stories I shared with you, you will recognize the three Cs. I've, I've kind of like ruined now, like the magic of storytelling the way, but it's, but it's what the intention of this book is. I want all of you, everyone listening you two mm-hmm. To go and take this and just become ambassadors of personal storytelling and authentic personal story chain. Right? So the third one is the most important one, which is where most people go wrong. A handful of people can do really good context and connection. Most people fail here because they stop. And that means that your story's just entertaining flat the best, but, but it's not helpful. No. Cuz you, you can make a No, no. You can make a funny or a Yeah. Or a moving story, but if you stop there, you, you're robbing your audience from the most important aspect of your story, which is what's the point. Mm-hmm. What is the message of the. Right. That's right. So the third one is conclusion. You've literally got to draw out the conclusion right of, of what are the point of stories. When I shared the story about Tim Ferris, I literally said I sulked for a few minutes, but then I remembered that like I haven't exhausted all my options yet. And like if I had to really use that formula and I'd go back and tell the story, I would say the moral is there's always. Which is why I teach my kids. I don't teach my kids a lot of stuff, but I always tell them, the one mantra I repeat all the time is, there's always a way, Nick. You ask my kids, I'll say, kids, what does that you always say, there's always a way. And so that would've been the message of that story, right? So again, I'll say it for clarity's sake. You want context, you want connection, and you want conclusion. The gift about this formula is, You can, once you go through the process of the river of life, you can start circling some stories, which you can take as part of your story bank, right? Your personal story bank. Literally, I want you to imagine an a vending machine, okay? I call it story a t m in the book, but since I've been doing lots of podcasts and talks about it, I think it can resonate a bit better for people to think about a vending machine. And so you asked me a question. Hey, mark, what was this story about your video cv? Boom. I go to my vending machine. I go, D. And I picked that one and I just run it through the three Cs. And then you ask me a story about, oh, your publishing deal. Like how did that go? Boom, I got no problem. F 45, get that one in. Does that make sense? Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so once you've got that, then the third part of the process is you gotta share, and this is where most people get stuck, is that they think their store needs to be perfect. But let me make it clear. Your story sharpens as you share. Mm-hmm. I've learned that from standup comedians. I used to live in South Africa and hang out with some amazing standup comedians, including Trevor Noah, who used to host a data show in America. And this is before he went, like Global Stratosphere, kind of red baddest. But I used to hang out with him. We used to go to like little tiny standup comedy shows and we used to go to brides, which are barbecues in South Africa. And I used to always ask like, how do you do it? How do you, and what I learned. They just kept on sharing the material. They'd bomb on stage and write down and they'll note like, that didn't work. They'd get it better. And eventually they'd get like that super tight five minute set, 10 minute set, 20 minute set, and eventually a special, like think about Kevin Hart, right? When Kevin Hart, before he records an arena for like a Netflix special, he will do over 300 or 260 gigs around America and the world to fine tune his set before he starts doing big arenas, and then eventually filming is special. So if you think about someone who's literally at the top of their game in one industry, one of the most successful standup comedians of our living generation, if. Practice that one 60 minute set over 260 times, like who are you to think that you could just get away and wing your story the first time? It's not gonna happen. Mm-hmm. You've just gotta practice it. So you pick one of those stories that you've taken out of your river of life, you apply the three c formula, and then you start sharing it and you collect feedback because the response that you get is the impact that you. I love it. That's it. I hope, I hope, I hope I gave you a, a, a clear roadmap in 10 minutes or so on, on how to turn your personal story into a powerful message.

Sheldon Millls: 49:28

Story was good enough that I really want to get your book and do, do the process now. Yes, it's the top of hour. Your kids are gonna be home. People wanna learn more about your book, about you. Where should we send them?

Mark Leruste: 49:40

So if the people wanna learn about my book, go to Glow in the. book.com. That's glow in the dark book.com, and you can get all the information where to get the books and you can get videos and all that kind of stuff. And then if you're interested in bringing me into your company or to talk to your people, then that's mark ru.com. But if you go to Glow in the book, glow in the dark book.com, you'll get all the information there. Okay.

Jeff Corrigan: 50:02

That's amazing. It's been a pleasure, mark. That was a great wrap up by the way and just Perfect. I love the theme. Awesome. Great

Sheldon Millls: 50:09

story. Very helpful. Thanks, pat. A great story

Mark Leruste: 50:13

and look all the best for the show. All the best with your work and let me know how it goes. And anybody listening to this, just remember there's a story inside of you waiting to be told. So have the courage to share it and, and have the courage to change the. Love it. I'm into

Jeff Corrigan: 50:26

that. Thanks, mark. Appreciate it. Cheers guys. Good luck with everything. Thank you. Thank you very much for listening. We're so glad you joined us today. That was an awesome interview. I loved it. Thank you, mark.. Sheldon, what were your favorite takeaways from today?

Sheldon Millls: 50:43

I just, the stories that we all have within us. I think far too often I was talking with Jeff at one point cuz we we've been on just a couple podcasts, interviewed us and some of the things that we talk about all the time, the, the garden metaphor, right? Stuff like that. They found it just like mind blowing. Do you know what I mean? Like this. But we've talked about it so much. It seems kind of like old hat, right? So you

Jeff Corrigan: 51:07

stuff, you guys are getting sick. Yes, they loved it. Yes, they ate it up like a nice juicy steak. Oh wait. Or if you're vegetarian, like a nice juicy piece of tofu. I don't know. So you guys, that was awesome. And honestly, those nuggets that you can take away right now today. The three Cs I thought of storytelling are a great way to break down story structure and apply it in your life. Really, when you're telling a story first, you wanna have, I honestly think the conclusion portion is really the backbone of the whole thing. It's like, okay, what's the purpose of what you're telling 'em? Right? What did you learn? What's the lesson learned? The moral of the story as it were. So you need context, you need connection, and you need that conclusion. Don't leave people hanging with just the context or just the connection. You wanna close it out with. And the point is, right, this is what we should

Sheldon Millls: 51:55

learn from this for, this is how you can apply it to you. Your situation.

Jeff Corrigan: 51:59

Yes. Your life. Yeah. So I think it's so valuable too, cuz no matter what phase you're in, whether you're an employee, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you run your own business, all of those things, whether it's just in your family, you're trying to teach your kids this whole thing of, what was this other faith source, shape and share. It's like, Start putting together today, start putting together some of those memories that you have of your background, that seem mundane and, totally normal to you. And. Start to point, figure out what were the lessons I learned in those key moments of my life. Those are the stories that are gonna resonate with other people. Even though you can think of them a million times and it doesn't, and it just seems like a normal everyday stuff to other people. It's going to be an epiphany taking them from somewhere they are now to somewhere they can go. That's what a book does is it take, it helps us learn something new without necessarily having to go through that experie.. Sheldon Millls: Thank you for joining us. Yeah. We, we work hard to try and bring you good ideas that help bridge the gap between, you know, who you are now and who you wanna be. This is our gift to you and, and if you can give a gift to us, please share this with somebody who needs it. Amen. Time to start living your best life.