hi i am here with paul andrew smith, Paul Smith is one of the world’s leading experts on organizational storytelling. He’s one of Inc. Magazine’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers of 2018, a storytelling coach, and the author of three Amazon #1 bestsellers: Lead with a Story (now in its 11th printing, and published in 7 languages around the world), Sell with a Story, and The 10 Stories Great Leaders Tell; in addition to Parenting with a Story and his newest work, Four Days with Kenny Tedford. He’s a former executive at The Procter & Gamble Company and a consultant with Accenture prior to that.

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Ari Gronich 0:00  

Has it occurred to you that the systems we live by are not designed to get results? We pay for procedures instead of outcomes, focusing on emergencies rather than preventing disease and living a healthy lifestyle. For over 25 years, I've taken care of Olympians Paralympians a list actors in fortune 1000 companies, if I do not get results, they do not get results. I realized that while powerful people who control the system want to keep the status quo, if I were to educate the masses, you would demand change. So I'm taking the gloves off and going after the systems as they are. Join me on my mission to create a new tomorrow as I chat with industry experts, elite athletes, thought leaders and government officials about how we activate our vision for a better world. We may agree and we may disagree, but I'm not backing down. I'm Ari Gronich. And this is create a new tomorrow podcast.

Welcome back to another episode of create a new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich. And I have with me, Paul Smith. Paul is a former Procter and Gamble, employee with consumer communications and research. He's one of Inc magazine's top 100 leadership speakers in 2018. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company time, Forbes, and Success Magazine along among others, an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, best selling author, and he leads with a story and I'm gonna let him kind of get into what it is that he's going to be doing and talking about, because he's an incredible storyteller. And he talks about leadership with that. So Paul, why don't you kind of give us an update of background on why you became who you are? And and what you have to offer people that is absolutely needed in in the world at the moment?

Paul smith 2:08  

Yeah, I think what you just covered was my my background up until about 2012. So at that point, I was 20 some odd years into my professional corporate career. And along that path, I just got fascinated with this concept of storytelling. And, and that kind of frustrated me, because, you know, they they didn't teach me about storytelling. at the Wharton School, they didn't teach me that when I joined Accenture, they didn't teach me that when I joined the Procter and Gamble company. But yet I was, I was beginning to recognize how important of a skill set that was to be successful in the profession that I was in. You're in business in general. And so I started interviewing leaders whom I admired and thought were particularly good at at first inside the company, and then outside the company. And I mean, at this point, I'm up to around 300 or so like individual one on one face to face two hour long interviews I've conducted with these CEOs and executives from all over the world, like 25 countries around the world. And pretty quickly in that journey, I realized that you know, if I want to know this that badly, probably other people do as well. And so it stopped being my own little selfish learning journey, and became an idea for a book. And so that that's what led to my first book lead with a story which came out in 2012. And then that led to another and another, and another, and my, my fifth book just came out a few months ago. And so what I ended up doing was pretty quickly, leaving my corporate career and becoming a full time author and speaker and trainer on the subject of storytelling for leaders or for salespeople, I've got one of my books is on, you know, sell the story for salespeople, why there's one for parents, you know, a couple of them are for for leaders. And so yeah, just led to a radical shift in my career. So So in the last eight years, this is what I've done full time as research and write on the subject of the art and the science of storytelling to help you be more effective at work and then conducting speaking engagements and training workshops on those topics.

Ari Gronich 4:10  

So do you think that storytelling has become a dying art? As far as practice or do you believe that it's going to have a resurgence? Because I know that, for me, at least, my cultural history is all about storytelling. You know, if you look back, it's like, you know what happened back then? Because that person who is they're told their grandfather, you know, told their kid who told their kid who told their kid who told their kid and, and that's how, at least in my culture, we, we learn and so, but a lot of cultures, it's not that way so much as dictatorial. Here's What you do, but there's no context of the story behind it. So how does how does that play out in in modern world? And why is it that it's such a fascinating thing we all love to hear people's stories?

Paul smith 5:15  

Yeah, so I think, personally, you know, in people's lives, I think storytelling has always been, you know, an important part of human socialization and family and, and things like that, in the working world, what my, what I've learned through my research, and this is that I think storytelling was actually important, even in the business world, you know, or the, the world of commerce for centuries. But then I think there was a period of time in the early 1900s, where it fell out of favor. And that's when you started to have professional business schools, you know, Harvard, and Wharton and, you know, etc, training people to become professional business people, which before that really wasn't a thing, right? If you're a professional was a lawyer or a doctor or something, but a business, anybody could be a business person, right? Just go start a company. Well, in the early 1900s, we started to credential eyes and professionalize business. And if you wanted to be viewed as part of the avant garde part of new business, you you, you probably didn't do a lot of storytelling, because that seemed old school. Right, you know, a new business leader would lead with a bunch of spreadsheets and, and like you said, dictatorial, you know, methods of leading and and, you know, having a very clear vision and using a bunch of management techniques and things like that, and storytelling wasn't one of them. And so I think it fell out, I think you asked is storytelling, you know, falling out of favor. I know, I think it did fall out of favor, 100 years ago, and about 20 or so years ago, I think it started to make its resurgence into the business world, because there are a lot of books written on the topic of leading, you know, with stories, starting about 20 years ago and mind. So mine was certainly not the first of them. And I won't be the last. But about 20 years ago, the resurgence of interest in bringing storytelling back into the business world started and I think we're still still early in that resurgence. And more and more people are becoming interested in how to use storytelling to either be a better leader or be a better salesperson be a better marketer to help them communicate their their ideas better, even if they're don't if they don't fit into any of those buckets. So that's where I think we are I think we're on an upswing not a downswing.

Ari Gronich 7:32  

Okay, sounds good to me, because I again, I really like having stories be part of, at least for me, my business itself, you know why? everybody always asks, Why did you become this performance therapist, and I have to tell them, you know, I, I started out as an athlete, I was five years old, I was playing, you know, three years old, doing gymnastics, five years old martial arts, playing baseball, doing all these things, and I kept getting injured. And so I had to figure out how to heal myself. And you know, that story is kind of the repetition that I play out when when somebody asks, I know, a friend of mine is doing these things called the story of your business and their books about why you started your business. And they're like coffee table books and things. And that's starting slowly to build. So how do we build that momentum? so that it becomes second nature, again, for people to be storytellers? And do we need our population to actually connect together again, because, you know, block parties, same thing, people are so separated, that it doesn't occur to them? Maybe? So is that a possibility to rebuild that culture? And do you think that the storytelling will bring us together versus separating us apart?

Paul smith 9:08  

Yeah, so there are a few things in there to unpack First of all, about that coffee table book about the story of your your business. That typically, I would call that the main story, there is the founding story. And and I think that's a very important story for businesses, for people, for leaders to be able to tell about the company they work in. And in fact, I think it's the first story you need to be able to tell. But it's not the only one. And, in fact, when people say the story of our business, they often make the mistake of assuming Well, we just have one story. Like you know, in fact, companies will hire me to Hey, we need you to come and help us tell our story better. And the first question I asked them when I get on the phone with them just to plan the event is when you say our story, what what do you mean? And then they say all these things? Oh, well, you know, we've got this really unique process of Innovation and, you know, the way our the way the company started was really unique. And our strategy is, is really interesting and the first product that we've ever made. So yeah, we want you to tell us tell that story, you realize you just rattled off like five different stories. I mean, you don't have one story. I mean, that would be a novel, right? If you were to write your one story, and nobody in a business conversation, has time to listen to a three hour story, they don't have time to listen to a 30 minute story, you know, you need, these are three or four minutes stories that you would tell. So the story of somebody's life is a series of short stories. And that's what I people need to realize is, you don't have one big story, you have a bunch of little stories, and you need to figure out which ones are important. And when to tell each one because there is zero opportunities to tell all of them in one sitting, that will never happen, right? So you need to figure out which one's which of those little stories are the most important, and the founding story is one of them. But it's just a three or four minute story about why the founder of the company founded the company. It's not about the 25 years since then, and all the money you've made and the successes and the failures, those are all different stories. The founding story is just about that one incident where the the owner said, You know what, I am done working at this company. I'm gonna start my own company. It I hate it here. Like nobody ever, ever quit their job, risked everything to go start a business for a boring reason. There's always an interesting story behind that. But that's story number one. So what I what I did in my last book is called the 10 stories great leaders tell. And I just tried to outline it's a very short book, you can read it in an hour. It's just about what are the most important 10 stories, but it's, but it's that's only 10. There are dozens more that you should tell. But if you're interested and say with those 10 hour, but the founding story is number one,

Ari Gronich 11:48  

no, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay, so

Paul smith 11:51  

so that's first is where we call it a where we came from story. That's your founding story. All right. But it's not everything that happened after that, just the founding story. The second one is why we can't stay there. So that's a case for change story, there's probably something going on in your business that you need to make a change. Where we're going is the third story. So that's a vision story. And how we're going to get there, which is a strategy story, because a strategy is about how you're going to get from where you are now to where you want to be. So if you think about those four stories, those first four, any leader who can tell those four stories can easily articulate where we came from, why we can't stay there, where we're going and how we're going to get there. And that's the kind of direction that everybody needs in an organization to come from the leaders, right? That's four different stories. It's not one story. It's four different stories. So the next four kind of go together as well. But they're more about who we are as an organization. So that's what we believe that's a corporate values story, who we serve. So that's a story about the customer. So everybody can get a visceral feel for who we're working for what we do for our customer. So that's a classical sales story, and how we're different from our competitors. So that's why I call it a marketing story. Because marketing is generally about how you're different from your competition. So again, if you can tell those four stories, you can easily articulate who we are, who we work for what we do for them and how we're different than our competitors. Right? every leader has got to be able to do that. And that leads to more so the last two are, the last two are more personal to you, the leader, why I lead the way I do. So that's a personal leadership philosophy story, and why you should want to work here, not you, but whoever you're talking to, right. So that's a recruiting story, because every leaders job is to make sure talented people come into the organization and follow the leadership. Now there are dozens of other types of stories that I cover in my my other books, but if I had to pick a most important 10 those would be the most important ones to like, start there, but then continue to build your storytelling repertoire. But you got to recognize those are all different stories. So there is no one story for a company there are lots of them.

Ari Gronich 13:51  

So is this something that that you would recommend like nowadays, everything is online? So should this be something that that we do online is like a video as well as, you know, a written version of it that people can really feel the energy of the person when they're telling that story? Or no as I

Paul smith 14:15  

think video is a Yeah, video is a fabulous medium to tell stories, right? Because it's so much richer than just the written word on a piece of paper or on a blog post or something like that. So yeah, I definitely encourage people in fact several of my clients you know, after we go create a story with them they'll go hire somebody to help produce a video in fact I'm I'm now starting to partner with somebody I've got a call with him right after this with a production studio in California to do exactly that to take stories from idea to concept to story scripting, and then all the way to having it you know, produced into a final video. I think that's a fabulous way and it's easier to tell it then because you don't have to be there face to face every time they can just they can go watch the video right?

Ari Gronich 15:00  

lately? Yeah, I have a friend's company that does the videos. And another friend who does books, which is really interesting ones in Miami and one's a nomad at this point, traveling Nomad. In those stories, there are certain elements that people would probably want to highlight and accentuates, you know, so what are the kind of elements that somebody who's watching the video would want to hear or see or feel based on what's going on in that story? So what are like, the basic elements?

Paul smith 15:41  

Yes, well, the first and most important thing for the person telling the story to understand is, what's the lesson that you want the audience to learn? You know, like, in fact, what do you want them to think feel? Or do the three things I coach people like you need to you need to have an objective in your mind, you shouldn't just be telling people's stories to entertain them, right? You're telling them for a reason you're trying to accomplish something, you're either trying to get somebody to think, feel or do something different than they are today. So start, you start with that. And then once you have that end in mind, then you will pick the story to tell that will accomplish that objective, right? So then you got to go find something that actually happened in the world and your experience and your business and your personal life or whatever that will motivate somebody to do that to either think, feel or do something differently. And then you craft that into a story. And so but you start with the end in mind, right? What do I want people to think feel or do differently, go find a story that will convince them of that, then you craft the story. And there are little things that you'll want to do to make the story effective, like, have the right structure to the story. These are just like I said, three or four minutes stories. So you know, you need to have a tight structure. And I teach a very specific structure, the eight questions your story needs to answer and in this particular order for the story to make the most sense. And there are specific techniques that you can use to create the right emotional engagement in a story. There are techniques to create a surprise ending in a story, which is maybe not as obvious, but is actually important in a business story, not just for an entertainment Hollywood Story. And that's because a surprise actually makes the story more memorable. And if the story is more memorable than your idea will be more memorable. You know, you also want to use dialogue. And so they're all the kind of things that you know, somebody in Hollywood would use, you can use the same techniques to create your little three minute story that they're using on a bigger scale.

Ari Gronich 17:34  

That's awesome. So I'm going to take it a little bit away from the business side at this moment. And I'm going to I'm going to push it into what kind of is going on in our current world with politics. One of the things that I loved about ross perot. Yes, I loved ross perot.

Paul smith 17:56  

Yeah. And God rest his soul. And here's

Ari Gronich 17:58  

what we got to do. We got to get rid of that NAFTA business right there. But what he would do different than any politician that I've seen in modern, at least times, is he would go on, he would purchase 30 minutes slots. And he would explain a policy. And the reason why that policy wasn't good. And here's the numbers, and here's the information, and here's what it's going to do to the community. Right. And he would explain it in ultra detail. And I wonder why the politicians go and do these mini, like sound bites, and they never go on and really take the time to tell the story of, of their policy of what they're doing, of why they're doing it to get the onboarding of the citizenry. They scare them with the sound bites the stories with it, you know, in my opinion, enlighten them. So

Paul smith 19:01  

yeah, so a few things in that, um, first of all, I think the our entire society has suffered a radical shortening of our attention span in the last couple of, like, decade or so. And that's unfortunate. I think, you know, there's a lot of reasons to blame for that, you know, social media has done that television has done that, you know, we all have a very short attention span when I started doing training videos for LinkedIn learning out in California. You know, we had seven or eight minute video segments that we would shoot for, you know, one or two hour training course. Well, now they want them in two or three minutes, you know, because just because people's attend to they can't I can't watch a video for more than three minutes without checking my phone, you know, which is kind of sad, but so that's part of the problem. The other thing I think I would, I would say about that is that that 30 minute detailed explanation that ross perot would give about his policy. I don't call that a story. I call that a 30. minute explanation, right? I mean, he's explained, he's going into detail about the numbers. And, you know, and and I think we need that storytelling should not be the only communication vehicle that you use. In fact, it shouldn't even be the most frequent one. In fact, I tell the folks, I coach that only 10 to 15% of the words coming out of your mouth should be in the form of a story 85 to 90% of the time you're talking or writing or whatever, should be normal prose, right, it should be like what ross perot was doing just somebody, I'm just explaining this to you, let me just explain my idea to you, but 10 to 15% of time. So if you've got a one hour meeting 10 to 15% is six to nine minutes. So out of that ross perot half hour, that's three to five minutes, out of a half an hour, I think he should be telling a story. And the stories are only two or three or four minutes long. So he's got time for one or two story short stories during that 30 minutes. And those stories are going to be helpful to illustrate the point he's going to make so he can he can talk about, you know how to get rid, we ought to get rid of this NAFTA thing. And here are my five reasons why and here's the impact that's going to have on our economy. And it's going to have an impact on real people too. So for example, there's a guy named Bob, I met down in Dallas, Texas last month, and he got he lost his job, because his job got moved over to, you know, to Mexico, and, and, you know, he's going to tell a personal story about that guy, and how NAFTA impacted his life and his family and his kids. And then he's going to get back to the, you know, next idea on his list, but that's just going to be a three or four minute two or three minutes story that he tells in the middle of that 30 minute discussion, we need the 30 minute discussion. But if you were to ask people a week after that ross perot 30 minute explanation, what they remember the most from it, what do you think it's gonna be

Ari Gronich 21:47  

the story,

Paul smith 21:48  

it's gonna be the three minute story about Bob who got fired in Dallas, right? So. But if all he did was tell stories for 30 minutes, nobody would know what to remember. So you can't or you shouldn't overuse storytelling, either. You need to explain it, and then use stories to punctuate the key ideas and make it memorable and compelling. Right.

Ari Gronich 22:10  

Hold on one second. I just got to turn on a light. So a little bit green on my face.

Awesome. That's a little bit better. I don't look like in anymore. All right. So So I watch, you know, politicians all the time, and they'll go into that story of the person that was affected by the thing, right. And a lot of times, it'll sound contrived story sounds made up almost even if it's not, it's very polished, our story supposed to be really polished, or are they supposed to be authentic? Because that that is what connects with me. Although I see the politicians and it never feels really authentic, the stories that they're telling.

Paul smith 23:38  

Yeah, I agree. And that's why I don't I don't write books about storytelling for politics, because I, I do feel like they mostly come across that way. So if you find yourself ever using the words, let me tell you a story. Nothing that comes after that is going to sound authentic. Right? So it's when that it's when that politician makes the point and then they go, so let me tell you a story about Bob and in Dallas. Well, you've already made it sound like a big production and any, any if he delivers that story in a really polished way. Yeah, it's gonna sound contrived and, and lack authenticity. In fact, when I was doing the research for the book, sell the story I interviewed, obviously, a bunch of salespeople, but I also interviewed buyers, professional procurement managers, who listened to salespeople sell to them all day, and ask them, what is it that makes a sales pitch sound like a sales pitch? And they all told me the same thing. They said the moment the conversation turns from conversational the tone of the conversations turns from conversational and extemporaneous to something that sounded scripted and memorized, they say that's when I knew the sales pitch had started. And that's when the hairs on the back of my neck would stand up. And I would get defensive and like, you know, you don't want to have that effect on people. And that's the same effect I think those politicians have on people when they go into that kind of Storytelling mode. And so I tell people, you know, the tone of your voice shouldn't change, when you start to tell a story, it should just, it should flow in the conversation very naturally. So if somebody were to ask you, if you're in the office and you're in a, in a meeting with somebody, and they tell you about a problem they're having, and you're the boss, and you say something like, yeah, that's a tough problem. Let me tell you what I did five years ago, when I when I had your job, and I ran into that problem. And then you start telling your story. Like, that's a genuine story. Okay, I've got that problem. And you're about to tell me what you did when you had my job. And you ran into that problem. Now, I don't know yet if you were successful at it, or you're a failure at it. But either way, I'm going to learn something, right. So I want to hear that story. So that's a much better way to, to move into a story then let me tell you a story. And then you're gonna deliver it, you're gonna have some arms and ORS, and it's not going to be perfectly polished, and you're not going to memorize it word for word. And, and, because that's not the way people talk, people don't talk in perfect grammar. They talk and halts and stops, and they start a sentence over and they'll, you know, stutter a little bit, and your story should sound the same way. So in fact, I tell people, don't even script your story out word for word, because if you do, you'll be tempted to memorize it. So you should only script out you shouldn't script it. only write down your story in bullet points. So just and it's the answer to the eight questions. I know, I haven't told you what the questions are. But you know, the eight questions the story needs to answer you should have bullet point answers to the questions. And that's what you memorize. That's like, the outline of your story. And then every time you tell the story, it'll sound like the first time you've ever told the story because it will be the first time you've ever told the story exactly that way. Right?

Ari Gronich 26:42  

So, you know, it's funny, because I've done a lot of speaker training, I was, you know, peak potentials train the trainer's john Childers and his $25,000 speaker trainer, which back then was probably one of the best speakers on the planet, john Childers. I mean, and, you know, one of my, one of my mentors, and a lot of people's mentors, Les Brown, he's very well known for repeating the same story over and over and over again, and it is absolutely memorized, however, and it's like, word for word every time so you can play multiple speaking engagements. And, and almost, you know, make them overlap. Right. But he never sounds like, like, He's right, going based on a script ever. And that's just like a tone. But I I've actually done as a speaker, I've, I've never written out a full script, I can't, it actually hurts my brain and my soul to write a full script for something I like to be able to be spontaneous. And I find that the script keeps me from being more rubbery.

Paul smith 28:07  

Right. So yeah, let me because I know the kind of person you're talking about, I know people, speakers who who do that. And they're probably some of the stories that I tell when I, you know, and I, I'm a professional speaker, as well. And I've done you know, 1000s of engagements, and there are some stories I've probably told 1000 times, and some of those stories probably are like that, you could probably roll the tape back that way. The difference is, most people aren't professional speakers. They're not professional actors, right. So if you're gonna tell if you are a professional speaker, and you're going to tell a certain story in front of an audience, hundreds and hundreds of times, yeah, go ahead and and and memorize it and use the techniques that that guy probably uses to make it sound a little bit fresh every time. But most people 99% of the people, you know, are not a professional speaker. They're just, you know, I'm a vice president at a bank, and I need to be a better leader, or I'm a salesperson for, you know, computers, or whatever. And I need to do a better job of it. And so, and I needed to learn to tell there's different stories I need to tell all the time, and I may only tell them two or three or four times and then that story is done. So most of us need help telling those kind of stories, not the story I'm going to tell hundreds and hundreds of times. So I think the rules are a little bit different. If you're one of those people. Yeah, you could probably get away with it. But most of us aren't that person.

Ari Gronich 29:28  

Gotcha. So how does this you know, go back, going back to you know, we talk politics, we talk in business a little bit, but also personal life. So you're, you're an adult, and you're going to make a friend, which is probably one of the hardest things post college that any adult does is make friends. And they want to express to the person that they meet that they seem to get along with and like who they are, right. Is there a story For that somebody can practice as well or somebody can have them. I mean, I'm just trying to put what are the applications that are outside of the box a little bit?

Paul smith 30:11  

Yeah. So well, first of all my my second book parenting The story is about stories, personal stories, stories you tell at home, not the kind of stories you tell at work. But there are more stories to teach life lessons that a parent would use to teach their kids, you know, the value of integrity or open mindedness or creativity or curiosity or hard work or fairness, you know, those kind of virtues that you want your kids to have. But if your goal is friendship, another one of those chapters is on friendship, by the way, but if your goal is making new friends, and you were looking for the type of stories you would tell when you're meeting people, what I find is helpful there is to tell a self deprecating story. Write a story about you know, a silly mistake you made or something stupid, you did one time. And the reason is because that humanizes us, right? Nobody wants to make new friends with somebody who's so full of themselves that they're just they're just arrogant. And so if you tell a story about well, let me tell you about one of my first book hit number one of the New York Times bestseller list. Let me that's a fascinating story. Let me tell you about that. Well, it's may be fascinating to you, but it's not going to be the people listening, right. But if Let me tell you about the first time I got fired, oh, my God, it was so embarrassing. Who wants to hear that? Everybody? I mean, just because it's funny. And you know, and everybody loves to laugh at somebody else's misery. And plus, maybe they'll learn something from it. So you're telling your own self deprecating failure story is a great story to tell when you're meeting new people? I think, what do you think?

Ari Gronich 31:41  

Yeah, I do it all the time. But I have so many to pick from.

Paul smith 31:47  

I've had so many failures. Yeah,

Ari Gronich 31:49  

I figure you know, I'm a very balanced person, equal parts of genius, and idiot, equal parts of damage. You know, and trauma. And, and, and benefit, you know, I mean, I'm a pretty balanced person, that way. I tell I tell some of those kinds of stories, you know, but, I mean, that, to me, is how I connect. And one of the things that I know about our world these days, is that we are all connected without being connected at all. You know, we all can we can all comment on each other talk to each other do, but nobody is being or very few, at least in the society are being really deep and dirty and dark with their stuff. Because everything is a selfie culture these days. It's like, what is the best angle for my face? What is the best, you know, look for, you know, I just made some food, how can I make it so that the picture will look good, so I can post it on something. And it's, it's this unreal, inauthentic way of being with each other, that I think is damaging the society as a whole in such innumerable ways. And it's that inauthenticity of connection that we're that we're experiencing. And so I'm, I guess, looking for ways that we can, you know, this whole create a new tomorrow is about how do we take ourselves I'm, you know, my new book series I that I'm in the middle of writing right now is called tribal living in a modern society. And it's going to be a series. The first one is the corporate culture revolution. But it's all about how do we get back to living more in a tribal way, which involves things like sitting around a fire with people and sharing stories? And how do we get back to that in corporations in our families? I mean, how many people do you know that still sit around the table with their kids every single night for dinner, and talk about the day? Not very many. And so that's where it's like, I'm trying to, I want to get this the world and it's my own feeling and my own, you know, like, selfish wish, want desire. So, you know, may not be anybody else's, but I feel like people are longing for what that is that they're missing. And a lot of that storytelling, the time that we spend with each other, talking about our history, our past, I think that's what's going to solve a lot of the race issues when people start listening to the stories and hearing them without that reactive mind. So that's the other part is when you're telling a story making it As easy as possible for the listener to digest without reaction. Right? So is there is there a way to do that, obviously better and you know, and be able to tell that story without causing the reactions. This is going to be good for any audience member who's in a relationship as well. Whether It's Your boss, or or a partner, if you can tell your story without them having a reaction, right?

Paul smith 35:33  

Yeah, well, maybe I'm not sure I understand the question. Because typically, when you tell a story, you want your audience to react, what are you saying you want to tell a story without a reaction of.

Ari Gronich 35:45  

So let's say, I'm talking to somebody of another race, and they're telling me the story of their experience with people of my roots. I don't want I want to be able, as a listener, to hear them without react going into a reaction about like, well, he's telling me I'm bad, or, you know, without feeling attacked, or being attacked without you know, that that whole reactive pneus based on ego attack? Yeah.

Paul smith 36:20  

You know, I think that's exactly where storytelling can help. In fact, I'm working on a diversity inclusion course with LinkedIn right now to do to accomplish exactly this, where we have people who've, you know, people of color who've suffered these kind of indignities sharing their stories. And what I think makes that effective is that it allows the listener, people like you and me to get inside their head to try to experience their experience from their viewpoint, that's what the, so they'll tell a story from a first person point of view. Let me tell you what happened to me my first day on the job at this company, you know, I went there, and this terrible thing happened and this terrible thing, you know, and I felt inadequate, and I felt like, you know, they, they didn't want me there. And you know, they go through their whole terrible experience. But without ever naming the person who did this and their person who did that to them. So when you're listening to this story, if it's done well, I think the natural human inclination would be to feel empathy for the person because you're seeing their world through their eyes, walking through it in their shoes, that's what the story can do. Whereas if you're not using stories, and you're saying, look, at 9.6% of African Americans feel like they've experienced one racial incident per week in their life at the hands of a white male. Okay, well, guess what, if you're a white male, you're gonna feel attacked. But if I just tell you a story about somebody, when they experienced some, you know, racial indignity, I think you'll feel less attacked, and you'll feel more involved in the story, you'll feel more empathy. So I think that's what storytelling can do. If I could, I kind of want to Mulligan and go back to one of the questions you asked earlier about, you know, telling these personal stories for friendship purposes. And this book series that you're working on this, this idea might help you. There was a study done by a survey done by I can't remember who did it at this point. Anyway, it was it was back in the around the year 2000, New York Times did the study. And they asked people, what percentage of people in the world are trustworthy? And the answer was somewhere around 20, or 30%, was really low, which is sad. And then they asked the same question, but a slightly different way. They said, what percent of people that you know, personally, are trustworthy? And the answer went up to like 80, or 90%. And you don't have to be a math genius to realize that there's something wrong there. Like, unless the people who are not trustworthy don't know anybody. On average, those two numbers should be the same, right? If you're doing a random sample of people, but they're not and they'll never be the same. And the reason is, because it's not that the people who know other people, the people that they know, or happened to be more trustworthy than the people that don't know. It's just people trust people they know, more than they trust people they don't know. Right? We don't our default setting is not to trust people. And once we get to know them, as long as you don't give them a reason not to trust you, as they get to know you more, they'll just naturally you move into this circle of trust. Well, now, I know you so I trust you. You know, even though you haven't really earned it, you just I know you. And so the reason I bring that up is because storytelling is the shortest distance between being a stranger and a friend. Right? I mean, I can read you my resume and you still won't feel like you know me. But I can tell you a couple of stories about what happened to me as a kid and what happened to me last week, and all of a sudden you know, me personally, just A little bit. And so it won't take six to nine months of us working together for me to earn that trust. All of a sudden, you'll just you'll know me and I will have moved into that circle of trust for you. So, building Frank friendships are based on trust, right? So they need to get to know you personally, and telling personal, you know, sometimes, you know, insightful notes is not the right word, but vulnerable stories of vulnerable pneus. That is what will bring you into that circle of trust, because I feel like they know you, personally, then.

Ari Gronich 40:33  

So this is something I know very well. But a lot of people feel that vulnerability is weakness. I feel like vulnerability is your biggest strength. So how do we get people? How do they feel vulnerable without feeling weak?

Paul smith 40:55  

Well, I think I think if I'm not sure why people, I think people that feel that vulnerability makes them weak, probably just haven't tried it, because they're too afraid to write. So if you were to tell, so remember, we talked about self deprecating stories earlier, right? So you're so say, You're the boss of some small department at work, and you're afraid to tell any of your failure stories, because it'll make you look weak? Okay, well, you're, you're probably not a very good boss. But if just try it, try telling a story to your group, about one about your three biggest mistakes you ever made in your career. First one got me fired. Second one almost got me fired from that job. Third one was terrible. But, you know, I didn't get fired, whatever, you know, and when you tell them about what you did, and each of those over the last 30 years, here are the three biggest mistakes I made. Your, your audience will love you for that, because you've just taught them three terrible things to never do at work, right. And so what you're telling them is, I care more about your growth and development than I do my own ego. I want I'm telling you these stories so that you won't make the same mistakes that I made. Now, I'm the boss here. So obviously, you know, I've done a lot of good things to write, somebody promoted me to this point. So I'm obviously not terrible. But yeah, I'm human. So I've made mistakes here, my three biggest. So do that and see how your people respond? Do they? Do they try and leave the company or like, I don't want to work in this department anymore. Apparently, my boss is stupid, he made three mistakes, or, you know, I don't want to work for her anymore, because she's weak, like, you will never ever get that reaction. The reaction you'll get is, Wow, thanks. I want to work for her more often. Like I want to work for her forever, because she cares more about my growth and development than she does her own ego. So I think if you try it once, you'll realize oh, it didn't make me weak. It made people admire me as a leader. And then you won't have that fear anymore.

Ari Gronich 42:51  

Nice. So is there? Well, let's go with the the eight questions, right? Let's take a look. Yeah, let's, let's

Paul smith 43:05  

hear the structure of a story.

Ari Gronich 43:06  

Right, let's take them step by step and just kind of here's what here's what we can do. Give them an example. And then tell them what the questions are. So like, a short two minute story, and then here's what I was answering.

Paul smith 43:22  

Yep. Okay, so I'll give you an example of that. Number eight, I think is that the marketing story, the why how we're different from our competitors story. So actually, you know what, let me do a different one, because it sounds like your audience is not all necessarily business people. So I'll do number nine on the list, which is a leadership philosophy story, which is also more of a personal story. So a guy named Mike figlio Lowe, who went to West Point. So he's an art was an army guy. His first leadership opportunity was leading a platoon of tanks, right, so and his first opportunity to test his leadership was in a training exercise at Camp Pendleton, California, maybe. Anyway, in California, imagine a 10 mile long five mile wide practice field, and they're going to go into battle, like literally gonna be 400 tanks on this side of the field and 400 tanks on this side of the field, and they're gonna go into this exercise. Now, they're not shooting live ordinances. They're like shooting laser beams and with a little receiver, so that you know, but it's real tanks with real people, but not real weapons. Anyway, he happened to be assigned it to be in the first tank that's going to go into battle on his side of the field with 400 tanks. So of course, then, you know, they're all following him. So the night before, he sits down with the commanding officer, and they go through a map of the terrain and figure out where the high ground is and the best strategy to win the exercise. So the next morning, that exercise starts and he's in his tank, and they're racing out onto the field. Well, he gets a couple of minutes into it, he gets to the place where he's got to make a decision to turn left or right. And he doesn't know what to do. Like, I guess looking at a field through the crack in the hatch of a tank. bouncing up and down at 40 miles an hour just looks a little different than it does on a map in a conference room, right? So he's got a decision to make, he can either stop the tank, turn on the light, get the map out, figure out the right thing to do, which might take, I don't know, 30 seconds. Or he can just guess. Well, Mike chose option two, he just yells out driver turned left, even though we had no idea if that was the right thing to do. But he said it like he meant the right driver turn left, so driver turns left. A couple of minutes later, the light in his tank starts flashing, which means you just got shot by a laser, you're dead. So they've stopped the tank pop has get out those guys are done for the day. Well, you know, 30 seconds later, tank number two, fall is following him and they turn left and their little light goes on. Okay, they got shot by laser tech number three turns left, their light goes on, they're done. But the guys in tank number four saw three tanks turn left and get virtually shot and killed. Right. So they realize that was a mistake. So tank number four turned right. And then 396 other tanks turned right. They took the high ground and won the exercise. Right. So Mike learned a lesson that day. So he made a mistake, right? That was a leadership mistake, he should have turned right. Instead he turned left, right. But what he learned from that was that sometimes it's more important to make the wrong decision quickly than make the right decision slowly. Because just imagine if he had stopped the tank, turn the light on got the map out and wasted, not wasted. But spent those 30 seconds figuring out the right thing to do. What would have happened would have been 399. Other tanks stopped behind him waiting for him to make a decision or getting picked off by lasers because they're like sitting ducks out there. Right? So but because war and business in life are all fairly similar in that when you make a mistake, it's going to become obvious Pretty soon, right? You'll have things will start going wrong. Right? So then you can monitor and adjust. And sometimes it's better, like I said, to make the wrong decision quickly than the right decision slowly and not get stuck in the analysis paralysis that in the business world we often do, we'll study a situation for six months. Meanwhile, your competition is moving forward. So that's story. That's a leadership philosophy story that he uses to explain why he leads the way he does. So when he's telling you to tell people that story and they'll they'll recognize, oh, then he's a decisive leader, if I need a decision made quickly, I want to go to him and not somebody else, because he's a more decisive leader. And that just lets people understand the kind of leadership to expect from him that he expects from other people. So that's an example of one of these stories. Let me let you react to that. And then I'll go into the eight questions about it.

Ari Gronich 47:35  

It sounds like a ready fire aim.

Paul smith 47:38  

Yeah, it kind of is. It is. Yeah, that's good. Ready firing.

Ari Gronich 47:42  

So. So again, in my world, if I have a word spelled wrong, or the commas out of place, or things not completely perfect and clear, right? I don't want to put it out there. It's been a habit, I've been learning to put stuff out, and then tweak as I go. Right. But, but it's, you know, embedded in my spirit from my mom, who is, you know, an old teacher. And, and grammar clean. And so she wants to make sure like everything that I ever put out was proper English and proper commas in the right place, and no words on spelled and, and everything like that. So that's what I how I grew up was needing to be perfectionist, but I have noticed in my business how costly that is. So is that kind of like a story? I know, I cut it off. But is that kind of like a story?

Paul smith 48:46  

A little bit, you'd probably need a little bit more to it. And so when I go through these eight questions, you'll probably be able to recognize where yours is missing. Right? A couple of these

Ari Gronich 48:54  

as I would have gone on I didn't want to make it about me. Yeah, you know, to get that interview. But I mean, I'm just I'm playing with with what you're what you're saying to see. Because I want the audience to actually get it right. And I want them to be able to walk away from listening to you and say, I can use this to change the world. In my world, right to create my new tomorrow today. Well, what I've been doing hasn't been working, I haven't gotten the conversions. I haven't gotten the the friendships, I haven't gotten to whatever it is that I'm looking for. And it sounds like the storytelling is kind of like the missing piece for many people. The missing piece to getting everything that they want.

Paul smith 49:42  

Yep. So I'll get to the eight questions here in just a second. But let me respond to that. You're the story that you told and and and what would make that a better story. First of all, it would need to be unique. It would need to be a narrative about something specific that happened. So what you said in general was, you know, my mom always, you know, told me to you know.my i's and cross my T's and get everything right. And in the business world that ended up being bad decisions that end up costing me money. Well, that sounds like a very general statement about how your mom raised you, and a very general statement about how you've run your business. To make it an interesting story, you'd either need to tell about a specific moment when you were a kid where your mother chastised you for not dotting your i's and crossing your T's. Or more powerfully, you can leave that part General, but get to and then tell us one specific moment a decision you made in business that ended up being a bad decision. And you did it because you were trying to dot all your i's and cross your T's. That would have been made an interesting story. But a story is a narrative about something interesting that happened to somebody. So it has to be a specific instance in time. And that actually leads us into these eight questions. So the first one, by the way, is, why should I listen to the story? Right? I call that the hook, you got to give people a reason to listen to your story, or they might not. So an example of the hook would would be Oh, like I said earlier. Wow, that's a that's a tough problem. Let me tell you what happened to me five years ago when I had your job, and I ran into that problem. That's it. That's the whole hook. That's the answer to question number one. Because I've just told you that if you listen to me for the next two minutes, I'm going to tell you about when I had your job, and I ran into that problem. Now you want to listen, right? And that's all a hook is supposed to do was to get you interested in listening to the actual story. So that's question number one, why should I bother listening your story? Once you've answered that question adequately, you've earned the right to answer the next five questions. So here they are, where and when did it take place? Who's the main character? And what do they want? What was the problem or opportunity they ran into? What did they do about it? And how did it turn out in the end? Right? That should should sound like the natural flow of a story because it is the natural flow of a story. But there's two left, right, so that's only six. What did you learn from it? And what do you think I should go do now? That's number seven, and eight. All right. So so the five questions in the middle are actually the story. All right. The first question is the hook that gets you interested, the last two questions are to help drive some behavior, drive a change, you know, what was the lesson? What was the recommended action? Right? All done with the five questions in the middle is actually the story. So in your example, there, there was no where and when did it take place? Because it wasn't a specific story. It was, in general, my mom raised me this way. And in business in general, these things this has happened, but it would need to be last February. On February 14, on Valentine's Day, I made a decision to do X with my business. And it turned out to be a disaster. And you tell the story about the decision you made on February 14. That's a specific where and when stories need that. If you ever find yourself saying things that don't have a time and a place attached to it, it probably is not going to feel like a real story.

Ari Gronich 53:12  

too vague.

Paul smith 53:13  

Yeah, too vague. Okay.

Ari Gronich 53:16  

I hope you all have taken some notes. This is uh, you know, Paul Smith is just dropping some bombs on y'all. And I only say y'all, because I live in Florida now. But

Paul smith 53:28  

I was raised in Arkansas. So I'll drop it y'all every now and then to

Ari Gronich 53:32  

awesome. So I want I want the audience to you know, hopefully you guys are all taking notes. Hopefully, you're, you're getting to a place where my iPad just fell off the table. Anyway. Hopefully you're you know, as an audience member, you're getting taking notes and learning something that is going to help you in your world and in your life because Paul's just dropping some bombs on you. Give us a maybe, you know, what is the main thought that your last 20 years has taught you the main thing, the lesson that the last 20 years of storytelling has taught you

Paul smith 54:31  

the German a lot so it's hard to pick one. But maybe the most important one to mention at this point is that you should treat storytelling like any other skill set that you want to have in life, whether it's in your personal life or your work life. And that is that it's worthy of studying to get right. So for example, if you wanted to learn to play the guitar, would you just go buy a guitar and put it under your bed and hope that by osmosis you would learn how to play guitar? Yes, probably you would. Okay, that probably wouldn't be very effective, though.

Ari Gronich 55:05  

I wouldn't live, but that's probably what I do.

Paul smith 55:07  

Yeah. If you actually wanted to learn to play the guitar, though, you'd probably go take guitar lessons, right? So you'd go learn it from somebody who knows how to do it. And storytelling is no different, right? And storytelling is an art form for sure. It's not a science, it's an art. But if you want to learn how to do it, you can and maybe that's the other lesson is that storytelling is learnable. So it's not that well, some people are just naturally born storytellers. And some people will not. And if you're not one of them, will you just never have that skill. That's not true. It's like any other art form. Like, I'm not a naturally gifted musician, but if I wanted to learn to play the guitar, I think I could write, you know, but I would, I would take lessons from somebody who knew how and I would practice. So if the way you want to learn to tell stories is just Well, I'll just, I'll just practice telling more stories. Well, that's like me say, I'm just going to practice, you know, playing piano more practice the guitar without ever learning how, I'm just going to start strumming it more like, if you're not likely, you can, but you're not likely to learn very well. Right? So you know, you took classes in college on finance, or marketing, or whatever you know, or engineering or whatever it is that you do, you should do the same as storytelling, it's worthy of learning. So pick up a book, take a class, watch a few YouTube videos, you know, whatever you like to learn. Learn it. Because there are, as I mentioned earlier, the eight questions your store needs to answer there's, you know, 10 types of stores, you should probably tell their techniques to create a surprise ending, there are techniques that you can learn that you won't just figure out on your own by stumbling around and telling more stories. So take it seriously and learn it like a skill.

Ari Gronich 56:50  

You know, I'm, I'm blessed to do these podcasts. And to have had the career that I've had, but what I find most fascinating, and it's the last part of that. So I want to talk about what I find fascinating is the amount of depth of listening that I get to do by doing this, the interview podcast thing that I'm that I'm doing, the the level of listening. So I want to know, in the storytellers world, what is the role of the listener?

Paul smith 57:34  

Well, if you don't have a listener, your stories won't make an impact. Right? Yeah, maybe anything to ask a more specific question? Well, the role clearly, you need to have listeners,

Ari Gronich 57:48  

right, right. But what's their role? What, what what role do they play in? So if I'm on stage speaking, I'm watching body language. I'm watching the listeners to see what they're doing, how they're doing it, how they're responding to me, I'm, I'm very keen on being in the audience, even though I'm up on stage right on. So the listeners have a big huge role for me. And I can play off them, I can do things that rehearsing in private never gives me I won't do, right. So the role of the listener for the person telling the story is, is I don't know how else to say that. You know?

Paul smith 58:43  

Yeah, I have a role I yeah, I get it now. So what role do they play for you the storyteller? Well, so first of all, the most important role they play is, it's their job to make meaning from the story. Right? The part of storytelling, the benefit of storytelling is that the audience gets to decide what the lesson is, if you're just going to boss people around, or tell them here are the five reasons why you should buy the product I'm selling. You don't, you don't need to tell any stories, if that if that's all you want to do is just tell people what to think and do now Good luck that might not be very effective. But the benefit of storytelling is that you tell a story. And then the audience wants to go do what you wanted them to do without you telling them to go do it. Right. You tell your kid a story about how you had, you know, a bike accident when you were seven years old? Because you weren't you didn't look both ways before you cross the street and a car ran into you and broke your leg? Well, guess what, you don't have to tell them to look both ways to cross the street anymore. Because they will have learned they will they will want to avoid having a broken leg. So and it's the same in the business world, right? So the purpose of telling stories is for the audience to come to the conclusion themselves. And so their job is to make meaning with the story. So you as the storyteller, Tell her you're looking at them for those verbal or those visual cues that they're getting it? Are they looking confused? If so, it's stories probably not connecting, right? You know? Are they asking the right questions after the story is over like that that question seven or eight? What's the lesson? And what's the recommended action? Ideally, the storyteller never answers those questions. It's the audience's job. The storytellers job is to answer questions one through six. the audience's job is to answer questions seven or eight. And if they get it, and you have to check with them to find out, are you you know, what lesson do you learn from that? What What do you think you should go do after that? So after you answer question six, you stop, stop telling the story, the story is over. Now you're you're trying to drive action with it, find out what their reaction is. If their reaction if they if they drew the right lesson, and they're going to go do the right thing, great. Your job is done. Because they're more likely to do it. People are far more passionate about pursuing their own ideas than they are about pursuing your ideas, write a story turns your idea into their idea. Now, if they answer question seven, or eight, and they totally didn't get it, right, if they didn't learn the lesson, you wanted them to learn, which is a risk. You can just redirect them, you can say, Oh, you know, that's a conclusion. I thought of two. But I came to a different conclusion. And here's why. Or, yeah, that's one thing you could go do. But I think this is a better idea. And here's why. You can always redirect them like that, but give, give the story a chance to work after that question number six, and let them be the meaning maker in the story.

Ari Gronich 1:01:32  

Awesome. You know, that's what I found is that the feedback loop is, is what, you know, for me and audience drives a feedback loop. And it sounds like that's about the same. Now, it's interesting, because you said after question six, then you stop telling the story. And that's kind of like a sales conversation, or promoting something or if you're like, an advertising agency, and you're, you're showing all your all your campaign that you just created, and then you stop. And you have that awkward silence? How long do you let that awkward silence last? Before the audience, the listener, the customer? This, you know, responds back with a question or a comment or a yes or no, right? So a lot of people will take that silence, the storyteller will take the silence. And if they don't hear the feedback, the uncomfortability in the room becomes palatable, right. So how do we avoid that part of it?

Paul smith 1:02:49  

Yeah, a couple of thoughts. One is six or seven seconds is like an eternity, when there's a silence in a conversation. So it's just almost never happens that there's silence longer than that. So if you're willing to be silent for at least six or seven seconds, the chances are 99% of the other person is going to say something because it's just too uncomfortable. So that's about, that's about the longest you'd ever have to wait. More importantly, if you tell an interesting story, people are gonna want to respond to it. Like, when you when you finish answering Question number six, which is how did it turn out in the end, that's the natural conclusion of a story you're finishing, you're tying up all the loose ends, it's a natural place to stop and let them respond. And if it was an interesting story, they will they'll they'll either want to comment about the story, they'll want to tell you what they learned from it, or they'll want to tell you a similar story about something that happened to them. That's just the way humans are wired. And so you tell a good story. And it will almost naturally elicit a response. If instead you go through the here are the five reasons why you should buy my product. You know, it's not going to naturally elicit a response or another story or, you know, people are kind of waiting for you. Okay, is that it? Is that the end of the sales pitch? Okay, thanks. I'll think about it. No. Stories naturally elicit a mirroring response from people.

Ari Gronich 1:04:12  

Okay, reciprocal conversation. Awesome. Is there anything else that you'd like to share with the audience? Something that, you know, tips tricks, I mean, you've you've been dropping a lot of actionable steps already. But I always ask, Is there two or three, four actionable steps that somebody can take to learn to learn this skill skill? Because now we went now we know kind of some of the formats but the concept is not implementation. So what are some things that implement this skill set?

Paul smith 1:04:52  

Yes, I'll give you one more is how to create a surprise ending. And you can do it with almost any story and it's important that you By the way, not just because it makes the story more interesting or entertaining, it does that. But in in business stories or parenting stories, your goal is to affect change, right? You're trying to get people to do something different. And it's important for them to remember the story that you tell them because the lesson is embedded in the story. A surprise ending literally physiologically makes the story more memorable. Because when somebody is surprised, there's a little bit of adrenaline that's released in their system. And studies show that when you've got more adrenaline in your system, your memory process works better or more efficiently. So you literally your memory is improved, while that adrenaline is still kind of coursing through your your system so and a surprise triggers that so there's a practical reason to put a surprise into a story like this. And you can put you can, you can make a surprise ending out of almost any story and I'll just I'll illustrate it for you right now. So there's a young boy named James nine year old kid. He's in the kitchen with his mom and his mom's sister. So while mom and Auntie are sitting at the kitchen table, having a cup of tea, James is standing at the stove, watching the tea kettle boil. And he's just fascinated with it. Right? He's watching the jet of steam come out of the top of the tea kettle and he's kind of got a spoon and he holds it up there into the jet of steam and watches little drops of water condense on the spoon and trickle down and drips into a cup yellow cup sitting there to catch the water. And he's just watching the cycle go over and over and over again. just fascinated with it. Well, eventually his mother gets tired of him in the kitchen and she just barks and she's like James, like, go do your homework, read a book ride your bike, like, Aren't you embarrassed just wasting your time staring at the tea kettle boiling? Well, fortunately, young James was undaunted by his mother's admonition because 20 years later at the age of 29, of course. And in the year 1765, James Watt reinvented the steam engine, ushering in the industrial revolution that we of course, all benefit from today. And all based on that fascination with steam that he developed at the age of nine in his mother's kitchen. All right now, the first time I read that story, was in a book titled James Watt, right? Is it a story a biography of the inventor of the steam engine? Right? So of course, it was no surprise to me at all that the story in chapter one about nine year old James was a story about the inventor of the steam engine, of course, right? The whole book was about him. But to you and the people listening unless you're happened to be a history buff. That was probably a surprise at the end, when you realize oh, that was James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, right? And why was it a surprise? Simple? Because I didn't tell you his last name until the end of the story. Right? presto, surprise ending. So the technique is, you take something that belongs at the beginning of the story. The main character's name, right, it's a question number three out of the eight questions is who's the main character? most human beings expect to know who the main character is? Early in the story. It's, it's natural. So you're breaking that natural expectation, take something from the beginning of the story, and move it to the end of the story. Presto, you've created a surprise than you do with almost any story.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:19  

Nice.

Ari Gronich 1:08:20  

Thank you so much for all of that. And I really enjoyed this interview. How can people get ahold of you if they want to work with you?

Paul smith 1:08:30  

Yeah, thanks. Probably my websites, the easiest, which is lead with a story.com is the name of my first book. I guess I wasn't more creative with naming websites after that. But yeah, leadwithastory.com it's got links there to all my books and training courses and my contact information and all that.

Ari Gronich 1:08:46  

Awesome. Thank you so much, and really appreciate you being here. There's been some great actionable steps. Remember to like, subscribe, and review rate and review. This podcast, we want to be able to get it out to you and give you all kinds of tips and tricks on how you can make your business and your life a success and how you can create a new tomorrow today. I'm your host, Ari Gronich, and we will see you on the flip side next time. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to this podcast. I appreciate all you do to create a new tomorrow for yourself and those around you. If you'd like to take this information further and are interested in joining a community of like minded people who are all passionate about activating their vision for a better world. Go to the website, create a new tomorrow.com and find out how you can be part of making a bigger difference. I have a gift for you just for checking it out and look forward to seeing you take the leap and joining our private paid mastermind community. Until then, see you on the next episode.