What do you do for a living? Have you ever asked this question and been met with an answer that left your ears ringing and your mind still wondering, what do they do for a living? The key to distilling complex information and creating an engaging elevator pitch is great storytelling, author and screenwriter Michael Ashley shares. In this episode of The 19 podcast, he discusses the art of writing attention-grabbing stories that steer conversations and capture hearts.

Rochelle Reiter: [00:00:00] This is The 19, a podcast that delivers marketing insights from Orange Label in 19 minutes or less. This year, the agency is celebrating 50 years of working with established brands that are driven by a fearless entrepreneurial mindset. What does this mean for you? It means enriched conversations and stories with marketing and leadership experts aimed at improving lives.

Rochelle Reiter: [00:00:30] Hello and welcome to the 19: Entrepreneur Edition, I’m Rochelle Reiter, President of Orange Label. The Super Bowl is quickly approaching and no matter how you feel about the teams that are playing, there’s something else about the game that captures audiences attention year after year. The ads, of course! With about 40 minutes of commercials that occur throughout the Super Bowl, the ones that tend to be the most memorable are the ones that focus on story. Whether emotional like Google’s Loretta or funny like Old Spice’s “I’m on a horse,” these 30-second ads stand out because they appeal to our emotions. Here to share more about what makes stories such a powerful business tool is storytelling expert Michael Ashley. Michael’s experience spans from being a playwright and Disney screenwriter to a four time best selling author and branding consultant. Michael, welcome to The 19!

Michael Ashley: [00:01:19] Thank you for having me.

Rochelle Reiter: [00:01:25] So glad you were able to join us today! Can you first start by telling us about your background in storytelling?

Michael Ashley: [00:01:31] Yeah, absolutely. So I guess my background began professionally when I was in college. I was a playwright at the University of Missouri, and after I graduated from the university, I worked. I had my own company for a couple of years, and then I transferred to Chapman, where I got a master’s degree in screenwriting. And while I was still in school, I had a movie optioned, and as soon as I graduated, I began working for Creative Artists Agency, the top talent agency in the world, and my job was to read screenplays for directors and for screenwriters. And around the same time, I got accepted into a special program at Disney. I was one of six screenwriters that got to work with Gary Marsh, the President at the time. They were looking for their next big movie idea. And at the end of the week, they bought one treatment, which was for the treatment I wrote called Girl vs. Monster. It became a very successful movie for Disney starring Olivia Holt. It launched a kid’s clothing line and more importantly, more importantly, it got me an agent, and I was able to quit my day job and to focus on storytelling full time as a writer.

Rochelle Reiter: [00:02:38] That’s so amazing! What an adventure! And I do know the movie. My daughters watched it and I watched it too! How exciting. So let’s switch over to the business side of it and why storytelling is such a powerful tool in business.

Michael Ashley: [00:02:55] Absolutely. So I just gave a speech last week about this very topic. And so for one thing, storytelling is a way to communicate ideas. It’s no accident that we tell parables to children to help them make sense of the world. And if we want to convey something, especially something complex, storytelling is a great way to do it anyway. The presentation that I was giving last week was about the subject of pain, and it surprises people.