The Storytellers Network

Storytelling with an Alternative Educator and Entrepreneur

Laura Sandefer is an author and the co-founder of Acton Academy, a school whose learner-driven model is spreading across the globe with over 130 locations in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Guatemala, Canada, Malaysia and more, and in 2019 is celebrating 10 years of letting children take learning into their owns hands.

Acton Academy bases their model of learning on the Hero’s Journey: a story pattern common in ancient myths and modern day adventures in which a hero goes on an adventure, wins a victory and comes home transformed. Children at Acton Academy know why they are being challenged to learn — they are on their own Hero’s Journey to find their passion in life.

Sandefer went on her own Hero’s Journey in starting Acton Academy, which she chronicles in her book Courage to Grow: How Acton Academy Turns Learning Upside Down. She became a reluctant entrepreneur, growing Acton Academy so other parents can start their own learner-driven communities.

“When you have the hero’s journey narrative in your mind, what you realize is that every single human you come across has treasure within. Each person’s treasure is different.” - Laura Sandefer on story and empathy

If you liked the show, please consider sharing this podcast with your friends, family and network. Your stamp of approval is more valuable than anything I can offer to your network. I appreciate your sharing! Also, leaving a review (and rating) helps spread the word. And just makes me feel warm and squishy.

The Storytellers Network with Dan Moyle publishes every Monday at 7 AM EST.

Storytelling with Story Coach Rom Ploof

Author of The Proverb Effect and Read This First: The Executive’s Guide to New Media, Ron Ploof is an educator of story. Ron’s also the brains behind The StoryHow Pitch Deck, a story coach in your pocket.

Usually I’m digging into the personal story of storytellers I admire. On this episode I do that … but I also get into the HOW of storytelling with Ron. So it’s a little inspiration, a little education.

“He looks out and there are weeds. Its a marshy area. And [my grandfather] says to me, ‘That’s where my brother Kelsey drowned.’ He’s vulnerable, I want to know more. That one story changed my life.” - Ron Ploof’s life-changing story

Connect with Ron:

StoryHow Main Website

Buy your own StoryHow Pitch Deck

LinkedIn

Twitter

Ron on Amazon

If you liked the show, please consider sharing this podcast with your friends, family and network. Your stamp of approval is more valuable than anything I can offer to your network. I appreciate your sharing! Also, leaving a review (and rating) helps spread the word. And just makes me feel warm and squishy.

The Storytellers Network with Dan Moyle publishes every Monday at 7 AM EST.

Anese Cavanaugh is an author, a speaker, an entrepreneur, the creator of the IEP Method® (Intentional Energetic Presence®), a leadership and collaboration advisor, and a thinking partner for business leaders in many different industries.

She’s not one to sit still either… she’s also a mom, a dog rescuer, a sister, daughter, friend, and an advocate for children’s food and spirit security. Here’s a quote from her website about section: “I love people. I love the human spirit. I love purpose. And I love what happens when we all Show Up together.”

Anese founded her business and this body of work 20 years ago because she saw the essentialness of Showing Up, being present and intentional, and taking care of ourselves in relationship to healthy leadership and creating positive impact in the world.

I’ve had the privilege of meeting Anese in person, as well as reading her newest book Contagious You. It’s a great read full of amazing information and inspiration to help you lead better. We can all use that. Stories, and our presence, are a gift.

“The greatest gift we can give another human being is our presence. When you see them and connect with empathy you create an intangible connection, which is all about the heart.” = Anese Cavanaugh on the power of connection.

Connect with Anese:

Main Website

IEP “secret” site

LinkedIn

Anese on Twitter

Anese on Facebook

Anese on Instagram

IEP Method on Facebook

If you liked the show, please consider sharing this podcast with your friends, family and network. Your stamp of approval is more valuable than anything I can offer to your network. I appreciate your sharing! Also, leaving a review (and rating) helps spread the word. And just makes me feel warm and squishy.

The Storytellers Network with Dan Moyle publishes every Monday at 7 AM EST.

Anese Cavanaugh, guest on episode #104 of The Storytellers Network, didn’t consider herself a storyteller. She thought that had to mean following a specific story structure, maybe creating a hero’s journey each time and coming up with stories.

In talking with Dan, listening to episodes and looking over the show prep for their interview, Anese realized that she’s been telling stories her entire professional life. She used stories in her first book, Contagious Culture. And she uses them in her most recent release, Contagious You.

Once she came to terms with how much of a storyteller she was, she decided she wanted to be more intentional.

So now Anese and Dan are starting a 21-day story gathering “writing challenge.”

Alex Lee spent more than 20 years as a storyteller for a public system. As the Executive Director of Communications for Kalamazoo Public Schools, Alex was instrumental in telling the story of the Kalamazoo Promise, among many other great stories. In addition to that career, Alex spent a few years in communications for the United States Navy – specifically on the radio airwaves.

Alex has been telling stories his whole life, and now that he’s out of education he does it for a small village in Southwest Michigan, where everything from a massive development (The Mill at Vicksburg) to small town legislature and more is part of his daily storytelling.

“The story of education is individual students, in their challenges, in their backgrounds… so the story of education should be your success stories.” - Alex Lee on story in education.

Connect with Alex:

Village of Vicksburg, Michigan Website

Vicksburg on Facebook

If you liked the show, please consider sharing this podcast with your friends, family and network. Your stamp of approval is more valuable than anything I can offer to your network. I appreciate your sharing! Also, leaving a review (and rating) helps spread the word. And just makes me feel warm and squishy.

The Storytellers Network with Dan Moyle publishes every Monday at 7 AM EST.

Don Stanley is an internationally recognized college educator, speaker, and marketing and sales consultant. He demystifies personal branding & digital marketing to help people achieve their dreams.

As the co-founder of Wisconsin-based 3RhinoMedia, he has personal spoke to, lead workshops for and coached a wide array of clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies, international organizations, NBA, NHL and NFL athletes, start-ups and non-profits. One fun fact is Don has consulted with organizations on all 7 continents and he was a professional dog trainer (he loves dogs).

Don is often asked to share his perspectives on digital media and he has been featured on some of the top business blogs in the world including the Content Marketing Institute and Mark Schaefer’s BusinessesGrow.com. He also has been featured on Marketplace Radio, This American Life, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News and he is a regular guest on Wisconsin Public Radio.

In addition to his work at 3RhinoMedia, Don is an award-winning faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he teaches courses on social media and digital marketing.

“Put us up against a grizzly bear, game over… but if you put us together and we know how to interact together, work together… can dominate anything.” - Don Stanley on the power of story of connection

Connect with Don:

3Rhino Media

LinkedIn

Twitter

If you liked the show, please consider sharing this podcast with your friends, family and network. Your stamp of approval is more valuable than anything I can offer to your network. I appreciate your sharing! Also, leaving a review (and rating) helps spread the word. And just makes me feel warm and squishy.

The Storytellers Network with Dan Moyle publishes every Monday at 7 AM EST.

Our guest this episode is a spoken word poet, educating people about the trauma of sexual assault. She’s a survivor. She’s a writer. She’s a performer. She’s an educator.

I love her bio on “Unwritten” - Talia Mingey is a writer through and through. Her first love will always be poetry. She competed on the 2018 National Poetry Slam team in Chicago. She writes for self expression and social justice and performed at the 2018 March To End Rape Culture. She also does freelancing work and has been published on Thought Catalog. Currently, she's ghostwriting a novel and writing for Unwritten. She's constantly overwhelmed by all this but happy to be paid to do what she loves.

“I would want to talk about love, if I had to tell my last story. Love is what got me through most of that [trauma]. I would want to write a love poem to everyone who’s meant something to me.” - Talia Mingey

Connect with Talia:

Facebook Page

Twitter

Medium

Instagram

Author page

Blurb page

If you liked the show, please consider sharing this podcast with your friends, family and network. Your stamp of approval is more valuable than anything I can offer to your network. I appreciate your sharing! Also, leaving a review (and rating) helps spread the word. And just makes me feel warm and squishy.

The Storytellers Network with Dan Moyle publishes every Monday at 7 AM EST.

Writing Our Childhoods with Tish Rabe

Today’s guest has written over 170 children’s books for Sesame Street, Disney, Blue’s Clues, Curious George, Huff and Puff and many others. In 1996, five years after the death of Dr. Seuss, Tish Rabe was hired by Random House to write for The Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library, a new line of rhyming science books for early readers. A television series based on these books, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot about That, airs daily on PBS Kids.

She’s also known as The Singing Author and has quite a story about her journey to where she is today.

“The world needs content. There’s all these devices, and something’s gotta be on them. The need for solid content and creative is high.” - Tish Rabe on the need for creators.

Connect with Tish:

Tish’s Website

Book an Author Visit

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube

If you liked the show, please consider sharing this podcast with your friends, family and network. Your stamp of approval is more valuable than anything I can offer to your network. I appreciate your sharing! Also, leaving a review (and rating) helps spread the word. And just makes me feel warm and squishy.

The Storytellers Network with Dan Moyle publishes every Monday at 7 AM EST.

Storytelling with Squareplanet’s Chief Word Guy

For years, Brian Burkhart has been on staff at Northwestern University’s highly prestigious Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He’s coached 10 teams for TV’s “Shark Tank,” and most of them got deals.

Brian’s a podcaster, an entrepreneur and so much more. I invited Brian Burkhart to join me for this Educational Storytellers episode because if his education background – at the university as well as his speaking.

Brian is the “chief word guy” at Squareplanet, an agency that helps its clients tell better stories in presentations, events and more. Brian’s the founder and a hell of a storyteller (scroll down for his introduction email!).

“I’ve logged hundreds of thousands of miles on planes. A grand total of zero times I’ve poked my head in the cockpit and told the pilots how to fly. Just because I fly a lot doesn’t mean I know how to fly. But for some reason in the world of corporate storytelling, people think they know better and they don’t.” - Brian Burkhart on letting the professionals do their job.

Connect with Brian:

Squareplanet

Brian’s website

Brian’s book Stand for Something

Podcast - Square Stories

Twitter

LinkedIn

Today’s guest is a former attorney who spent his career representing victims of sexual abuse in civil litigation. David Flowers wrote Taming the Lion Tamers about the South Carolina case of convicted pedophile Eddie Fischer, and the people who protected him for decades. It’s a powerful story, and is the same case on which the Emmy-nominated documentary film What Haunts Us is based.

David fought for victims for decades, using story to their advantage. Now he teaches upcoming attorneys about the power of story.

“I’m not a fan of lawyers generally. But when the practice of law is done right, you really can change lives.” - David Flowers on storytelling for law

Connect with David:

Taming the Lion Tamers

If you liked the show, please consider sharing this podcast with your friends, family and network. Your stamp of approval is more valuable than anything I can offer to your network. I appreciate your sharing! Also, leaving a review (and rating) helps spread the word. And just makes me feel warm and squishy.

The Storytellers Network with Dan Moyle publishes every Monday at 7 AM EST.