Narrative Branding: Stories That Sell

why should we care about story people never buy the product they buy the story that's attached to it not just the story that you're telling but rather the story that people are telling themselves about what that thing means to them talk to me about positioning differentiation and X Factor and how we can apply that in our business those are three really big words positioning X Factor and differentiation what do you mean tell me more about this if you're worried about that race to the bottom of commodification the only way forward for all of us is to seek and find Higher Ground that's positioning differentiation and X Factor the most powerful way to unlock X Factor the only thing that nobody can compete against is your story as you all know I'm super fascinated by story I have this Theory and I don't think it's a unique original theory is that all memory is tied to a strong emotion and that emotion is also tied to a story so I dare you right now try to think of a memory without telling me a story and an emotion probably not possible that's why I'm super excited to have Michael on the show today he and I chatted briefly before this on a different call and he was telling me about these different ideas and things he's been doing the last 10 20 years of his life so I'm really excited to have Michael Michael welcome to the show please uh introduce yourself and tell us a little about who you are and what you do I'm Michael Margolis I'm the founder of stored and um I believe that narrative is the number one superpower of humanity um and for the last 20 years I've been helping Visionaries leaders and creatives uh tell a bigger story about the future um these days we have uh courses coaching in community um that's basically helping anybody take charge of their story I'm already a big fan of the concept I'm learning about who you are but there are people who are like story story schmy why should we even care let's start there let's make sure people are like on the same train as us before it takes off here why should we care about story yeah so a few things I think the first one is people never buy the product they buy the story that's attached to it and not just the story that you're telling but rather the story that people are telling themselves about what that thing means to them um a great example of this one of my favorite TV guilty pleasures is um Pawn Star if you ever watch the show right it's a 24-hour pawn shop in Las Vegas Nevada three generations of a family who own the business people bring different curios and items they'll get at a garage sale or from the attic and we find out their story and in the process they're either going to pawn it or sell it well so imagine for a moment if I had you know this imaginary Zippo lighter right like how much is it worth well if it's a you know Circa 2022 Zippo lighter it's maybe 15 or 20 bucks but what if it's a World War II Zippo lighter okay now it's maybe worth a couple hundred bucks well what if it's actually like my my my great great uncle General George Marshall's Zippo lighter and I have a photo black and white of him smoking a celebratory cigar on D-Day with that lighter now might be worth a couple thousand bucks right or Priceless it's the same hunk of metal right with a wick and you know butane like the object's the same but in each of the three examples there's a different story that's attached to it and we might call him the expert before you know you go spend a few thousand bucks on this thing and the expert says it's worth $5,000 but if we took a poll of an audience and said okay how many of you want to buy this for ,000 right here on the spot most people won't take the deal why well maybe you don't smoke maybe you're not into like war or World War II um maybe you have no idea where to find someone to sell it to kind of do Arbitrage on it right there's all these reasons of why you would exit out of the story right but for a certain person they would identify and want to be a part of the story and this is true of everything in life um and it's something we almost take it for granted we're sort of invisible to it um but again nobody's buying the product they're buying the story that's attached to it and and not just what you're the story you're telling but the story they're telling thems of what that means to them I think you raised up a few really good points it's not just your story but the story that exists in the mind of the other person so it might be a family heirloom and it's deeply connected it's like in pul fiction and butcher's father pass dies in the Vietnam War and he's given the watch the watch and he had to carry through extraordinary means and then in middle of all this danger he argues with his girlfriend it's like where's my watch he goes it was right there I put it he goes where 's my watch and he's being hunted by everybody but he's going to risk personal well his personal welfare because he the watch means something to him now you and I it's like no it's been through a lot I don't want that watch I wouldn't even take it for free but for Butch it meant everything yeah so the story is the meaning that we attach to things uh and to everything that that's in our lives what's another example of a story that we've all agreed to that has meaning to us but has actually no no value at all I mean look it plays out in all sorts of ways you know like I mean here's my wedding band right this is just a hunk of metal you know if I were to sell it it would only be sold for scrap gold right even though it it's Priceless to me personally um you know or um you know some people collect wine I collect chocolate I think I was telling you about this right rare exotic single origin craft chocolate I used to traffic in kilos of it okay like I geek out on chocolate I'm the kind of person I'll spend $20 $50 I've spent $250 on one bar of chocolate wow right most people think that's freaking nuts but for me like the Providence the Rarity like there was a story behind it that meant something to me and it also delivered on the on the you know on the the price value equation but most people would never spend $250 or $50 but you might spend 20 or 10 but that's a pretty bougie bar of chocolate it is you're a little nuts about chocolate for sure before we lose anybody yeah what does providence mean it's an important word for us to understand because it's connected to story yeah so Providence is is is basically story of place where something comes from um and and in the world of food Providence literally goes into the taste of a place so when it comes to um like in Italy they have these um like aoc's which um or I think that maybe the French the fr the French label of it but it's it's the way that different regions around the world have branded that specific place like parmesano like regano it's like cheese that can only be called that that comes from that that's made in that region right um and and the same is true for um uh um different kinds of wines right so different wines have labels on that and so on um and it's literally the taste of a place and the belief that it's in the terroir it's in the soil it's in the water it's it's it's it's it's that ineffable thing um just in the same way that like pizza only like in New York like you cannot replace or or copy New York City Pizza right because of the taste of the place um you know I don't know if it's the water I don't know if it's you know what it is but you can't beat a New York City slice of pizza I'm GNA get trouble for this but is that just a story or is that real you know I mean look I lived in New York for about six years and it's real my friend um they you have to say that as a former New Yorker I mean they'll throw you out they'll take the your New Yorker card back but it's the truth I mean there's some good pizza here in La there's some there's some respectable pizza here in LA but there just there's something about New York Pizza I don't know what it is okay so blind taste tests are you willing to bet a million dollars that two really good slices of pizza you can say this one's definitely from New York yes now now mind you I have I have an advantage my father is a mad scientist and inventor in the food tech industry he worked for Nestle for for many decades it's you know it's part of my story behind chocolate I grew up in Switzerland as a kid all this and that so I have I have that six sense taste where you know I'm I'm I'm able to taste things that other people don't taste and and I'm sort of pretty obnoxious about it you you don't want to go to a restaurant with me let's just say that I'm that guy you know that's asking the questions and like oh this is so amazing and I'll start telling stories and whatever else and so either you're like into it or you're not right okay you you've opened up a can of warms and this is how we're going to begin this conversation lots for me to pick apart here so when it comes to the origin where something comes from like champagne only comes from Champagne because that's a place in France Kobe beef comes from a place called coob in Japan and they will sue you if you try to call it Kobe beef right and that's why they invented something else but won't go there but to to the point of your wedding band okay there's a lot of sentimental value there's a story about how you guys came together about the strength of your relationship about the promises you've made then there's the gold part which is like when you said it will be melted down for scrap and it'll be sold for whatever gold is sold for now the real question is why is gold valuable now what I understand about value is there's two parts and maybe I might have missed one of these things there's utility value which water has high utility value and then there's exchange value water's not worth much even though it's a necessary part of life and if you're really thirsty you'll give anything to have some water but it has fairly low exchange value whereas gold the store we've all told ourselves it does happen to be the rarest element on Earth one of the rarest elements on Earth I learned that through the History Channel I believe so it has some utility it's a good conductor but not the best you know it has certain properties to it but really it's just because we all have collectively as Humanity said gold is worth a lot but if you abstract that when the US left the gold standard many many years ago now we all carry around these pieces of paper that have low utility but have high exchange value because as long as we agree to it then it has value but the minute our faith and confidence in the US currency wains which it may be in that state today then all of a sudden that's just now a piece of paper so the story matters a lot here's what you're tapping into and this is you know we've taken the the red pill so to speak here because we're literally looking at the Matrix of life is that every experience every object every relationship is stored in the mind with a story that's attached to it and what you're starting to tap into this is something that I really geek out on that 99% of most books and trainings on storytelling Overlook which is actually the difference between Story versus narrative all right so what you're actually talking about is a narrative like the narrative that for instance you know this um you know I'm going to open up my wallet here and okay I literally I only have one bill in my wallet right because we don't even deal with paper paper currency anymore but I've got a $5 bill right but like the narrative that that this that this thing is a is a currency of exchange of value um we we have many different narratives that run our lives um most of the time we tend to focus on story story is a single event it's got a beginning middle and end it's a closed loop it's something that happened whereas a narrative is a more abstract shared belief um and when you start to understand this it's like um The Narrative is a Christmas tree and the stories are the ornaments that go on the Christmas tree like my favorite example of this is the American dream the American dream is a narrative right and as an abstract concept or belief it means a land of opportunity it means um you can reinvent yourself um you know it means um you know there's there's a lot of different concepts related to The American Dream right but then each of us have our own individual stories about the American dream like for instance my father you know he was born and raised in the bush of Africa right and he got a full bright to the states came in the late 60s you know and became naturalized as a US citizen in the 19 early 1970s first generation immigrant you know he still gets Misti eyed when the national anthem comes on he's more patriotic than my mother who was actually born and raised in the states right so this difference between Story versus narrative we we we are drowning in a in a sea of infinite stories yet we have very few shared Collective narratives especially for the change that we're going through in the world right now so a lot of the work we do is is helping people to think in narrative and then create a unifying shared narrative that transcends the differences or the conflict of where where people basically are are opting out or exiting out of whatever message that you might be communicating you're making a pretty important distinction here so let me make sure I understand that story is individual it's concrete and it there's a certain specificity to it narrative is shared broader and Abstract yes is that the key difference here exactly a story has a beginning middle and end it's an event it's an anecdote it's this thing that happened right it's a closed loop a narrative is a more abstract concept it doesn't necessarily have a beginning or an end like when did the American dream start does it start in 1776 I don't think so right like right it's it's a little funy and there's Concepts Within the American dream that go all the way back to ancient Egypt and one could argue like or in Greece and all these kinds of things right it's an open loop I'd love to connect this to your passion around the future right which is the following um you know we live in a society that's obsessed with data I work with a lot of technical driven organizations like the biggest tech companies on the planet were like data is King okay data is a story of the past right whereas disruption is a story about the future so we have to start with the future first and then we use the past the data to legitimize and validate the future we're trying to create most of us have that order or sequence the wrong turned upside down we're constantly looking backwards instead of looking forwards and and this is where we trap ourselves within a past story or within even an existing narrative that may not be the right story for the future we're trying to create it's a it's a paradigm shift but once people get that they realize holy crap this is this is why the the Nar like this you know it's kind of like that old saying like the you know the the thing that got you to hear isn't the thing that gets you to next so like the story that got you to hear isn't the story that gets you to next I I fully 100% align with that you just described in a very different way but it's something I've talked to people about before about how when we set goals most people do it in a forensic way they look backwards and say well if this has happened the last five years then the next five years will look just like this and you and I and any historian knows that that's absolutely not freaking true otherwise there would be no disruption there would be no innovation so instead we look to the Future about the kind of goals we want to set and then we look at what can support that and we invent whatever we need to to get to that place and they sound the same but they're radically different they're so different what you're speaking to is is what I what I've come to discover is one of the first principles it's a it's one of the fundamental Universal principles of innovation disruption and transformation and it's it's it's sort of like one of the secrets hiding in plain sight um for any of us who are leading change or doing something that's new and different you're you're being hired for your possibility mindset the ability to see and name the possibilities and the opportunities amidst change amidst constraints um but we often are leading with the data trying to prove and validate something and trying to posture instead of widening the aperture and and really unlocking the the creative Mojo um and the generativist in any situation so while we're on this I have to ask this question then what is the role of research as it relates to Innovation how do we balance that because it seems like the more mired we are in research the less likely are to innovate I might get myself into trouble here uming you will okay I have an inherent bias and for better and for worse but I find that that the majority of research is garbage and is a distraction in that um like when I'm working with narrative and um and and just to kind of give everyone listening s sort of some context um I've been doing this for 20 years um much of my work has been inside the biggest tech companies on the planet we're talking Google Facebook Uber Shopify and helping those Executives and teams literally sell the future and and how they do it internally so building those kinds of presentations of translating the strategy but in the meantime I've also worked with like every kind of creative independent consultant coach like you know the whole Creator economy and like all of that so like you know I'm I'm cut from the same cloth as you and many many your community Chris here's what I've learned how working with narrative is that when you're looking to work and change the narrative you have to index to power permission and Authority like there's an old saying that Plato has it's also attributed to the Hy Indians which is those who tell the stories rule the world so the thing about story and narrative is very few of us think that we have permission to tell the bigger story that's the biggest obstacle to this and so if you are going to go and and change the narrative within a for a product an organization a team I always focus on I have to work with the most senior authorized leader of the organizational system and I'm indexing for conviction conviction actually is the currency conviction is the way that basically belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy right and um and and you start from that place where's the inherent conviction in the system that that the conviction about the future and then once we have that once we have that um basically the you know we have a thesis about that we can go test and validate that thesis with research right but too often people lead with research which is basically Outsourcing saying well I don't know right and and it's great to come from a place of like not knowing or like I don't know what I don't know fair and valid but when it comes to like actual leadership or driving change or repositioning a brand those kinds of things you got to start with conviction because if if the conviction doesn't exist in the organizational system the world's best research in the world is going to rot on the vine and I know a lot of researchers have experienced this right like you do this amazing work and then people won't buy into it because they don't see it they don't feel it they don't believe it um so that's the piece it goes back to belief and and we have to start with where's the existing belief and the people who have the power to to sort of promulgate those beliefs kind of reinforce the beliefs and or evolve those beliefs does that make sense what do you think it does but I want to get back to a point that I think you were making about and you said some pretty bombastic things it was like I I I don't know if this exact quote but research is garbage and worthless like were you going to expand on that because I do want you to talk about that yeah well like I said that um I said a lot all right or or a lot of research is in that it um and then my caveat that I then explained is actually research is really valuable once you actually have the guts to put a stake in the ground and say Here's the thesis here's what we think matters here's what we think is true great now let's go test and validate that too often times people do this open-ended research fishing Expeditions that basically comes back with you know it's either a pizza with nothing on it or it's a pizza with like 32 toppings and it has no sense of coherence right like I've worked with a lot of ux research teams and they'll come up with this these beautiful Frameworks that's like 12 different ways we could think about the product right and the the heads of product are like dude just give me a p like what's your stance cut through this noise for me so that that's the piece that I'm speaking to we can a lot of research we sort of we can get over obsessed with the clinical side of it right well while we Overlook the fact there's always inherent bias so let's actually just name our bias based on where we have conviction and then let's go and test and validate that and and there's great humility that comes and the things that we can learn through that reality check so just kind of walking things back a little bit research has a really important role it's just I often find people use it as a crutch of well we really don't know who we are and we really don't know where to go well research ain't ain't usually going to be the thing that reveals that for you but again that's my that's my own you know bombastic sort of bias to it okay now it would seem to make logical sense that you do your research first and then from the research you extrapolate data points and you say well here's the thesis but from the way it sounds to me it's like come up with your big idea come up with it based on your hunch your vision of the future and then use research to validate and to test this to see if it's actually true so it's kind of an inversion of sequence yes is that correct first of all yes it is and I know a lot of researchers I piss them off they it's sacriligious to uh to you know to how people think about the so-called scientific method of research but what I'm speaking to is the inherent fundamental nature of the way that we actually build narratives and the way that we go about then testing and validating them but we always have these filters and biases so we might as well just actually like embrace it yeah I just want to hang there for half a second before we move on to the next point which is I I have a certain amount of disdain for research too it's why I'm just not going to let you to walk away from this but yeah I think the problem is very few people actually do it correctly for the right reasons it's usually to justify an expense and because a lot of people's jobs are on the line here so they tend to do over research built on flawed bias thinking only to produce the results that the researchers themselves sometimes subconsciously unconsciously are are looking for so it's like you shape the data because you ask the question in a certain way and then when you go to interpret the data it reinforces something you already believe to be true so that's usually where Innovation goes to die very seldomly do I get research from professional corporations who then hand me this is the research Chris I'm like there's nothing in here there's 277 pages of nothingness of marketing speak nothing of real value that is an Insight give me one like you said give me one or two insights give give me a point of view give me a voice a direction or something and research says that's not my thing it's not my thing so you want to add to that we're digging our own Graves here so I'm trained as a cultural Anthropologist and the thing I'm most fascinated with when it comes to culture is like what are fundamental Timeless Universal truths right and by the way great researchers know this and they bring those forward um I'll give you an example um some years ago one of the things that I kind of made made my name in career was um I got a call one day out of the blue from a head of product at Facebook it was the the shortest sales conversation I ever had um it's called the French Tech Mafia um this person saw one of their friends you know head shots on my website as a former client and they called up their friend was like hey what do you know about this guy your photos on the website and you know ends up that they had worked together so he called me he's like hey I heard you did great things for my buddy um you know here's the situation so we ended up building the narrative for Facebook groups back in 2016 and in 2016 Facebook groups was a redhair stepchild within the Facebook you know core app really wasn't understood by the company in the world but they had a new header product and a new header design who did some brilliant work did the ethnog they did the like the foundational research um of really understanding the product in people's lives and they had a new road map this and that well anyways they were then struggling because they they were drowning in millions of stories of how people's lives had been changed through groups they didn't know how to build the narrative so we built a narrative on the structure of belonging in the digital age right the like that's a universal truth that like belonging is this Timeless thing and how is that changing or evolving in this new digital environment what role does Facebook have to play as the biggest Community platform on the planet well that narrative had such an oversized influence and impact it shifted the the mission in the strategy of the company for more than five years right where literally Community Building became woven into the company's Mission even became woven into their Northstar metric of meaningful social interaction so on and so on but it came from talking with the leaders who were running that group understanding where they had conviction helping to crystallize that into the truth and then building the rest of the narrative including the data that supported the vision of the future that we that we had to convey if that's a helpful example and I think that it's our job as leaders and or if you're you know an agency or creative a designer where you're you know working with clients right you're a midwife to that universal truth um it's about drawing that forward but ultimately it's it's making choices around that right like you you get muddled with universal truth when you like you give people an all you can eat buffet of like 12 different truths of what it could be right like that there's not conviction in that there's not a point of view and that's ultimately I think what we're what you know most most people who are in Professional Services we're being hired for our story and we're being hired for our ability to Midwife or Steward someone else's story um and the hardest part of Storytelling is it's an exercise in choic making deciding what matters most and what belongs on The Cutting Room floor okay this is uh some pretty headyy stuff that you're talking about at Scales in which many of us will never see in our lives let's pull it back down to the individual I'm a human or I'm I run a small five person agency of some sort in the creative space how do I take any one of the concepts that you've talked about or you're about to talk about and apply that like help me ground this conversation and bring me back to Earth here because I'm not thinking about the world's largest Social Network I appreciate that um so one of the things that I see a lot um and I've you know I I struggled with this myself um in that for my whole career year I've been unemployable right like I've always had to create jobs for myself and and I've been you know self-employed my entire life and one of the challenges that you have when you're an independent solar preneur you're a small agency is uh impostor syndrome like well you know we don't I'm not the expert that some other people are I don't have the level of experience yet and so on so the thing I tend to focus on um in this kind of Full Circle back to our opening conversation it's the following character trumps credentials and the way that you ref reveal your character not only as with a point of view but go back to your origin story help people understand what are the forces that have made you and shaped you and how you see the world right because there's a million designers there's a million there's a million creatives there's a million web developers out there right there's a million of whatever trade or profession you're in but there's only one that that has your story and so that becomes the place where you can literally like Reveal Your Own inner Authority the more you know who you are and you can communicate that to others you said character trumps credentials yes it's a nice phrase where's the evidence what what's the example like give us something to support this statement so that we can dig deeper into it character trumps credentials now before you answer that yeah I was listening to this radio piece many many years ago and it said we used to live in the age of character like who you were the substance of who you were mattered now we live in the age of Charisma where if you're charismatic you can get away with being a horrible human being and it seems to be true and I'm not sure those are the exact words but it was there was the age of character like we're talking about World War II you know the substance of who you are what you say what you do your actions actually can get you to very high positions in companies and and government but now it seems It's the age of Charisma it's like these charismatic people who seem to have all the fun let's just talk about say some social influencers today who haven't really done much with their lives but are already Millionaires and billionaires because they have a certain amount of Charisma genes whatever it is that people are enamored with them help me understand that then yeah the thing I've been sort of sitting on because the the to me the most interesting example it's a political one that I know is going to poke the bear but let's just go there because we're having that kind of conversation right so I mean take a look at what I literally said character trumps credentials right and there's obviously a big a big symbolic word in the middle of that statement there with Trump um you're bringing up something I think that's really relevant which is yes in our in our in a popular culture today character and Charisma have merged into the same Cosmic slop okay um and and in the world of politics we saw this ever since basically um you know John F Kennedy Richard Nixon kind of first televised presidential election cycle in the US which was at the end of the day what Americans were voting for was your personality right was sort of who are you as a so when I say character I don't mean like Boy Scout character I mean uh like USA Network characters welcome right like the notion of like like like be an interesting character be someone and something that we remember okay which to me is more of that blending place of you know of Charisma and then a character which you know ultimately character is simply the way that um you know from a screenwriting perspective the best way that one demonstrates or reveals a character is not by telling us who this person is but by showing us through the choices and the actions that they take right um so so you think about it that way and the and the reality is that we're drawn to characters like versus the credentials like you know there's a thousand people or a million people that have you know an MBA or have this degree or whatever the things are that are the check marks on the list what we want is someone to tell us a story and a story that we identify with that we relate to and Trump did a brilliant job of that of just and people you know what if you talk to people who who love Trump they'll tell you you know what he speaks his mind and I like someone who speaks his mind and he speaks truth to power and he just he keeps it real right and I understand the appeal to that I have a great respect for that right along with obviously the chaos you know and the instability that comes with you know his style of management um and everything else but we have to understand there's a reason why his narrative has such an appeal why he is such such a character that people connect and relate to um and one of the biggest mistakes that people make with by way things like story is we tend to infuse our judgments as um as the corrupting Force like like like AI is a great example right um AI is not good or bad it's not right or wrong AI by the way doesn't give a about your feelings or my feelings it just is it's here it's not going to go away the question is what do we want to do with it right but most of the time what's happening in the way we tell a story or we interpret a story we're constantly labeling it our brain is wired to label things as good bad right and wrong and that's the place where we're experiencing narrative collapse um in in our society and in any organization let's go back to the the the politician the former president of the United States that you talked about let's keep the the Judgment out of the conversation just look at Trump as a brand yes let's so we don't to get here and and and get half the country super angry at us one way or the other okay yeah one thing that that Trump has done is he's understood that it's better to be a flawed person and be real as who you are than it is to be a perfect fake person and he's he's understood that and maybe instinctively or just it's the way he's always been and he it becomes this Paradox as far as I'm concerned that he's the most relatable unrelatable person you know I'm not a billionaire I wasn't raised by billionaires I don't I didn't grow up with gold gilded toilets and and faucets so and he has his private jets he he's divorced and and marries models and and owns pageants and buildings how is that relatable but the everyday person the person on the farm person living in the midwest even people on the coast are saying like I get that guy I might not like all parts of him but at least he's not fake and and here's my observation of the left here is they're so worried about what everybody thinks and pandering to one group to the other that they're in the same way speaking out of both sides of their mouth like can you just be real if you if you're angry about something just say I'm angry if if something's distasteful just say that at least then we know where you stand and in this kind of hyper analyz media culture that we live in no one is going to say something and the person that does it's like a breath of fresh air so we can take this back we can take this all the way back to people uh people who are running a business if if you're a mom and pop and you're running a bakery if you're running a pizza parlor whatever it is that you're doing or running a creative Service Agency if you have no story you just you're kind of interchangeable and and that is the definition of a commodity and we struggle with that right so there there's just watch it's the Rolex right or there's a Time X or there's a Casio and there's a G-Shock or whatever it is and we all have different stories or the narrative about those watches are different so we're willing to pay more or less because of that story and so we have to understand that if you don't have character if you're just a generic cardboard box personality then you're going to then face whatever consequences that comes with and it's it's you're going to be oh well we didn't get you on this job we'll just get the next person because there's nothing unique about you creative people struggle with this tremendously and I would love for you to speak to this here's what they struggle with is isn't it about the quality of the work shouldn't it just be about that like they think it's objective but it's clearly subjective that my work is better than John's or Mary's and but Mary is like got a million followers is speaking on every stage presumably getting tens of thousands of dollars more and I can't scrape two nickels together what's the problem help me understand that Michael look I I I have my own version of it as well because I'm you know I'm I'm obsessed with my craft at the end of the day our customers the people we're serving they they want to know that there's competence that there's a process and there's proven outcomes and there's something that they can trust but most of our customers and those we serve do not want to know how we make the sausage um they don't give a about the Craft um and and we we you know and and and I can you you know this is my challenge cuz I'm I'm a story philosopher I can geek out like I can split hairs about you know the ontological rhetorical structure and framing of something at the end of the day people just want to know like what does it do and does it work is it going to do the thing that we want and okay well does it make us feel good and does it Inspire and motivate okay great let's go um and yeah so I think it's this obsession with craft the thing that and and I think part of the challenge that you're speaking to is that when you're starting out the price of admission is learn craft right you have to build technical competence functional like whether it's oh I'm good at Adobe Photoshop or oh hey no actually I know how to code and whatever those things are and I see this happening is that we then we don't realize this but as you progress in your career you're going to be less and less involved on the technical craft of the work you know like in the world of of tech it's like you become less and less a product manager you're more and more a people manager like your success in your career trajectory is more and more in your ability to persuade and influence and motivate and Inspire and make a business case and negotiate conflict and all these things that are more the soft skills and relational skills it's all what I call narrative intelligence um but it's a hard shift to make when our identity is rooted in technical competency okay I need to ask you this question yeah and then I have to follow up on the tease that you shared with me like on our previous conversation or call okay so let's go here and then I want to save room for this last one which is a big one so the question I have for you is this talk to me about positioning differentiation and X Factor and how we can apply that in our business those are three really big words positioning X Factor and differentiation what do you mean tell me more about about this yeah we've been talking about this right which is and and frankly we are on an accelerated track right now because of what has happened with generative AI okay we are going to increasingly see more and more commodification across all creative Industries and so if you're worried about that race to the bottom of commodification the only way forward for all of us is to is to seek and find Higher Grounds that's positioning differentiation and X Factor the most powerful way to unlock X Factor the only thing that nobody can compete against is your story it's like you know your own unique Snowflake and the the way to unlock and tell that story um is to to find something that's at the intersections and that speaks to something that's ineffable I'm going to give you an example of this um for everyone uh this is again a very Tech example we were working with a a venture back startup that that's in the developer space working with developers all around like how you manage your code at scale really super super geeky stuff and they had just raised their next big round of funding and they were having a hard time with the narrative um they were all about developer first the street cred so they were talking about how this product it sliced it diced it chopped it fraid you could do it for breakfast you could do it for dinner you know they were lost in the features and the functionality and what they needed was more of the Enterprise B2B like positioning like how do we sell this to a CTO a CIO the executive decision maker and what we found there was like a step ladder from um so there's three ways to think about this like um aspirational value emotional value and functional value and it was moving up the ladder long story short short what we got to was a story around developer happiness because developers that were using their tool when they started to use it they couldn't live without it and developer happiness was this intangible ineffable thing that they actually they could position and differentiate themselves against GitHub and some of the other folks that were kind of encroaching on their territory and it's fascinating long story short on this is that the the executive team loved it but they didn't have the conviction to own it they went back to some of the generic things of like developer velocity and developer success but if they had actually gone and claimed developer happiness that would have been this X Factor thing which was actually by the way showed up in the research talking to the customers and the users um but the conviction wasn't there at the leadership level to live and own and you know to really really live into that larger narrative okay the the challenge I have for you is this please and and hopefully we can do this and if not we we we'll continue on the conversation some other way last week you asked me this question as we were kind of wrapping up our conversation or whenever we had that conversation you said Chris give me give me 10 minutes or 15 minutes and I'll help you sharpen your narrative because I know you're preparing for a talk yes I've since gone on to do the talk everything worked out great and I just want to see you do some of your magic yes is that possible to do in like a 15minute window where demonstrate your wees a little bit okay yes so what do we do how do we do this set this up so it's like a home run for you I can walk everybody through like our signature three-step narrative framework but to really bring it to light I would love to workshop with you something that has Stakes something that's meaningful to you where you feel a little bit stuck or like haven't quite got the story straight the thing that I'm getting close to figuring out is this new Mastermind thing that I'm doing called brand lab and it's a big pivot for me because we've been historically serving creative people and teaching them business skills and then I realized just at the other side of the coin is to teach creatives or teach creativity to business people so in in that way we might unlock something beautiful and wonderful that there's all these frustrated creative people who' have lived that kind of left brain life and I I wrote this line it says helping left brainers think right the art of business and The Business of Art and it's what we're trying to do inside the brand lab so there's the brand atier and what I want to do is help them find their voice their two-word brand to be able to succinctly communicate who they are in the world to tell their origin story some overlap here obviously and to be able to use that in showing up in the world as a as a real person that has strengths and weaknesses and not to run away from it because I think we're so pre-programmed to just want to fit in and to be like everybody else it's such a strong Instinct and I have to break them from that okay so I want to make sure I get this right and they we're all tracking along um this is about the brand lab yes and historically it was about helping creatives develop their business skills yes but what I if I understood correctly you're now evolving this to help business people unlock their creativity skills yes great okay so this is a great example um for for everyone that like all narratives are ultimately built and rooted in polarity like there there's a there's there are opposing forces um in some form this is you know Rags to Riches you know this is the you know um uh you know get the girl lose the girl like there's always this kind of for so what you're doing is you're you're flipping the script which is a great setup um but now what we need to figure out is um I want to understand now for this new audience um what is the what's the thing that's standing in the way of of you putting out this new story in the world I don't know we've we've launched it's brand new yep there's some resistance from my creative Community who feel like oh you're just leaving us behind Chris and then there's these business people who question like what is creativity GNA really do for my business what are the X and O's on this thing so that's that's a hat trick we're gonna have to solve yeah okay so something a really important distinction for everyone listening the moment that one tells the new story right so yeah Chris you've put forward this new story of we're going to help business people become become more creative right unlock their creative skills anybody who lives in the old story which was creatives and building their business skills people who are in the old story are likely to feel wrong bad judged stupid or defensive okay and and so now that the the the Art and Science of this is how can we tell the story of the new without making people in the old story feel left behind or that they're not good enough right does that resonate yes so far yes okay great so but let me clarify something for a moment where does this community of creatives you teaching business skills how do they fit in the new story they don't not yet how they fit in the new story is this and the way that I'm positioning it is I come from this world of creative and that's the place I've played in for over two decades coming on three decades now yep when I talk to the business people once they figure out who they're supposed to be in the world and they have Clarity around that you're going to need creative people to help them that's how we Bridge these two worlds because the creatives need clients to work with and the business people need creatives to execute the plan and so I'm going to build that bridge just to clarify something though because I've seen I've seen this new platform that you've put out and a lot of this has to do with like the different stage of maturity that a business is at yes right um you're still talking about though businesses that are in the creative Industries for brand lab yeah no I'm talking about like mortgage brokers lawyers uh people that you would not think that's a creative person wow really okay Finance Realtors they self admittedly say like I'm not a creative person I'm like well I don't think that's true if if we Zoom back out a little bit kind of widen the aperture the the way that you have built and constructed this narrative creates a duality that is Us Versus Them of like this is who we used to serve and What mattered to us but now this is who we serve and who mattered to us and it feels like a binary tradeoff right it's kind of like Plus on this but it's going to be like we're going to lose this and so now the question becomes is there an even bigger narrative that we could find and tell that's a bigger tent or umbrella that everybody can fit underneath I think there is I told the story and it sounds like it's the binary trade-off but it's not in reality because all the programs that serve creative people are still there yeah and it's my intention I've communicated this to the people who want to know I intend to use the new source of Revenue to help bolster up some of the creative stuff and one of the things I'd love to do like I I envision myself as a little bit of a Robin Hood steal from the rich to give to the poor the rich in my mind are like corporations right the the ones who want to sponsor communities like ours so that it advertises the cost of courses down so that it's super affordable to anyone in the world or maybe that they want to Grant scholarships to these people it's a long road to get there and in the meantime what I have to do is to finance other kinds of creative courses and so the only way I can do that is to go to the people who want to spend the money who have no issues with spending the money and the impact that's created with them will be in exponential return an xfold return so it's not going to matter to them yeah then we can use those resources to build and create more programs for Creative people and so the the bridge or the gap between the two are going to start to close Okay so what what you're what you've described is the way way we all rationalize when we're trying to make a strategic change and like I just went through a business model pivot myself from running a seven figure Consulting business to okay we're now in the courses coaching and community business and it's been a bloody painful like recalibration and like I can get all deep like you're in the weeds of the functional we're moving the Lego blocks to here and this and here's how this works in soone and it's where we all naturally go I want to move Upstream to asp Iration and emotion and the thing I want to talk to you about is is let's come back to your Nam sake the future because that is a badass name that has that's like the torch that you carry right that that has been the the Gathering force that bring people together and so what is it about the name the future that is so important to you and how is that baked into every not only everything you've done but everything you want to do and and create an offer to you know in terms of like how you serve the world and and how people benefit from this work well the the name and and the meaning is is about looking into the Horizon yes being able to dream beyond what you can see to peer into the night to know that Dawn is coming and to be optimistic and to be not not to have foresight but to to kind of anticipate what is to come and to always adapt and to evolve we often end our video podcasts or video episodes by saying you're not defined by the past the future is what you make it it's a rallying cry to say you know what no matter what circumstances you started out in life which you cannot control where you go from today into tomorrow is entirely up to you where is that in your current like messaging and and sort of new positioning it's only in spoken word or like when I speak to people because what I would say to you like my when I when I hear that that that to me is a Timeless truth that's baked in the DNA of your work that is to your point a rling cry that's unifying that transcends the boundaries and the differences um like while yes you might have some new ideal customer profile certain personas and some of this kind of like you know funnel related things about like you know like the business side of it this distinction of business and creative um this this narrative about the future and the future is what you make it and we can dream beyond what we can see in this invitation to adapt and evolve in this moment which is such an inflection point moment in our economy and in our society like that's the yeah let's go that like transcends any perceived differences how does what comes up for you is I reflect that back to you how does that how do you how do you respond to that thinking about elevating more of this core DNA about the future in your namesake I I I like what you're reflecting back to me when we first started to teach we we tried to get people to understand this concept and it's a very popular idea is that wouldn't it be great if as creatives we're invited to the table where the decisions are made so we have to instill within you all these business skills we have to bring the business world to you but there was no guarantee that you would get to that table it was just an idea the designer should be there at the front not at the back not just to be an ordert taker but I also see it now as as I'm talking to the business people who need this well now I'm at the table yep I can open this door and invite you in and so now it's the two parts to the to the puzzle right like we can get these two things to come together faster in my opinion time will tell if that's true where I'm I'm actually at that table where those people are making those decisions now I understand how they work and what they want and I'm going to invite you to come in and and hopefully we just accelerate that process is it too far of a leap to say you're ultimately like building a a platform or Marketplace for for businesses to connect with creatives and creatives to connect with businesses it's not too far a leap I don't want to say that word just yet but yes I think you were reading what I sending out which is they need creative Services my creative people need businesses to transform it it ideally is a match made in heaven right versus slinging it out on uh upwork or totally Fiverr which is a blood bath yep okay so um how are we doing on time because I want to walk you through one more thing if we have the time for it let's do it okay all right so we we've staked out a lot of cool territory I want to walk you through right now the sfb narrative method which is people have to see it and they have to feel it in order to believe it Okay so we've been staking out the territory we've kind of found some interesting vectors and so on so the first thing with see it um let's talk about talk to us about how the world has changed and what is now possible that wasn't possible one year ago or three years ago and this is obviously in in the context of the audience you want to serve right so what's changing in the world and what's now possible that wasn't before well the biggest thing that's changed in the world is due to the pandemic so remote work the idea that we can actually work with people that aren't in our city was uh there was a lot of resistance behind that now it's like it's just a normal thing we're also now have a lot of freedom to live and work in place places that are not connected to be asynchronous in how we how we collaborate and how we produce things so the the future's been there for for years and now the world just wel up like oh we have to do Zoom calls we have to teach online and and we can telecommute in ways that we thought we always could but didn't and now we can and some other things have come up I'm not saying the last couple years but it seems to be on the upward Trend which is business fascination with design and design thinking that's super hot right um Stanford has the D school for design for entrepreneurs it's like we're just a little late to that party they've already known this that in each and every single one of us regardless of what suit you put on there's a creative child waiting to play and that's me saying hey we're not different we're the same just allow me to help them see that in themselves and we're all going to play together okay so I'm hearing the the pandemic changed a lot um it's broken down certain boundaries or limitations and um you know with that I really loved a phrase that you said which is the future is here I would really Elevate that phrase and explore what does that really mean and look like what future is here what is it we can do now that we couldn't before and widen that Spectrum um across multiple vectors so the the technological forces the economic forces and the cultural forces that basically make the future that you see a self-fulfilling prophecy it's inevitable this thing that we thought well maybe no no no it you know like uh William Gibson once said the future already exists it's just not widely distributed right it's like so celebrate that and I think frankly a lot of the ways that AI is already fundamentally disrupting creative Industries needs to be a part of this as well and and and being able to position and Elevate the optimistic perspective amidst the sandwich of suck right I know it's scary and there's a lot of reasons to be upset and frustrated but resistance is feudal it's here you can't put this Pandora back in a box so the question is how are you going to adapt to this and and that's where frankly right there's there's this intersection both businesses business people and creative people are both like they they you know we need each other with how we go forward okay so so we're talking about we started with SE it which is the context for change the world has changed and because the world has changed we need a new story to reflect that new world the secret is we have to help people see how change equals new possibilities and opportunities right because most people think of change as just constraint rint loss fight flight freeze defensiveness like fight back against it so we need to tell a love story about the future right and you've started to stake that out I think there's probably even more Dimensions to that to like really round that out full 360 so that's one that's the see it okay boom so that's the big zoom out help people see now we're going to zoom in we now need to look at the feel it which is who's at the center of the story what do they want and what gets in their way and this is a challenge deciding what character what central character we're going to put in at the middle because that affects the perspective or point of view by which this entire narative gets built the easy answer by the way like the pat answer is you make the customer the hero of the story you put them at the center but sometimes it's not so clear who the customer is or you know we have a B to C to B to be story right or we have like oh I'm I'm working inside a company and I have these internal customers and clients and like all these examples it gets convoluted but who do who do you think is at the center of your story if you had to pick one Central character kind of symbol that would speak to both business people and creatives well that's a tough one we serve such a diverse group of people yeah um what's un in about like people like back to think back to your name sake okay the thing that unifies this is we're all we're all creatives we express it a little bit differently how we serve people it's different but it's all the same DNA and the reason why it was such a surprise to me that business people would want to explore creativity was because I just had a preconception like this is how all business people think and it turns out I was very wrong at least with this group that I'm learning a lot about and it's so fulfilling for me um to encourage that cre creativity to flourish it's like a field of flowers waiting to Blossom and when I see well let's just call a suit so to speak and say like oh I have these ideas Chris I'm like those are good ideas I never saw myself that way and you're giving me permission to do this is and hey welcome to the club fam it's actually not two people it's just one one kind of person so what I'm hearing in that there's there's some sort of central character this Universal uh Persona or identity which is I have ideas about what's possible about what we could do what we could build what we could create that would make things better for others or that would help fulfill a larger promise there's something in there yeah yeah yeah and so so if we think of you know obviously we could spend more time unpacking this but if we think of that then as a central character what is it that that character wants and what gets in their way what's the desire and what's the Dilemma so let's start with desire what do they want I I think this is a universal narrative I think we all want to be aligned with our purpose and when we're out of alignment we we know instinctively something's wrong but in terms of our goals we're not hitting our goals we're not meeting our health goals we're not meeting our relationship goals and it's something I've been able to experience in the people that I see who are successful in all Dimensions spiritually in their relationships in their business they are really aligned so I have this slide that I share with people and it's it's like a recycle symbol but it's off-kilter so it looks a little bit weird it's not connecting and what I want them to do is in their mind put the parts together so for me just to relate it like I used to make commercials and music videos it gave me a financial reward but something was missing then when I taught it gave me a reward for my my soul but something else was missing and when I ran my business like the analytical part of my brain is like I'm very happy it isn't until I put all these three three things together the the desire to teach business and creativity and video production when it comes together in a really neat story then I find my Bliss and now that broken fragmented triangle is now just solid one of the things that I love about you and I love about everything I've I've known about your work in the future is you you have a real pragmatic sense of how do you make things work and there there's something really interesting about that um which is um there's something actually I don't know if you're familiar with Landmark form um but I I Rec recently experienced their work which um is pretty powerful life-changing work and it's all about ontology the stories that we tell ourselves but there there's one thing from one of the I took away that that that speaks to the heart of this which is um the word integrity so we often use that word and we weaponize it we turn Integrity into this moral judgment where we make people wrong or it's like an attack Integrity from a landmark perspective is simply is is this working or not working that's it and if it's not working what do we need to do in order to make it work it's value neutral there's zero judgment to it I found that to be an incredible liberating way of looking at Integrity um and I bring this up because I my sense is you're really W like you're someone who that's part of your character like you focus on the engineering of how do we make something work in a manner that honors the creative process and also honors the business process so you talked about what it is that that that that that people want is to kind of is the sense of purpose okay but there's a dilemma there's there's something what's the obstacle that stands in the way of being able to live into purpose whether you're a creative or a business person I think it's uh integration so creative people feel the conflict in that oh I don't want to deal with business numbers I don't want to talk about Finance it cheapens it it it Hollows me out and then on the business side it's like oh I'm not a creative person I don't have that Gene I don't have that pach or the the eye for designning creativity and and so they can't integrate these fractured halves or more than two parts what however many fragments there are they can't integrate and the story that I love to tell because I'm just a dor or nerd is I love comic books and my favorite character is the Incredible Hulk and it's not for what people think it's like the Hulk is like it's like um Dr Jackal Mr hide in a more popular form it's Dr Bruce Banner is the most brilliant scientist in the world like he's level seven intellect he's one of the five smartest people on the planet in the Marvel Universe he's super unemotional he's fragile he's weak he's been abused by his father he has strained relationships because he just can't tell people how he feels some some people can relate to that but when he gets angry he is pure emotion turned into rage and something I I read about the Hulk recently is the Hulk has unlimited power the angrier he gets the more powerful he becomes so if he reaches a certain state of anger he is cannot be defeated by any not by Gods Not by anybody so if you want to take him down you got to take him down quick so these two people one person it's like this multiple personality disorder and they can't live in harmony um Dr Banner is fearful that the Hulk will explode and destroy towns and ruin lives the Hulk is always belittling puny Banner because he's his weak point Banner thinks too much Banner St you know Banner trusts too many people so somewhere in the storyline Dr Bruce Banner and the Hulk learn to accept each other and they become Professor Hulk so then he has most of the strength of the Hulk the intellect of Bruce Banner so his emotions and his logic are in order and he becomes the God among men and now he's no longer hunted he's no longer a threat to anybody because he's complete control they they come together in harmony it's why he's my favorite character wow I've I've never had the Hulk broken down like that for me and it um what I find fascinating about this description is that you're speaking to the inherent like the inner conflict right which is by the way what I think is the next level narrative so like classical storytelling is hero victim villain it's US versus them which is you know Heroes okay great but who wants to be the victim or the villain right there's an inherent nature to that framework that actually does not scale for the world that we're in right now which is World Views and value systems colliding right and so you're speaking to something new and different here and and that inner conflict and and the the challenge that we all face is that you know in the world of business if you're talking to everyone you're talking to no one you know that truism and this is one of my biggest achill heels because I'm kind of like you of you know into to a fault like I'm like come to Jesus baby this is for everyone right this is you know this is the the Great Awakening like storytelling is our Birthright but there there's there's this like fine line we have to walk of okay how do we speak to something Universal while still making it relatable to the various different people we want to serve because we're all walking around with our identity hats on um so you know I would I would continue to look at this Dynamic of the central character and this tension between what they want and what gets in the way and yes purpose and then yes this this this um this tension as you mentioned um but the I would say there's something in there around permission like if you talk to a creative about business or a business about creative is everybody has these considerations the yes buts the yes butts but but I don't know this I don't I don't speak that language I've never been good at that there's all of these like qu qualifications or considerations that like take people out and there's something for you like your work is actually about getting people to say yes to themselves and say yes to their dreams and say yes to their bigger future and and and I think your gift too is making it making people feel safe to actually widen the aperture of who they are and what they want and what they want to build and create and there's something in that territory to me that is an incredible like Tent Revival like come on down to the party yes exactly so much of the times that we're in right now and what we're going to see with the with the disruptions of technology and especially because of AI what we're going to see is this evolutionary moment where we have to actually embrace the Paradox like you you just you trying to keep things in a pretty little box like the the boxes are disin disintegrating like to your point what we need to do is reintegrate like we need to reclaim the parts of our self that we've kind of put on a shelf or the things that we thought weren't who we are and wi like widen the D dynamic range right and as you know like the Journey of leadership like being a good leader is actually being good at being outside your comfort zone on a more frequent basis that's basically what leadership is like being really good at being uncomfortable doing something you've never done before and making that your new normal right same thing that like you know the Armed Force is do Special Forces like you know heart rate variability stress response it's like the ability to be calm and present amids like Fubar right amidst like everything is upside down um and there's something about like you know the dojo mindset that clearly is deep embedded in your work um and helping people to widen that dynamic range all right so I know we we could we could continue on this forever I want one last piece to at least stick The Landing for you so we we zoomed out to to see it we talked about how the world is changing the new possibilities and opportunities that come with that right that was zoom out then we zoomed in we really looked at who's at the center of the story we need someone that we can empathize with identify with and we looked at the choice to make there in a way that could be more unifying as opposed to repelling in a way that addresses this Paradox right now because you're repositioning yourself in the market of a very different Market you want to serve or widen to serve multiple markets and how can you move into the new without abandoning the old right so we've staked out some of that now the third piece to this is the believe it this is the evidence of Truth so what can we point to that will validate and legitimize the promise that you're selling right this new future of what you're building and what you're inviting people into what can you point to that's like oh business like business people becoming more creative creative people becoming more business like yeah duh so obvious to you and like it's possible what would you point to what's the facts the evidence the proof that supports this promise that you're selling which is a really inspiring and appealing promise well I think there's plenty of evidence that exists already um yeah I mentioned before the D School of Design exists in Stanford's business school they're no dummies I wouldn't bet against Stanford and they've been doing this for a period of time you can look at uh IBM's acquisition of companies that have design thinking in their name or something they're just gobbling up companies like this so the left brainers are seeing that the value the design has and and apple is probably one of the most successful companies that have strong like have that strong integration of design design thinking user experience design and they lead and it always boggles my mind that they've been doing this for decades yet the the second or third place companies can't seem to match all the quality the components that they've been able to capture so effortless effortlessly from product to product scratching my head Marty numar writes about this in sites numerous studies about how um like S&P companies were formed that have integration of of uh Innovation and design thinking and how they perform in just in the market itself like they have an X perent boost just because they spend enough money on R&D or design lead thinking so it's already there it's just they're just at the tip of the spear or not enough people are recognizing that just yet it's business as usual I love that you're absolutely right and I've track that Evolution as well here's one interesting Wrinkle in all of this Chris is inside all the biggest tech companies on the planet right now in the last six months it's fascinating not only the big tech companies but also Fortune 500s they have all decimated their Central design organizations this this really weird thing that's going on right now so you know ux research has been decimated but also just design as a function has gotten decimated and and I've talked to a lot of friends who are you know VPS and leaders in those organizations and a big part of it has to do with this earlier conversation we had which is design as a profession is too obsessed with craft and not and not functional or fluent enough in making the business case and being able to translate their work to the executive board room and being able to really like make the value propositions and help people understand and especially now in an environment where you know the cost efficiencies of AI a lot of companies are kind of going like well yeah we're going to start to automate more of this and we're going to start to you know Outsource more of this um so it's an interesting it's a little bit of a step back but I think the fundamental thesis is spot on and ultimately AI disruption the more and more things get automated and outsourced basically what what generative AI I think will do is it will make us better storytellers it will make us better philosophers it will make us better creatives it will make us better ethicists for the very simple forcing function that it demands us to because if the machines are doing X then what the heck is our role in job right it's a fundamental existential thing and that's where design and creatives at its Essence and its DNA is about asking those questions about looking at the inherent relationship between things and how do we strengthen and improve those relationships couple things I want to say to that yeah I think you're right when when we're getting into a really tough economy and things are not going well for for a lot of companies the companies that you think have more money than God when they're laying off people and shutting down departments they're withdrawing from cities and offices there's lots of financial problems going on the first thing they do is they slaughter what they feel is unnecessary which is all the creative frof people and you're also right in your assessment a lot of designers who are in business roles don't fully embrace the responsibility that comes with making those hard decisions that are traditionally for business types but I think if we want to create a leader a Visionary of the future that business and design should not be taught in two different schools and two different campuses by different instructors they should be taught in an integrated way that's seamless with each other so when I wrote the curriculum of the future if you will it had business classes it had negotiations and it had design and design principles and they're all integrated because why are we talking about this as two separate languages it's really one language and and hopefully I'm the guy who's beating the drum and and building a parade around this of more than just one but I want to point out two things here or maybe at least one thing the Creator economy we seem to be ushering in a new era that is a offshoot of the information economy where we can see people like Logan Paul getting together with deji and form forming some kind of collaboration to create one of the fastest growing sports drinks uh companies that is going to be worth more than a billion dollars here's a guy who's fallen off the creative wagon a couple of times himself but has been able to resurrect and revive his career and his life into becoming a potential billionaire uh then you have Mr Beast who has literally offered a billion dollars for his companies and he turned them down because he said it was undervalued I don't think he's dreaming here and so there's a whole new paradigm where I don't know how many people graduate from business school thinking like I have a road map in 10 years on how to become a billionaire yet there are people in the creative space maybe as far as like high school education in terms of their formal education who are now on that path today so I think it's it's a case for both like business people understanding the need for creativity and Innovation and creatives who can play in these Open Fields and just Dominate and Crush lastly to your point of AI I think the future since if AI can do a lot of what it is that humans are doing today it will come down to this I'll just put it out there and let's get your temperature on this the winners of the future of an AI enabled future will be the ones who have really good tastes they understand what good writing looks like how it reads how it flows they understand what good music sounds like and what what com what is a good combination or a genre of bashing or mashing of things they know what aesthetically is pleasing and elevated and good taste because we can see you can pump out a thousand iterations of images really quickly but are they any good and do you know that that's good or is that the machine telling you it's good so the curators the The Taste makers will be the ones who will be at the tip of that AI Revolution I love what you're saying Chris and I do very much agree the the way I I've described this is what generative I AI has done is um it's a forking moment in human evolution and as part of that now knowledge is dead and wisdom is Queen wisdom in one respect is discernment and that's what I hear as a synonym to as you talk about taste making it's about being able to make conscious effective choices to know again like a good story it's an exercise in in Choice making what matters most versus what belongs on The Cutting Room floor the ability to cut through the like signal versus noise and to cut through that noise to have really strong signal that other people identify with and resonate with um there's something else that you said that I think is a really important point for us to reinforce which is you talked about one language so my my number one career advice I give to everybody is learn the language of the world you want to be a part of right when you speak that language you belong in that world you have a seat at the table but literally language fluency is the path to agency and everything is language I've got a trainer at the gym I work with um and I was asking him I was like hey so how many languages do you speak because we were talking about this he goes oh yeah well you know I speak two languages I speak uh English and Spanish I was like yeah no no no but widen it for me like what are the other languages that you speak right do you speak the language of soccer he's a former professional soccer player he's like oh yeah yeah yeah I speak the language of soccer I'm like okay great well do you speak the language of uh functional Kinesiology he's like oh well yeah actually that's a whole another and he started to realize like every craft every domain every sort of area right is actually just a language and that's one of the ways we can bridge this thing of like oh no that's not me we tend to like collapse down to Identity right Finance is just a language right uh graphic design is just a language but even within design there's then like how many different dialects there's a difference between ux design versus you know print design versus uh you know web design so on and so on and so on right but language um and the thing that excites me most with generative AI is that words are the new code we've we've literally reached this new place at a societal level um there are three of the most important scientific breakthrough Revolutions in the last 100 years one was genetic biological code DNA right the second was binary computational code zeros and ones and now we're ushering in this new age where words semantics are the new code so that's my biggest advice to everybody right now is not only learn the language of the worlds you want to be a part of but learn language these are the fundamental building blocks and the more you develop a one of the Godfathers of the AI movement um his name is Patrick Winston used to run the mit's AI lab he says um the three most important fundamental skills of the future is um an ability to write an ability to speak and an ability to convey your ideas in that order right and this is from one of the Godfathers of artificial intelligence like we have to build our semantic fluency work with language and then ultimately this Lads up to narrative intelligence or that storytelling is the universal source code right storytelling is it's in every religion it's like it's it's in it's in every part of culture it's just literally how we make sense and meaning of things and I think we're all going to become better storytellers Again by the simple notion that we have to um because we're all going to have to make sense in meaning of what is exponential change um and you know the more we can find the opportunities and the possibilities basically tell a love story about the future um that's going to lift us up and then lift up the people who are around us Michael Chris that's been it's been a really meaty intellectual conversation there's some words here that our audience is probably looking up and I include myself in there and my head hurts in the best possible way I thought we'd do something a little funny as we wrap up today please okay and yeah we're just giving people a taste of totally what they can experience within your ecosystem so before I do the funny bit to end it how can people find out more about you and the programs that you're running I appreciate that so um you everybody can find me online at storied in.com um we're we're in the process of refacing a lot of stuff so probably the best ways to kind of plug into our ecosystem is one is check out my latest book story 10x Turn The Impossible into the inevitable um you can find it on Amazon and on Audible and Kindle but if you go to storyed in.com story 10x you can download a sample of the book 70 Pages it's mey you'll get right into it all the things that we talked about broken down so that's the best best way to plug in um we have a new flagship course called narrative influence it's a five-week Sprint method we run that every three months um and then lastly uh connect with me on LinkedIn that's where I share the most content in in musings um Michael Margolis uh story is where you'll find me there wonderful my guest has been Michael Margolis and he's written the book story 10x it's a beautiful book I can't wait to dig deeper into this and if your brain is still possible like uh like still put together after our conversation today I strongly encourage you to go visit him check him out see what's going on under the hood there because I know we just scratched the surface now there's this bit that they used to do on radio with this show called Frosty Heidi and Frank I don't know if you remember them if you listen to radio okay anyways they would do this thing at the end of the show they would apologize like we'd like to apologize to everybody we've offended and they would get into the list now while you're going I wrote down some things yeah so okay so I wrote down okay we'd like to apologize to sausage factories to researchers to politicians to the right to the left to AI itself and anybody else that you could think of Michael yes oh man well I wanna I want to apologize to Chris I want to apologize to Chris's mom and dad um I wna I want to apologize to everybody who believes in Trump and everybody who hates Trump um I want to apologize to to the Zippo company and to Pawn Stars uh I want to apologize um let's see who else do we need to apologize I need to apolog I need to apologize to chocolate makers around the world um and um I need to apologize to all of our listeners for indulging me in my brain stretching heart expanding discourse um thanks for going along for the ride um I come in peace wonderful and I'd like to make the final apology to anyone who's made it this deep into the episode who hasn't like veered off the road and there's there's this expression the expression is a human mind once expanded does not shrink back to its original shape and I hope your mind is expanded today everybody just remember one thing you're not defined by your past the future is what you make it