Transcripts
1. Intro: Hey everyone. My
name is Usman Gas. Welcome to break
through the noise. How to tell your story. Here is my goal for this class. It is for you to better
to tell your story. It's in the title,
but here's what it means that if you are an artist, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're in marketing, if you are anyone
who's engaging with the world and you want the world to understand
what you do, this class is for you. It's going to be quick, okay? That's what I promise.
It's going to be effective and it's going
to be really hands on. You can even check out
the templates below. You can see the way that
we're thinking about this. We're talking about
a hero's journey. We're talking about curiosity. We're talking about
epiphanies and change. And we're talking about
that relates to you, the way that you
talk about yourself, either in a bio sense,
like your biography, the way you think
about your website, the way you think
about fund raising, the way you think about sharing your next album,
anything like that. I think this class will
be relevant here is our goal in the class is
these paradigm shifts, okay? That means that we're
thinking about it this way and now we're going to be
thinking about it this way. We're going to be doing
that. It'll be a lot of fun. It'll be high energy. I'm standing, I'm going to
be standing the whole time. Okay, so this is
not a sleepy class, we're going to get through it. I hope you like it,
I hope it's helpful, and genuinely hope it's helpful. Okay, let's do it. And if
you're like, that's fun. Who are you? Great question. I am sort of from
three worlds. Okay. I'm going to tell you from the world of education,
I was a teacher. I even taught creativity
at the college level. And I wrote a book on
creativity. It's kind of fun. And then I went to
Hollywood Baby, here, I've been making, helping
make some movies, some TV shows and documentaries,
things like that. Really versed in this
storytelling, right? So a lot of what discuss
will be from here. This is Hollywood and applying storytelling
principles, I'll swear. And then I am also entrepreneur. A few years ago I had this
business is venture funded. So we got money from
really cool people like the New York most venture. And I did that for a while. And then I went
back to Hollywood, teaching then Hollywood,
then entrepreneurship, then back to Hollywood. Oh my gosh, it's perfect. So this course encompasses
a lot of my experience. I will try to share my
experience from that, but more importantly is that
I hope it's relevant to you. So I will just share
examples and then be like, what is your version of that? So that's who I am though.
I'm happy you're here. I hope you take the course. And by taking the course, I mean continue to take the course. Don't leave, and I hope
you have a good time.
2. Overview: Hey, let's go over
what this class looks like and a little bit
of the project overview. And then we will
jump right into it. Okay, who is this class for? Our hope is that we use
storytelling so people, others can better
understand you. Your career, the products, the businesses that you are marketing, all that good stuff. Okay, So we're defining effective storytelling
as other people. The general public can articulate what you do and
what makes you different. Okay? That is it. There's a lot of ways to think
about storytelling. Can it evokes emotion,
things like that? Just for this class,
we're going to really keep it very simple and keep it frankly a little like business of just saying, hey, can someone tell
you who you are, what you do, and what
makes you different? Okay, so that's the way we're
going to think about it. The way we're going
to do that is my favorite definition of learning is learning is
practice plus feedback. What I'm going to
do is I'm going to share a prompt, an idea. There's going to be some
templates that you can actually, that you will have access to. What we're going to do is we're
going to go through them, we're going to discuss
them in this video. And then the hope is that you actually take the
time to fill them out. I want this less to be like, hey, here's a lecture things, but rather me sharing an idea and then you actually pausing, perhaps going down to the resources and going
through and practicing it. Learning is practice
and feedback. The way that we can give
feedback again is I hope that the comments and
the discussion tabs is like the friendliest place
on the Internet where we can all comment on each other's templates and stories in the way that
we think about things. It's like we actually build
this meaningful community. I encourage you to
both show your work in the way that you show your template and the
things that we're doing in terms of
our cost product. Also, I encourage you to
give feedback about being helpful and specific feedback to other people
who've taken course. Cool. So that would be a
wonderful expectation. Lastly, talking about
the class project, there is a tell
your story template that I've built that is built around this class
that everyone will be shared with and it will be
below you can find that. That will be the
big class project. We'll be looking at the way that others and that you
tell your story, right? Again, fitting this template, just this specific
version of story time. That's it, let's get to it. Okay, three sentence
and then now take one sentence and then from there we're going to do
a two word bio. Right? So I told you
at the beginning, I even told you a
little bit of who I am. My two word bio might be
educator and entertainer, right? So I'm cutting out entrepreneur
like I'm just telling, trying to symp, educator
and entertainer. And then one word bio educator. Okay, we're going to
do a quick activity. Okay, like I said in
the other videos, I'm basically going to
share the activity. And then my hope
is that you like literally pause and do it or you send the
templates before. Okay, So this is going to be a short video because I'm just going to explain the activity
and then I hope you do it. This activity is all
about simplifying, okay? It is simplifying.
Simplifying, simplifying. So here's what we're
going to do, okay? We're going to simplify. I'm going to encourage
you to write, take some time and
write a three sentence, three sentence biography of
who you are and what you do. Try to keep that to
three sentences. Try to communicate ideas, whatever. I'm an educator. Okay, so we're going
three sentence bio one sentence bio, two words. Two or three words, and
then one word, right? And that one word obviously symbolizes so much that
one word can be a lot. Here's another way
to look at it. A different activity is what is a metaphor for the
job that you do. Okay, again, I'll explain this and then I'll sort of
walk through it myself. But my hope is that you take some time to think
about this, right? So what is a metaphor
for the job that you do? That would be, I would encourage you to think
about an object, or an animal, or something
that is not tangible, totally not related to the
job that you do, right? So I might say printing press, there's a lot of and I can help make that
reach the masses. Right? You can say,
oh, I am coffee. I give people energy
and I get them excited, I get them awake, I get them
ready for the day, right? You can even say, you
can say something like, oh, I'm a musical instrument. I make you feel emotions, right? I sit down and it
looks technical. And it is technical, but it
sounds pretty and artistic. And you don't see the math
of the piano playing. You just hear sadness, right? You hear joy, You hear
happiness, right? Maybe if you're an advertising
or something like that, you like there's a lot going on. But what you see is
just emotion, right? So the challenge
would be, what is a metaphor for a symbol of the job that you have or
the business doing, right? Then here's a prompt that I have used a bunch and I think
people really like, I really like, I genuinely
do this all the time. If you write a fake news
article about yourself, you can be like, it can
be a profile on you. It can be a future project
that you're working on. But the hope is if you
think of it a little bit like a journalist
and you see how profiles are written
on other people. How would a journalist describe you in this
newspaper article, even if you have had newspaper articles
written about you? I would write the one
that you hope to write. My lovely partner, Misha, She made this podcast, I'm telling my aunt shot up. And she wrote that she wanted it to be quietly revolutionary. Like revolutionary. And then what ended
up happening is that she genuinely wrote this article and thought about this
and was like, oh, that's the best way
to describe this and they got rid of about
in The New York Times and they said a version so close to quietly
revolutionary, they're like, this is
hypnotic listening. It's like revolutionary without even realizing things
like that, right? So the way that we describe projects and
ourselves to ourself, especially if we take the
work to literally do that, I think really big real
world ramifications. Okay, so those are three
really quick activities and now let's talk storytelling
in the next video.
3. Hero Journey: Hey, video four. We're
talking about storytelling. My favorite
storytelling principle, or the one that is used
the most that we're going to talk about today
is the hero's journey. You might be familiar
with the hero's journey, but just stick with me on the way that we're going to
think about it and the way that you and this class is totally centered in
the hero's journey. Okay, if you're not familiar
with the hero's journey, Joseph Campbell came up
with the hero's journey. And here we have the hero
who has a call to adventure, who often gets supernatural aid. Who crosses the threshold. In the threshold, he has
helpers, has a mentor. Mentors really big. Goes through these challenges and
temptations, right? The helpers there goes
through this abyss, this death and rebirth. There's transformation,
there is atonement. And then we returns to
the known world, right? So you start in the known world and you go to the Unknown world. This is one of the
frameworks for storytelling, hero's journey and the
way to think about this, okay, this is big, that you either as an artist, as an entrepreneur, as someone in marketing
or anything like that, you are not the hero. This is huge. Okay,
you are not the hero. You are the guide, you are the person helping, but you are the guide that the hero meets on their journey. Let me explain that
a little bit, okay, you like help the hero do hero things by what
you are doing. Your offering to the world encourages the heroes
to do hero things. Right? And I think
that's a huge shift in the way that we
think about stories. You are not the hero when
we're talking about what you do or the businesses or
anything like that, right? And I think those are the
people that make it amazing. Bruce Springsteen is not sing up there saying,
you know everyone. Look at how awesome I am. Bruce Springsteen
is playing songs for the Forgotten Man, right? Bruce Springsteen is like, I help you play music so you can live a more
authentic life, right? I hope that you're doing great. Listen to Born To Run. Oh, you're gonna
keep doing great in your beautiful
American life, right? That's Bruce Springsteen,
and if you think about that, from artists to Apple, Apple is like you're
an amazing creative, here's just our little Mac book. But keep doing amazing
creative work. So that shift is that
we are the guides. So here's what we
need to clarify, and this is the most
important video. Yeah, I'll say it, the most important
video in this class. You need to clarify.
What is your customer? What is your listener?
What is your fan? What are they on a quest for? And then what are you
offering them there? Right? Olivia Rodrigo sings
songs for young women, largely young women, to like process anger and
betrayal and break ups. She's helping them
like process emotion and get through the
break up, right? Her audience, her fans
are on this quest, fight back about being a young woman in
today's society, right? And when she does, she
is a guide by offering words and some of
the specifics and dancing and a community of
people who feel similar. So this is how I would
think about this. I thought this is the template. Okay, you help hero, that's the audience,
That's the fans, those are your followers,
those are your listeners. Do hero things
with your support, your secret sauce, so they
can achieve their hero goals. So I sometimes work
with nonprofits and I really like climate
nonprofits, right? So I've done some work with them because I like the
environment, I like Earth. So here's the way
I would frame it, instead of me being like, hey, you should work with
me Because I'm amazed. I've gone through
this hero's quest. I came nothing. Here's my personal story, here's why it matters, right? All of that, I push
away and I go. You are doing amazing work at the environmental nonprofit
you're doing, right? You are a hero
doing hero things. I love the work you're doing. With my help of comedy and entertainment
and these things, what we can do is you can make an even
bigger impact, right? So all of a sudden
it's not concerned about me and it's like,
what are you doing? I'm here and I'm supporting
the thing that you're doing. I help people do blank. I'm supporting heroes doing hero things with
my secret sauce. So they can just keep
doing amazing hero things. The biggest paradigm
shift that we're going to think about the rest of
the class and everything, and that's how I want us
to think about everything, is we're using hero's journey. And sometimes people do that and they make these commercials or they do stories for their known world to Unknown world. But what matters is the people
that we are speaking to. So take some time and fill in the hero statements in the template in the
worksheet attached. So fill that out and
be like, okay, great, what does it mean I'm going
through the hero's journey. I'm recognizing and
thinking through the hero's journey
that my audience, my listener, my fans are
going through and I'm there. I'm merely a mentor to help
them in their amazing life.
4. Epiphany: Okay, video five. We're talking
about epiphany moments. I know I just told you
that you are not the hero, but if you are going to talk about your life as you should, I bet your life is fascinating. There is one way to do it that encompasses all the
principles of storytelling, and that is the epiphany moment. Okay, So in storytelling, stories are basically conflict. All stories need
conflict and change. So this thought that conflict and change are
necessary in stories. So here is the way
that I would encourage you to think about how
you tell your story. What I would do is
in your biography, I would include an epiphany
moment. Before I get into it. This doesn't have to be like
a real epiphany, right? We don't, this
doesn't have to be like you and the moon
and you're like, I will quit my job on Wall
Street to start kayaking. You know, like it doesn't
have to be that big, but what it does is it helps people understand
what you were doing. A little bit of the
context of who you are and what you are
doing now, right? So I told you at
the beginning, oh, I was a high school teacher or I taught high school and then I taught creativity at the
University of Illinois. And then now I do this, right? So there's a little bit of, I used to do blank
and now I do blank. I think that template to me is an incredible framework for
a bio that includes a story. I used to do blank and
now I do blank in. That is a story, right. I used to teach and now
I work in Hollywood. Whoa, Okay. Now I understand a
little bit about, so I'll give you my personal
example. What I used to say. Hey, Esteban is a
comedian and writer. That's me, a comedian and I'm a writer and I do
this, now I go. Esteban is a former teacher who is now a
comedian and writer. It's a longer bio, but
what that does is it gives so much more context
and you have a lot of places for follow
up questions. Yeah, I'm actually a
former teacher, now. I'm a comedian and writer. What did I teach? Yeah,
thanks for asking. Here's the things I touch.
What does it mean to do on writing? Do I
think about those? How are those related? There's so many places
that we can go. Now. Here's what I
would encourage you. I used to do blank and now blank if you really
want to go for it, the epiphany moment
is you could go, I used to do blank, then blank happened, I do blank. Okay. There's so many
ways to think about this, but I would just encourage you
to know that stories about people and even
if you've been in the same industry for a long
time, that's totally okay. You can still find those
moments of change, Those little epiphany moments. Yeah. I've actually been in
the industry for a long time, but what I'm most excited about
now is where it could go. Or I was in sales
and then I thought, oh my goodness, You know what's more interesting
is running the thing. Now I'm in operations, those small moments
of change really drive and like get into our monkey brain
that love stories. So that's the way I would
talk about yourself. This could be on your
website or this could be for parties or this could
be anything like that. What I would encourage
you to do is if you remember those one
sentence bios, I would try to rewrite that and infuse these moments
of epiphany. Again, good ways to do that is I used to blank, now I blank. I love when I see a bio that goes after ten years in blank. Now they do blank, right? So after blank is a
wonderful template, is a former blank turned to
blank, Wonderful template. So these words, these words that like give us this
input into who you are are so huge for talking about what makes you different. And this can
be anything, right? This could be a former high
school varsity quarterback, is now a therapist. Great. That's so much more
interesting than telling me therapist after seven
years in finance, this person is now a therapist. I want that therapist, right? So those moments,
conflict change, epiphany, you got
it? Let's do it.
5. Story Simplifying: Hey, video six, we are
talking again, all of us, we're thinking about stories in the most simple way possible. And here is a challenge for you. Here's the invitation to think about is when you are telling the story of who you are
or what your business does or what your art does, or your new album or your new comedy special,
whatever it is. I think giving as few details as possible, let
me tell you why. Again, this is a little bit
of that paradigm shift. This is a little bit
of realizing there's a different way to
tell our story, what we've been talking
about this whole class. When you give a few details, and these are a few
specific details, really specific character
building details. This is actually just
happened like a few days ago. I watched this movie, 50. 50. It's got Jesse Gordon
Lovett and Seth Rogan. I just randomly
watch it, honestly. This is the first scene. Tell me what you learn. It's a guy and he's
going for a run, and then he stops because the crosswalk says
you can't cross, and there's no one around. And he's sitting there
still going for a run. And he's looking
and there's no one. And a runner runs by
him and he still waits. And then finally the light
turns green and he crosses. That's the first
scene of the movie. I know everything about
it. He's going for a run. He's healthy. He's cautious. Cautious to the point
that even when he can break the rules that hurt, no one that do nothing, he still doesn't
break the rules. That tells me everything we need to know
about that person. Hollywood is really good
at giving you a few of those character
details that tell you everything you need to
know about someone, right? You only have 2 hours,
sometimes you have less than that to
get to know someone. So every specific action, if it's a good movie and
if it's well written, points to this larger
life behind it. And I want us to
think about that. Here's the challenge. Can
you think about something? And it can be very small that
you have done that kind of perfectly encapsulates
what makes you unique. And I think what is most
interesting is what is the most. Even when we think prestige, I'm often like sure if press
has been written about you, what is the most relevant
place that press exists? Right? As a few years
ago I was like on ABC night line about some
of the climate comedy work. And I'm like, oh that's
fun. But is that relevant? Because more
interesting is grist. Grist is the small, very cool, very like B Environmental
publication that I love, like that. I go, oh, let me lead with that. As opposed to Nightline, which every week
features stories and doesn't really have
to unifying threat. But if I say, oh,
I'm really proud of the time that this
indie nonprofit, environmental artsy magazine
wrote about me, you're like, wait a minute, now I'm starting to get a sense of
who you are, right? So what is that for you? It
doesn't have to be press, but what are those
defining moments? What press makes the
most sense for you? What photos make the
most sense for you? What projects that you share with people make the
most sense for you? Looking into my life as well. I can tell you a few years ago I had this show on Vice Land, It's Vices TV network, and the show was, okay. I didn't love it. I don't, I'm not going to
tell you the name of it because I don't love it. But what feels way more me is that a few
years before that, after I got out of college, I wrote this musical
about Pluto the Planet. It's a comedy musical. Okay. It does not like if I
showed it to you. Now You. Yeah. The songs are pretty good. I'm now ten years
out of college. This was ten years ago.
But it is such a relevant, it feels very me. Estaba me. It's a comedy
musical about Pluto the planet. It's like kind of nerdy,
it's educational, it's kind of entertaining,
right? It's all the things. So rather than saying
hey, I was on a TV show, okay, You're like great,
okay, Saying hey, this one time I did this
one specific project that is thinking about you, your life as a story. And thinking about
the people you're interacting with as an audience who they just want to as quickly as they can
understand you. We're just making it as easy as possible for people to
understand by taking the intentional time to
think about what are a few details that
capture who you are, and this relates to everything
we've talked about. So if I know that an
epiphany moment is good, I can tell you, oh, I'm Esteban. I actually taught creativity to engineers at the
University of Illinois. It's interesting,
specific facts. I did a lot of other.
I wrote a book. But that doesn't matter, right?
Well, whatever, whatever. I talk creativity
to engineers at a university and then I worked, a few years later, I
worked on this project. There was this
documentary series, but these people, and it was really beautiful and inspiring. I went from this to this, you're like, wait a minute,
How does that relate? The projects that we
do, the businesses that we run are the things
that we need to market our goal in that is for
people to be engaged, right? So giving specific details, literally building exchanges and websites and releases and PR and everything about
building curiosity, People having questions,
having meaningful questions, people wanting to
engage more people, getting a sense of who you are. I think that's
really, really good.
6. You Did It!: Hey, that is the course
I told you'd be short. I hope it is helpful. Here's
the big paradigm shifts that I want us to
think about, okay? And the hero's journey
to proper storytelling, especially when it comes to
other people, as an artist, as an entrepreneur or
anything like that, is that you are not the hero. The people you are serving, your customers, your fans, they are the hero. You are the guide helping
them do hero things. Another fun paradigm shift is the way that you
talk about yourself, the way you describe your work, your bio, Instead of
just saying what you do. Let's infuse that
with storytelling, which means that we go
blank and now blank. It has these epiphany
moments built in. I'm a former blank
who now does blank. I used to do this and then this happened,
and now I do this. Hey, after years of this, now I do this, okay? This storytelling
principles help people understand
who you are faster. And they just like
feel more active. They feel more engaging. They break through the noise. Do I just want to hire
a tax accountants? Or do I want a tax
accountant who became a tax accountant
after this moment? So they actually
have a background in music and improv and theater. Oh my goodness, that's amazing very quickly
telling people who we are. Also another thing
to think about, simplifying less details. Those details encompass,
encapsulate who we are as people and then
people are curious. Again, storytelling, what we are here to do is to engage people. Have people engage with the
material we're putting out, the projects we're working
on with the business, what we're doing with the
art we're putting out. And the way for people to
do that is to let people fill in and connect some of those dots, some
of those circles. The way to do that is be
thoughtful and intentional. And remember the biggest
rule of allocate the story, the story we're telling
about ourselves. It is not for us,
but it's rather for people to understand
story we're serving. The story that we're
doing is rather than like making us look good, is for other people to understand
who we are. That is it. I hope you learned something. There are worksheets
and templates attached. Hopefully you've
been using them. Let's use that discussion tab. I will jump in there, but I also encourage you to jump
in for other people. I think the more that we workshop and the more
that we're down there, I think would be really,
really wonderful. That is it. That is the course. If you're curious,
I've got a bunch of other share courses, you can check them out.
Thank you so much. Thanks for your time. I
really appreciate it.
Esteban Gast, Writer, Host, and Speaker
