A Well-told Story Is a Woman’s Best Friend

Diane Wyzga is a story guide & podcast host of Stories From Women who Walk. She helps professionals like you find the words you didn’t know you had to create your origin story.

Diane teaches women how to teach themselves the art, science, and power of story, their voice, saying what they mean & meaning what they say.

Arrange your free no-sales 45-minute Discovery Chat to learn more: https://www.quartermoonstoryarts.net/hire-me/

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Transcript

Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase Podcast we have with us today a very special guest, Dianne Wyzga and Diane is a story guide and podcast host of stories from women who Walk. She helps professionals like you find the words you didn't know you had to create. Your origin story. Welcome to the podcast.

00:00:22

Man, I am so excited to chat with you.

00:00:23

Thank you, Jill. I'm excited to be here and chat with you too. Thank.

00:00:28

You. So how did?

00:00:29

You get started on all of this.

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Yes.

00:00:33

Which this are you talking about? Which this? Which this?

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With.

00:00:39

What led you to become a story guide, which I think is what?

00:00:44

Preceded becoming a podcast host, and you've been at it for a while and you've really good, really good podcast. Some of the good ones.

00:00:51

Oh, thank you. So yeah, story has been in my life for about 30 years through all of my disciplines, nursing business.

00:01:02

Law, litigation, consulting, teaching. It's always been there. And when I was invited by a friend early before COVID to find something to do because I think she could see the writing on the wall that we were going to shut down. It was, you know, hey, I I saw this podcast thing and maybe you'd be interested in it.

00:01:22

OK, fine. Whatever.

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And that was pretty much that was it. I just took the course with Seth Godins Akimbo Workshop and I said, OK, fine, whatever. But I I thought it was just going to be, like, podcasting one-on-one, and it was actually like drinking from a fire hydrant. And on the first day, they wanted to know what's it for? Who's it for? Why does it matter?

00:01:44

Like I don't know. But I said, OK, look, I know stories. I'm a woman and I love to walk. I'm gonna call it stories from women who walk, and it's to it took off the first year I was interviewing as you are and so many others are. I was interviewing women who were walking their lives and some.

00:02:02

Thing happened and they had to pivot in their life like so many of us.

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Do.

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We'll do are doing and after that first year we were then into COVID and I figured that we needed something short and sweet because we were no longer commuting long distances in our cars. And so I came up with 60 seconds. So if you look at stories from women who walk the past three years have been daily.

00:02:28

60 seconds episodes that were designed to inspire and motivate and provoke and give you a story.

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Prompt to think about a lot of things are are really meant. It's almost like I feel like I am building my life in public because each of the episodes has a story and message, a call to action, and it really has to do with how am I moving through the world and if I find that I'm encountering these different.

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Issues. Problems. Challenges somebody out there is as well. And so the podcast was.

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Continued continues. It's been four years now since April. One, it's international. I've got close to 1100 episodes that are out on the airwaves and there's still that sense that if I can continue to create around these questions that I'm having with my life.

00:03:25

Somebody out there is going to say what?

00:03:28

Me too. I thought I was the only one and I think that's the glue that holds us together. And so that's a roundabout way of saying that is how I incorporated podcasting into the world of story. That is my life, which shows up as my profession. Now as quarter moon.

00:03:48

Story Arts how's that?

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I love that so much.

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I I love that you that you're.

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Helping people tell stories because everybody has a story. Everybody has it. The older you get, the more stories you have too.

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Yeah.

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Ask anybody's parent. That's for some reason.

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And even if it's one, they'll keep telling.

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It yes.

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They usually have a half a dozen and you hear.

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Them over and.

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Over again and it they never have a new.

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Audience, which is really sad.

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We know where to laugh. We can laugh at all the right places, yeah.

00:04:25

Yeah, yeah, I remember that from my father-in-law who lived with us, for he lived with us for 18.

00:04:31

Years and we would have family dinners and his hearing deteriorated over the years, but his his knack for telling the same stories never diminished. And so I I had raised a brood of children with him and and they felt the same way.

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It's like God.

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It's like you have to listen to.

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That same story again and.

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Again.

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The kids with them like.

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Politely excuse themselves on the table.

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We know how this ends.

00:05:03

Yeah, but it's.

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Important I think that people learn how to tell stories and learn how to tell more than six.

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You know, learn how to learn the art of storytelling so that you know when you get old.

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Older and and you're surrounded by your loved ones. You can. You can try to draw stories that on events and tell the story slightly differently. And maybe it's OK if you make some stuff up. Spice it up.

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Oh yeah, yeah.

00:05:31

A.

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Bit it's your story you could tell.

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It however you want.

00:05:36

Well, I'm the oldest of seven children, so I know all the stories and the way in which they happened is the way that I tell them regardless. So yeah, I'm in charge. I'm in charge of this archive.

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I don't care if you live that episode. I witnessed it. I'm gonna tell the story. But but you're you're absolutely right that reading, reading to children from the beginning.

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And telling stories to children from the beginning helps with their executive skill, skill development. Believe it or not, helps with their cognitive skills helps with language growth, helps with social skills. It is.

00:06:03

Yeah.

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Astonishing what reading to children from the very beginning helps in terms of their good growth and also encouraging stories in the family. As to, you know, who met whom, what, when.

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And and how did you meet and where did we come from? And why do we celebrate this holiday this way? It keeps us rooted and grounded.

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To.

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Who our ancestors are. So I I'm second generation Polish and that's all as far as I know. And yet there are things that we do and we say and foods that we share and rituals that we observe.

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That my parents say they did when they were young kids growing up and you know, that's because their parents, who all came from Poland at very early ages when they were teenagers to find work. We're doing the same thing. So the connectivity of the story.

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Is one of the reasons I I think that we are we gravitate to it. But the truth of the matter is no one really knows how come story is so important to us. There's all sorts of theories.

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But at the end of the day, everyone says it's important, and for professionals having a good grasp of your origin story, the story that says this is how I got from there to here and knowing for yourself, this is how you will get from here to there.

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Gives you a doorway into your clients, your prospects, your audience. It is the way that you will connect with them. You will engage with them because again, this is always going on out there. What you two? I thought I was the only one.

00:08:19

No, and and that is what, despite the world, and despite the chaos in the world, I think that is the that is the glue that is holding us together because in the sharing of stories.

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As you said earlier, Jill, there is.

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An understanding that can be established, and if we understand someone, we may not necessarily agree with them.

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Yeah, but if we give them the courtesy of understanding.

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That we've taken a step toward that human connection, and if we can take a step toward human connection.

00:08:58

Maybe World Peace in our time.

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I wonder what else that I would love that it would.

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Who knows?

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Tell a story. You draw somebody into your life. It's always personal. And there's always that element of. Ohh. So what happened next?

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What happened next?

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And we all ask that question whether we ask it consciously out loud or it's just.

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Something that's settled in the back of our minds when we hear a story, we wonder what the result was, whether it's actually spoken or not. And I think in business, that's what where the magic happens.

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It happens that magic happens across the board and I will share with you that what is going on in the listeners imagination, because that's the big gear that drives everything is how is what I'm hearing like my life.

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Life. Where can I connect with emotions and feelings and sensations? So on the one hand, the listener to your story is there and listening and their imagination at the same time is is going to like the rolodex is how is this? And that's where a connection.

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It's coming from at the same time.

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We are always looking for that, as you said. What happened next because.

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At the heart of every.

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Story is trouble. A story is a character.

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A situation and either accommodation or extrication from that situation, so no matter what it is, no matter where you go, no matter what meeting you're sitting in, no matter what movie you're watching.

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There is always trouble a situation and what we want to know is how is the character.

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Going to get out of this.

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And the last thing I'll say about that.

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Is stories are remarkably grand.

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Training grounds for us so we can go through the thrills and chills of something without having to experience the consequences.

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We can rob a bank and and kind of figure out what's that like, but we don't go through the consequences of it. So no matter what situation we're involved in, in a story, it's almost like testing it for ourselves. I would never run bank, but now I get a sense of ohh having been in that story.

00:11:42

In my imagination.

00:11:44

It's remarkable story, really is remarkable.

00:11:47

OK.

00:11:48

That goes two things. One.

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In sales, they talk about opening and closing loops and in storytelling you open a loop.

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That's the problem and what happens, and then you close the loop when you tell them the result. You know the resolution of whatever that problem was, that they were struggling with. The magic happens when you open another loop. You present another problem and then they're like.

00:12:18

Now what?

00:12:18

OK, So what happens? It's it's.

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The cliffhanger of stories.

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When you incorporate.

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It into the story selling as opposed to storytelling.

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Then then you the object is to leave a cliffhanger there so that your audience is like I need to know what happens in the next episode. They do that in television. They did it in the movies the the old serials before the cartoons and the.

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Way back in the.

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Day when it cost you a quarter to go.

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To the movies.

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And this was after cave drawings. But we know about what time that.

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Was. Yeah, that was just last week, before the quarter to get into the movies. I think it was in nickel at 1st and then it was 1/4 that old, so.

00:13:06

The other point is that you you alluded to earlier when you were you were talking about reading to children when they're really young, reading to children out of a book rather than letting them just watch television allows them to develop an imagination because they start to draw pictures in their head. And even if you're looking at storybooks that have pictures.

00:13:27

In them, letting the child tell you a story about the pictures, whether it's with the word, say or not.

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Yeah.

00:13:32

Cares. Yeah, just let them tell you the story and let them practice writing stories. And you know they're going to be, like, weird letters. And there's a name for the the loopy drawing or loopy writing that most kids start out doing.

00:13:50

OK.

00:13:51

But they they can create books and or stories, and they'll draw pictures to go with them and have them tell you the story. Tell you what it says.

00:13:56

Oh yeah.

00:14:01

Read it, read it to you. Yeah.

00:14:03

That's what I used to do that with my kids.

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Pediatric nurse, one of the ways in which we had kids.

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Deal with condition surgeries. Medical conditions was to draw out what was going on and the ways in which young children in particular manage all of these fearsome things that are coming at them, which we as big humans don't appreciate as as much anymore.

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We have different big, fearsome things going on, but when it comes to the little people, there are so many big, fearsome things that are coming at them because they're so little and they're so out of.

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Troll. So being able to allow them to write the story to tell you the story but not judge what it is that they're saying about the story to be able to receive it and say, tell me more about that and where did that come from? How did you come up with that?

00:15:03

Idea so that you're encouraging them, as you say, to share in the creation of the story rather than shutting them down and saying that's that's really nice. It looks like a snake that swallowed a hat, but it's not, you know.

00:15:19

Yeah, he just letting it. The art of letting it be whatever they want. The special art.

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I as parents you. You're always like oh.

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God.

00:15:31

I hope my kids going to be smart enough and they're going to.

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Do good enough, but they always do.

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You know, by the time you get to adulthood.

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You've figured some things out, and I know lots of people that didn't figure things out, and they're OK too. They're living a life.

00:15:46

OK, two.

00:15:47

It's like they're they're creating their own story and we all live the life of the story that we actually are creating ourselves.

00:15:57

We are, yes, we we are. And whether those stories are still working for us or not is something that I work with with the women that.

00:16:08

That are my clients, this, this fear and self doubt using my voice, fear of public speaking, standing up in front of a meeting and being able to share your ideas or amplify your message. These are old stories that have come from generations, community, family.

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Whatever. But at the end of the day.

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Listening to that old tape.

00:16:35

Do we still have tapes anymore? I don't know. Listening to that old playlist simply stands in our way and a way of getting out from underneath that is doing is going back to a place that you're talking about. Let's go back to what we enjoyed as children.

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Let's go back to what we remember excited us as young people and when we go back there, we will find.

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And themes.

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That showed up in our lives that are there today like a river.

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That runs under our life, and even if that river feels frozen, the river underneath, it's it's still running, even though the top is frozen and the best that we can do for ourselves is begin to examine.

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What did I know then?

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How does it show up in my life?

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Today, it's what I call doing an archaeological dig.

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On yourself, because, like an archaeologist, we go back and we look at the civilization of our life, civilized or uncivilized. But we look at the civilization of the life that we were living and make sense of it and what was going on in these various timelines. What was I doing? What was I happy to do?

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What showed up in terms of values?

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For me is integrity important, or honesty or love or devotion or justice? What's important to me, and how does that show up today?

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Because when we get a hold of that, then we realize that the story that we came here with our origin story is showing up in our life and the work that I do is helping women find the word they didn't know they had.

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Really.

00:18:34

Really.

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And and that's the and that's the fun part of this, because it's your story. It's not mine. It's your word. It's not mine. It's your voice, not mine. And and that takes a a real strong belief that.

00:18:48

The client the woman knows.

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She knows the story she wants to tell. She does.

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She just needs someone to listen it out of her.

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Sometimes it's.

00:18:58

Yeah, listen it out of her cause sometimes.

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You you need.

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You need to really.

00:19:07

Put yourself back in that spot and and sometimes it's hard to remember where, where was it? I I read you my my origin story. Yes, about.

00:19:17

You did. It was wonderful.

00:19:19

That I I've been working on but it took me a long time to remember that that was the moment that everything changed for me and what I was doing. I mean, it's a totally honest and truthful story. Exactly what happened.

00:19:33

MHM.

00:19:36

But.

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It took a long time to get probably a year. Yeah, to get get it all together and realize, you know, this this is where the moment when it all started was here. It would take a while before the results.

00:19:53

Came up to doing what I'm doing now, but the origin happened at that moment and and the things that were happening around me, you know, you you feel what I was feeling when I redo the story like because I was mowing the lawn and it was hot and.

00:20:13

Trying to look at my phone and you know all those things that we do, but we don't really think about.

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But helping somebody draw that back out of their memory.

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To be able to share it with others is what makes a story very rich.

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And helps people relate to it and put themselves in it.

00:20:35

Well, when I heard when I heard your story, one of the reasons I was able to step into it with you is because you gave me enough detail. So I knew that it was hot. I knew it was summer. I knew that it was sweaty, hot.

00:20:52

I knew that the sun was out, so it's me hot. It's cloudy and the sun was out and I knew that you were mowing the lawn. That's all I knew.

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You didn't tell me that it was electric mower push mower. You didn't tell me any of that, but you gave me enough information from a sensory basis because oftentimes for those of us who are very visual learners, we forget that we've got 5 senses. So you gave me enough so that I could see.

00:21:21

And hear and feel the setting of the story and that way I had.

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The container I had the container that the plot of your story was going to fit in, and you'd also given me a time range, so I knew, OK, it it didn't happen yesterday, but it didn't happen when you were in diapers. OK, there's now I know where I am in your life. And then it proceeded. It proceeded from that. And that's really important.

00:21:50

When we are setting up a story with the listener that we give them enough of a framework of the setting so that they know we're not talking about a castle somewhere and never Neverland.

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And we're giving them enough sensation so that they can they can actually participate with their imagination.

00:22:09

In the story, so I have a question. How? How did you know? How did you know that the story that you shared with me earlier?

00:22:19

Was your origin story? How did that knowledge appear to you?

00:22:26

It appeared to me over a period of time because I was trying to write this origin story. I mean it. I didn't just wake up one day and say, OK, I'm going to.

00:22:37

Write my origin.

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Story no, I.

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Knew that the story was there and I.

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I kind of wandered around some different events because we all have events in our lives that are kind of.

00:22:49

Transformational, but.

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I was. I was a trying to find a way to illustrate something.

00:23:01

About what I'm doing now and why I'm doing it now and I I knew, you know, in my own mind, I knew why it happened, but.

00:23:05

OK.

00:23:07

M.

00:23:13

I had to. I had to sit with it for a while to and I have. I've talked to other coaches, writing coaches, so I've had other people give me input about, you know, things to think about and and how to paint the.

00:23:28

Picture the backdrop and you those are little details, but they're important that you you incorporate all the senses in when you're setting the scene for somebody.

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And then.

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And and every every piece of it was true. But it was just I realized that that.

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Was the moment.

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When everything changed for me.

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And it was because of an event.

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That happened at that moment, so.

00:24:03

Does that answer your question?

00:24:05

I believe you. I I do. I believe you. And with the work that we're doing, oftentimes we're helping.

00:24:12

Our clients tell that origin story within a professional setting so that they can say this is how I got from there to here. This is why I do what I do. In your case, the podcasting work that you do, the coaching work that you do now, it makes sense we can.

00:24:19

Hey.

00:24:32

Answer that question of what's it for? Who's it for and why does it matter?

00:24:37

And so you're right it this is not going to happen overnight. There is oftentimes A pivotal moment. It can be tied to.

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Anything can be tied to absolutely anything, but when we track it back.

00:24:51

We have the sensation of how could I have missed that? Who knew? Who knew it was that important, but only when we sit down and we do the work we do the archaeological dig. We look back and say something's something's troubling me. I can't figure out where I'm going.

00:25:11

Where I've come from, when someone says, well, what's your story? What do I say when I explained to?

00:25:19

In a in a keynote or to a group or to my team. This is who I am. How do I say this is who I am? This is where I came from. This is why it's important that you should listen to me. Where is the story? Where is the story that supports that? That says.

00:25:38

I.

00:25:38

I know I I know that she says what she means. She means what she says. I can hear it. It's coming through. So I absolutely believe that there was something churning.

00:25:50

And the churn took a while to figure out. And in your case you were writing it out. Some people speak it out, speak it out, speak it out, others draw it out. And over that time, it starts to UM.

00:26:03

It starts to become vivid, like those old Polaroid camera pictures. You know, you take the picture and it comes out and it's Gray, and then all of a sudden, you know, it's it's an image of something there. Yeah.

00:26:12

Those are the thing again.

00:26:14

I can imagine.

00:26:16

Everything old is new again, even me.

00:26:21

Oh yeah. But it is like that, isn't it? It's it's like this great thing, and then it starts to emerge. The images start to emerge, the sensations, the feelings, the memories start to emerge. And if we're conscious of that, if we're paying attention to that, then it will take us to a place.

00:26:40

As it did you where we go, huh. Imagine that.

00:26:45

That aha moment and and when you when you have that there is no going back.

00:26:53

OK, this is a marker in my life it and it doesn't mean that we have only one origin story, but in this particular case, for the purposes for which you're talking about, yes, there is a moment in time that is grounding and gravitational and says now it makes sense.

00:27:10

What you're doing? What's it for? Who's it for? Why does it matter? There will be other stories off of that, too.

00:27:16

But this one is key view.

00:27:17

There.

00:27:19

There will and and and there are, but it's just having somebody.

00:27:26

To work with like you provide this service for people where you'd sit down with them and you would say OK, just talk.

00:27:35

Just talk.

00:27:35

Start telling me stuff.

00:27:39

Around whatever the.

00:27:43

Whatever the the.

00:27:45

The thing is that you're trying to communicate.

00:27:48

Sometimes you need to start with the end in mind first, like I I was trying to illustrate. Why?

00:27:56

Being featured on podcasts can change people's lives, and why I I feel so passionate about helping coaches.

00:28:05

Come on, podcasts and and tell their story and express what they're doing because I really feel like they're changing the world. And I I feel like that's my mission is to help them make the world a better place because I want to live someplace where, you know, there is no war and there are no borders and people can just be themselves and.

00:28:24

And.

00:28:26

Shine, because every time somebody shines, then the person next to him lights.

00:28:32

Up a little bit.

00:28:33

Yeah.

00:28:34

Like that's, that's the.

00:28:35

World I want to live in.

00:28:38

So having somebody to help you.

00:28:42

Figure out what the end end goal is of your story of your origin story.

00:28:47

To to backtrack and and pick out the the, the, the, the pivotal moment.

00:28:53

M.

00:28:54

The the the crescendo of the story, if you will as.

00:29:01

It's. It's priceless. Yeah, it's it's like.

00:29:04

Magic. Magic. A lot of it is really it. It turns on questions. It really turns on questions and listening from the heart and recognizing that. Wait, why am I talking is something.

00:29:24

I need to be very well aware of that it is. It is your story and to ask.

00:29:32

The deep questions the right questions, which is, you know, I don't call myself a coach. I call myself a Co creator or a guide because I believe that we're walking in a land.

00:29:45

That might be.

00:29:48

Unfamiliar to both of us, but it's also familiar to both of us. And so for me, the idea of having a guide to go through that or a Co creator someone to Co create the story with you, understanding that this is yours, that this is.

00:30:07

Yours is a deliberate choice because it does go back to that belief of mine that.

00:30:15

You're in charge.

00:30:16

You know what you're doing and my job is to listen that.

00:30:21

Out of you so that you get a chance to use your voice.

00:30:26

To forge. I love that word, to forge the future around that story that you finally figured out.

00:30:35

Love that and I know.

00:30:38

You used to be.

00:30:39

You used to work in litigation. You helped.

00:30:43

You've helped people.

00:30:44

Tell stories on Stan on the stand in a courtroom setting and.

00:30:49

MHM.

00:30:51

I don't know that people realize how important.

00:30:56

I'd like to say coaching.

00:30:59

Witnesses is but I you really do need to help people be able to tell the story of what happened in a way that is going to lead to the jury, to the conclusion you want them to come to based on the story that you're telling because.

00:31:18

Being a witness, you can say a whole bunch of stuff.

00:31:22

And it it may be sort of like what you think you remember, but if you don't have somebody to help you organize your thoughts, you often will end up telling a story that is not the story you had intended.

00:31:39

There's a lot there. Yes, and thank you for remembering that I I spent 12 years with my own practice. It was called lightning Rod communications. And I was a litigation consultant nationally representing the clients of trial attorneys. So the plaintiffs, the injured parties and.

00:32:00

As you can imagine.

00:32:03

Telling your story in front of a judge and jury is enormously crazy, making because there might be shame attached with it. Or how come I can't pull myself up by the bootstraps? Or how come I can't suck it up? Or was I at fault in any way here? There's a lot. There is a lot at stake.

00:32:22

Here and I will say that.

00:32:24

We because you can never.

00:32:26

Tell you can never tell about a jury. You can't. I can tell you that we've won cases we probably shouldn't have and lost cases that we definitely shouldn't have. But your point about being able to tell your story in a clear, concise and cogent manner, especially under cross exam.

00:32:46

Is important because I this isn't television, meaning that we see a lot of stuff on TV. You you can't mess with the facts. The facts are the facts of the facts. And so you have to present the facts in the best light as it concerns your particular side.

00:33:04

And so working with lawyers first, that was the first doorway, because if I could help lawyers drop lawyer, Man hat, lawyer, woman hat.

00:33:19

And express themselves as human beings not only to their clients, but to the jury and to the judge.

00:33:26

That goes a long way to establishing trust. And you know what they say, you know, we know like and trust people. So that right there and the term archaeological dig actually came from one of my clients because when I was working with the lawyers, he said.

00:33:42

This is like doing an archaeological dig on.

00:33:44

My life like, oh, I like that.

00:33:46

Yeah.

00:33:46

And yes, it was. Yes, it was. And so working with them to get their opening statements or closing arguments put together and then working with the injured parties so that when they were being deposed and so when they were sitting in.

00:34:03

In the courtroom and trial that they could keep it together and they could tell their story directly and clearly and with compassion for their situation. And and here's the story. Here's the thing, when you talk about a heartfelt story, artfully told, it doesn't mean that you're messing with the facts or that you're going to make drama.

00:34:25

Where there is no drama or spin gold out of straw.

00:34:29

But you are recognizing that you are talking human to human and.

00:34:36

Even though the people sitting in the jury box, or even though the people sitting in our audiences might not have had the same experience that we've had, you know, loss of a child, loss of a spouse, everybody in the world.

00:34:52

Knows loss. Everybody. Everybody knows suffering. Everybody knows hardship and so that is key.

00:35:01

Finding those universal truths that speak to.

00:35:06

The humanity both in the teller and the listener.

00:35:11

That is what conveys the story. That's what develops that understanding.

00:35:16

And then people can say I.

00:35:19

Juries are really smart. They they are really, really, really smart. They don't go into a lot of the details. They really focus on the narrative and then they take the narrative and they say does this fit on all fours with our life experience.

00:35:32

And so if you have the opportunity for jury service.

00:35:36

It's a pretty good thing because.

00:35:42

Keeps us all and in democracy, such as it is right now.

00:35:47

Yeah.

00:35:48

I got to sit on a on a mock jury. It was for somebody. Yeah, they presented both sides of the argument and then. But it wasn't in in front of a judge or anything. They were just trying to see if their argument was strong enough to to present to a.

00:35:55

I'll focus group.

00:35:57

Yes.

00:36:08

An actual jury, and I was fascinating. Uh.

00:36:15

It was I did those all the time. So what did you find? Fascinating? Because I was always the one doing the work. Yeah. So what? What did you find fascinating about that experience? I'm.

00:36:25

Curious, it was. It was interesting to listen to this. The stories that were told by both sides and then.

00:36:36

You know, you just.

00:36:37

They were asking us to make a determination about something and it it was an event that happened in a.

00:36:46

In a a business that we were all familiar with because it was, it was connected to, it was about Deseret Industries or not, yeah.

00:36:57

Deseret Industries, we call it the DI, and it's connected to the LDS Church, and somebody had been injured.

00:37:00

OK.

00:37:05

Because they ignored some signs. OK. And and they were suing the the company.

00:37:14

And it involved there's emotions because, you know, the people that were involved in it, you know, the person that was injured and then there was the person that was putting out the signs that the employee was kind of at stake here, too. And they desert industries and employs a lot of people that aren't aren't.

00:37:38

They're.

00:37:40

Mentally divergent a little bit. You know, they they struggle with things and so there, there were all these pieces and they asked us to determine if we would award them the the plaintiff.

00:37:43

Hmm.

00:37:56

What what our thoughts were on that it's been a while. So I I forget all the facts but it was just really interesting to to have to, to take all the information in and to sift through the stories and figure out, you know, does this person really.

00:38:12

Warrant.

00:38:13

This this is this is lawsuit have any merit to begin with, you know, does it, does it seem like this was a reasonable thing to be suing a company over? And are they just, like trying to sue them because they have deep pockets because they're related to the LDS Church, which is, you know, it's a valid thing.

00:38:33

Yeah, but.

00:38:36

Or or was it? Was it reasonable that?

00:38:40

You know, they missed the sign and they they slipped and fell.

00:38:45

That and that was really the crux of the.

00:38:48

The whole thing.

00:38:49

And we had to.

00:38:51

Discuss it and.

00:38:54

It was like I said, I I felt that it was really an interesting experience and I really enjoyed it.

00:39:00

I'm glad we did. We did those before every trial, sometimes multiple times before trial, always looking for the thin ice. Where can we fall? Through the ice on this case, you're always looking for the other side to win, to tell.

00:39:14

You where you've got problems and can you shore them up? Do you have the law behind you? If you don't have the law behind you, do you have the facts behind you? If you don't have the facts behind you, can you bang on the table and make a lot of noise? Which sometimes? But what I always found.

00:39:31

There what I always found fascinating about them is that you bring together a group of people 12/20. I think I had 24 at the most. You bring together a group of people that are total strangers to each other. They don't know each other from now.

00:39:50

And you're sitting them down in a room and it's either 4 hours for the day or 8 hours for the day, and you're presenting a lot of information to them and asking them to get together and discuss this and talk about whether they agree, disagree, same, different and come to some sort of conclusions.

00:40:11

And that to me, is the alchemy of that work.

00:40:16

That really is because that gives me hope. Even when they came back and said you guys, your case doesn't hold water and it's, you know, too bad. So sad. Go home.

00:40:27

It the way in which they were able to come to their decisions, always heartened me that even though we have the distractions in the news that we have now, there is still a beating heart of Americans.

00:40:46

Americans, regardless of where you came from and we are still willing to work together if asked. And if we can find a common denominator around which to ask. So I'm so glad you shared that. Yeah, that's thank you.

00:41:01

I I love that and that.

00:41:03

It's true when we all come together and we have a common purpose, but we all bring.

00:41:09

Who we are our stories with us and we all the first thing that we always do when we come together in a in a community is to to do anything. We try to find the common ground first among us and then then we can look at the problem.

00:41:28

And solve the problem, which is interesting.

00:41:32

Well, there always if we look for it, there will be. And if you look at some of the most divisive.

00:41:36

Choose.

00:41:38

Guns. Well, perhaps we can all agree that safety is something we hold in common. How we go about getting that safety is something that we have to work on. But there is, as one of my storytelling mentors said.

00:41:52

Decades ago, there is always going to be 1 elegant solution and I liked that word, an elegant solution and all you have to do. All you have to do this is the hard part. But but if you believe.

00:42:07

That there is an elegant solution. It can be found.

00:42:13

And I think that's where we have to start. We just start pulling together my idea for World Peace. We just have a lot of block parties and we bring together a lot of food and we have stories.

00:42:24

And we eat.

00:42:26

Yeah, because stories and food always go together. You can't have stories without food and not brings me back to the very beginning. Do you guys do perogies every New Year's? Ohh.

00:42:41

OK, so in our family there is a division. So Perogies is how my brother Steve says it.

00:42:50

I've always said pierogi because that's how my grandmother said it. So yes, pierogi, pierogi. They look like what they look like. Raviolis, I guess.

00:43:00

They look like.

00:43:01

Having raviolis or cheese or onion. Ohh yes, and we do. It's Christmas. Yes, it is a tradition. So here we go.

00:43:01

Potato.

00:43:10

Polish Christmas Eve. We always had those, along with a number of other.

00:43:16

I think we tried to get an odd number of different foods because it was supposed to be like the.

00:43:22

12 Apostles or something. So how did you know to ask about pierogies at Christmas?

00:43:27

My daughter, one of my daughters, is married to a a family that's Polish and they would make them every year. The whole family and you know, big family would get together at Nanas house and they would.

00:43:32

Uh.

00:43:37

Yes.

00:43:40

Make pierogies and they made it for everybody to take some home.

00:43:47

Did take some home.

00:43:48

It was after Thanksgiving.

00:43:49

Well, the tradition.

00:43:50

I think that's when they did it.

00:43:52

They might have. I I know in my family. Well, my grandmother first did it and she would be making them all year and sticking them in the freezer and and then get off the train with this enormous cardboard box tied up with string.

00:44:04

Thing. But now I have great nieces and nephews and so around the country. Yeah. Several days before families are getting together around the table and they're making the filling and they're rolling out the dough and they're boiling everything and they're put in the refrigerator. So that on Christmas Eve, you can fry them in butter.

00:44:24

And there's nothing better than pierogies, fried and bus.

00:44:25

Must be.

00:44:31

Ohh, thank you much. That's a great. That's a great memory. Oh yes.

00:44:32

He's.

00:44:38

So, Diane, how do people work with you?

00:44:42

Very well. As a matter of.

00:44:44

Fact. Sure they do.

00:44:47

So my clients can work with me one-on-one where we can do group work together. I'll be working with Lauren Ashley's cohort and not too distant future getting some work done on their origin stories in a group. I have a wonderful offer. Actually it is a no sales.

00:45:07

No obligation coaching sessions 45 minutes.

00:45:12

Long and in 30 minutes time I get a chance to listen out what your project is and we get to see if there's a fit for, for us, working together and in the remaining 15 minutes of that time, we sort out what we're going to do, how we're going to go forward. So oftentimes, that's usually how someone will find me. They'll have heard about me.

00:45:34

On a podcast because as the coaches alchemist and host of the New World Order Podcast knows, one of the best ways to get your word out there is on a podcast.

00:45:44

So if you go to my website, quarter Moon story arts, you'll find a link for that Discovery chat. Just find a time and calendly and we'll have an opportunity to talk together. Or if you're on LinkedIn, you can direct message me there. We can have a chat and that's actually that's the best way to.

00:46:04

Get started working together.

00:46:06

Awesome, I have appreciated this conversation so much and so fun, so I know we've.

00:46:10

Oh, it's been great.

00:46:14

Covered you.

00:46:14

Put a lot of ground, but what's the one thing you hope the audience takes away from our discussion today?

00:46:21

Everyone has a story that is singular to them.

00:46:26

And when you summon the courage to say yes.

00:46:30

To that story, you begin to forge a different future for yourself. So if you take away the notion of saying yes.

00:46:44

Yes to what? Yes, to that story.

00:46:48

I think that would be important because you're not going to cross the ocean by standing on the shore.

00:46:54

You went across the ocean, you got to go and do it.

00:46:57

So.

00:46:59

Do it. Thanks for joining.

00:47:02

Dive in. Yeah, there, you see, it's right behind me. Dive in.

00:47:05

Dive in. Thanks for joining me, Diane.

00:47:10

Thank you very much, Jill. It's been my pleasure.

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