Join us for a lively chat with Rebecca Hoffman, a marketing consultant who believes in stories. Stories can make facts more engaging and make getting to know ancestors, grandparents, parents, and other people in our lives much more meaningful. Children beg for stories and that desire doesn't go away. This is a way to pass on a sense of history and explain how we got where we are. Listen for more... Learn about The Luckiest People in the World at www.theluckiestpeopleintheworld.com.
TRANSCRIPT:
This is Changing the Rules, a podcast about designing the life you want to live, hosted by KC Dempster and Ray Loewe, the luckiest guy in the world.
KC Dempster 0:13
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Changing the Rules. This is KC Dempster. And I'm here with my co host Ray Loewe. And we have a wonderful show ahead for you. We are broadcasting from Wildfire Podcast Studios. And it's a beautiful day in Woodbury, New Jersey.
Ray Loewe 0:32
You know, one comment that I make frequently, but we've been doing podcasts now for a little over a year, and we have no idea what we're doing. And and the advantages we don't have to know because we have Taylor, and we have Wildfire, and they lead us through this thing. And all we have to do is get great guests. And then our guests lead us to wonderful podcasts. It make it sound so easy.
KC Dempster 0:55
Why do I get so stressed?
Ray Loewe 0:57
It is? Well, Rebecca Hoffman, who's our guest today was on once before last year, yes, she very definitely is one of the luckiest people in the world. And we so acknowledge that with a mug. Okay, yes. She's been mugged. And, Rebecca, thank you so much for being with us. And let's start because I want to get some semblance of your creativity on the line before we get into substance here. So the name of your company is
Rebecca Hoffman 1:29
Good Egg Concepts.
Ray Loewe 1:30
Where the heck did that come from?
Rebecca Hoffman 1:33
Well, it's funny, you should ask that. Because I was for some reason thinking about that. This morning. The notion of a good egg came up years before I even had a business. And I was living in Miami and we would receive our email was through the county. And it was like a computer code email address, which was impossible to remember. And you could check your email at the library or at the University where I worked. So I have this sort of difficult email address. And then at some point, somebody said to me, You can make your own email address on something called Yahoo. And so I became the good egg@yahoo.com because I turned to my friend and I said, Well, how do you make an email name? Like, how do you do that? And this was probably in the mid 90s. And they said, well, you're a good egg, just be the good egg@yahoo.com. wonders, things happened, don't that, you know, well and 30 years later, I still have this name hanging around, which is kind of funny, but I guess that's the power of a name.
Ray Loewe 2:33
Yeah. And and Rebecca, by the way, has her own marketing consulting practice. And she's kind of a branding expert. And you can see she's got the good egg. But she did some wonderful things for me. Yes, a long ago, while maybe it's not that long ago, and I am better through a friend of mine. And I was in Chicago on a business trip. And we met and I think we met in the lobby of the Marriott Hotel, in downtown there. Pardon? Yep. Yep. And, and we started talking, and we were talking about a trip I had just completed, I just gotten back from Africa. And I was telling all these wonderful stories, and all of a sudden, Rebecca says, "You know, you have to, you have to structure these a little bit. You have to can them because they're wonderful parables. And they have morals to them. And if you tell them and create them the right way people will remember them." And yes, Rebecca, that was true. That was a that was a defining moment. Thank you very much.
C Dempster 3:37
Right. And we've been, we've been calling re Aesop for his fables ever since then.
Ray Loewe 3:42
Well, you know, and, and one of the stories and I'm not going to tell the story, but but it's about penguins in Antarctica, because we expanded this from Africa. And, and people come up, and they just say, remember the penguins, you know, and, and, and it's all there. So one of the things that we want to talk today about is the power of storytelling, and why we should all use this more, whether it's in business or personal life, and whether you're trying to build relationships with your grandchildren, or your grandparents, or whatever it is. So Rebecca, tell us a little bit about storytelling and where you position this in your life and your business.
Rebecca Hoffman 4:26
So storytelling, plays a big role in my life, both personally and professionally, and it always has. And I think one of the things I've always marked in my life is that I like a story well told, in a book and a movie, in a poem in something that someone is telling me. When I get together with my friends, I always say "what's new Tell me a good story I want to hear." And so I think the essence of good storytelling for any person and it's I think it's what anthropologists would call a human universal is that there's every human on Earth likes to hear story well told. And so, stories bind us to each other. They they aren't just plot and summary. They are narratives that either can teach us or inspire us or give us some sense of perspective, or some way to reflect upon any issue that we're thinking about. And it really works either in the personal realm or the professional realm, in my opinion. So I think storytelling, it's probably been going on since time immemorial, right, because it predates writing and publishing. And I think oral histories and oral storytelling are passed on century to century generation, to generation in every culture we can find.
Ray Loewe 5:42
And it's an art form. And yet, it makes things more interesting, and it makes them more memorable. You know, one of the things that we were talking about the other day, is that the time that we're in right now, and I think one of the comments that you made is it's time to take the about us on our website And tell stories.
Rebecca Hoffman 6:05
Yes. from a business standpoint, anybody who owns a business or works in business, who has the opportunity to influence what we call like the About Us page, or the team page, or whatever it is on your business website page, or in your marketing collateral, if you tell a good story, people will remember it and it brings them closer, I can give an example that probably everybody we talked to if we asked them, What could you tell me about Steve Jobs at Apple, even though he's passed away a few years now, pretty much everybody who uses technology can say something about him as if they've met him. And so they've done a beautiful job in the corporate realm of creating what they call the origin story, you know, about, he didn't finish school, he was in a garage, he was making stuff. So he was a disrupter. He was difficult. But he was interesting. And he was persuasive. You could say all this stuff as if you've eaten lunch with him. And so the story gets through to people because it's interesting. It's memorable, it's well told, and it's told over and over again. And so we see that in all of the successful enterprises, whether they're small businesses or giant corporations, and those stories help bring customers closer and make them feel part of the ecosystem of the brand. And I think that also helps people feel like what we would loosely call evangelists, like people who are who celebrate a brand because they're familiar with it, and therefore it starts to feel like their team, or they have an affinity for it.
KC Dempster 7:37
That's really, remarkably deep. And I know we all laughed, but I didn't mean that to be funny. I think that it's really a very thoughtful concept.
Ray Loewe 7:51
Well, what do you want for a good day, right? I mean, after all, but but you know, it is, it is true, we're going to take our podcast going forward. And we're going to spend quite a bit of time on storytelling going forward. And we're gonna look at it in all different kinds of perspectives. So Rebecca, you were just kind of the lead, that's going to get us started on this. And I know what you did for me with my stories, and I had, I'm since learning how to craft stories, but but you look at all of the different things. We're where you can use them. So how do we leave? How do we leave memories for people? Well, right. Go ahead.
Rebecca Hoffman 8:33
Well, I think I yeah, so I think that a story allows people a way to transmit memory or history or impressions or emotions. Sometimes it's really very fact based, such as in such year and such year your grandfather came to this country, or, you know, more in a family and people will describe the challenges they face and how they overcame them and little children. And actually it gets older than little children. But it begins with little children will ask Tell me a story before bed or before a nap or when there's some quiet time or you're in the car. You know, my kids aren't that young, and they still ask for stories from our family. And I think that storytelling, at least according to psycho therapists, and I think they're right, builds resilience when people know what it took to get, the moment that you're in now. The hard stories, the sad stories, the big stories, the complicated ones. They are really invested in the storytelling. And if it's part of a family system, it makes them feel even more connected and close to the generations. And so I think that's the piece for people at home to think about. And I think psycho therapists would call it like, a sense of generativity. How do you pass your sense of yourself and your history to the next generation in hopes that they'll then tell that again, or be inspired by it and live a life kind of in accord with that?
Ray Loewe 9:54
So what Let's talk for a minute about stories last. Oh, okay. And let me set the stage here because I've seen people have books of photographs. And and yet during this dusty album, you open them up, nobody has any clue as to who's in the photo, what's going on. It's a story of lost. Opportunity lost. I remember my grandmother, okay. And and I remember my grandmother because I can smell the cooking in the kitchen. Uh huh. So, so the story comes from there. So so how do we, you know, if we're looking at ways of telling stories, and let me set a couple scenarios. So number one, maybe we have older parents, grandparents, and they're still here, and before we lose their presence, how do we craft the stories and what do we do?
Rebecca Hoffman 10:57
Yes, I think there's probably a couple top level points I would think about in a situation where we want to capture information before it could possibly be forgotten or missing, or misinterpreted or placed in a box and not seen for decades, you have to probably set out a bite sized goal. So you may need to because I think people are home more than normal right now. I think we can all agree we're all more homebound than usual. So we actually have an opportunity with more time to kind of think about this. Literally sketch on a piece of paper or on your iPad, an area of your family history or story that you want told. And then go after those photos and provide them with a context whether you photograph them and you make a digital file, or scan them in, or you already have them digitally organized. And I think probably the most important thing is the narrative, the captioning the ordering of things. So like you said about your grandmother, if you let's say you had some photos in a box of her, could you not organize them in such a way that you could then show someone else who'd never met her? This was my grandmother, she was a remarkable cook. And she made the following things and I can still smell those foods today. And I wish I could eat them right now. Then you're telling an interesting story, versus here's a box of pictures of my grandmother, if you want to see them, you're welcome to have a look. And that person on the outside has no idea what to do with that.
Ray Loewe 12:21
Yeah, she was a card shark too incredible Pinochle player. Okay.
Rebecca Hoffman 12:27
So these are things that you don't want lost in the dustbin of history, because she was an interesting person. And she probably had specific things that she cooked that were just delicious.
Ray Loewe 12:38
Yeah, nobody can recreate. Nobody can recreate them anymore, because the recipes were in her head. So you know, the whole idea is these ideas, I want to explore the opposite approach to a little bit. So. So let's, let's take the situation where you're a grandparent right now, and you have grandchildren, and you want to create stories that the grandchildren will remember. So instead of being initiated by the children, let's initiate it by grandparents and, and how do we do the same kind of thing I know I'm putting you on the spot here. But But
Rebecca Hoffman 13:16
I think so the grandparents who was thinking about this at home, probably needs to get some of those photos, or the videos or whatever media they have that can support the storytelling to the extent that they're able, it could be family books could be artifacts, it's just you have to think of yourself like a cultural anthropologist in your own house. Find those elements that are interesting. And then bring them to life because a child is interested in like, show and tell. So if the grandmother has specific cooking pot and made a specific stew, invite that child assuming they're not too young to come and help you make the stew and talk about it and show the pictures and describe what happened. And as you're doing it, maybe even have them write the steps with a crayon as a first step to investing in the memory of the story. And you bring it to life because stories have beginnings, middles and ends. But stories also have exciting details, which is why some movies are more interesting to people than others, or some books are more interesting to people than others. And it varies per person, but the skillful grandparent will think about what their grandchild might find interesting if their grandchild likes to eat, then cook something that the that the grandparent makes and transmit the experience to the child. So it's extremely rewarding and memorable so that they say could we do it again? Or if it's not that then it's looking at the photos and like I remember showing my kids some photographs of my grandfather recently, I said he had a dog here was his dog. His name was Scamper. And he was a very friendly dog. And they like looking at the pictures of my grandfather with his dog. But if I didn't do that, they wouldn't have known This. Right? Yeah, you know, and there's so much you can do
Ray Loewe 14:57
I mean, even going to the zoo, taking your grandchildren The zoo and, and taking no more than a dozen pictures. And and and putting them in a little book and turn it into stories that you can tell at bedtime, you know to craft and create the memories. You know, one of the reasons we have Rebecca on here, by the way is I know that Rebecca's secret desire is she wants to write for Saturday Night Live. This is why we get all this creativity from her and why she is a master star storyteller. And and you know, one of the things I I know that you study people who tell stories, too, so, so So give us a couple of people that maybe we can look at if we don't know how to tell stories. One way is to mimic other people. And I think you mentioned Spalding Gray. One time, right. I know about Garrison Keillor, right? Absolutely.
Rebecca Hoffman 15:49
There's so many. And there's so many kinds of great stories. So Ira Glass, This American Life is a superb storyteller, an interviewer on National Public Radio Spalding Gray, who's since passed away. You can dig up his videos, he sits at a desk and you think, oh god, how am I gonna get through this? Watch this man and a flannel shirt for two hours talk. And you don't even notice the time passing. He's so good. There's a new one. I think I might have mentioned this to you. When we were talking the other day, john Wilson, there's a show on HBO called "How To with john Wilson." There's six episodes. And this man is a videographer, a filmmaker, and probably a little OCD lives in New York. And he's phenomenal. He kind of swirls together how to he likes a how to video like you find on social channels. And then he melds it with like his own personal problems and observations in New York. And he had to build a scaffold because he said there's scaffolding everywhere in New York City, how to make small talk, how to make risotto and he goes and finds a stranger on the street and gets into his kitchen. And makes rissoto with this man. It's all six in a row. They're half an hour each. So you need like three, four hours to do this. Make some popcorn. And you're in the hands of a master?
KC Dempster 17:07
Did Ray tell you that today is or last week was national popcorn? Yeah.
Rebecca Hoffman 17:12
Well, I do know, that's because I received a card from Ray, my Kansas morning, and we will have some popcorn.
Ray Loewe 17:19
It's an important event, you know, and one of the things that people do is they tend not to let events become important. And I think this is one of the things that we want to highlight this year as we go through these podcasts. And we'll have you back later, when we won't put you on the spot. So much we'll kind of set you up in advance with some stuff that you can really think out. But but the whole concept here is number one stories have a message, they're much more interesting than a lot of other ways to relate things. You know that what what's the key to a good story? You know, I don't know that we had the time to really go into that today.
Rebecca Hoffman 18:01
But well, I would just say one thing with respect to a good story is you need a good use of vocabulary because people don't like dull words like it was a really nice day. I like the color pink. People want specificity. They want details. So anyone can come up with great details. And don't be afraid to share them because that's what people hang on and remember.
Ray Loewe 18:20
So what is it a pink day today?
Rebecca Hoffman 18:23
There's an ounce of sunshine, where I am in the Chicago area.
Ray Loewe 18:31
So you know whether it's business, whether it's a business story, or whether it's a grandparent, trying to create a memory for grandchildren or whether it is a grandchild or a child trying to capture things from a grandparent while they're still here. And while we have a chance to capture the memories. I think it's a mission worth taking, huh?
Rebecca Hoffman 18:56
Absolutely. And it's true. You could almost have a continuum from grandparent to business, it really doesn't matter we should presume and understand that all humans, whatever they're reading, whether it's a marketing brochure, or a family history, it should be interesting. And interesting as if it has been true in real details, the good parts and the bad parts, you know, to help people understand why something matters.
Ray Loewe 19:21
Well, we're going to explore over the next several weeks different ways to do this, we're going to bring Bonnie Shea our photo organizer in and she's going to talk a little bit about how to make photos live as opposed to just being digital records.
Rebecca Hoffman 19:37
She does brilliant work because one of the challenges in the digital time that we're in is it's easy as you say to go to the zoo, it's a lot harder to take 12 photos than it is to take 120 so if you can hold yourself to that kind of almost minimalist standard, you're gonna have an easier time especially for the grandparent at home. Doesn't want to Sift through 1000 photos from a day at the park. Right? You want to capture some moments, they don't have to be Ansel Adams the perfect image, you know, you know, it can just be the most, the informal casual moments are really very satisfying to so people probably get hung up on perfection. And that's the enemy of good, right. So if you can get a small selection of photos, you have an easier time creating a story about the time you had together then a giant compendium of photos.
Ray Loewe 20:29
Now, we're also going to try and bring in some tools that are out there, there, there are places where organizations will send you a question every week or every month. And and it gives you a chance to organize the stories that you want to tell about your life. And, and, and maybe about your life with your family or your life with another person or your life with a business. The whole idea here is that storytelling.
KC Dempster 20:57
It's it's a teachable tool, a teaching tool. It's an entertainment tool. And, and, you know, I had, I'll be very quick about this. But in my family, we have a cousin who's going through some real health struggles. And my sister was calling me with an update of what she had heard. And she just was feeling such despair over a lot of the circumstances surrounding this. And I and I said to her, you know, Mary, we come from a family of strong women. And I reminded her of my grandmother on my mother's side, my father's mother, and also our own mother, and the mother of this cousin. And I said, You know, I just reminded her of the stories behind these four women. And I and she took she took comfort in that and said, You know, I never thought of it. But But all of these women were challenged and all of them were able to step up and it was through the stories that we've heard over the years.
Ray Loewe 21:55
Okay, so our mission, should we decide to accept it. Okay. It's going to be to tell stories. I think so. And I think there's some wonderful stories out there. Rebecca, thank you so much for your insights today, because I think you're gonna get us started here.
Rebecca Hoffman 22:11
Oh, yeah. Thank you, KC and Ray. I think This is the year for storytelling.
Ray Loewe 22:17
Yes. Any any final words of wisdom before we have to sign off here?
Rebecca Hoffman 22:22
I think that the the only piece I would say is take a chance don't don't wait and hesitate because the moment can get missed.
Ray Loewe 22:31
Okay, well, thank you so much for being with us. Again, Rebecca, one of the luckiest people in the world and and you kind of get a sense of why. Okay, and and Rebecca, we will have you back and you can bring your eggs along with you if you wish. And, you know, have a great day. And thanks again for being here. Thank you, Paul. Good to talk to you.
KC Dempster 22:55
Thank you everybody for listening. Tune in again next week when we have another fantastic guest one of the luckiest people in the world who will have a lot of wonderful information to share with you
Ray Loewe 23:06
And maybesome stories even
KC Dempster 23:08
maybe.
Thank you for listening to Changing the Rules a podcast designed to help you live your life the way you want and give you what you need to make it happen. Join us next week for our next exciting topic on Changing the Rules with KC Dempster and Ray Loewe, the luckiest guy in the world.