Podcast Episodes

"You do the story that you want to do because you believe in it and it will find an audience. You have to be passionate about something and not try and hop off what's already out there. You have to absolutely 1000% have a vision."

"The best of the writers know structures are important. And then they forget that they've been intuitively following a structure and tell the world you don't need structure. The rest of the people think they don't need structure and realize by the hundredth page they don't know what the story is going to be."

"A narrative lives or dies on the conviction of the most senior authorized leaders of the organizational system. The story is the strategy. A company without a story is usually a company without a strategy."

"A good day is when the flow starts to happen and you kind of lose yourself in it. But you cannot count on those days. So I'm a real believer in grinding — just get in there and take what the defense will give you." — Steven Pressfield

"Sometimes you write a character that asserts himself—something you didn't plan. It's like he wanted to come back, and he brought his own story with him. It was kind of my job as a writer to ask myself what that story was."

"AI was going to get better at technical skills like coding and data analysis much faster than storytelling, because it's much easier to objectively define what is correct code. With storytelling, it's much more ephemeral. AI researchers have called it absurd, trying to quantify what good storytelling is."

"A living story is immersive, embodied, agentic, responsive, and social. It's stories that we get to be in and experience and live — as opposed to dead stories."

"Your product is not the features, the specs, it's not what you ship. The product is the experience, the transformation that your customer goes through. It's the change in their lives. That's what you're selling."

"CQ — the character quotient — is who you are at the core of your values, and how consistently people can trust you to be that person. That to me is the exponential topper."

"I wasn't processing and dealing with my own stuff. Somehow I made my way back to storytelling. And that was really, if I could point to two things—my wife and story—those pulled me out."

"When you live in alignment with your values, you cause yourself as little suffering as possible in the long term. And that one just always sticks with me because it's really challenging in the short term. But if you have faith in your values and who you are and how you want to show up in the world, then ultimately you're creating a path that's going to serve you for the long term."

"If you think the world could be better and you want to change it, you're going to have to come up with a better story and know how to tell it better."

"Marketing might be how you get the first date. But to get the second and third date and hopefully form into a relationship, you have to have a brand."

“Vision is what inspires your people. Mission is what activates and organizes them.”

“When you start to look at things through the lens of story, it helps you appreciate and process what’s going on.”

“You can’t even begin to talk about results or impact until you actually put something out into the world.”

“There is no version of storytelling that does not become therapy.”

“The real story is always in the subtext.”

“Your stories are building bricks of belief in your brand."

“Everybody in your organization has to be aligned… or it all starts to break down.”

“Every time you press upload, you’re telling the universe this is your part in the grand scheme.”

“If your company doesn’t know the story that it’s helping to tell, no marketing campaign is going to save you.”

“I was made from mistakes. I was promoted, protected, loved, and perfected by them.”

“It’s not just about keeping the lights on—it’s about building a relationship with the people at the end of the line."

“A shared narrative means everyone in the organization is speaking about the story in the same way.”

“A message map is the most underutilized resource for marketers.”

“The shortest distance between two souls is a story.”

“A story is a single arc of transformation. A narrative is the thread that connects them all.”

“If it makes me curious, then maybe it’ll make someone else curious, too.”

"Interviewing is not about taking something—it's about helping them be more of who they are."

"I wanted each character to be complex enough and sympathetic enough that there's some deep reason you could identify in yourself."

“A story is a singular arc of transformation. A narrative is the thread that ties all your stories together.”

“If you're not leaning into your own abracadabra, you're leaving your competitive advantage on the table.”

“Ownable originality is about creating something uniquely you—something no one else can do, even if they tried.”

“If you write well, readers see your story differently—but they see it. It’s a visual medium, even in text.”

“Consistency is not about how often you post—it's about how consistently you show up in your message.”

“The more narrow we get with our prompts, the deeper and more profound the insights become.”

"The CSO needs a seat at every department’s table—product, marketing, sales—because story threads through all of it.”

“Think about what your story promises and then ask yourself if you're actually moving toward it.”

“If you get your timeline pushed back, think of it as another year to make the story better.”

“We make our media the same way we make our barbecue, and that’s low and slow.”

“Your story comes from your heart, and then you structure it to deliver it in the best way.”

“People want to feel heard. If you don’t create a collaborative space, they won’t come back.”

“You don’t just present a pitch—you present a world your audience wants to live in.”

“The stories we take on as children are often the ones we spend the rest of our lives trying to rewrite.”

“It’s okay to not be okay. It’s just not okay to stay that way.”

"Most nonfiction books could’ve been blog posts—but fiction sticks with you for life."

"The drugs we've accepted in society—alcohol, nicotine, caffeine—were chosen for productivity, not well-being."

"It's not just what you say—it's how you say it. And who you're saying it to."

"You have to give yourself permission to be terrible at being a business owner when you start."