E047 Brian McDonald on the Art & Craft of Storytelling (Part 2)

Bio

 Brian McDonald, an award-winning author, filmmaker, graphic novelist, and podcaster, is a sought-after instructor and consultant. He has taught his story seminar and consulted for various companies, including Pixar, Microsoft, and Cirque du Soleil.

 Interview Highlights

01:30 The Story Spine

04:00 Proposal, argument, conclusion

07:40 Video games – noodles are not cake

11:30 Armature

16:25 Stories in speeches

21:25 Finding your armature

23:00 Tools and weapons go together

25:30 The first act

27:00 Angels

28:00 Brian’s memoir

28:45 Paying attention

 

Connect 

·       Brian McDonald (writeinvisibleink.com)

·       @BeeMacDee1950 on X

·       @beemacdee on Instagram

·       Brian McDonald on LinkedIn

 

Books and references 

·       Land of the Dead: Lessons from the Underworld on Storytelling and Living, Brian McDonald

·       Invisible Ink: Building Stories from the Inside Out, Brian McDonald

·       The Golden Theme: How to Make Your Writing Appeal to the Highest Common Denominator, Brian McDonald

·       Old Souls, Brian McDonald

·       Ink Spots: Collected Writings on Story Structure, Filmmaking and Craftmanship, Brian McDonald

·       Brian's podcast 'You are a Storyteller'

 Episode Transcript

Ula Ojiaku

Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I’m Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Welcome back to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast, this is Part 2 of my conversation with Brian McDonald. In Part 1 we discussed defining a story, why we tell stories, among other things, and in this second part, Brian shares more of his insights around the storytelling formula, Brian’s upcoming memoir, and building a story’s armature. It’s been such an honour to speak with Brian and I hope you find Part 2 of our conversation as insightful as I have. Everyone is a storyteller, everyone has a story to tell, and we knowing how to structure it is key to making it impactful and helping people to get information that heals, that helps them survive, that helps them navigate the conflicts of this world. So, you, in your book, Invisible Ink, you gave us a storytelling formula, do you mind sharing that with us?

Brian McDonald

So the story spine are seven steps that you need to create a story. So they use it at Pixar, I've worked with them quite a bit so we speak similar language, but they use this too, and I think we basically learned it from the same source. So, they are once upon a time, and every day, until one day, and because of this, and because of this, until finally, and ever since that day. So they are once upon a time, and every day, until one day, and because of this, and because of this, until finally, and ever since that day. And you set up the status quo, this is what happened, this is who this person is, this is what they want, whatever it is, and then something changes. Now you're into the ‘until one day’, and the second act, now that would be the first act, the second act would be the body of the story. It's really what people say the story is about, so that's the longest part. That's why it's sort of split in two in a way because of this and because of this. There are some people who will add more because of this, but I don't, and some people don't like that I'm so rigid about it, but what I find is that the hardest thing I teach people is how to simplify. That's the hardest thing. So, adding more details is easy, simplifying is hard, right, and so that's why I stick with the seven and the because of this and because of this. And then, until finally, now you're into the third act, and ever since that day, because the third act is all about the conclusion or the resolution, but the conclusion, but the way I like to think about the three acts is this, and I had been thinking about it this way, and this is something that I don't know where Hitchcock got it, but Alfred Hitchcock talked about it, but I've never heard it anywhere else. So it's proposal, argument, conclusion. That's the way stories work, and those are the three acts. Proposal, argument, conclusion. Now, it's the way people talk. That's why it works. So the proposal is, let's say, I say Saturday I went to the best party I've ever been to in my life. That's my proposal. Everybody knows what comes next. My proof, this happened, that happened, this star was there, this blah blah blah, whatever it is, whatever my argument is, that this is the best party in the world, right? And then the conclusion, often stories are circular, so you'll come back around to the beginning again. So, that's the best party I've ever been to, then I talk about it, and then I say, oh, what a great party, oh, that was the best party I've ever been to, whatever it is, it's the way we speak, that's why it works in stories, because it's natural. It's the way a legal argument is constructed. Your honour, my client is innocent. Then the trial, which is all proof, and then the conclusion as you can see, my client is innocent, that's the conclusion of that argument, but the resolution is, do they go to jail or not? And that may or may not matter to your story, depending on the story you're telling. So therapists say, well, we tell ourselves the story that I'm not good enough, we tell ourselves the story that I'm not attractive enough or whatever it is, and that's not a story, that's a conclusion that you have derived from stories, it's not a story, that's a conclusion. The conclusion is I'm not worthy, I'm not smart, whatever it is, but there are stories that made you think that or feel that, that's where the stories are, and so the problem is if you have different definitions for stories, I found this when I'm collaborating, if I'm working for a studio or a video game company or something, if we have a different definition for story, then we are miscommunicating from the very beginning of the conversation.  So they maybe will say, well, we should do this, and I say, well, that doesn't fit the story, well, I think it does, oh, well, we're not talking about the same thing. So the thing is, people can take my definition or leave it, that doesn't matter to me, but they ought to have a definition, and it ought to get results consistently, and then you can make sure everybody's on the same page.

Ula Ojiaku

What I'm hearing you say is it's important to take time to define the terms being used because that makes things easier when you're collaborating with people. So how do you then approach it?

Brian McDonald

It depends. Sometimes I come in and my job is to lecture, and that is to give them that shared definition and understanding of story. So sometimes that's my job. If I come in on a specific project to help on a specific project, that's usually because either they've heard me lecture before, or they've read my books and we already have a shared definition. So that's usually how it works, most of the time.

Ula Ojiaku

What would you advise when you're getting into a new collaboration with people, would you say, take the time to define the terms and what exactly generally would you say?

Brian McDonald

Yeah, if we're talking specifically about story, I think I would give them the definition. I would probably let them struggle with the definition of story first, because I think that's an important part of the process, because people have to know they were given something, because it sounds obvious when you say it. So we will fool ourselves and think, oh, I knew that, so the struggle is really important, so I would let them struggle, make sure they understood that they got something, oh, now I have a definition, and sometimes just having a definition elevates what you're able to do. Just having the definition. So, then I would break down story, I would break down armature, which I haven't done yet I don't believe in the concept of interactive stories, I think that's a misnomer, because once you interact with the story, it becomes a game. I don't think they can occupy the same space. Now, the word story comes from the word history, where it comes from, comes from the word history. A story has happened. So for instance, if you and I were somewhere and we had some crazy adventure, as it's happening, it is not a story. It's only a story when we're done and we tell people about it. A video game is happening in the moment, the same way as any other experience. It's an experience, but it's not a story till it's done, and you're telling people that, and so I just don't think they occupy the same space. Now they have a lot of the same ingredients, and that's what fools people. So for instance, it's sort of like, I would say you can use eggs and flour to make noodles or cake, but noodles are not cake, and so because you can have characters and settings and scenes and a lot of the same ingredients as a story, I think people think they're the same thing, but they are not, and that's what's interesting to me is that video game people desperately want their thing to be story, and I don't know why. It's like, no, you have your own thing. They have scenarios. In the old silent movie days, they didn't have screenplays, they didn't write screenplays. So, Buster Keaton would say, get me a fire truck and I'll make a movie, and he would then make it up, Chaplin did the same thing, he would make it up, they didn't write them down. Sometimes Chaplin would shoot and then say, okay, everybody has a week off while I figure out what happens next. He didn't know, so the reason they started writing screenplays, one of them was to budget. Well, what do you want? I'm going to need a truck, I'm going to need this, I'm going to need that. Okay. So they knew how much it was going to cost to make it, that's one of the reasons they started doing it. So you'll see on old silent movies scenario by, so it would be like, what if a guy robs a bank and this happens so that's the scenario. Video games have a scenario, and anything can happen in that scenario because the player has some agency, and that's like being in real life. Being in real life is not a story, it's just not, it's a story later, but I think that when we are experiencing a story, it feels like the present, and so I think it's confusing, and people will argue with me and they'll say, but have you played this video game or that video game or this one? And I'm like, you're not actually arguing. There's a little bit of story, and that stops and then there's gameplay, they don't occupy the same space, they're just close to each other. You have to switch from one to the other, I just don't believe they can occupy the same space, and I think technology has fooled us to thinking that that's the case, because you don't need technology. If there is such a thing as interactive stories, you could do that without technology. Choose your own adventure books were that, so you don't need it. Everybody remembers them, but how many people ever tell the story of a choose your own adventure book? You ever heard anybody say that? No one does, because it wasn't really a story, it was a game. There's nothing wrong with it being a game, I think that's totally fine, but I don't study games, I work with game people. There are people that study games and that's their whole thing. I get that, and there's game theory, and there's a bunch of stuff I don't know, but they seldom study story, and I do know that. So when they say, well, this game has a story, I'm telling you, it doesn't, because that's my field of study. And then an armature. So, I used to work in creature shops in Los Angeles. So I moved to LA in the mid 80s, and my roommate was a special effects makeup artist. And so my first jobs in LA were working in creature shops because he could get me these jobs, and this is before CGI and computers and stuff, so things had to be built. My roommate was working on the movie Predator when I moved there, I remember, it was called Hunter, I still have the script, it was called Hunter at the time, and so they were doing some reshoots. They had gone on location and shot the movie without having a design for the creature. So they came back and they were doing some shoots in studio and stuff with this creature, I remember that vividly. Anyway, but they had to build these things, and so I would work on these movies, I worked on a zombie movie and a movie called Night of the Creeps and all, but you had to make things, and I would watch these sculptors, amazing sculptors, sculpt these little mock cats of whatever the creature was, and they were, I’d never seen in real life, somebody really able to sculpt something that was so amazing, and I was 21 years old, it was amazing to see, and they would make though this wireframe skeleton before they sculpted the clay, and I asked why, I didn't know, and they said, well, we have to make a skeleton, an armature. In fact, the wire is called armature wire. We have to make this armature because clay can't support its own weight, and so after a little while, could be a day or two days or sometimes a few hours, it'll collapse upon itself. So you need to make this skeleton, and I thought, oh, that's really interesting. It's something I’d never thought about, and then when I thought about it in terms of story, I realised that a story has an armature. It holds everything up. Everything is built around this armature. It ends up being one of the most important parts, like with the clay, but it's not anything anybody notices, except when it is in there, it's the thing that makes it work, it's the thing that makes it stable, and the armature for a story is your point. What are you trying to say? What's the survival information you're trying to convey? So, some people would call it a theme, it's a mushy word, people don't quite know what it means. So I usually start with armature, then I use theme interchangeably, but I start with armature because it's a visual idea that people can sort of wrap their brain around, where theme is, I think, almost too intellectual. And the way I like to think of it is this, that a story doesn't have a theme. This is what you always, you hear this, stories have a theme, this story has to have a theme. Stories don't have a theme, stories are a theme, stories are a manifestation of the theme. If you are telling the story of King Midas and you're saying some things are more important than gold, then the story is a manifestation of the illustration of that theme.

Ula Ojiaku

So if a story is a manifestation of a theme and an armature is your point you’re trying to make, so what is a theme then?

Brian McDonald

Well, theme and armature are the same. It's just that theme takes a long time for people to wrap their brains around, it's too intellectual. I think a lot of terms for storytelling and writing and all of that were made up by people who weren't practitioners, but observers, and so their words are often not very helpful. So it's like, well, theme's not a helpful word. I struggled with the idea of theme for a long time, even though I knew what a theme was, I was lucky because of the things that influenced me would always have a strong theme, and so I knew instinctually how to do it. It was a while before I understood what I was doing, and the word theme completely confused me because it was something I thought I had to put in my story, I had to fit it in there, but it's not that way.

Ula Ojiaku

So if I said a theme is the point you're trying to make, or a theme is the message you're trying to pass across would that be wrong?

Brian McDonald

You know, the interesting thing about having a point, is that when we talk, we have no problem with the concept, and in fact, when somebody's talking to you, and it's clear they don't have a point, you lose interest fast, you also don't know what to listen for. So one of the things that often comes up is people will talk about I think mood, for instance, is a trick of literature. So, because you can paint pretty pictures with words and you can do these things, I think that's a trick and has nothing to do with storytelling. It's almost a special thing, and so sometimes people will say, well, what about mood, because you're so into story, what about mood? I go, well, here's the thing, nobody talks in real life about mood. So if I say to you, hey Ula, I have something to tell you, a clear blue sky, seagulls in the distance, the sun beating down on me, salt air coming off the ocean. Okay, I'll see you later. You'd be like, I didn't tell you anything, but if I just add one sentence, if I say my trip to Mexico was amazing, clear blue sky, now you know why you're listening. That changes everything. Armature does the same thing. If you know why you're telling the story, it will all fall together in a different way, and people know they're in good hands, they feel it, they won't know why, but they'll understand why they're listening.

Ula Ojiaku

People in other disciplines have to give presentations and already is an established case that storytelling helps with engaging people, and when you know the point you're trying to pass across, it's a great starting point to know what message you're trying to pass across to the audience. What advice would you give to leaders? What can they bear in mind to about weaving in stories so that it's engaging without losing the message?

Brian McDonald

I've helped people write speeches and I've had to give speeches on different things that were not necessarily story related. And in fact, when I was at the creative agency I was at, we would often be asked to help people write speeches, and all the writers would follow basically the rules that I laid down about how that should happen, and we could do it really quickly and the CEOs were always amazed at how quickly we could do it, but they usually have a story, they just don't recognise it. Most people don't recognise the stories that they have to tell because they take them for granted, and so often we would pull that out of them and say, that's your thing, but I once heard an interview, this is pre-pandemic. So pre-pandemic, there were a lot of people, who were against vaccines, even then, and I heard this doctor talking on the radio and the doctor said, because people were afraid, they were like, well, wait, if my kid gets the vaccines, gets immunised, this leads to autism, that's what they thought,  and the doctors were like, all the research from all around the world does not bear that out, that's not true. So, and they kept trying to provide data that showed that this wasn't true, and I remember listening to this going, they're not going to win with data because we're not wired for data. The reason those people believe what they believe is because they have a story. I knew somebody this happened to, I heard of a person this happened to. You can only win with another story, you're not going to win with data. So the thing is, you find a story, a human story about whatever you're talking about, because there is one, and when you find it, that's what people will latch on to. We're not wired for all that other stuff, we're not wired for charts and graphs, and that's not the way it works. We're wired for stories and we want to know, hey, how is what you're telling me going to help me, that's what we want to know, and so there is a story there, there always is, they just have to find it. How does this thing connect with me? Steve Jobs was good at this, and I've worked with tech companies making pieces for them, and if they have a product, they often want to give you the stats, like it does it's this, and it does this and it does this and it has this many whatever, but do you remember there was a commercial, at least here I don't know if it was everywhere, but there was a commercial for facetime, and when it first came out, there was a commercial for it and the commercial was just people on the computers, or on their phones, connecting with other people. So there was a guy who obviously was stationed somewhere, a military guy, and he sees his wife and their new baby over the thing, somebody seeing a graduation, I think is one of them, all these things that connected people. Now you got, I’ve got to have, that because you're giving me emotional information. I don't know anything about technology, so you're not going to impress me with technology, you're going to impress me with how is this going to impact my life for the better. So they told you those little stories, those little vignettes, and it was a powerful commercial. So an armature should be a sentence, so it should be something you can prove or disprove through the story. It has to be a sentence. So a lot of times people go, well, revenge, that's my theme, that’s my armature. It's like, it can't be. Revenge is sweet, can be. Revenge harms the avenger, could be. It can't be friendship, friendships are sometimes complicated, friendships are necessary, something like that. So companies can have armatures, they're often looking for their armature. What's interesting is that Nike's armature is if you have a body, you're an athlete, and when you have a strong armature, it tells you what to do. So, if you have a body, you're an athlete, which they sort of contextualised as ‘just do it’, but the armature is, so they did an ad with an overweight kid jogging. It's just one shot of him jogging and having a very hard time doing it, but doing it, and that's better than having a star. A lot of times clients used to come to us with the agency and go, we got this star and this song. It's like, yeah, but what are you saying, because it won't matter. That was a very powerful ad, that kid just jogging and just doing it, and you were like, it was more impressive than the most impressive athlete, you had empathy for him, you had admiration. It was amazing, it's an amazing ad, and it's simple, it doesn't cost a lot of money. It doesn't have any special effects. It doesn't have any big stars. What was interesting is that Nike changed ‘just do it’ for a while to ‘be like Mike’, to be like Michael Jordan, be like Mike. Well, guess what? You can't be like Mike. If you have a body, you're an athlete. I can do that, but I can't be like Mike, so they went back. They had to go back, that went away. If you have a strong armature, it's amazing, what it does is sticking to your armature has a way of making your stuff resonate and be honest in a very specific way and feel polished, and so if somebody is giving a talk and they know their armature. I gave a talk, at the EG conference. I was flattered to be asked because James Cameron had spoken there, Quincy Jones had spoken there, they asked me to be there and they said, well, what do you want to talk about, and I said, well I'm a story person, I want to talk about story. They seemed bored by the whole idea of me talking about story and they said, well, what are you working on? Well, I had just started working on a memoir that's not out yet, but I had just started working on this memoir, and they go, tell us about that, and it was a memoir about my brother's murder, and they said, well we want you to tell us about that, what you're going to talk about in your memoir. So I thought, okay, I didn't want to talk about it really, but I didn't want to pass up this opportunity. It was a high profile talk, there were going to be high profile people in the audience, it was an honour to be asked to do it, so I did it. So when I prepare for a speech, or a lecture or anything, the first thing I do is I try to get into that venue as early as possible when there's no one there, and I walk on and off the stage, over and over again, because one of the things that throws you as a speaker sometimes is not knowing how to get on and off the stage. You might trip, so I just do it a bunch of times so I know how many steps. Then I sit on the stage, I just sit there, because I want it to become my living room, so I just sit there, it could be 20 minutes, just taking it all in. I ask them to turn the lights on the way the lights are going to be on during the talk, because sometimes it throws you when you're like, oh, I can't see anybody, or I can see the first two rows, I'm getting rid of all of those things. Then I go into the audience and I sit in different sections. What can these people see? What can these people see? What can these people see? I do all. So that's the way I prepare, and then I do all the tech stuff. Well, the EG conference didn't really let me do that. I got to go on stage for a couple of minutes, but I really didn't get to spend much time up there. I had my PowerPoint. So I had some slides and I had notes, and they said, okay, this is what time you're going up. I go, I’ve got to know if this is working, my slides and my notes and they didn't let me do it on stage, we did it backstage and I go, it's going to look like this. Fine, I get out there, the monitor on the stage is different, and I don't have my notes. I don't have my notes. I had seen people at this conference when something went wrong, they would stop their talk, they would go talk to a tech person. It took the air out of the room, it sucked the air out of them. So I was like, I'm not doing that, I'm up here without a net now, I'm just going to do this. Here's what saved me. I knew my proposal and I knew my conclusion, which were the same. All I had to do was prove that proposal. So as I'm up there, I had prepared some things, but I'm essentially making things up, that I know will do the job because I know the armature. Now this is not to brag, this is about how well the technique works. I got an immediate standing ovation. Some of those people, they know what they're looking at, some of those people are pretty big deal people, and so they came up, I'm friends with some of them now, like we’ve got to hang out, I’ve got to pick your brain, and I was sort of the celebrity of that thing, and there were people who went to the EG conference every year, and I heard from people that it was either the best speech they'd heard, or in the top five speeches they’d heard at that conference, and some serious people had spoken at that conference before. So, but that was just the technique, it's nothing special about me, I just knew the technique, and everybody can learn it, and when I've taught it to people like a guy I used to work with, Jesse Bryan at the Belief Agency, we helped the CEO write a speech, and he's a shy guy, but we found his armature and we said, this is your armature, this is what you have to do this about, and he did it, and we heard back from people who worked with him. It's the best speech he's ever given, he was comfortable, he knew what he was saying, he knew what he was doing up there and he believed what he was saying, because that's key. It's key to believe what you're saying. So it doesn't matter whether you're writing a story or whatever, it always helps. For instance, a lot of times people will write an email to somebody and in the email, there's like 10 or 15 things to pay attention to, and then when that happens, a lot of things don't get addressed. So if your armature is your subject, and everything is dealing with that, and then if you have more to say, that's another email. This one's just about this, now, all of a sudden, I've told people that, and I know other people I've worked with who've told people that, and all of a sudden, people are responding to their emails differently, things are getting addressed that weren't getting addressed, because they started with their armature. Because there's too much to pay attention to. Is this for me? Is this for somebody else, especially if it's a group email, who's this for? Am I supposed to do this? But if it's one thing, hey, Brian, take care of this thing. Oh, okay.  One thing about point, which is interesting. So I've been teaching this a long time now and I don't usually get new questions, but one day somebody had a question I'd never heard before. So I'm talking about having point, and somebody says, what's a point? And I thought it was pretty self explanatory, but I try to honour the question, and so I answered and I talked about armature, talked about having a point, knowing what you want to say and all of that, and anyway, he got it, but afterwards, I went, what is a point? I have to actually know that. So I looked it up, a point, the definition of a point, one of the definitions is the tapered sharp end of a tool or a weapon, and I'm like, that's exactly what a point is in a story, because you can weaponise. As a matter of fact, I actually don't believe that you can make a tool without also making a weapon. I think that they always go together. When we harness fire, that's a tool, but it's also a weapon. A hammer is a tool that can also be a weapon. Writing is a tool that can also be a weapon. Storytelling is a tool that can also be a weapon. I don't think you can make one without the other. It's just what you decide to do with it.

Ula Ojiaku

It's like different sides of the same coin, really.

Brian McDonald

Yeah, the tapered sharp end of a tool or weapon, and that's what a point is.

Ula Ojiaku

So what led to your updating of the Invisible Ink? Could you tell us a bit about that, please?

Brian McDonald

Well, it took me six years to get the book published. I wrote it and it took forever to get published, it took a long time. And so, I learned more, and when the book was finally going to get published, I thought, well, I know more now than I did then, when I wrote this book. Do I amend the book? Or do I put it out the way it is? Well, I had been teaching, and that book was essentially what I had been teaching, and I knew it worked for people, and I knew it resonated with people, so I went, well, you know, this is fine. I'll just put this one out and then later I'll know enough new stuff that I can put that in the book, and so that's what I did. I started teaching things that weren't in the book, and there were enough of them that I thought, okay, this is enough new stuff that I can justify a new book, and also I changed some of the language a little bit, there was some gender stuff in Invisible Ink that, as the years went on, rubbed people the wrong way, and I understand that, and so I'm like, let me adjust that. It took me a while to figure out how to adjust it, but once I figured that out, because I wanted to be honest about the things I was observing, but the world moved on and I didn't want to be stuck. Now in another 10 or 20 years, there might be stuff in the book that people go, I can't believe you wrote that, but there's nothing I can do about that, but as long as I'm around to make changes, I'll make those changes. So that was a less of it than really I had more to say and I found ways of being more clear and over the years I've gotten questions, like people didn't know how to build a story using an armature, so I started teaching that more and so that's in the book, and also I talk about first acts more because I think the first act is so important and it's actually getting lost, particularly in Hollywood. I was told by an agent I had not to write a first act, because they want to get right to the action, but the first act in a story, there's a lot of work it's doing, and one of the things it does is it creates a connection between the audience and the protagonist. So the difference is this. If I say there was a terrible car wreck yesterday. Oh, that sounds terrible. Was anybody hurt? Yeah, your best friend was in a terrible car wreck.

Ula Ojiaku

That changes everything.

Brian McDonald

Everything. That's what the first act does. Oh, I know this person this is happening to. You eliminate that, you get all the spectacle and all that other stuff, but you don't care. That first act makes people care. So I focused on that a lot, and I talk about how to build a story from that armature, how that helps your first act, and how to build the rest of the story using that armature. So that's why I've changed the subtitle to Building Stories from the Inside Out, because that's more the focus of this book Land of the Dead is my favourite of my books right now, because most of what I teach, in some way or another, used to be taught, a lot of it was common knowledge up till about the 1920s. So all I've done is do a lot of studying and reading and all of that. The Land of the Dead has things in it that I haven't read other places, and I feel like it's my contribution, in a different way, to storytelling. I think I've added some vocabulary to storytelling, broadly speaking and there's one thing in particular in that book, angel characters, I talk about angels, not in a religious sense, but in a story sense and how they operate in stories, and I don't know if anybody's ever talked about it. They may talk about it somewhere, but they don't talk about anything I've read about story, and there's some other things too in The Land of the Dead I think I've added to the vocabulary, so I feel proud of that. I feel like I put my handprint on the cave wall with that book. We'll see, I don't know, people like what they like, I like that book, and The Golden Theme I liked too, but those two, I think those two for me, they're actually in a way, opposite books in a way, that one is about the underworld and the information and the lessons we get from the underworld, but they're both, I think, positive. Some of the reviews with Land of the Dead talk about how it's strangely positive, given what it's about, and I'm proud of that. There's just a lot of things, I'm very proud of that book, and the memoir, which will be out who knows when, it takes a long time, it's graphic, so it's being drawn and that takes a long time, so hopefully it'll be out in another year or so.

Ula Ojiaku

Looking forward to that. So where can the audience find you if they want to reach out to you?

Brian McDonald

Well, they can go to my website, writeinvisibleink.com They can do that. They can follow me on Instagram, which is @beemacdee Those are the places where people usually find me and they can write me from the website, and my classes are offered there. So I teach zoom classes.

Ula Ojiaku

Do you have any final words for the audience?

Brian McDonald

I would say, to pay attention to the stories around you, pay attention when people talk, if you learn how to do that, you will learn everything you want to know about storytelling, because it's in the natural world. So you'll learn when you're bored, why you're bored, when you're engaged, why you're engaged, and it's hard for people at first, but if they can learn, I say, observe stories in their natural habitat. So, the problem is when people are in a conversation, they're in a conversation and it's hard to observe and be in a conversation, but if you practice it, you can do it, and it's really interesting to hear somebody talk and they'll talk in three acts, they'll have a proposal, they’ll have an argument, they'll have a conclusion and you'll hear it, and the reason I think that's important is because until you teach it to yourself, you will think, oh, what did Brian say, or I think Brian's wrong about this, or this is his take. When you observe it yourself, you're teaching it to yourself. You don't have to listen to me at all, teach it to yourself. It'll prove itself to you, and then that comes from a different place when you start using it. You're not following my rules and quotes, and so I think that's really important that people have ownership over it and that they know that it's theirs, and they're not painting by numbers.

Ula Ojiaku

Thank you, Brian. Pay attention to the stories around you. This has been an amazing conversation and my heart is full, and I want to say thank you so much for the generosity with which you've shared your wisdom, your experience, your knowledge. Thank you.

Brian McDonald

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Ula Ojiaku

My pleasure. That’s all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I’d also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at [email protected] Take care and God bless!