STORY Podcast
A series of unique conversations to fuel the creative class and leave you inspired to do your best, most meaningful work.
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Closing Out This Chapter of STORY
12/12/2022
Closing Out This Chapter of STORY
As we close out this season of the STORY Podcast, we are also closing out this chapter of STORY Conference. Over the last seven years, this conference has touched thousands of lives and changed the landscape of storytelling. On this episode, we sit down with members of the STORY team to discuss favorite memories from STORY Conferences past. Listen in and come trip down memory lane with us! If you have a favorite STORY memory, we’d love to hear it! Send us a note at
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A Roadmap for Your Story-Writing Journey
11/21/2022
A Roadmap for Your Story-Writing Journey
With our thriving community of writers of all types, we wanted to highlight this breakout from STORY 2022 with our friends, David Goetz and Melissa Parks from Journey Sixty6. Journey Sixty6 helps coach and guide their community through things such as manuscript review, writing coaching, and what to do with your manuscript as you edit and get it prepped for publishing or review. Writing can be an isolating experience, and Journey Sixty6 has positioned themselves to be the community for those in that gap between wanting to write and publishing. Even if you’re thinking, “I’m not writing a book, or even a writer at all”, still listen in because you never know what the future holds as you continue on your creative journey! To learn more about David and Melissa and what they’re doing through Journey Sixty6, check them out at JourneySixty6.com
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Getting Your Own Stories Out Into the World
11/14/2022
Getting Your Own Stories Out Into the World
On this episode, we feature two incredible conversations — the first from the STORY stage with Chris Wall and Andrew Peterson of the Wingfeather Saga series, and the second is a post-STORY sit-down with Angel Studios. These two have created not just an incredible series for families, but they went about it in a unique way that can be an inspiration to get you to start thinking about and implementing the way you approach the work you do in brand new ways. Listen in! Learn more about The Wingfeather Saga’s upcoming release at WingfeatherSaga.com. If you’re curious to learn more about the innovative stuff that Angel Studios is up to, check them out at and Angel.com.
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Making Kindness the Norm
11/07/2022
Making Kindness the Norm
On this episode, we hear from the incredible folks from The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation. Many of you heard about the heart and soul behind why and how they do what they do from the mainstage at STORY, but in this episode, we also share ways YOU can be part of impacting the world around you by helping to make kindness the norm. Listen in! To apply for the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation Creative Grant mentioned in this episode, ! Deadline for submission is November 18, 2022.
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One Last Trip to Neverland
10/31/2022
One Last Trip to Neverland
In this episode, we take one more trip to Neverland via a virtual STORY Town Hall to debrief the STORY 2022 conference and allow our STORY community to ask all their post-STORY 2022 questions. Think of this as an expanded version of the Behind-the-Scenes Breakout Experience at the event. We put a massive amount of focus and energy on creating an intentional experience every year at STORY from the ground up, and in this episode, we talk about how STORY is not just a theme slapped on posters and websites. We share about our process and how we think long and hard about how we want everything to flow, feel, and communicate, taking you on a journey that hopefully leaves you feeling inspired and able to ask bigger questions about what’s possible. And if that means putting a mermaid in the fountain in downtown Nashville, that means we get that mermaid. Listen in!
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The Future of STORY
09/12/2022
The Future of STORY
In case you missed the news, we’ve been listening to the heartbeat of culture all around us, having deep conversations with leaders within our community, and staying curious about the future. For all these reasons, we’ve decided as a team to move away from large events filled with hundreds or thousands of people, for at least a season, to enable us to focus on other new and exciting ways of serving storytellers and the work you do. Listen to this announcement to learn more about the future of STORY.
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Using Your Passion to Impact Change Through Story
08/29/2022
Using Your Passion to Impact Change Through Story
We continue to explore the Revolutionary Storytelling Type. Revolutionaries are a powerful group of individuals that are on the cusp of almost all change and are constantly rewriting and shifting narratives through their work. The work that Revolutionaries do is the reason that many of us tell stories. We desire change. Disruption. Something better. In this episode, we pick up for part 2 of our Round Table discussion with John Bucher and Jason Jaggard. One thing John said on this Round Table that is worth highlighting is, “I refuse to live in a world where this does NOT exist, and I will move heaven and earth until it exists.” It is that passion that makes the Revolutionary so powerful. Listen in to hear more about what he can’t live in a world without.
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How Revolutionary Storytellers Begin with the Stories They Tell Themselves
08/22/2022
How Revolutionary Storytellers Begin with the Stories They Tell Themselves
John Bucher and Jason Jaggard are incredible Revolutionaries, a type of storyteller who is drawn to leverage the power of story to positively change the future. They press into the world around them to be everything they were meant to be, whether that’s through publishing, deep critical thinking, guiding others to their max potential through coaching, and so much more. Listen in on part one of a conversation about how revolutionaries begin with the stories they tell themselves, and how you can do the same.
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Using Our Brain and Hearts Together
08/08/2022
Using Our Brain and Hearts Together
As we dive into part 2 of our Round Table conversation with Kevin Carroll and Louis Richardson around the connector, if you haven’t listened to part 1 yet, go back and listen to episode 13 so that you have context around the continuation of this incredibly deep and rich conversation around what it means to be a Connector. On this episode, Kevin and Louis both share great insights into their purpose and focus as Connectors and the power of seeking connection not titles. It is these simple vantage points that can really help give you a picture of what it means at the heart of Connection.
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Leveraging the Power of Story to Embrace Connection
08/01/2022
Leveraging the Power of Story to Embrace Connection
On this episode we continue to dive into the Connector Storytelling Type with two of our favorite Connectors, Lewis Richardson and Kevin Carroll. This interview, pulled from one of our STORY Round Table events, dives into how to leverage our stories as a tool for connection. Those we come into contact with are more receptive to our presence and we can learn so much from everyone if we’re more curious. When we engage with people where they’re at, asking what we can do for them or how we can better serve them, connection is organic. Listen in to learn more about how story and connection go hand in hand.
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Why It’s Important to Write the Future Together
07/11/2022
Why It’s Important to Write the Future Together
As we continue to unpack the Connector Storytelling Type, we would be remiss to not include one of our favorite Connectors…Mr. Brad Montague. If you’ve been around the STORY community for a while, you are very familiar with his genus. Brad is an incredible creator and storyteller who approaches all of his work with a vision for making the world a better place. Whether it’s through his book, Being Better Grown-ups, his wildly successful Kid President video series, or his critically acclaimed children’s book, The Circles All Around Us, Brad’s passion for guiding people together is deep and compelling. We dug back into the archives, and found this talk from STORY 2018 because as timely as this talk about the future was back in 2018, it's still applicable - possibly even more so - in 2022. There are so many unknowns, uncertainties, disconnections, and fears swirling around these days, but despite the crushing weight of all these uncertainties, there is still hope because we choose to remember it exists. Listen in.
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Using Connection to Get Back to Wonder
06/27/2022
Using Connection to Get Back to Wonder
Over the past couple of months, you’ve heard us talking about the 5 Storyteller Types: Amplifier, Artisan, Investigator, Connector and Revolutionary. If you’re not familiar with these types, or yours for that matter, head over to storygathering.com and take our quick assessment. These “types” help you identify the core motivations behind how and why you tell stories and create the way you do. On today’s episode, we are kicking off a new focus to the Connector type. It’s likely that when you hear the word Connector, a specific type of person comes to mind because Connectors are experts at just that: Connecting. Skilled at speaking to others, Connectors are compelling and live compassionate and leadership-driven lives. With a clear balance between their head and their heart, they are magnets for people who want to feel seen and known. To start off this new focus, we’re listening to one of the best, most enthusiastic Connectors we know, Mr. Kevin Carroll. Formerly from Nike, Kevin has an incredible ability to cultivate and curate a positive awe state so that you, and those around you, can get back to wonder in order to create tangible impact. Incredible things take place when this happens. So how do you do it? Listen as Kevin shares inside this episode.
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How Asking “But Why” Can Change Drastically Shift Your Business
06/20/2022
How Asking “But Why” Can Change Drastically Shift Your Business
Last week, we were listening in on the Round Table conversation that I had with David Paull and Kristina Henkai about the Investigator. David talked about behavioral storytelling, breaking it down into the practical RESPCT framework. On this episode, we pick back up with the second half of the conversation and dive into the necessary practice of continually asking yourself “but why” within your business. In my own business practices, this question is something we’re constantly asking and digging deeper on so that as we push out content, write copy, create events, or help clients, we’re operating from a deep understanding of what’s needed and why it matters. Listen in on how you can implement this right away to see results and gain clarity and traction in your own business.
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Behavioral Storytelling Framework with David Paull
06/13/2022
Behavioral Storytelling Framework with David Paull
As we continue to unpack the Investigator Storytelling Type, we pull from our latest STORY Round Table conversation with David Paull and Kristina Henkai. In this episode, we hear David share the way he approaches his work utilizing a framework he dubs Behavioral Storytelling. What he shares on this episode is so practical and applicable to every storytelling type and has been an important litmus test for everything we do at STORY. This episode is for more than just the Investigators, and for this reason we always encourage you to listen in on each of the types because it’s a great way to figure out where the holes or gaps exist in what you’re doing.
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Why Data Helps Us Tell Better Stories
06/06/2022
Why Data Helps Us Tell Better Stories
In this episode, we officially kick off our next type, the Investigator. Investigators are an integral part of the storytelling process because they provide the data, research, and facts that help give stories the depth and roots necessary for momentum to be achieved. Though they are anchored in analytics and statistics, which is how they find the truths to their work, they are also logical, innovative, adaptable, calculated, and always in pursuit of truth. One such Investigator that I have learned so much from over the years is David Paull. Combining storytelling and behavioral science, David is the co-founder and CEO of Lillian Labs, a messaging and research consultancy that helps craft, test, and refine stories and content. A few years back, I sat down with David to break down just what his job entails, and why it matters in the context of storytelling, and let me just say, it was such a brilliant and thoughtful way of understanding not just stories as we know them, but why they have the impact they have on a waiting world.
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Making Sense of the World Through Art with Morgan Harper Nichols
05/30/2022
Making Sense of the World Through Art with Morgan Harper Nichols
In this episode, we pulled a clip from our recent Artisan STORY Round Table conversation with none other than our friend, Morgan Harper Nichols. Morgan is a well known artist, poet, and musician and you’ve probably seen her work pinned somewhere on Pinterest, re-posted all over Instagram, or maybe in Target, Anthropologie, Crate and Barrel. This episode is powerful because Morgan shares how she world through her art and reminds us how “trends will comakes sense of her me and go, but people will always be human.” We can chase the latest and greatest fads in our industries, but the stories that we tell are meant to hit deeper than that, because the aptly called, “human condition” doesn’t change. This episode just might be the gut-check you need for yourself.
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How Does Your Art Connect to the World Around You?
05/23/2022
How Does Your Art Connect to the World Around You?
As we continue our conversation around the Storytelling type, the Artisan, this episode features our friend, wildly talented Nashville fine artist, Ed Nash, alongside our mutual friend, acclaimed photographer, Allen Clark. You’ll hear Ed as he discusses not only HIS connection to the world around him, but to what he’s creating and the story he hopes it tells, but how it’s interpreted by those that experience it. If you haven’t already taken our Storyteller Type Assessment, please do it, it’s quick, and it will help you follow along on these conversations regardless of which type you are, because learning about different types will help you leverage and understand the skills that they bring to the table like you never expected.
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How Collaboration Creates Deeper Impact
05/16/2022
How Collaboration Creates Deeper Impact
We are moving on to the next Storyteller Type in our 5 part series, and this one is the Artisan. Many in the STORY community will identify as Artisans because they are deeply passionate about their art and the story it tells those who view or interact with it. From paint on canvas, to carefully crafted lines in poetry, to movement of bodies through dance, to notes that seem to float off of sheet music, Artisans use a variety of mediums to intertwine their heart and message. This is exactly why we wanted to kick off the Artisan series with Academy Award Winning costume designer, Ruth Carter. She has dreamt up the way her costumes and designs guide and deepen the stories of those that wear them. Her work has been featured in movies such as Selma, Malcolm X, and Black Panther to name a few, and she is not only brilliant, but deeply connected to the way that costumes tell stories of their own. Don’t miss this conversation, and all the wisdom shared that you can apply to the stories you tell, regardless of the way you create.
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What Do You Want to Do With Your Power?
05/09/2022
What Do You Want to Do With Your Power?
Are you thinking big enough when it comes to your power? At the heart of being an Amplifier and storyteller, is a desire to chase and hope for impact. Something that moves the needle and creates solutions for the future. As we wrap up the Amplifier portion of this storytelling series, listen as Ben Von Wong explains how he uses a focus on solutions to create change vs. a sole focus on the problem that will make you want to get up and DO for all the right reasons.
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Embracing the Tension of Your Marketing Values
05/02/2022
Embracing the Tension of Your Marketing Values
Story's greatest power is not in its ability to simply convert, but its ability to connect. If you want to play the long game you must lead with connection first. But for a change-maker who wants to make a bigger difference faster, that can be a little bit complicated. It can be difficult to be patient with the long-term value journey when the cause that you are trying to amplify needs attention now. In this episode, we dip into the archives of a recent Round Table conversation with Ben Stewart, co-founder of Louder Agency, Brand Messaging Strategist and Copywriter, Janelle Traister, as well as Artist and Activist and longtime friend of the STORY Community, Benjamin Von Wong. Listen in as they discuss the tension that often comes from honoring your values in the process of amplifying stories worth telling.
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How to Use Your Vision and Point of View to Transform Culture
04/25/2022
How to Use Your Vision and Point of View to Transform Culture
As we continue to dive into the storytelling type we call, "The Amplifier,” in this episode we dip into our archives to learn from AJ Hassan. If you aren’t familiar with AJ, you probably are familiar with her work. She is the Emmy Award-winning Executive Creative Director behind the widely recognized #LikeAGirl campaign that challenged gender bias and captured over 150 million views worldwide. A perfect example of an Amplifier, AJ has built an award-winning career on tackling and bringing to light tough topics without fear. A believer that everyone’s story deserves, and must, be told, AJ leverages her role as an advertiser to push the ball of change down the hill, all while compelling people around the world to join. Don’t miss her wisdom in this episode of the STORY Podcast.
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How To Amplify Your Message And Make Your Story Heard
04/18/2022
How To Amplify Your Message And Make Your Story Heard
What happens if your story doesn't get heard? What if your message doesn't resonate, and falls flat or you don't get the sale? In this episode, jump into the storytelling type we call, "The Amplifier." We do so by dipping into the STORY archives and listening in on some wisdom from a talk from Ben Stewart, co-founder of Louder Agency. You'll be reminded of story's greatest power, and how to amplify your stories so they connect with others, change hearts and minds and help you achieve your storytelling goals.
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Welcome to Season 6 of the STORY Podcast!
04/11/2022
Welcome to Season 6 of the STORY Podcast!
After a little break from the podcast, the STORY team is back with an incredible new series of episodes focused on helping you better understand who you are as a storyteller and how to equip yourself to better tell stories that matter. Over the next 6 months, we're going equip you to level up your storytelling skillset and inspire you along the way. Welcome to season 6!
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Being Brave in Our Dark Moments: A Conversation with John Bucher
08/06/2021
Being Brave in Our Dark Moments: A Conversation with John Bucher
There’s still a lesson there for us, but it’s a pretty nuanced one, and that’s something John Bucher understands well. John is the Creative Director for the Joseph Campbell Foundation in Hollywood, who understand the ideas of story and myth about as well as anyone.
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The Upside to Creating Bad Art with Seth Worley
07/30/2021
The Upside to Creating Bad Art with Seth Worley
One cause of writer’s block isn’t that we run out of ideas, it’s a fear that the ideas we do have are bad ones. We don’t want to keep writing, keep painting, keep creating — whatever it is — because we’ve got a feeling that the next steps just aren’t very good and we’d rather not create at all than create something that sucks.
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Understanding Your ‘Why’ in the Midst of Career Disappointments with Cress Williams
07/23/2021
Understanding Your ‘Why’ in the Midst of Career Disappointments with Cress Williams
We don’t like to talk about disappointment in the creative field is. Creativity is a risk and risks, by their very nature, have a pretty high rate of failure. Those stories don’t get told very much, for obvious reasons. But by not telling those stories, we reinforce this idea that unless you’re hitting success after success, you’re a total failure and should give up.
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Brooke Shaden on Finding Beauty in Hard Times
07/16/2021
Brooke Shaden on Finding Beauty in Hard Times
Something you hear our last year described as a lot is a “dark time” or a “dark season.” Getting to the end of all that was described as a “new day” or a “new morning” for us. And there’s a lot of truth to that, since so many of us lost so much in 2020. But it’s worth asking if our immediate impulses to avoid, ignore or rush through those dark times and get right to the morning is the healthiest way to deal with pain and hardship.
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Fighting Cynicism in Storytelling with Dr. Chené Swart
07/09/2021
Fighting Cynicism in Storytelling with Dr. Chené Swart
I think all of us can feel tempted towards cynicism these days. However we need to remember that change is possible, and we need to help inspire others to believe it too. That’s how Dr. Chené Swart sees it. She’s a narrative coach and consultant who helps people, organizations and communities with a technique called “narrative therapy,” teaching them to understand their own stories better.
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The True Power of Marketing with Stories with Ben Stewart
07/02/2021
The True Power of Marketing with Stories with Ben Stewart
There are two kinds of marketers out there. The first are the Don Drapers—the guys who know how to package lies to turn profits. Certainly an easy way to make money, but it takes a toll on your soul, right? The second kind wants to help people tell a better story about their lives, their hopes, their work. They want to help the world see your work the way you see your work.
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Shabazz Larkin on Your "Purpose" As a Creator
06/25/2021
Shabazz Larkin on Your "Purpose" As a Creator
Finding your purpose is a huge deal — for everyone, obviously, but younger generations are especially pursuing purpose-driven work. But artist and author Shabazz Larkin has a surprising take on the subject, suggesting that what we’re really looking for isn’t exactly purpose, but something else.
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