“I think storytelling in person or on a screen or something is one of the most like healing things we can do because, the same body, the same air, the same lungs that have been ridiculed for the experiences is the one that's shaking and breathing and running out of breath to tell the thing versus on the page.” - Mike
Have you ever sat through a slide deck that felt like death-by-bullet-point? Or tried to sound like a LinkedIn thought leader only to bore yourself?
Have you ever struggled to consider yourself “interesting” when you haven’t gone to space or climbed a mountain?
Most importantly, how can you tell a story that AI cannot replace?
Story coach and speaker whisperer Mike Ganino joins us to talk about how to actually connect with other humans through storytelling, public speaking, and intentional presence. We talk about what’s missing when AI writes your copy, how to make your keynote more than just a case study, and why the most aggressively human thing you can do is show up—with your voice, your weirdness, and your body and breath. We talk about what job AI can’t do, why “tell your story” is often the worst advice, and how the most impactful stories usually come from Tuesdays, not TED Talks.
Also: we discuss Dog Man the Musical, wishing we could be mugged lightly to avoid public speaking, and which GIF best describes our current book launch existential spiral.
This one’s for anyone who's ever panicked about writing an about page, frozen before a podcast interview, or wondered if they had any good stories to tell.
(Spoiler: you do. You’re just not paying attention.)
How to pull stories from your actual life (even if they happened on a random Tuesday)
What ChatGPT can and can’t do—and why public speaking is still a human-only activity
Breaking free from the drip of consumption and embracing the interiority within us and around us.
How to find your “inner interesting”, and how to transform extraordinary tales into relatable, personable stories.
Why “tell your story” is terrible advice—and what to do instead
How book marketing breaks your nervous system and what our favorite GIFs reveal about us
“We've been raised by Instagram gurus selling crappy programs of do it yourself storytelling that say, tell your story, make money with your story as if you have one. So then we look at our life and we say, gosh, I don't have any inner interesting. Because nothing big ever happened to me.
But it's how we look at what happened to us and say, can I, can I blow up that moment? Was there a a before and an after of that moment? Was there some little interesting thing that I saw at the grocery store that is a little, I call 'em, they happen on a Tuesday. Stories like just a little thing over there.” - Mike
How we feel about our book and book stage GIFs:
Jessica:
Meg:
Mike:
About our Guest:
Make A Scene: Storytelling, Stage Presence, and The Art of Being Unforgettable in Every Spotlight
Connect with Us
Connect with Meg and Jessica
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