The Digital Storytelling Aspect of Podcasting
Hey, everybody. I just wanted to punch in here real quick to let you know that this is an episode I released last year on my other show, How I Built It, about digital storytelling. The semester is starting up again, and I'm, presenting to that class. I got a few questions already about it, and so I thought it would be a perfect time here towards the beginning of 2024 to talk about the importance of digital storytelling as it pertains to all content creators, but especially podcasters. So I hope you enjoy this episode.
Joe Casabona:Thanks so much. The full article is up over at podcastworkflows.com. A family walks into a talent agency and says, have we got the act for you? If you're familiar with this opening to a joke, you may have had a visceral reaction to it. Either you think it's hysterically funny, shamefully disgusting, or both.
Joe Casabona:It's the opening to the joke, The Aristocrats. And if you have a weak stomach, I don't suggest you look it up. See, the point of this joke isn't actually the punch line, which is right in the title. The point is to see how long you can improv a shocking, disgusting, offensive story. You can think about it as a secret handshake among comedians that became not so secret after a 2,005 documentary came out about the joke.
Joe Casabona:But it got me thinking about the importance of telling a story. Last week, I got to speak to my friend Nick Benson's college classes about digital storytelling. Don't worry. I didn't tell The Aristocrats, but I did tell them about why storytelling is so important. And that's what I wanna talk to you about today.
Joe Casabona:So as you listen to what is hopefully this story, look for these top takeaways. How to tell a good story and how to integrate elements from the story into the point you're making, where to find good stories, and the three act structure that dictates them, and who you need to make the hero in your story. We'll cover all of that and more. Plus, in the pro show, I'm going to talk about how I am revamping my automations database for members as well as how and why I deeply upset some fans of artificial intelligence and large language models. So if you want to hear that, you can head over to how I built dot it/join and become a member of the Foundry.
Joe Casabona:But that's it. Let's get into the intro and then the episode. Hey, everybody, and welcome to How I Built It, the podcast that helps busy solopreneurs and creators grow their business without spending too much time on it. I'm your host, Joe Casa Bona, and each week, I bring you interviews and case studies on how to build a better business through smarter processes, time management, and effective content creation. It's like getting free coaching calls from successful solopreneurs.
Joe Casabona:By the end of each episode, you'll have 1 to 3 takeaways you can implement today to stop spending time in your business and more time on your business, or with your friends, your family, reading, or however you choose to spend your free time. So I got to speak to a college class, 2 college classes actually, about the importance of storytelling, and I loved it. It reminded me of how much I miss teaching in the classroom. For those of you who don't know, I taught intro to computers and computer science at the University of Scranton from when I was a grad student in 2007 until I got married and moved away at the end of 20 16. I continued to teach online courses for a while, but it just wasn't the same.
Joe Casabona:It's not the same as being in a classroom full of students who are increasingly younger than you, and understanding what makes them think and the zeitgeist and the culture, and that is something that I really miss. And so I thoroughly enjoyed, even though it was via Zoom, joining my friend's class and teaching him, and his students the importance of storytelling. And so most of this most of these thoughts I have are in the context of podcasting. I think that not enough people tell stories with their podcasts. And I think that storytelling is important in any context and any content you create, but especially podcasting.
Joe Casabona:And I say again I I say especially because up until this point, the vast majority of podcasts have an integrated storytelling in some way. They've been back and forth interviews emulating more of a late night host format than a movie or a TV show. But if you'll notice, everybody brings a story with them. Right? They're not just shooting it.
Joe Casabona:I can censor myself here. Shooting the because, they feel like it. They they wanna make an impact. They want to tell people about their cause. So while there are popular podcasts that don't weave storytelling into the fabric of their content, most of, again, most of the popular podcasts do.
Joe Casabona:Look at Lore, which was one of the first to really do that. Before that, right, most podcasts were I mean, stuff you should know, that was that was and still is a really good one. But most of them were like white guys talking about Apple. Right? No story required.
Joe Casabona:So lore, American Storytellers is a recent favorite of mine, and Serial. Right? Those kind of podcasts kind of transformed the landscape, and they all tell a compelling story. If you're trying to differentiate in today's world, no matter what content you make, the world where everything is vying for your attention as we talked with, the clarity king Steve back a few episodes ago, You can't just have a conversation. You can't just be 2 people talking, unless you happen to be a Super Bowl winning tight end dating the world's most popular pop star and American royalty.
Joe Casabona:You need to tell a good story. So where do you start? Well, just to quickly level set here, I'm talking about nonfiction information focused podcasts here, the interviews or solo shows where you're teaching or doing some sort of knowledge transfer. I suspect I don't need to convince people who are already telling a story that they need to tell a story. So how do we tell a good story?
Joe Casabona:Where do we start? I've talked about this before, my 3 act process. But we have to go a little bit back, further back to really understand the importance of storytelling. My friend, Mike Pacquiao, who is on this show, is a public speaking coach, and he knows the power of storytelling. He knows that you need to hook your listeners and take them on a journey through your talk.
Joe Casabona:It doesn't have to be an epic story. It just needs to be a a story with a beginning or a hook, a middle, some conflict, and some conclusion even if that conclusion is a cliffhanger. Mike opens up one of his talks by telling a story about how he was staying in a hotel, and he got a very scary call in the middle of the night. And he thought he heard a knock on his door. And he doesn't end the story.
Joe Casabona:Just leaves it there hanging out because that's not the point. The point is to hook your listeners. If you know the aristocrats, then I immediately hooked you with a family walks into a talent agency and says. If you don't know the aristocrats, then you're like, what is Joe talking about? Right?
Joe Casabona:So you wanna hook your listeners right off the bat. In a minute, I will talk about the the main difference between the two courses, the two sections of the course I taught back to back because this is also a really interesting thing to me. But first, I wanna tell you about the format that most or many stories at least follow, and that's the hero's journey. The basis of many, many stories is Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. It's the idea that we have a hero, the main character, go through some life altering adventure with the help of a guide.
Joe Casabona:The hero experiences a trial that eventually leads to growth. We see this format all the time. Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings. Those are very commonly cited, but they don't have to be epics. They don't have to be science fiction or fantasy.
Joe Casabona:One of my favorite shows is 30 Rock, which is a bit more fluid, but you could argue that both Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy go through their own hero's journey throughout the series. They're almost like their own heroes, and they're each other's guide, guiding each other to be better versions of themselves. Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother, while not the main character, goes through considerable character growth from the first to last season. If we look at scrubs, JD is our main character. Doctor Cox is his most obvious guide, but he helps doctor Cox grow too.
Joe Casabona:JD's friends help him grow. He has several guides, but he changes dramatically from the very first episode to the very last. This doesn't need to be in fiction either. And in fact, one of Nick's students asked me how to turn nonfiction events into stories. It's something I think we wish we were all good at but are kinda bad.
Joe Casabona:Right? Or most of us are. Right? We all have that friend or family member who gives you too many details and the story goes nowhere. It's like, oh, so I was, like, up at midnight, and I couldn't sleep.
Joe Casabona:So I got in my car, and, I drove, down the 405. No. Maybe it was the night. Well, either way, I was driving. I was wearing my red hoodie, and I went to Walmart.
Joe Casabona:And now you're like, why does it matter what road they were driving on? Why does the red hoodie matter? What what's the point of the story? But we should be able to turn nonfiction events into stories because those are going to help relate our knowledge or our information, the thing we're trying to teach, to the audience. It's something I spoke to Cody Sheehy about on this show.
Joe Casabona:But there's another person who's very good at telling stories based on her own life, and we know her all too well. If you haven't listened to the 10 minute version of Taylor Swift's All Too Well, I highly recommend it. Not only is it a bop, but it tells an incredible story about a several months relationship in, well, 10 minutes. She uses her words to paint incredible pictures for us to imagine. You told me about your past thinking you'd future me.
Joe Casabona:Can't you see that scene in your head? I can picture it perfectly. I actually picture my own childhood bedroom for some reason. But she's painting a picture for you to see what she remembers all too well. But Taylor Swift also uses similes to convey how she and whoever she's talking about, treated their clandestine rekindling.
Joe Casabona:This is maybe one of my favorite parts of the song. It's so good because you really you understand. You immediately know the difference between how she viewed them covertly getting back together versus how the subject views them getting back together. And then finally, her use of metaphors are also powerful and powerfully convey the emotion that she and we should be feeling. A crumpled up piece of paper crushed, wasted, and thrown in the trash.
Joe Casabona:The truth is most of this was probably mundane, but she highlights the important bits and how she felt as a 20 to 21 year old dating someone seemingly older than her. At one point, she says, you said if we had been closer in age, maybe it would have been fine, and that made me want to die. You really feel the emotion that she is feeling. And the hook in all of this isn't necessarily the song itself. It's the mystery.
Joe Casabona:The song came out in 2012. The 10 minute version of this song came out in 2021. And I read what was basically an investigative article dated the same week I'm recording this episode in October 2023, diving into who the song is about and why it's about them. It's all speculation, and none of this is confirmed by any of the parties who have been named in this article, but we love to talk about it. Taylor Swift knows how to hook us with a good story.
Joe Casabona:So where can we find the story? For Taylor, it's usually based on her own life experience. I also like to draw on my own experience as well as lessons from pop culture, if you couldn't tell by now. You can find inspiration anywhere. You just need to make sure it drives home your point.
Joe Casabona:Mike Pacquiao recommends that you get a long sheet of paper and draw a timeline of your life on it, where you mark important events from your life. Then, you can find stories based on what was going on around that time. For Nick's class, I presented my information in 2 very different ways. And this gets to practicing your story, which you definitely also have to do because the 2nd class got a much better version of this than the first. And that was always true when I taught in the classroom as well.
Joe Casabona:I would teach 3 sections back to back to back. The first section always got the short end of the stick. They got the first time I was going through the information. The 3rd class always got the best one. I had given it twice before.
Joe Casabona:I knew the questions, and I knew the best way up until that point to deliver it. But for Nick's class, the second session, I opened with a story about the first time I sought therapy and the event that led to the conclusion that I needed help. I chose this story because it was very personal and this allowed them to maybe trust me a little bit more, but it also hooked them. I a relatively young guy. I have kids, but it was the pandemic, which was stressful for everybody.
Joe Casabona:I had a panic attack in front of my 3 year old, and she's the one who ended up helping me. That's just a a compelling story. I'm not embellishing. I'm picking the important parts to tell people about, in this case, the power of story. Usually, when I tell that story, it's this is the inciting incident that led me on my transformation to systematize my whole business so that I wouldn't be stressed about at least that part of it.
Joe Casabona:But that's the power of story. With my interviews, I try to define the interviews using a 3 act structure that you may have heard me talk about already. The first act is the setup where we introduce our guide, the guest, more on that later, and have some sort of inciting incident that forces the need to change. Then in act 2, we have the confrontation where we create some sort of conflict or tension. This is usually a challenge to the guide's main point, which we introduce in act 1.
Joe Casabona:So for example, in an upcoming interview, an episode I have with Hannah Pryor, she talks about what being awkward is. She has a book called Good Awkward. And so the confrontation is me saying, shouldn't we try as hard as possible not to be awkward? She's set up her whole thesis statement, which is being awkward is actually good, and I'm immediately challenging it by saying why, like, why is being awkward good, though? Take our listeners through this thought process because usually, if the listener feels awkward, they immediately no longer wanna feel awkward.
Joe Casabona:So why are you saying it's a good thing? And then act 3 is the rev the resolution where we confront the conflict, accept the guide's point of view, and learn how to implement what the guide has taught us. Again, in Henna's episode, which is coming up as this comes out, is okay. So it's good to be awkward. How do we embrace our awkward?
Joe Casabona:And I know what you're thinking here. Shouldn't the guest be the hero? I mean, it's their journey after all. Right? We're we're talking about them.
Joe Casabona:And I think, no, I think if you're telling a fiction story or you're doing something like what American Storytellers does or lore or serial, then, yes, you need to have some hero closely related to the story. But when you're doing knowledge transfer and you're creating this sort of podcast or any other content, video, course, written word, someone else should be the hero. If you want sticky, helpful content, your listener, your reader, the person you're writing for should be the hero. Everyone roots for the hero and believes in them as they approach the end of the story. Making your listener the hero empowers them, gets them to believe in themselves, and opens them up for the possibility of transformation.
Joe Casabona:If you have guests, your guest can be the guide. Our hero, our listener, doesn't want to be awkward but they've just learned that being awkward can be good so how can we leverage that good? Our guide, Hannah Prior, is going to tell you. If you don't have guests, then you should be the guide. I am the guide for you in this story.
Joe Casabona:I'm not the hero. I'm not the one who's so amazing at telling stories. I'm the person who's teaching you how to tell good stories. And positioning yourself as the guide does 2 things. First of all, it makes you an authority on the topic, and it helps your listener know, like, and trust you faster.
Joe Casabona:After all, who doesn't like Obi Wan Kenobi, Dumbledore, and Gandalf? You do that by focusing the content around the listener and what they need to do to transform. In star wars, Obi Wan appears to Luke and tells him, trust in the force. Obi Wan doesn't manipulate the force for him. Dumbledore puts an entire system in place to help Harry do what only Harry can do.
Joe Casabona:Gandalf doesn't deliver the ring to Mordor. He helps Frodo deliver the ring to Mordor. Your job as the podcaster, video creator, writer is to be the guide, and it's to help your listener. You can't do that unless you make them the hero. So the next time you prep a podcast episode, blog post, or video, think about the story you're telling.
Joe Casabona:What are you or your guest guiding the listener towards? What conflict will they overcome? How will the story evolve? Cody Sheehy, in my interview with him, said telling a good story is opening a bunch of doors in a house and then running through that house and slamming most of them shut. How can you help your listeners slam the door shut on a problem they are having.
Joe Casabona:Alright. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you wanna listen to me talk to other solopreneurs and creators, especially about how to save time in your business, you can subscribe to that show over at how I built dot it. If you want to subscribe to this newsletter, which I strongly recommend you do, you can head over to podcastworkflows.com/join. I send long form articles, and I'm about to start sending out an automation per week for newsletter subscribers only.
Joe Casabona:So, again, that URL is podcastworkflows.com/join. Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, I can't wait to see what you make.
