Ep 178: The Art of Storytelling: Kyle Gray's Path to Personal Transformation

Can the power of storytelling transform your life and bring about personal growth?

My guest Kyle Gray is a world-class presentation coach, story strategist, and author.  From a humble beginning as a musician and singer-songwriter, to becoming a linguistic adventurer in South America and Southeast Asia, Kyle shares his fascinating journey into the realm of startups and how he harnessed the amalgamation of storytelling and marketing.

Kyle paints a vibrant picture of his life-changing experiences, from facilitating high-ticket workshops to overcoming chronic autoimmune diseases. Through these experiences, he discovered the deep connection between personal health, wellness, and the pivotal role of mindset. He further reveals how story work can serve as an engine to inspire clients and aid people in transforming their identities.

Tune in as Kyle enlightens us about the profound impact of emotions in storytelling and their importance in effective communication. He shares valuable tips on crafting compelling presentations, differentiating between a signature talk and a Ted Talk, and tailoring your message to resonate with specific audiences.

Join us as we navigate through the labyrinth of self-limiting beliefs and the insidious imposter syndrome, emphasizing the significance of genuine self-expression.   Listen and learn from Kyle as he shares inspirational stories and insightful thoughts - a thought-provoking episode not to be missed! A journey of exploration and transformation through the power of storytelling awaits you.

Connect with Kyle here:
https://www.thestoryengine.co

Pick up a copy of my book Finally Thriving or purchase my audiobook here:
https://geni.us/FinallyThriving

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:18

Your life is your greatest work of art, and it all relates back to the sacredness of the sacredness. Welcome everybody to Integrate Yourself. I'm your host, alison Pillow, and you can find me at alisonpillowcom. And finally, book finally thriving bookcom. Today I'm here with a very special guest and a good friend of mine, kyle Gray. He is a world-class presentation coach, story strategist and author who helps coaches, startups and executives use storytelling to better communicate their unique value and improve sales with their audience. He combines timeless storytelling with cutting-edge marketing to ensure you've got the right story to tell while presenting on a sales call or in a conversation both online and offline. Thank you so much, kyle, for coming on the show. I do want to mention that you have a book called the Story Engine that people can also find on Amazon and probably on your website too, and a podcast as well. Thanks, kyle, for coming on the show. I'm so excited you're here.

Speaker 2: 1:24

I'm delighted to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm grateful for this. I'm grateful. You know we've been friends in person, We've met before, and it's always magical to be able to create something online with somebody that you know from real life. So I'm honored that you would help me on the show today and I'm excited to explore with you.

Speaker 1: 1:44

Me too. Me too. Well, kyle, I just gave you a nice formal introduction, but there's so much more to your story on a personal level and what you've experienced, too, through your work, and I'd love for you to share more about that with my audience.

Speaker 2: 2:01

Absolutely Well. My work and my art, you know, boils down or distills down to the struggle of adequate expression, and that was first manifested when I was younger, as a musician, as a singer, songwriter and as a kid that probably, you know, if I had one of my like childhood traumas is just maybe not knowing how to show or ask for the right amount of affection and not being able to ask for that. And so being able to play music was kind of a way to be in those emotional spaces that was safe, and for a long time I thought that the only way I was going to be a successful human was by being a successful singer, songwriter. I had to do this and I wanted to write lyrics that would inspire people and influence people and change their perspectives, and I wanted to write chord progressions that were as good as the classic pop chord progressions but somehow different, as if I was going to be the one that figured out the new pattern. And for when I was younger, I put a lot of pressure on myself to start writing these great songs and supporting myself. I applied for performing arts schools and did all these things, but I ended up putting so much pressure on myself for it that I kind of burnt myself out on the art and along with this, during our in between this and along this kind of up and down of the art, I've also spent a lot of time living in other countries, particularly in South America and Southeast Asia, and through living in South America I've learned to speak both Spanish and Portuguese, which is also a struggle to adequately express myself, of routinely putting myself in foreign places where I'm not that good at speaking the language and just immersing myself in a world that I don't know and I don't understand.

Speaker 2: 4:18

And I was very good at that, but didn't think that learning how to speak Spanish or learning how to that you could drop me in the middle of a random country and I would probably be able to, like, figure myself out and and, like you know, be okay. I thought those are just, you know, decent and interesting skills, but not very businessy skills. And during this time I started to hear about people who could travel the world, live anywhere they wanted and work from a laptop and be able to grow a business, and I was like that sounds amazing, but I'm not a business person. I speak Spanish, yeah, but but you know, I thought when I thought of business. I thought of like people in blue starch shirts that have MBAs and are in tall glass buildings, you know doing stuff.

Speaker 2: 5:12

And so it took a couple of years, you know, to even kind of open me up to the idea of trying, and my first, my first real gig in this world was blogging and content marketing and telling the story of a startup and how it was growing, and this also tickled my my desire to travel. It was a remote job that I was actually able to live in Thailand because my boss lived in Australia and that's a similar time zone, so I was able to travel around the world and I was working, working for the startup. It was hard work and I was thrown deep end. I was a good writer, but like writing writing papers and ideas for college professors is a very different thing than writing really good content for search engines and Twitter ability and being having like really competitive content, and so it was very challenging, but I started to feel kind of like there was something about that that was the same as like writing songs and like putting my ideas out there that I really enjoyed and started to enjoy it more and more and began to make a name for myself as a writer, and I used my writing skills to insert myself into other businesses and support them, and usually it were businesses that had something that I wanted to learn from them. I started working and consulting for a company called self publishing school after the startup, and through understanding their systems and helping them build a content marketing strategy, I learned enough to write and publish my own books and started publishing, self publishing my own books, which one of which you already mentioned which became the foundation for an incredible business and brands that has since supported me and enabled, enabled me to fulfill a lot of those early stage dreams.

Speaker 2: 7:10

But the real are one big turning point, and and finding turning point was a little bit after the self publishing and learning how to write books that I saw another person give a presentation about how to use speaking from the stage as a way to grow your business quickly and powerfully, and it reminded me of what it was like to be on the stage as a, as a musician, and I was like, oh my gosh, I want to do this. And so I went up to them. I, you know, offered my skills as a writer and offered to start writing for them and helping them out to learn how to become a better speaker, and I would consume everything I could and write for them. And this company was in a very early stage but it was growing quite rapidly and they started hosting these workshops where they would charge $10,000 for somebody to come for two days to either set up their positioning to be a great speaker or to write a great presentation. And one of the first person they called to help facilitate these workshops was me, because I was doing all the writing and writing that, all of their processes and systems and all these things. So I was also running my own business doing copywriting, helping other people write speeches, but, and I was inserting myself into several other businesses, several other people, the likes of which we don't have to talk about.

Speaker 2: 8:34

But it was a lot like this story of of. First I learned a tremendous amount and how to fulfill and serve people you know and make sure that they have a good $10,000 experience. Probably one of the most important things is I got to see hundreds of people that paid $10,000 for something which is a trip to the mental gym that most people will never make, they won't even dare to make, and I have the blessing of just seeing some people. You see them and you're like, of course you'd pay $10,000, you know, for something. And some people you know they're like, wow, you really like, you know you mortgage the farm to make this happen because you believe and you know whatever like. However, what value they derived I'm not sure from each one, but it was just amazing to see who you could enroll in something like this and it stretched my mind and in the ways that I'm very grateful for and after so, finally, after our one final thread I know I'm going for a really long time.

Speaker 1: 9:43

I'm so. I'm loving this story, yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:46

So there's the final kind of thread that brings this all together, that we use this into. Who I am now is as I'm facilitating these workshops and as a result of probably some things that happened and you know, while I was traveling around and getting sick and and eating dirty food in South America and swimming in the Amazon and stuff like that and I was like I'm not going to do that I got very sick In my mid 20s. I couldn't hike more than a quarter mile without serious knee pain. I had extreme jaw pain. I would sleep, you know, during the night. I would grind my teeth and make these crazy sucking I really just terrible noises and wake up with these crazy headaches. I started to be afraid to eat sandwiches because I would have to open my mouth so big and then I would wake up. You know, no matter how much you know work I did, I would always feel anxious that I wasn't doing enough. And no matter how many Tony Robbins books I was reading, I couldn't like fix my attitude.

Speaker 2: 10:48

And one of these workshops that I was helping facilitate it just happened to be filled with health and wellness experts and I sat down next to one woman and she's like hey, my name is Dr Grace and I help people overcome chronic autoimmune diseases, and I, at this point, had discovered that I had got health problems which also led to a thyroid autoimmune condition, known as Hashimoto's disease, which has become an incredible tutor and guide in my life, which led me to this particular person and I said oh, your, your clients must want this. They try and do this, but that happens describing what my life had been like for the last of a while, and she's like oh my God, you need to come work with me. You see, she was incredibly smart and talented at what she did and that was actually becoming a problem and a roadblock rather than a supporter, because she couldn't properly express the value in what she did. And so we started working together. She would take me through her Hashimoto's protocol and I started going through our, helping her create signature talks, ghost write books and really frame up her products and services with good storytelling and messaging in a way that really landed in the hearts of her clients and overcame those big objections.

Speaker 2: 12:06

And through working with somebody like this, I discovered, you know, and and within a few months, like a lot of the problems that had plagued me have faded away, had melted away the anxiety and the pain and I had a new lease on life, and now, at 34 years old, I feel stronger than I did at 24. And I feel I have the blessing of knowing what it's like to not have a full grip on my health at a relatively young age, so I can start building the foundations of good health later on, instead of having one of those all of a sudden things when you're in your late fifties or whatever happens.

Speaker 2: 12:49

No thanks, I know who knows, who knows what will happen. I'll do what I can right now, but I have a value of it, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:58

And so, through actually starting to learn more about personal health, I went through a lot of transformations and this ultimately, through learning about health, led me to learn more about mindset and well being, which eventually led me to a very different kind of story work where we which is the thread that connects us of being able to tell good stories and see how you know the stories you tell on the inside influence you, and this was a very good thing for me and was I could recognize the importance in it for my own personal health. But I started to see a lot of really interesting parallels between creating a good experience and inviting a decision from the stage to working with somebody who's struggling with their identity for whatever reason. And now I straddle those worlds of the stories that you're telling yourself and using this as a tool to take what's once made you feel ashamed or limited and actually use it as rocket fuel to inspire you. And then, once we are inspired, using that to create a presentation that will create that same level of enrollment in your ideal clients.

Speaker 1: 14:30

That's beautiful. Wow, what a beautiful journey that you shared. I love that so much. I love hearing about people's back stories, how they came to be doing what they're doing now, and it's just so interesting to me. I always love this show called VH1 Behind the Music because I always wanted to know, like what you know, how this person got to be doing what they're doing. You know, it's just so interesting to me. That is really cool, and I would think that you know it's a very valuable thing to help people with identities because, like we tend to, so many people say and I used to be one of these people I'm not a storyteller.

Speaker 1: 15:11

Everybody's a storyteller. We tell ourselves stories all the time, right, and it's a matter of what stories you're believing about yourself versus what stories are really true, like, where is the truth within all of those stories and what new stories can you create from that? And so there's a lot of value to that, both in the business and in personal life. It can really transform a person's entire perspective. So, yeah, that's really amazing that you're helping people with that, kyle.

Speaker 2: 15:44

And thank you for that. I appreciate that honesty and really one of the things you said is one of the most common, you know, objections that I hear right away is oh, I'm not a storyteller, I don't have any good stories to tell, and usually what people mean when they say that is they're like well, I've never climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with no pants on, you know, or whatever you know random adventure that they feel is worthy of a story. But it's being able to reflect the emotions and the experience that your audience is feeling. It's much less about who you are and it's more about can you listen to your audience and understand what they need and share who you are in a way that meets them, instead of trying to be somebody that's impressive or to tell a story that hikes you up. It's a form of listening and it's a form of empathy that we can use to say, hey, I understand you, instead of hey, listen, look at how cool I am.

Speaker 2: 16:49

And when we can change that perspective, that's when people start to go from oh, I'm not a storyteller too, oh, I have some good stories. And it doesn't have to be these action stories like stories about changing a stereo in your car or a conversation you have with a child, or you know just like these tiny moments can be springboards into these deep, powerful emotions that will drive decisions that too often we're afraid to go to because we don't actually know how to navigate stories. Well, we, there's kind of a natural sense we have, but we don't know what to say or how to say or why we're saying it, and so it ends up just kind of ending up like a traffic jam where all these ideas try to come out at the same time and we end up tripping all over ourselves.

Speaker 1: 17:45

Oh yeah, oh yeah. I can relate to that and I. It is a form of connection, because you're connecting with your audience. You're also giving people an experience that you're having on an emotional level or pad to help them connect in with themselves, and I find that a lot of times I don't know why I'm telling people a story or include you know a lot of the stories I included in my book as well People would come back to me and say, wow, I got so much out of that. Thank you for sharing that.

Speaker 1: 18:15

I never know what people are going to get from it, but it's always something that I never expected, but it's such a great seed or nugget for them to grow from that too, and you know a way to relate and connect. You know that way too, because sometimes we feel like we're all going through this on our own, but we're all doing we all have very similar stories too, at the same time. So, but it's a unique experience, right, and so that's what makes it different. But I love that you're helping people with that. That's such a that's a very valuable thing to be able to do for people, because, you know, at this point too, I think it's a powerful time to be able to be able to share and voice your stories so that we're not holding it in ourselves, you know, for the trauma, all of the memories, all of the information. We're actually being able to release that and help people with their own lives that way, through the lessons we've learned too.

Speaker 2: 19:24

You know, it's probably no coincidence that the condition that I was affected by is a thyroid condition in the throat and, despite the fanciful journey that I had just shared with you, that I had absolutely no idea what was going on or where it all lines up. Very nice now, but it was a wild wrap and but yeah, all that. All that being said, that there's being able to connect with a good story and connect with that identity, it can be something a lot more simple when you understand the frameworks of why would I tell a certain story? Or to know this story framework helps somebody establish trust with you, or this is a story that we would tell to overcome an objection.

Speaker 2: 20:26

When you can start to apply frameworks and see the stories you're telling through a system, then all of a sudden, there's visibility in this world that seemed totally opaque before. All of a sudden, as you're navigating around well, I don't know what people saw in this story when you can understand the strategies and the frameworks that really start to add these up, you can get visibility into this world, recreate these things and engineer more of it into the future, which is really what I've been practicing and internalizing a lot of which is how I've become good at what I do, to just be able to ask a bunch of questions and drive out of you like what we worked on and just trim it into the right format.

Speaker 1: 21:21

Yeah, can we talk about the story framework a little bit?

Speaker 2: 21:25

Sure.

Speaker 1: 21:26

Yeah, can you tell me more?

Speaker 2: 21:30

So there's a number of different frameworks and really the core of my process is I love working at Google Docs and I've broken down every single part of what it takes to create a high converting signature talk into basically a line by line template and format. So each one of those lines is like a little Lego piece that we add up to make a great presentation, and I have practiced using these Lego pieces and talks now for half of a decade and with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, so I know them really well and can conjure them up with just a few questions, and so I help, when people don't know these frameworks or don't know the purpose and why to do these things, that I act as the prompter and I start to look for the information that I know these things need by asking you about okay, what's your goal? First thing we want to do is we want to have a goal so we know which framework to apply. Do I want to create trust and introduce myself to somebody? Do I want to teach them and open up their beliefs and possibilities to a better world and maybe get them excited to work with me? Do I want to close out my talk with a powerful story that leaves them with the right emotional feeling but doesn't feel like pushy and salesy and awkward. So once we figure out that goal, okay, now we can work from there. We'll pick a story framework. Let's say I want to build trust. Okay, build trust with who? Then? Who's your ideal client?

Speaker 2: 23:17

I'm going to start asking about their ideal client and what I like to do when we really navigate the ideal client, especially for the coaches out there, when you're learning a lot of these story works as a life coach and the research that you've done, going into the darkest places of your client's minds is the greatest treasure your room you could ever imagine as a marketer and a salesperson, and so you want to go into those rooms that you've experienced with your clients. What does it feel like to be their problems? What are they scared of? What are they afraid of will happen if they don't solve their problems? Who do they think they are? What are the expectations that they have on themselves? What are they afraid of will happen if they fail? What does that feel like? What does it feel like in your body when you think about that and we try to get them? It's almost like it's almost growing in reverse of what a coach would normally do, of getting somebody into a bad, or somebody comes in a bad state that want to feel better. I've tried to push you into that emotional state. That is like what our ideal client is feeling. Because then I'm going to ask you when I can tell that you're in it. When are other times in your life that you felt just like this?

Speaker 2: 24:36

And there will undoubtedly be stories that arise that most people say I haven't thought about telling this story ever, or in a very long time, because we can't always. You're one of the misconceptions that we have, and when we just sit down in front of a blank screen and I want to write a speech now is if we feel neutral. We don't have access to all of our memories and all of our brain. All of the time we need to smell, to go to certain places we need to end up. Feeling can unlock certain regions of the brain.

Speaker 2: 25:13

So if we can get into a feeling that feels like our customers, we can access stories that we wouldn't normally be able to feel, and we can do it in good and bad ways.

Speaker 2: 25:23

So we start digging those up and again and these are usually some resistance. There's identity behind these stories that we need to integrate and there's work that we need to do before we even start sharing it, because we need you to feel aligned with it, and so this is where a lot of the classic story work that I'm sure you've gone into with the audience, so I'll spare them the detail on this for now we start telling that, transforming their inner identity story and getting them proud and excited so that they can show what and even if they don't change any of the words that they say, but by feeling more aligned with who they are and why they're doing this, they could, they could give the same talk and get better results. But of course, we're going to change the words they say because now they're going to have better storytelling frameworks to do it. So they, they enroll themselves, they show up stronger and they share the story that we crafted through just asking questions and being creative.

Speaker 1: 26:26

Yeah, that's really important asking the right questions. That's a really important point to make and I love. I love that because it is about the emotions, it's about the emotional connection aspect of the story within yourself that you're sharing and people can feel that. They can feel it when you're not, when that's not there, right, and so that's the energy there that you're, that you're putting out there. I had a question, as you were saying that, kyle.

Speaker 1: 26:54

So with coaches, yes, it can be very valuable to put yourself in the shoes of the client. In most of us as coaches I would assume, because I've experienced this myself have experience with their clients, are experiencing because they that was kind of like their past experience as a you know their client. What their clients are going through oftentimes were something they had experienced in the past and now. That's why they're helping clients with that, which makes a lot of sense. So we can have a lot of empathy and compassion for that. What's the difference when you are like a more of a performer or a speaker in front of thousands of people and it's not really a client, client, coach relationship as much? Is there a different approach to that or is that kind of a similar thing? How would you be able to navigate that?

Speaker 2: 27:51

Good question.

Speaker 2: 27:52

So this, once again, we have to break it down to what is your goal.

Speaker 2: 27:57

So, before speaking in front of a thousand people, there's probably one or two reasons that we're we're doing it, or there's one of two ways that we could go, and I work with people in one way and I know other people that work with people in other ways, so you can go the Ted talk way. In a Ted talk, we want to have as many people as possible feeling inspired by the message and it's going to be broad and it's going to be big. Or the signature talk. What I do is I want a very few specific people in that, thousands of people to feel like I'm reading out of their journal, that I snuck into their house last night and read their journal and wrote this speech for them, and I want to inspire a tremendous amount of action in a very specific group of people rather than inspire everybody in there. So these are the two goals, and what I would do and how I would teach and the stories I would tell would vary based on that goal.

Speaker 1: 29:14

I like that. Yeah, and it seems to me that you mentioned music in the very beginning. Musicians might go about it in a similar way to with big audiences, like that they would be connecting with people through those, inspiring people in similar ways.

Speaker 2: 29:35

I suppose, yeah, that's something I've been thinking about lately a lot Like how is it connection made?

Speaker 2: 29:45

A lot of times of course through music, but when they're up on stage, this brings to mind the slight back track, but I think it's really important to mention and you highlighted something that we like to serve clients that were like us and we share our story because it resonates with people like us and this is a great advantage in a lot of ways If we can tap into who we are and reach out to people like us. There's value to be had here, but there's a great pitfall and danger here that more people succumb to than the advantage, and that is thinking that I really have to market to the person I was four years ago. So four years ago I struggled with. You know, I could have used maybe a speech coach or I had my own identity problems, but I didn't have a lot of money, I wasn't ready to invest in these things and you know I wouldn't have made the best client for me right now. But I had problems.

Speaker 2: 31:02

You know the problems that I had are the same problems that a dentist or a high performing lawyer or the CEO of a seven figure startup would all have. They articulate them a little differently, but they are the same. But many people do not. They can't make this bridge, this gap of my problems are the same as theirs, because they see this difference between them so they wouldn't ever reach out or try to reach these people and instead they just try to market to people who were like them. And so I just see too many particularly coaches trying to market to mostly themselves and not really being able to enroll any clients or feel that different or especially enroll clients that pay them what they really want or deserve to be paid and get the results that they're looking for.

Speaker 1: 34:27

Yeah, that's a great point. So what I hear you saying is that it's not exact it's. It's better to look at the broader spectrum of people. Even though it's not exactly what you experienced or the exact person Like it's it's, it's across a broader spectrum of people who could be experiencing similar things, but in different forms. Is that what you're saying?

Speaker 2: 34:49

In a way yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:51

So we all have the same problems like imposter syndrome. Everybody knows what that feels like. Right, we've all heard that one before. Okay, good news, bad news Eight figure CEO, they have imposter syndrome.

Speaker 2: 35:05

You know, day one tick tock influencer, you've got imposter syndrome. It's going to keep coming, no matter where you know and and but how the eight figure CEO is going to articulate what that problem is and how it feels like. It's going to be very different than how day one tick tock does. It's the same problem. And somebody like you if you, if you work with imposter syndrome, your solution could apply to both of them and a lot of people these are the also the kind of people that market to themselves are like I could sell my coaching and help anybody, and so you try and find anybody, and it's usually the day one tick tock influencer, but you don't even give yourself a chance to even think about. Well, I could never help a you know an executive with the same thing Because I'm not, or you know they wouldn't even try, so they wouldn't even go down the wrong.

Speaker 2: 36:03

Exactly Right, Weird Right. That's funny. So we feel comfortable just marketing to ourselves. But and there is a utility in that, but there is also a pitfall and a danger.

Speaker 1: 36:20

I love that, kyle. That's such a great, that is such a great perspective and really opens my mind up to something greater, to appreciate that. Wow, yeah, and it is. It is like us limiting ourselves in a lot of ways, right, because there's so many people that you could be helping and it's funny because go ahead. I didn't mean to cut you off.

Speaker 2: 36:43

Oh, no, worries, here's. Here's like another exercise that somebody could do. This is something that's really fun to share. Go, take the time All of you listening in you do this to put aside at 60 minutes in your calendar and ask yourself the question what would I do if somebody paid me $100,000 to help them with that problem?

Speaker 2: 37:11

What would be possible? We could fly out and visit them. We could contract Creed to come play a concert in their front yard, and that would be awesome. Probably can't get much more of a fan than Creed, but we could get them. You know, like really, or like what kind of great people could you fly in?

Speaker 2: 37:32

Could you take them on a bet, like if you had a hundred thousand dollar budget to make an impact in somebody's life, what could you do and actually start to like write out what that plan would be, because here's the thing, like I said, the eight figure CEO. You know, imposter syndrome is one problem and it just any problem that you solve can be applied, and the more transformational and who, the better, because the more abstract and it's just a matter of matching the language with the client. So you could have somebody come, come and go in your life. You, you may have had it. I may have had it like I could have been on a phone call with somebody that was ready for a one hundred thousand dollar program and if I didn't have my my, my sheet out, I hadn't thought about and I wasn't prepared to make a one hundred thousand dollar offer. Then I wouldn't even. I wouldn't even feel guilty of how dumb I was for missing the opportunity afterwards, because it would never have registered, it would have come and gone, and I will Well, that wouldn't even hit the radar.

Speaker 2: 38:48

And there's so many people that are making that mistake. You know, not on a hundred thousand dollar level, but they're, they're capping themselves. You know, in so many ways, when, when, even it just doing the exercise of like what that would be like. But now I'm ready, I haven't made a hundred thousand dollar offer yet. I'm getting pretty, I'm getting close. Like it's not, it's not a stretch, but it's, it's ready. And so it's not a stretch, right. And I would never notice if, if the person came by and I wasn't ready.

Speaker 1: 39:22

Yeah, that's, that's a really good point. Yeah, so preparing yourself for the best case scenario, I think is the, is the way to go, right. It's it's like we limit ourselves by by not acting as if it's already happened, right.

Speaker 2: 39:40

Yeah, and a lot of people you know. I'm so grateful again for those workshops that I worked at and saw hundreds of people pay ten thousand dollars for something and some people left and they felt good and some people left and they didn't feel good and I listened to them and why they did and why they didn't. But I saw this many people do this and I know, like there's peers that you and I have, that we're friends with, that won't even dare venture into, like what a ten thousand dollar program because they think that they need to do this or be this or, god forbid, go back to college or you know, get whatever certification, get another thing.

Speaker 1: 40:25

Not enough. Someday I'll be worthy of this.

Speaker 2: 40:28

Yeah yeah, it's rampant, it's all over the place. They won't even dare let themselves enter this realm. I, this, this didn't happen with like a coach, but I I asked this question to like just a friend, a muggle of sorts of like what would you do if somebody offered you a hundred thousand dollars to help you? And she said I would check to make sure that they were mentally stable? Wow you know, like, like, think about that.

Speaker 2: 40:58

I was that say about you, you know, or what you think about yourself, you know. And again, this was somebody who really didn't have any sales or coaching experience. But it was a very interesting answer and too many of us are trending in that direction, even though it may not be as extreme as that one, and it's just a story you're telling yourself.

Speaker 1: 41:19

Yeah, because there's plenty of people that would pay that for the right, you know, for the right person. And I was, I was sure, a story like years ago when I started personal training, I was approached by Bruce Springsteen and he asked for my card.

Speaker 2: 41:36

And I was, I was like, wow, this is it.

Speaker 1: 41:39

You know, it was one of those situations where I was like I'll do it, yeah, I'll definitely do this, but I was not in a position to believe that that I could do that, you know, at that time. And so it didn't pan out, but it was like, oh, ok, so once, in a way, that kind of thing is you are attracting those opportunities and you're you're not ready for it on an emotional, mental, spiritual level, right.

Speaker 2: 42:06

Upper limit problems. Yeah yeah, you'll, you'll, you'll sabotage yourself or you know, and this, like I say this right now and I'm like dropping these notes, look out for those people. I do this all the time too. I did this last week. I pretty much I astounded myself at how foolish I can be with my predeterminations and judgment.

Speaker 2: 42:29

So I was at invested a lot of money to go to this event in Texas and it was an event somewhat between like a festival or a party that you and I might find each other at and a very high end business mastermind. And I can remember there was one like really particularly beautiful woman there that I saw her right away and I was like this person does not want to, you know, talk to me. And I had just like written them off just just because of that and you know they had mentioned somewhere along the line. I had like found them in passing again and like said, hey, you said a cool thing earlier today. I appreciate it that she was like cool, like you know. See you on the dance floor. A little bit later, made a little invitation, but again, like you know, I wasn't thinking that much of it and a little bit later I went and started dancing with her and showed her some of the crazy dance moves that I've learned living on a Hawaiian island for a long time, and she totally lit up and was having the most amazing time and it like ended up becoming like this, very playful and like light, you know, friend, and ended up thanking me afterwards Like I've had a really hard time trusting men for a long time.

Speaker 2: 43:47

And you were one of the first people and I was like, oh my God, I can't believe I created this experience and this was somebody that I immediately wrote off, you know. And what else am I doing that in my like? What else am I doing that to in my life? Is is what leaves me thinking about. You know, how is that happening in my business? How is that happening in my health? How is that happening in my friendships? How is that happening in my creativity? What is the universe so desperate to give me that I'm saying no, not for me.

Speaker 1: 44:27

Yeah, that is very profound. Yes, I love that so much. Thank you, kyle. That's amazing, wow, and it's got me really thinking about that in my own life too. It's like time to level up, you know, and as we level up more and more, we start to build the skills, the self worth, that, the stuff from within to feel like we are comfortable in those higher levels. Right, but it takes that first love, first awareness of that, like what's happening, what are we doing? How are we practically, you know, integrating this in our lives on a daily basis, with the people we talk to, of how we think about ourselves? It's a great, those are great questions to ask for everything you do, yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:16

And it's just. You know, these are the kind of questions that I really feel like it kind of reminds me of, I know, such a white guy thing, but quote the matrix or something. But early on, when, when Neo is like trying to do kung fu against Amorphias, he's just learning the moves, and then he's like exhausted, like Amorphias asks him do you think that's air you're breathing? And he like holds his breath, and Neo has just been like burdening himself, thinking, you know, he just thought he needed to breathe because he was used to having to do that, but it actually wasn't an issue. And that's when he starts to realize like whoa, have I been limiting myself, you know? And things start to open up. And this is the same thing, you know, do you think that's air that you're breathing as you're wheezing and struggling, you know, and do you need to do that?

Speaker 1: 46:17

Yeah, exactly that movie is is also profound in many ways Like it is. There's so much greatness in that movie to tell people about what they are living in, what kind of illusions they're living in, what kind of stories they're telling themselves, what kind of limitations they're putting on themselves as well. Great, great example there. I really love that. Well, let's see, I want to just switch gears a little bit while we're coming up on the hour and love for you to talk more about like as well, if you want to put in a word about your book or what you're doing currently, what you're helping people with mostly most recently, and offers that you're also offering people.

Speaker 2: 47:08

Thank you so much. Yeah, I would love to share. So right now, I've been very focused on working with a very small group of very high impact, high intelligence entrepreneurs and just have a very small group of people that I want to go very deep with and I want to understand everything that's going on in your business and be able to take you through the process that I was just saying to help you come up with powerful stories faster than you could on your own, better than you could on your own and, believe it or not, we're even going to have fun while doing it and being able to implement those quickly by speaking in front of different audiences, speaking on podcasts, speaking on these things and being able to make an offer. So those are the people that I'm looking for and helping you express that. So, if that's, you come find me.

Speaker 2: 48:06

And for everybody else, I have a tremendous amount of free resources in storytelling or almost free resources, if you count the book that are going to help you articulate who you are, why you're doing what you're doing, whether you're doing it on the stage, whether you're doing it on a blog, whether you're doing it on the podcast, I have content that's going to be a good fit for you. You can find that all at thestoryengineco. That's where you can learn more about my books. You can check out my podcast. I have a blog there just about 250 podcast episodes where we're almost coming up on the 250th and a bunch of long form articles and infographics all that good stuff on storytelling. So come check me out there and find me. I do a lot of reels and content on Instagram have a lot of fun and it's kind of goofy fun content more than just. It's a mix of practical and fun stuff but all in storytelling. You can find me at HeyKyleGray on Instagram.

Speaker 1: 49:10

Wonderful. Yeah, I like what you're doing on Instagram lately with the. I've seen I can't remember her name, but she does a similar thing with a split screen and then the singing with other people. I love that so much. That is really cool that you're doing that and playing around with that and showing people how they can have fun and through expression. Really that's what it's all about, right.

Speaker 2: 49:36

Integrating my own imposter syndrome by having fun and being goofy and putting that stuff out there, and I share all of these things with you in the field of transparency, that I've struggled with them profoundly this whole journey. So I'm right there with you, my friends.

Speaker 1: 50:00

Me too. Me too, I'm there with you too. Thank you, kyle, so much for coming on. This has been an incredible show and I appreciate you so much. I really appreciate and love our connection, so thank you for coming on and sharing your gifts.

Speaker 2: 50:14

Likewise, allison. Thank you so much for having me and thank you everybody for who listened through this whole thing Appreciate you and I'd love to be in touch.

Speaker 1: 50:23

Thank you, kyle. Let's get this over to you your life is your greatest work of art, and it all relates back to the synchronus peaks. The synchronus peaks, I suppose so.