Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.
Francisco Mahfuz 0:00
Hi everyone, Francisco here. Just before we get started, I wanted to share something I'm really excited about. I recently launched the story powers bootcamp, a course that teaches you everything you need to know about how to find craft and tell stories that work. But it's not just an online course, because you get personalised feedback from me for all the practical activities in three hours of life coaching to work through any challenges, or focus on specific projects. So it's like if you bought a cookbook, but the chef came along with it. So go to story powers.com and click on Course, all the information you need will be there. So please check it out. And if you love the show, and would like to support us, you can go to buy me a coffee.com forward slash story powers. I drink about five coffees a day, so any support would be much appreciated. All right on with the show.
Welcome to the story powers podcast, the show about the power of stories, the people who tell them and why you should be doing it too. I'm your host, keynote speaker and storytelling coach Francisco first. My guest today is my first Choudry. A first is an award winning brand manager at Candy Box marketing, ranked as one of Canada's fastest growing companies for the last three years in a row. Over the past 12 years. He's delivered hundreds of keynote presentations, and published his latest book, Project reinvention, the social timeline of a millennial. But first also loves the Toronto Raptors. He hates people who are fashionably late, he might be the only storyteller in the world. Who knows how to pronounce my surname. Ladies and gentlemen, but first Choudry. First,
Mahfuz Chowdhury 1:43
welcome to the show that says it's an absolute honour being on this show. And I think that this is long overdue my friend, we we have the exact same name with the exact same spelling. We're both in the world of speaking, podcasting and an author and our brands almost look exactly alike. I think. I think the universe was trying to get us together for a long time. But it finally happened, my friend and I'm absolutely honoured. Thank you so much for having me on the show.
Francisco Mahfuz 2:08
I think it's worth mentioning to people who might be finding this slightly strange. It is it is true. He his first name is my last name. And I think this might be actually how we met each other, wasn't it? I think there was a there was a podcasting event. And then someone said, oh, you know, this is some great events today. And then listed on the I'm not sure if there's the speakers or the someone who had commented on one of the posts. There was my first and I thought I didn't comment on any post to have i I looked into it and found out that that was you. And I think that's how we we actually get to talk to you unless I'm completely misremembering this.
Mahfuz Chowdhury 2:51
No, no, you you know that it's from all the origin stories I've ever shared of how I met people that was definitely the strangest but it was meant to be man. And it immediately launched me into curiosity mode. I looked into a lot of the stuff that you do trying to figure out who's this other foods guy trying to take up the space in the world of podcasting. And I have to tell you, Francisco in terms of like, listening to intros of a podcast show you might my friend have the best set of introductions I've ever seen on a podcast show what went from me researching a full episode. It went into immediately me bingeing just all your intros, like I'd never even got through one episode because I was so interested in how you introduce your guests. It's so fun you you really come through in terms of storytelling and your personality. I love it. Well,
Francisco Mahfuz 3:40
I've said a lot about the interest in this show. I don't think I need to go into massive detail again, but I will say again, it is the hardest part. Like often I have a full list of stuff that I want to talk to people about and I'm still cracking my head against or going I haven't gotten anything funny to say what am I gonna introduce them with? And that is just sometimes I've listened to an extra podcast episode or two was like just one thing just give me one thing I can use. I might be overdoing this slightly but it is fun. I usually get through fun and laugh straight away and I that always makes for a more interesting conversation because unlike other podcasters I don't do I don't do pre calls. I don't do anything sometimes the very first words I spoke to someone are pretty much the ones that are recorded so I still I think I'll continue doing that for a while
Mahfuz Chowdhury 4:29
yeah, you're you're not lying. We haven't spoken in preparation of this call. We just knew we're both lovers of storytelling and I think that was enough to get us on a call together which I think was great. But your your style is very unique because what you do that really helps someone like myself a super shy introvert someone that freaks out in preparation of these types of conversations. You know I'm I found myself running laps around my house in preparation of sitting down right now to sit down and record with you and write up that you come in with your introduction you got, you got that classic smile of yours. And instantly I feel relaxed, like you your interest, bring another level of energy. And I got to just tell you, I really appreciate that as a podcaster, I
Francisco Mahfuz 5:11
think is an interesting point that you raise about the nervousness and the fact that you're an introvert. And I think that that's this is something that a lot of people don't get is that doesn't matter how extroverted you are. And I would argue I'm pretty extroverted. And doesn't matter how long you've been doing this for, and like you've been doing this for really speaking to audiences for a very long time. It only the nerves only go away completely. When, when I don't care. And that's a very rare situation, right? Someone wants me to go up on the stage for a group of people that I know super well, they like me already, pretty much anything I say they'll find funny. And I'm not expected wild them. They just say, can you just give us an update on whatever, fine, I'll go up there. There's no nerves, I'll just talk. But if I get a 10 minute slot, online with a group of people that might not even be paying me and I know, it's not necessarily a massive networking opportunity or anything, I'm still going to prepare, and I'm still going to be okay, I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to say. There's always an amount of adrenaline and nervous energy. And in my case, it it sometimes shows up as this really weird physical tics. Right. So I will, you know, crack my neck many times, or I'll pull my socks up repeatedly. And you know, nobody sees this when you are online. But I remember when I was doing a lot of speaking at Toastmasters, you just in the sort of the corner of the room, and people have seen you act really strangely. And I'm like, just leave me, right. Keep checking what I'm doing. I need to get in the zone.
Mahfuz Chowdhury 6:48
Yeah, nervous tics are a real thing. Man. It's it's also that when you know people in the audience that you really value and and see as someone that is maybe important, someone you really care about, I feel like although you would think that would actually work in your favour that you know them and seeing a familiar face makes life a little bit easier. Sometimes I get even more nervous thinking a little bit about what they're going to think of me in the stories that I share. And sometimes that's the that's the story that's playing in your head the entire time while you're on stage. But nervous tics are a real thing. I've, I've been trying to figure out how to stabilise it a bit better. And I think it was actually in a Toastmasters, I wanted attended that someone said this, and it forever stuck with me. He said that you can control where the tics are, if you're intentional about it. And he suggested that instead of the instead of your nervous tics being something that's transparent and visible for the audience, try to shift it to something that people can't see. And what I was thinking about is maybe if I just wiggle my toes inside of my shoes, that no one will be able to see that and it just looks like I'm completely fine. And I can't tell you how much of a difference that makes like I'm a I'm a heavy pacer on stage. And I'm very intentional about my pacing, having a meaning behind it, you know, sometimes it's to direct a story from one side to the other to really make an impact from both sides of the room. But I also make sure you know, if you could really see through my shoes, you would see this crazy like, like a duck on water. You know, my legs are like swimming inside of my shoes, while I'm carrying through this stage. But I love what you're saying about the importance of caring about the audience. And I think that's something that stayed with me for many years. You know, the reason I got into speaking had very little to do with me wanting to be a speaker, it had more to do with the fact that I really felt like I had messages that I wanted to share. So when I get up on stage, the conversation I usually have with myself internally is what which one is more dominant in that arena? Is it the fear of public speaking, or is it the the the need to get my messaging and story across, and more often than not, I would say 99.9% of the time, it's going to be about getting the message across. So I find myself muscling through that voice, and finally getting up on stage. And it's very fortunate that it's only about the first three minutes that it really, really throws me off. But once I get into my rhythm, and once I can see that my mind has shifted to the story and not necessarily the audience and the nervousness that I'm inside of it changes the entire dynamic of the top. People often ask, you know, how do you how do you kill that voice? How do you get rid of those nerves? And the truth is, I've done this for about 12 years, and I still haven't figured it out. And I've realised that you can't exactly silence the voice, you can just better manage it. As you start getting more and more experience. You kind of know how to direct the voice the right way. Again, I
Francisco Mahfuz 9:35
don't want to make this all about a you know how to get rid of public speaking fear conversation. But I think it's very important for people to realise that there's a few things that we don't necessarily know unless someone tells us the first one is the reason you're afraid is because you're thinking about yourself and your ego is taking over and no one cares, but no one is there thinking is my first Francisco mahfuz Choudry Good speakers No. So am I going to learn something useful here? Am I going to be entertained, so nobody cares about how you look on stage, they care about the message. So that's the first thing. The second thing is just a reframing of fear as enthusiasm or excitement. And there's plenty of stories of very accomplished athletes, for example, who suffered from from nerves. Now, arguably the greatest football player of all time, Pele, who played for Brazil, he famously would, I mean, he was the extreme case, right. So he would fall asleep before a game, like people will be, you know, climbing up the walls and nervousness and he will be sleeping, people have to wake him up to play, you know, finals. But there's also players and I think this happened to Liana Massey, in the World Cup, where he threw up just before the game, I'm sure if someone has conquered the nerves of the of the big stage is someone like Leonel messy, but it is just how your body's dealing with the adrenaline. Some people feel like going to the bathroom, some people couldn't possibly think of going to the bathroom. And I think the moment people stop thinking of, I'm really afraid. And just think it's adrenaline, right? It's not a pleasant feeling. But it's just the adrenaline in that doesn't necessarily mean anything else. And I think this leads us into stories in an interesting way, which is that the moment you stop caring how you're gonna look, then you're more able to get your message across. And I think the same is true about stories. If you only share stories that make you look good, your storytelling career is probably not going to be a very productive one. Because you're going to be getting rid of a tonne of material. That's actually fantastic. And I think you said something or Drake said something and you quote a Drake about how he's made a career out of reminiscing,
Mahfuz Chowdhury 11:50
yes, probably one of my favourite quotes by Drake, which is the the emphasis that he puts around what that statement means, you know, he said it so nonchalantly on the song and knowing Drake, he probably was referring to something completely different. But my takeaway as the listener of the song was the idea that if you think about Drake's career, his entire career was made by looking backwards and sharing as he went right progress that happened in his life, things that are happening in the world relationships that he came out of or went into. It's all about sharing the stories. And I really like what you mentioned about the the unique ways that people handle the adrenaline because I think this also ties in with the unique ways that people can share their story. And majority of that really ties in with the self awareness that you need to have about what you're comfortable doing at first. I like the fact that we're not spending too much time on the public speaking component. Because it's true, the public speaking component is just one of many ways to share your story. And the better you get at self awareness, the more you start realising that there is multiple channels, and many mediums for you to get involved in order to articulate your stories to the best of your abilities, I've had the opportunity to entertain multiple options, you know, I've done it in the format of speaking on stage. But then I've also continued to do it by releasing a book and putting it up on a shelf where anyone can get access to that and learn a little bit more about my life. I've also done it in podcast format, over 140 episodes. And I can tell you that each one of these arenas are very, very different in the way that you play the game. And the way that you articulate your story, what my encouragement would be for anyone. And something that I find myself doing a lot in the agency world as I work with clients every single day is I spend a lot of time with the clients trying to figure out what makes the most sense for them in how to tell their story and what they want to articulate. You find some ones that the more often you go to like conferences and events, you start realising that not all CEOs are great speakers. In fact, if I may be frank, most CEOs actually suck at public speaking. And that's okay. You know, like the success of their role wasn't created on their ability to execute on stage it was their ability to execute in a business, some of them will go ahead and still pursue the passion of getting up on stage and sharing that I mean, we've seen if you look at the career of Elon Musk, he he started as a terrible public speaker. And over the years, he got a little bit better, but he did it because he realised that the story was more important than the execution. And I think that's a big part of the understanding is when you realise that the story is more important than the execution as you suggested the spotlight is taken off you and a spotlight is put in on the on the takeaways that the audience wants to see. And the more time you think about that, the less time you're worried about why am I not communicating fast enough? Why am I spending too much time writing the perfect story, which is the biggest hesitation you see a lot of people don't execute due to that hesitation of not wanting to put the first story out there. But when you realise that the story in the message is what deserves the spotlight you start becoming very rapid fire and and this items that you put out there, whether it's in when word spoken word or even through visuals start becoming a lot more frequent.
Francisco Mahfuz 14:57
There's something you said about how you interact with basketball, I think you're talking about how you should do things that you're good at. So you were talking about how you you love the Toronto Raptors, you love watching the NBA, but you would be you'd make for a very poor commentator or analyst of basketball games, because that's just not your skill. And I thought that was it was an interesting parallel, where you've got something that is super exciting, but you're struggling to communicate it in an exciting way. And I think a lot of people think that stories have to be that storytelling has to be that you know, you need to find something really exciting. And then you have to tell us about it. Now, actually, you can be talking about something that is barely exciting at all. And is just the way you communicate that that's going to make it exciting. If you actually just do it in the form of a story without any significant craft. it by itself going to is going to be more more interesting. Now. But but people get caught up in this whole No, my story's not exciting enough, or I don't have enough stories. And I I've gotten, I've gotten rave reviews on some stories I shared on social media or on stage, and most of them are the simplest things in the world. Like I just did one yesterday, where the whole story is essentially that the first time I went skiing with my wife, I thought she was cheating on me. Because a few days earlier, she had gone out partying with she had gone to ski slope with her best one of her best friends was a big party girl. And she came back from the slopes and her she couldn't sit properly. Right. So and I'm like, What's wrong with your ass? It's like, oh, I just fell on the ski slope. So many times I think I bruise something. I was like, you know, fine, seems fair. But then when we were in those labs together, she was just flying down the mountain. And I was like, Well, Don, this looks like someone who was a really good skier. This is bullshit. She hasn't heard her as falling over, we got to have a really uncomfortable conversation because no here and then the research will find on the mountains because she was had no idea how to stop. And she only stopped and didn't hit a fence and hurt himself because a very large guy crossed her path somewhere down the mountain and she bowled the guy over. And I guess there's nothing to it. Right? As you know, I gotta just finish saying something like, you know, after that she's never know, when we go skiing Ice Key, she drinks hot chocolate if you've never had problems sitting again, and I learned Stop jumping to conclusions. Okay. But it's nothing like nothing really happened. She kind of bumped in someone scheme. There's a couple of things he said. But I can you can get a story out of that without basically any crafting. And I think people don't, they don't get that you can do that. And because they don't get that they just don't think they have the stories.
Mahfuz Chowdhury 17:42
Yeah, I've got a great story of if people people want to be entertained, people want to be educated, they want to be inspired. And when you think about the the gatherings that you have with friends and the handouts that you maybe consider to be some of your favourite handouts of all time, if you really spent time thinking about the conversations that were had in those get togethers, they're very, very miniscule. Like they're very, very basic surface level conversations that you happen to find entertaining because there's some level of relatability or an entertainment value that you could take away. And I think that sometimes gets forgotten in when people are coming out and thinking like, Hey, I didn't live enough of a life to share a story or my life isn't interested enough to share a story. My perspective on that completely changed the moment I realised that the world is really craving another you like they're craving the first version of you, you know, they're not looking for another Oprah. They're not looking for another like Dave Chappelle. They're not looking for another Messi. They're looking for the first you. They've already seen those personalities. And when you get into the world of like branding and understanding archetypes, you really start understanding that when you look at different movies and TV shows, and you think about the favourite characters that you fell in love with, you realise, like the casting director and the director of the show was very intentional about getting different personalities to play this to play each character. They wanted to make sure there wasn't overlap, there was something unique about each one. And the world operates the exact same way they gravitate, gravitate towards the ones that have that unique personality. And the moment you realise that you stop trying to be me to have someone else you stop trying to copy their stories, you really start leaning in into your stories and the things that make you unique. I learned this a very long time ago when I was trying to go out there and meet some pretty girls, you know, I was always trying to figure out how to get their interest and how to like really be someone that they would be interested in. And I used to always think I had to be like the cool people, you know, the ones that I saw on TV, the ones that I saw having those type of girls and I would always try to replicate that and you always hear that the statement over and over again where they advise you to be yourself. Right Don't be yourself and it used to frustrate me back then thinking like I am being myself but you don't seem to be interested in this like what the heck but The more I started understanding what be yourself means it's truly that core you of who you are, when you are in your own environment, not when you're adapting to someone else's environment, I think about when I'm playing video games when I was a kid, and like, my mom would call me to have dinner, I would, I would kind of be like, hang on Mom, I'm finishing my game, you know, I'm going to get there any minute. Rather than, like, I have to put on the polite version, or the me version, or the act that I need to put on in order to impress my mom, like I'm being me in my most comfortable level. And when you start realising like that is the that is a trait that is the most attractive, the one that really people gravitate towards, you start leaning into that more and more. And one of the exercises that I started doing a bit more of is, when I sit down with some of my clients and people who want to share their story, I asked him a question that I think it's even worth for you thinking about as someone that does introductions all the time, I asked him, How would you introduce yourself if you couldn't use job titles? Right? If you couldn't call yourself a podcaster, and author, a speaker, a marketer or CO president, whatever? How would you introduce yourself? And it amazes me how much difficulty people have answering this question because they realise that more often than not, we tie in our identities with our job title, especially in a formal setting when we're doing introductions, but where it gets really interesting is when you start doing a lot more deeper work. What you start realising is that they start pulling from characteristics rather than job title. You know, they'll start saying, Oh, I'm, I'm a kind person, oh, I can get vulnerable. I'm very transparent. I'm very funny. I'm very, I'm very witty, like, they'll pull out these characteristics. And I say, that is what you lean on. When you share your stories. You know, you're the other person that's also sharing the story could also inspire, educate and inform their audience, but you're doing it your way, you're being yourself and you're leaning into your characteristics every time you bring that out. And that automatically allows your stories to be very, very unique to you, as well as your audience members.
Francisco Mahfuz 21:58
So what you're saying is that, you know that you are being your authentic self, when you feel you can be rude to your mum. That's essentially what you were saying with a video game example, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. I'm coming, mom. Maybe a video game. Right? I'm being my authentic self here. No, okay. So, yeah, I this is something I actually talked about a lot. Recently, I had an episode a couple of episodes ago was with Caroline mace. And she writes these incredible biographies for people with like a storytelling based biography. And then we were talking about how, how relevant or important is it to have the sort of headline biography, your catchphrase biography, and as you might have seen on LinkedIn, I use become more interesting than Netflix. And on my on my storytelling course, I have I have recalled the five second story. So you know, how can you tell people what you do without telling them what to do? And and it's, for a lot of people is a big challenge, because either they fall into the super formulaic thing of I help X, do Y through Zed, which is alright, it's still better than a job title, or, or they just go for the job title, it's difficult to find some way that doesn't sound super corny, to say what you know, what is the outcome, the ultimate result or impact you have on people, but saying it in a way, that doesn't sound really strange? And I think it's an interesting one. And it's from a branding point of view. I think, you know, there's a lot better than I do. But if you don't have one line that you can use to define yourself, then you probably need to do a lot more work getting your branding sorted, right?
Mahfuz Chowdhury 23:37
Yeah. And even worse, is if you don't have that one line, figure out you're letting your audience define that for you, whether you like it or not, and and the reality is that your branding isn't step it's not standstill, it's moving either against you or for you, depending on how you're presenting yourself out there. You know, we can all think about that one friend that will show up late and you're like, well, we knew that was coming, right? Like Carrie is again, two hours late, like you almost expect that from that person. And that is their brand, like that's the reputation and that's not a very good brand because what that also results in is probably their friends not recommending them for the job, you know, not recommending them for to join their company because they know that tardiness and and and like being late is something that they really really have in within their brand. But what about that person that you know the the party gets a lot more fun when that person arrives? What about that brand? That's a pretty cool brand to have. Right? You're showing you're showing up and by showing up people are already starting to get a version of who they think you are. What I suggest doing is really representing yourself in a bit more of an intentional way so that you're not letting people on autopilot to kind of figure out what your brand is, you know for the visual learners or you can see that I'm wearing a shirt here that says we the brand, which plays off the the famous slogan We the north by the Toronto Raptors But I've become such a big fan of that slogan as a brand God because when I think about we the north, to me, one thing that really screams out to me is the fact that we the North has really become the battle cry of Canadians, right? It's kind of become like, the the weapon that we take, when we go into battle. It's like the representation that we are the outcast, yet, we're sticking together to make a difference. And that's how Toronto has always been portrayed in basketball, because they were the only Canadian team in that in the league. And when I think about we the brand, I think of that in many, many, in many ways where you're representing yourself, you are the brand, not just the what you're portraying out there. So when a lot of people come in, and they first think about the colours that they want to use, what their logo looks like, what they what they want to be represented, as it always should start with a story that you want to create, right. And when you start spending enough time on the story that you want to share a lot of these things like the colours, the captions, the text, the colours, the fonts, and all that good stuff, they start coming together a lot easier, because as as you're suggesting, there's a lot that comes out of that one line. But that one line isn't just something that sounds witty and catchy. It really needs to do a good job in attracting the gut feeling of the individual that's reading it. And if it's not getting to the gut feeling you haven't done a good job in successfully executing the way that the message gets transferred across. I like
Francisco Mahfuz 26:21
how you use how you use all this confrontational language to say, you know, we the North is the battle cry of Canadians and how in Israel to say we're going to better be outcasts. And I'm thinking, now you're just really polite and you live in a cold place. That's really the brand. Trying to tweak the the red into a warrior country. But I think you need to do a bit more work there first.
Mahfuz Chowdhury 26:50
We get we definitely have a long way to go. I think we're trying we're trying that the brand battle we're having in our universe right now your
Francisco Mahfuz 26:57
brand is you I mean, you might not like it but your brand is that you're the nice Americans or you're the less insane Americans are you your America but but ran by reasonable people. I mean, that's a great brand, it might not make you independent enough and help people see your view. But I think that's how most people think is is your the nicer version, the nicer colder version of America, that seems to be the brand across the world, I can
Mahfuz Chowdhury 27:22
barely argue that because it's not until I travel out of country that I really recognise how much people believe in that and how much that is what Canada means to them. I mean, they there's some level of excitement that happens when they find that you're Canadian, and I never thought that was an advantage. You know, I I never thought that would work in my favour. But it's it's quite incredible because of just the fact that it's created a society of people that really represent like, you know, that kind of ties in with we the North is kind of like you're wearing the cape that represents the country. And the cape that you're wearing automatically comes with these beliefs that you're thinking of right now that the friendliness, the kindness, but that's kind of what I mean with the whole story. And representing yourself as a brand is the cape that you're wearing every single day that you show up immediately evokes feelings and emotions and other people. And that usually changes the way that you're either welcomed or not welcomed in any environment that you go into. And what you naturally find that happens is that the better of a job that you do in articulating those stories and messages, the more opportunities that you have in that space. Right, if you're telling the right stories in the world of keynote speaking is it's so hard to believe that other people will want to bring you on as a keynote speaker. You know, if you're doing a really good job and helping the author community with how they share their stories, is it so hard to believe that authors will invite you to their events? So it really does change the opportunities based on the narrative that you drive it in lit,
Francisco Mahfuz 28:48
right. So I want to get into some specific stuff that I know you you talk about and teach when it comes to stories and branding, and one of them is in this one. I genuinely don't know what you mean by that. I can guess but I don't know, is this idea of stalking your stories? What exactly does that mean? And how do you do that? Yeah,
Mahfuz Chowdhury 29:08
stalking your stories, is probably something you do understand very well. But maybe you don't define it that way is the fact that when people are trying to teach anything, whether it is about a lesson that they're trying to share, or whether it's about something that they want people to learn about with their business or their own personal brand, they usually find themselves sharing facts on stage, right. And I've been to enough conferences to see this. It's like here are the three takeaways. They may even get really scientific and share charts and graphs and data. And as much as they're not wrong. The stacking components simply means that each one of your takeaways should have a memorable story that they can walk away with that is stocked along with that communication. So stacking is the execution. It's as you're delivering the message that matters. You're tagging along a irrelevant story that goes with it because what you're going to find that happens More often than not, is that when people come back years later and they see you again, they're actually going to more likely remember the story that you share than the takeaway that you gave. But as we learned when we were kids, and you think of a lot of those nursery rhymes, and those kids stories like The Boy Who Cried Wolf, you know, you remember the boy who cried wolf, and instantly you think about, hey, I shouldn't lie, or else, this person won't believe me, right? The takeaway follows that great story that's shared. And so by stacking the encouragement is to think about the relevant story that goes with it. Interestingly enough, long before I became passionate about storytelling, I was just someone that was speaking on stage trying to get a message across. And I remembered that I spoke at one of my first events, which only had about 30 people. It was a it was a small school that invited me to come and share. And I remember I did a quick talk. Now majority of the talk was about marketing and using digital marketing the right way. But what was really fascinating is that as I was packing up, and putting my laptop in my bag, and getting ready to walk away, I looked up and I saw that there was a lineup of people that were trying to meet me after, and I was flattered. So I stuck around enough to try to meet every single one of them. But the first girl that came up to me, she had tears running down her face. And at first I was really nervous. Because I was like, this was a marketing talk. No one should be crying here, like was that bad, like what happened. But what was interesting is that she came up and what she was crying about had nothing to do with the marketing takeaways. But it had to do with the story that I shared in one of the q&a that I did right after, which was about a challenge that I had in my life that I opened up about with the room, and she was prying and she said, I wish I met you three years ago, because this story would have helped me get out of a really bad situation. And at that moment, without even thinking twice, I completely changed my approach to public speaking. You know, it wasn't even something that I had to sit down and think about instantly, I realised that my first talk, I was going at it all wrong. I was trying to be too heavy on the methods and the tactics and not enough on the heartfelt takeaways. And it was her at the very front of the line that made me forever. Remember that? And since then, I've always thought about every single takeaway that I dropped. What is the story that goes with it? And if I don't have a relevant story that goes with it, I feel like I'm not ready to share that takeaway, because even I haven't understood it well enough.
Francisco Mahfuz 32:18
Well, yes, I actually just said this to students at the MBA I teach at today, I said, if you don't have a single example, from your life, or someone else's life, to go with whatever facts you're sharing, or theory you're talking about, do you actually know about it? I mean, you're talking about something that could happen or has happened more often than not, and why that you don't know any single instance, in real life where that has happened? Because if you don't, then I'm questioning your knowledge of the subject. And if not, if it's something that is a brand new idea, you should be able to come up with some analogies at least. So what is the comparison you making? And that comparison might not be necessarily a story might be a metaphor, it might be something else. But if you cannot come out, come up with anything beyond the theory or beyond your opinion, then I agree, I think you're, you're not ready to share it because you can't back it up, essentially. So no, yeah, that that makes complete sense. And I think one other point, because you just said, you know, the heartfelt story, or the heartfelt example, I don't even think needs to be particularly heartfelt. Because for example, when you talked about new podcast about the nervous energy and how you can wiggle your toes instead of your hands, the example you shared was that you were you're giving a speech, and you're holding a piece of paper, and a piece of paper was shaking, because your hands were shaking, and then someone went and Katherine's slaps the paper out of your hand, is not terribly heartfelt story. But it's very visual, we can clearly see it happening. And I think now 10 years down the line, there is a chance I might remember this idea of someone's lapping the paper out of your hands. Whereas I might not remember the whole, you know, this technique of wiggle your toes instead of your hands without the story. So I think it's just when did it happen to you? When did to happen to someone? Share that with the idea. So if I know Yeah, that makes complete sense.
Mahfuz Chowdhury 34:17
Yeah, I mean, like, the the word that comes to mind for me is relatability. Right? It's like, I may not remember the someone snagged the paper off my hand as I was freaking out in front of the room. But I may remember the day that I start getting nervous, it may trigger that part of like, Hey, I actually remember that one person that said, this, they did this thing, and maybe I should try it out too. And I think that relatability component is is a big piece that often gets missed. I mean, from my from my perspective, it's I also asked myself, like why was that the story that came to mind when I talked about this point? And that's also worth investigating, right like thinking about why did your memory serve you this story for this specific conversation and if there's something to it that resonated with you, even if it's us, you know that paper grabbing story was me back in grade seven. So if that's something from grade seven that's still relevant to me today, it's probably relevant to other people. And I think this does a really good job building a case of what we talked about at the very beginning, which is everyone has a story. And sometimes it's worth thinking about what stories you feed yourself in the circumstances that you go through.
Francisco Mahfuz 35:21
Yeah, no, I completely agree with that point. Now, what I was going to ask you before, was that I've seen you talk about how to build brand loyalty. There are three specific types of storytelling objectives, what would those be?
Mahfuz Chowdhury 35:36
Yeah, so um, let me first and foremost say that the biggest takeaway that I, which resulted in why I talk about these objectives is because what I fear that most people do in the world of digital marketing, especially when you think about social media, podcasts, and so forth, is they fall into what I call the algorithm trap. And the algorithm trap is when they see that something got more likes than another one of their posts, they're more likely to repeat the item that got more likes. But what usually happens is that when you take a breakdown of all the posts that you put out there and see what God the most like, it's usually a picture like you at the beach, or you know, like you in a beautiful location. And all of a sudden, people were just so obsessed with the lighting of that location that they needed to hit like, or maybe the timing just worked out in your favour, the time you posted had the most people on, you just don't know, the real metrics. And my fear is that if you're using likes and comments, and maybe followers gained as your metric of what story you share going forward, it's not going to work very well in your favour, because you're playing by the rules of the algorithm rather than the rules of what you believe to the core. So when I talk about story objectives, what I think about is what metrics matter to you the most, and I talk about it more as pillars and steps rather than individual objectives. I talk about the fact that the biggest mistake I see being in the agency world is that majority of the people out there, they're sharing their stories with the intention of getting a sale or a conversion, right, like if I've shared this story, they're going to buy my book, they're gonna listen to my podcast, they're gonna buy from my business, you're gonna sign up for my course, they're gonna come to my event. And what happens is, over time, they start sounding like a desperate salesman, they start sounding like someone that is trying to push a car on you, in a used parking lot, rather than actually sitting down with you and having better conversations. So my encouragement is that, what I create an 8020 rule, because the reality is majority of the people out there are in business, and they need some level of ability to be able to convert and create sales. So I give them that 20% window, and I say, okay, use 20% of your posts, and your stories do try to make a sale, but that 80% The only purpose of you trying to share the stories should be to start a conversation. That's it, you should just be trying to start a conversation. And what that means is that if you think about me as a marketer, you know, I have a massive caffeine addiction, and that's probably not good. But probably the first step is to admit it to the world. So there is me admitting it, I have a caffeine addiction. So to me, what I find that gets more conversation sometimes is me talking about the cup of coffee that I'm having, you know, in a very simple level, and a story that maybe I had a bonding experience with me driving to a local coffee shop, or my experience of when I used to work at the coffee shop once upon a time. And that gets more conversations rather than me talking about why my agency is the best in the world, why I should be hard for Speaker why people should buy my book, when you start doing that you're starting to build a new type of relationship with people that are all of a sudden starting to be a little bit more conversation focused. It's not just about getting the sale. So the first step is posting stories, for the sake of starting conversation. The second step is for you to jump in those conversations and participate in order to build a relationship with the people that are involved. And this means that the game doesn't end when you hit post and your stories out there in the world. A lot of people think they're done and they move on to the next story. The game only begins when you publish your story for the first time. Because people start engaging with it, they start connecting with it, they may even whether it's in this digital world or outside in person, they may reach out and have conversations with you about it. It is your responsibility now to nurture those relationships and make it a meaningful relationship. You know, someone that you can bond with over time so that the conversations doesn't just end at that one story, you're starting to build a relationship with them. And the beautiful thing about relationships is when you start creating real meaningful relationships, every time they see you, they start automatically and subconsciously thinking and taking in a series of stories that defines who you are to them as a person without you having to say a word just because you've built a relationship with them. They can automatically see you you know, sometimes you'll see that person and you're instantly annoyed. You're trying to dodge them at a party. You don't want them to see you because you don't want to talk to them. Well because the story that you're you're telling yourself in that relationship is that they're probably not a good person, and they're annoying to you. But you if you're creating the type of relationship where people get excited, or they know the the stories that you shared in the past that stick with them, you're going to have those meaningful relationship. Here's the beauty. If you do the first three correctly, the revenue will come easy. The relationship to conversions, those things are something that you don't even need to worry about, you know, I've been speaking on stage for the last 12 years. And I would say till date about 90% of my paid speaking still come from relationships I've built in the past, still about 90% of them. And I haven't, I can't remember the last time I had to really go in door knock in order to try to get them. And I can say the same from our marketing agency, you know, where we're 13 years old, we've been ranked as one of Canada's fastest growing marketing agencies for the last three years, and know the population of Canada is not three, we're pretty big. So it's kind of a big deal. And we've been ranked that. And I can tell you that we've been able to do that without needing to do outbound marketing, we've been doing that by the relationships we've built in the first three to five years. So if the approach in the market is about putting stories out there to create conversations and build relationships, you'll be amazed with how far you can grow any type of initiative that you have, and the type of impact that you can create.
Francisco Mahfuz 41:12
Okay, so one of the questions that a lot of people have in there's many different takes on this, but is, what kinds of stories you need to be putting out there. So I've seen you talk about the concept of impact stories. So what particularly thinking of branding and social media, which I know you have your fingers all over? So do you have a particular framework or just a way of thinking about so for example, is the story that you put out on LinkedIn, very different than a story you'd put out on Facebook? Or Instagram? Or, you know, how do you? How do you advise clients? And how do you look at this yourself with different platforms, slightly different styles of platform?
Mahfuz Chowdhury 41:54
Yeah, so when it comes to different social media platforms, and podcast versus speaking on stage, the person that I still represent myself to be me as the brand is always the same, just the dialogue and the rules that I played by might be a little bit different, you know, from from a very basic level standpoint, we know that, like Instagram, you can slot 30 hashtags on it's a bit more visual heavy. You can also use components like reels and Instagram Live, and so forth, where LinkedIn has a slightly different set of rules. Twitter has a character limit limit rule, so you still need to play by the rules. But the beautiful thing is, you can always still be you. And the way that I define that is a framework that I want to open some eyes to. And for anyone that's watching or listening, it's worth doing a good search for it. Because in the few minutes that we have, I don't know if I can do a good enough job selling you on it. But the idea that it comes down to is a phrase that was coined by a well known philosopher many years ago called his name is Carl Jung. And he came up with the concept called archetypes. And over the years, agencies have taken the concept of archetypes and they formulated something that we now called Brand archetypes. And the study basically comes down to this is the understanding that there are 12 main human desires that every single person has, without needing to be taught that lesson. So some of us might, you know, some Some examples include the feeling of belonging, the feeling of intimacy, the feeling of freedom, you know, these are things that even if it wasn't taught to you, you would crave and have these desires. But because we are all different individuals and unique, different desires are a little bit higher, and make our heart rate go up a little bit faster than other desires, we all have our unique set of how that archetype plays for us. The first thing that's worth thinking about is who you want to be in this brand archetype. And what that means is that which desire you want to connect with people with, right like when you think about legends, like Marilyn Monroe, she she went very heavy, on on the intimacy archetype. And Victoria's Secret is a great brand that also capitalise on that when you think about Nike, they really went heavy on the Champion component, you know, feeling like the leader, and a lot of that was represented by partnering up with the best in the in the sports in the in the the best athletes that they could find in every sport. So when you think about your connection, it needs to tie in with your core beliefs of the impact that you want to make. The impact that I want to make that I discovered many years ago was that I want to leave this world recognised as someone that lend a helping hand in every area that I could. And part of this ties in with a very melodramatic story of when I was in university and not doing well. Being a shy introvert I found it very, very difficult to ask for help. And I just never got that help when I was younger, and because I never got that help. And I never asked for it. I ended up going through a phase where I was kicked out of school for bad grades and went through academic probation. And during that probation period, I grew a chip on my shoulder that said that, hey, once I figured this out, I'm going to turn backwards and I'm going to try to lend a helping hand to other people, which in anyways feeds who I am every single day, right every single time I get on stage, I always think to myself that there may be another shy young boy who's in the audience that maybe is too shy to raise their hand, but maybe needs the same type of help that I went through. So the things that I share, I always think of, I'm trying to connect with those individuals. And that is the connection path that I take and the brand archetype, you know, the feeling of being able to create an impact through that type. So what's worth doing for every single person is taking a look at the brand archetype wheel. And the brand archetype wheel has evolved so much that you can actually see a company example a movie character example, and a quote and statements that you may recognise associated with each one of the archetypes. So it makes it a lot easier for you to resonate by saying, like, Hey, I'm kind of like this character, or I'm kind of gravitating towards this brand. The more time you spend thinking about that, what eventually happens is that you start figuring out what your dominant brand archetypes are. And when you figure out what your dominant traits are, those are the traits that you bring in in the way that you share your story. And it can change you know, you can imagine that someone that is trying to be the jester very comedic, would approach a story very differently with than someone that is trying to be sentimental. Right, you can just imagine how different like the way you shared your hilarious ski story.
Francisco Mahfuz 46:18
Yeah, I don't. I didn't imagine the gesture feels like
Mahfuz Chowdhury 46:22
Yeah, yeah, you know, the gesture might might have clowned on me having a breakdown in university for all we know, right? Like you could only imagine. But like even this, even the story you shared about your ski story like I might have gone out and very different because of the way I approach stories. But the beautiful thing is both could work. depending on who's listening, both could work. And because everyone is different, you have the opportunity to really own your style and attract the right type of people, which eventually become your tribe and community down the road.
Francisco Mahfuz 46:50
Yeah, no, I agree. And I think it is, this is something to be said about personal styles. And I've often thought that if you pick something that happened and turn it over, and over and over, there will always be different angles to it. And you can always find different meanings to many stories. So one exercise that I've started doing people in workshops, is I, I asked them to tell me something that happened. And then I asked them and everyone else in the room say what, what can that mean? What can that be a story about? And sometimes you get four or five, six different things you can say actually all of them could be like we could tell the story with any of those six, what do we want to tell the story for? Are you trying to highlight that you're a fun loving person or trying to highlight that you make mistakes all the time, you're trying to highlight how, I don't know some people are not very supportive when they they should be, pick that thing. emphasise the parts that are relevant, don't emphasise the parts that are not adding to that meaning and then and then go with that. And I because I for some reason that I'm not sure I've delved deep enough into my psychological past. To know, I abhor boring things like you know, anything that is not that it hasn't been that amount of fun. To me just seems like a missed opportunity, assuming there is any fun elements to be had. So whenever I look at a story, I think, Okay, now, in what way is this funny? In what way is this something to laugh about instead of someone to be angry or to be disappointed, and there's almost always something which, which explains a lot of however, most of my stories, your story
Mahfuz Chowdhury 48:29
style is beautiful. And like as I've gotten to know you, every single time I see one of your LinkedIn stories, I stopped and I read it, you know, it's just it's just a very unique approach. But I think one thing we can agree on is the fact that it takes time you know, it's a it's a skill that you can get better than a lot of people are afraid, you know, I when I look at your story, sometimes I think of people that may read that and be like, Wow, I could never tell a story like that like, and that scares them away. But you've been doing it for such a long time, not to mention the amount of practice you get on stage and the fact that you teach these courses like you have given yourself the capacity to grow in that space. I'm a huge fan of late Kobe Bryant and I as I was watching him growing up that made me a big fan of basketball. I really appreciated his pride in becoming a student of the craft. And what would that look like was that he would he would immediately after the game, we watched the tapes because for him watching those tapes would allow him while the story is still fresh in his head while the game is fresh in his head. He can watch it and identify what he could have done differently and improve almost immediately, if not physically, at least mentally for the next time. And I think storytelling is the exact same thing. You know, I can't tell you the amount of times especially when I first started that I would run to a local radio shop, you know a small electronics store that's out of business now. And they had a audio recorder that had double A batteries and I scooped it up thinking this is going to change my life. And I don't even know where it is anymore. I hope one day I can find it to do a throwback Thursday post. But what I used to do is every single day I would go to an event, I would set that audio recorder on on the podium. And I would speak and I would instantly after that event, go back and listen to it. And not only based on how I sounded, but how the audience responded, if people lined up after to meet me, I would keep that record going. So I can listen to the questions that they asked or the things that they said, because there's very, very small hints and gems of them identifying which stories resonated with them the most. So when you think about Derek, sharing the story, be it if it's on stage on social media, on podcasting, on books, even in a conversation that you have every single day with other people spend some time reflecting on it, because that reflection will actually open your eyes on how much you can navigate and get better. And we often hear the statement about getting 1% better. And I think about if you got 1% better and storytelling every time you told your story, it doesn't take a long time before you really do a good job in finessing the way that you share that every day. I think
Francisco Mahfuz 51:05
something you said I want to pick up on because because it's it's not true at all. And I think it's important to say that it's not true at all. I haven't been doing this for that many years. That's the truth. Although I have been speaking in public for a very long time. And I do I have told stories for a very long time. The way I tell stories now is already significantly different than it was a year ago. And it's vastly different than it was a few years ago. And I fully I fully buy this idea that some people will see a story I've told or other have posted and go wow. And people say, Oh, you're a master storyteller. I'm like, No, I'm not. Like I know from the top of my head I've interviewed 10 or 15. People that are miles be like they know stuff I don't even dream of not knowing. And what people don't necessarily realise is that there are formulas for these things that once you incorporate them to the way you tell a story or you write a story, they just change completely how good the story comes across. So for example, in writing, usually, all I do is, you know, I know what the meaning of the story is, when I figured it out before I started telling the story, I think, Okay, what needs to stay in my needs to go out, then I write it, I try to have as much in dialogue in action descriptions as I can, because it makes it more vivid. In some cases, I will even write it or tell it in the present tense, because then increases the sort of the suspense of this is happening right now I don't know what's going to happen. And then usually, there's a two other things that I think make a massive difference, I pick one line of dialogue, or one strange line and move it to the top of the post. That's the hook. So you know, in this one about a ski was she flew down the mountain, and I knew she's cheating on me. So that's it right. And the other thing I do is I keep making wrong predictions. So I keep saying, you know, she's cheating on me, we're going to have an awkward conversation, this is not going to end up well. She's going to fall hit the fence. None of those things actually happen. But I keep saying them with conviction to misdirect the reader about where the story's going. None of those things are particularly difficult to do. And there are little frameworks you can give people and say, Okay, fine, you wrote it, okay, gets the most strangest line of dialogue and make it the first line. Okay, change this by that. And if people do it and apply themselves, right 567 Little stories like that, all of a sudden, it's just a completely different finger doing. But I think the problem is that either people don't ever do it, they they're gonna tell one story in the one presentation that they're giving once a year, or they are trying to improve, but they're not following any type of method. There is no one saying to them, You did this? Well. This is where you could have gone a bit better, but handled my heart. I think the way I tell stories, like if you showed me any of the stories I tell now, a year ago, I would have been impressed of how good I've gotten because I didn't think I could do that a year ago I was decent. But I was nowhere near as good as I think I am now and I still have miles to go show me a story a year down the line. I'm going to go nuts on me. That's someone much better than me tell him the story. But again, I do this podcast every week I talk about it. If we can social media, I read a tonne of books and storytelling so yeah, there is a craft and you can dedicate yourself to it.
Mahfuz Chowdhury 54:23
Yeah, and you know you make a heavy point around increasing frequency as well right? The amount of times that you do it in different ways also makes a world of a difference on how much better you got. But it's a beautiful thing when you go back and see your old stories and you get like the look of disgust or disappointment because you got so much better. That's a good problem to have and I hope that's something that people get to experience because it instantly gives them that confidence that if you can do something you can do it better and you've been doing it better over time to a point where it's the the old items Gosh even for you like looking back as recent as you did, and still being impressed, that's fantastic in terms of the improvement than the you have. It's also worth stating that like we you and I just shared, which are slightly different in the way that we approach getting better at storytelling is different. And it also is an emphasis on the fact that there are different ways to get better at it, right? Like there's structures, there is approaches there is practising, there's reflecting. And I think there's a lot that happens there. But at the end of the day, I think about how many people don't end up doing it for the first time out of the fear out of the fear of comparison, right. And the comparison component is, is worth noting, because if that part of you is not under control, you're going to constantly either not get started, or you're going to hate your craft, because you're always going to compare with others and see that maybe you didn't like yours as much as you like theirs. I love the idea of comparing it with yourself. I love the idea of looking back and thinking about how much further you got out there. You know, my my first few talks back in the days, it's like it was never really as good as it is these days. And I couldn't be more thankful that I got through those bad days to really learn and get better. And when you realise that everyone kind of goes through a similar path in terms of progression, and action rather than perfection, you start realising that it is a common path that every single person needs to take it. The beautiful thing about social media, podcasting, speaking on stage and so forth, is that it's not a one time show, right? If one falls flat, it's not the end of the world, you literally could come back the next day or even later in that day and do it again, try another story, try another Donald try another approach. And there's so many opportunities to tweak. And this is why there's such a big emphasis now on not just Ready, aim, fire, but Ready Fire and then aim, right, like put as much stuff out there as you can, and then modify it. Because what happens is that you often find that it's usually those two or three big plays that make the world of a difference, where even if 97 of those other plays didn't hit as well, those three will usually become monumental. When you think about some of the best storytellers in the world, you only really remember them for one or two great stories, right? And they've told a lot more than that, but you only really remember them for those. That job is to find those within yourself. Not try to nail it every single time.
Francisco Mahfuz 57:13
Yeah, no, I completely agree. And I believe in a given volume over quantity, or over quantity over quality approach. Definitely. And it's truly you don't know what's going to resonate, you don't know what's going to be the great story. And I always remember, I always remember when I the very first speaking competition that I took part in, and there was this guy called Sebastian, and he he went up on stage and he shared the story of being a kid who was bullied and all of that. And I remember on that competition, he finished, he finished second, I think he was only the first the first place that went forward to the next levels of competition. And he came down and he was really despondent, and he said, but But what am I gonna do now, like, that was my story. Like I've told my story, then. And I remember, I didn't know any better at the time. I thought that sounds a bit dramatic. But I mean, I can kind of see that. It's like his bullying stories, how he's grown up in this different. And over the years, it just hit me How absurd that statement is. And how you find that, you know, in the competitive speaking world, or in any world that involves storytelling, sometimes the stories that resonate with more people are the simplest, silliest things, and not the sort of big journey of self discovery. And to this day, I still remember him saying, What do I do now? I've told my one story, and that one wasn't good enough. So yes, Sebastian, if you're hearing I'm pretty sure you got over that now mate. Alright, so to you, you do you have your fingers in a lot of pies. So you are you're on social media and plenty of channels? And how many podcasts have you got now
Mahfuz Chowdhury 58:57
I have over 140 episodes of my podcast show ride with me a crazy idea, you know, it's called ride with me because somewhere along the way, I decided that the best way for me to get a podcast out of my busy schedule is to mount a cell phone on the dash of my car and hit record while I'm driving, which gets terrifying sometimes, and gets a lot of questions about safe driving, but I promise you it's very, very safe. And it allowed me to get 140 episodes out. And since then, I've actually just launched another podcast show with one of my closest friends and it's called Modern mindset. And that just is I would say the evolution of me, you know, trying to get trying to better understand what I want to share with the world and realising that it was important for me to move away from some of the marketing and personal branding tactics and dive in a little bit more towards mindset mentality, personal development and those areas of the world that I am very passionate about and don't get to talk about enough. So I've really dove in deep in that podcast that's about six episodes deep and that's a weekly Show and it gets me excited. Every Sunday morning, I got to tell you, I just love jamming with a good friend and have great conversation and great stories with them.
Francisco Mahfuz 1:00:07
Now I fully agree I think I, I find the ad I've done a couple of solo episodes, and I am not a big lover of the solo episode, I much prefer to have someone to bounce ideas off of, although it must be said that in this particular case, every time I said your name is sounded like I was talking to myself, I still not sure how I feel about that. But I'm glad I'm glad we managed to get this done.
Mahfuz Chowdhury 1:00:32
Hey, man, it's it's so much fun. And I almost wish I practice your way of communicating so that it would have almost sounded like you were just speaking to yourself the whole time. It's, it would have been fun. I gotta tell you, the speaking to yourself in a podcast episode, there's some type of beauty around it, when you're just thinking out loud into a microphone, because you you think a lot in your head. And sometimes the ideas are unfinished, right? Because when you're thinking in your head, sometimes you jump from one topic to another because there isn't a demand or a necessity to finish a thought you can just quickly jump into the next thing. When you're forced to think out loud, it makes you laser focus a thought and you pour it out. And sometimes what I find is that what we're talking about storytelling, some of my best stories come out in real time when I'm just thinking out loud. In my podcast show I've always gone in with no preparation, I would just have the theme of what I wanted to dive into. And usually what happens is that I end up recording that episode. And I'm shocked that I pulled out three stories that I didn't think I was going to pull out and naturally what happens is that those stories makes its way into my other channels, be it social media or on stage. So it's a quite a fascinating activity. You know, if people aren't even doing it for the sake of creating a podcast or putting it out into the world, I actually recommend trying that out. You'd be amazed with what a big impact that makes in defining your stories in the words that you want to share. But perhaps
Francisco Mahfuz 1:01:52
not don't do it while you're driving. It takes a professional to be laser focused on your theme and not cure yourself on the road as a as a terrible driver. I feel very able to say that.
Mahfuz Chowdhury 1:02:05
Yes, yes, I do not in any way support driving and driving and recording. I think that's going to be a new law that we got to make sure we take off the plate did not do that. But definitely tried self narrative. It's a it's a beautiful thing.
Francisco Mahfuz 1:02:18
Yes. Yes. Driving. Well, podcasting is surely to be a felony at some point soon. Or you should be alright man, thank you very much for coming on the show. It's for we finally did it. We none of us was late. I think we can keep on it. We can keep a relationship going.
Mahfuz Chowdhury 1:02:34
I appreciate it so much, man. This is this is such a great podcast show as well as a great conversation. Man. Thank you for all the things you do around the world of storytelling. I'm excited to keep up with their journey. And I'm excited to keep hearing the other stories that you share on the show.
Francisco Mahfuz 1:02:48
Alright, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. Take care of yourselves. And until next time.
I hope you enjoy the show. And if you did, I'd love for you to subscribe and leave us a review or a rating on the Apple podcasts app. It's very easy. You open the app and find this show and scroll down a little and when you see the stars tab. I'd really appreciate it and it does help other people find this. And if you'd like to get in touch or find out more about what I do, reach out to me on LinkedIn or visit my website story powers.com
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