♾️ The Infinite Story Method

In this 3-part series:

1. First, we spoke about: What it takes to be widely remembered and loved. We are seeking to deeply resonate with our audience by being bold and different.

2. Then we dove into how you can find the Sweet Spot of Differentiate so you can stand out, innovate and create change.

3. Today we will wrap up this mini-series going over The Infinite Storytelling Method so that you can effectively communicate your truth, vision and change for the world.

Why storytelling?

1️⃣ It’s the easiest way to understand something

As humans, we already tell stories ALL DAY LONG. They help us make sense of the world and validate our place in it as a safety mechanism. We make inferences from our previous experiences and use this new experience to build upon our story to make sense of this new experience. We instinctively and effortlessly do this because it requires very little brain power. It’s why you cry at the end of a sad or romantic movie. You get pulled in and their pain becomes your pain.

See how we do this on autopilot all day long.

Imagine someone cuts you off in traffic:

1. We will tell ourselves (sometimes unconsciously):

   1. that guys an asshole and the world is a miserable place

   2. of course they cut in front of me, nobody respects me

   3. women are terrible drivers, as a man, I am superior

   4. ah… he probably just has to shit. I hope he makes it home!

2. We tell stories to relate, connect and empathize with others or to receive empathy:

   1. this asshole cut me off today and almost caused a pile up on 70. I was so scared!

   2. dude see, I got cut off today, this always happens to me

   3. lol yeah exactly, this woman almost hit me today she was so oblivious

   4. I’ve done that before dude. One time I blew right through a stop sign because I was gonna shit my pants

3. Well respond with stories to offer new perspectives and educate

   1. That is scary! Three years ago I was in a pile up in New York, but here’s how I stayed calm.

   2. I was standing at the top of the subway steps for like 10 minutes then this guy bumped and said so sarcastically, “great place to stand!” Sometimes, people just aren’t aware of what they’re doing.

   3. When I was young my mom saved us from sliding off the highway in a snow storm and she’s literally never gotten pulled over. I think being a woman has nothing to do with it.

   4. Last week this guy cut me off, but now I just pretend everyone is in a rush to get home to take a dump. I was able to stay so calm and enjoy my podcast. It’s helped me really enjoy my commutes more.

When we tell stories intentionally as part of our business, we allow our audience to instinctively identify their place in it without having to think. Then they either relate to it or reject it.

The worst type of marketing is one where someone has to think really hard. Imagine your experience scrolling through Instagram. You’re not going to stick around for something that is confusing when your brain can easily swipe and look at a puppy, a bungalow on the beach, or cheese dripping off a double bacon burger.

These things are simple to understand.

Stories make things simple.

2️⃣ Making meaning is what we do!

Humans are meaning making machines.

It’s what we ALL do. We are wired for it no matter what work we do.

Artist make meaning by creating a tangible representation of their feelings. It is the artist truth. The fun part about art is that there is no right or wrong. It’s all up for an individuals interpretation. Beautiful art resonates when it helps us make meaning of our own internal narrative. We sing Sparks by Coldplay in the shower after a breakup because it makes us feel less alone.

Scientist make meaning by running experiments to validate their hypothesis so they can confirm truths about our universe. It is a universal truth. With science there is rarely room (zero room?) for black and white. It’s a “yes this is true” or a it’s a “no this is false.”

Art and science seem to be opposites. Art is completely up for interpretation and science leaves no room for interpretation. Art is feeling based and science is fact based. Yet, here we are trying to make meaning.

Everything we do falls somewhere on a graph of making meaning through feeling and making meaning based on fact. As a coach, I believe we fall somewhere in the middle.

Our businesses exists because we have solved a problem for ourselves and want to offer this solution to others. This is your story. Your story is 100% true. The things you’ve done to solve your problem have worked. True. And, it won’t work for everyone. It’s not a universal truth like a scientific discovery, but you better believe it will feel true for others, just as I’m not the only one who has sang to Sparks in the shower after a breakup.

Your job as a storyteller is to share your truth with conviction (remember the first email in this series about being bold?).

Is the solution we offer to the world the truth? The best way? We can’t know. But we want to believe it’s the truth, just as Martin Luther King stands up on stage and believes with all his heart that all men were created equal. You can feel it in your bones when he speaks.

(*Also note, you can simultaneously hold space to be wrong, change your mind and evolve just as scientist update their hypothesis and hip hop artist turn country (looking at you Beyonce!)).

Since science is after 100% truth and has a precise method for uncovering their truths, I thought we could borrow this method to uncover our own stories so we could express our truths in a consistent way.

The Infinite Story Method

The scientific method was invented to assist scientist in uncovering the truth of our universe, so we will use the same method to uncover the truth of our universe (you get it).

Remember the scientific method from grade school? It looks like this:

The goal of the scientific method is to reach a conclusion (or discovery) that you can report. As coaches with a business, we already have our conclusion. You created your business because you solved a problem for yourself and saw that you could help other people solve this problem.

The thing is… nobody truly cares about how you solve this problem.

One of the most famous quotes in marketing comes from Harvard Business School Professor Theodore Levitt: “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!”

And why do they want a hole?

To put a screw in.

What’s the screw for?

To hang a photo of the family trip to Italy.

Why that photo and not a piece of art?

Because you love your family more than anything in the world. Every time you see that photo you get to be reminded of that trip and how much you love your family. Every time someone asks you about that photo you beam with pride at your beautiful family. Family is everything (not a drill).

Likewise, nobody actually wants your product, or as we called it last week, your vehicle (the way in which you solve your clients problem).

• People don’t actually want to do more breathwork. Breathwork is simply the vehicle. They want what they think breathwork will give them.

• People don’t want to sit around doing parts work. They want what doing parts work will get them.

• You don’t even want to tell stories. You want what telling stories will get you.

If you don’t believe me and you believe people are only purchasing your vehicle, then you are just a commodity. If that is true and all I want is breathwork, then I don’t need you. Breathwork is already everywhere. I can get it from the Wim Hof app for free and Wim Hof has more followers than you. Easy choice. (or think of it like buying batteries of Amazon. No loyalty. Just give me the cheapest.)

That’s not the game we are playing.

Simply by reading this email, you are proof that you don’t play this game.

There are plenty of newsletters to read and storytellers to learn from. You’re not here because I’m the best, you’re here because I resonate. Remember, that is what we’re ultimately after.

When you tell stories about the quarter inch drill, nobody cares.

When you tell stories about why your family is so important to you, your audience will deeply resonate.

This is what Jay Acunzo calls, your premise.

This is where we must begin to uncover stories that resonate so you can sell more quarter-inch drills.

1. Your Premise

My truth is that I’ve been a follower my whole life. I’ve waited for people to give me answers. I never trusted myself to do what I knew to be true. I did whatever everybody else was doing in hopes that would make me happy and I would fit in, that I wouldn’t be embarrassed and left to die all alone.

The stories I tell are not random and no accident.

• Being a bully in middle school because my friends were bullies, but I hated myself for it.

• Getting rejected by Sami in high school because I was suuuuuch a beta little bitch.

• My regret of not pursuing baseball in college because nobody told me I should even though I loved baseball more than anything.

• Knowing I wanted to be a personal trainer in college, but waited 10 years until rock bottom to pursue it.

• Biking across America. The first time I truly trusted myself to do something nobody else was doing, but I loved.

• Quitting engineering to become a personal trainer (finally!)

• Telling my dad I was quitting engineering. Speaking my truth was frightening.

Being a follower was causing me so much internal pain. It wasn’t until I realized only I knew what the right path for me was and slowly began to trust myself to take action on those things that I created a life filled with more happiness, joy, excitement and love. Once I was in love with life, I could create the change I knew I wanted to create in the world.

My vehicle could be anything. Surely you could can change the world through breathwork, parts work, yoga, running, manifestation, writing a book, starting a podcast, or a million other things. It just so happens that my truth is that I really do loooooove storytelling and really do believe in it’s power. You can rewrite your story, stand out, use it to powerfully influence your work, and it’s a source to stop copying everybody else on social media. It’s the path to do what I did (am doing): Love life, love your work, love your content and create the change you wish to see in the world.

What you consume from me is not so much about storytelling as it is about no longer being a follower. It’s about being the person who has the courage to do the things their way. To no longer be held back by what mom and dad think or what your teacher said when you were 12 or what your mentor is doing to earn money. And even though you didn’t grow up in Connecticut, go to Manhattan College, ride your bike across America, quit engineering and move to Colorado, you damn sure know what it’s like to be too afraid to trust yourself. That’s really what I’m selling. That is what really resonates with you and why you want learn about storytelling from me.

My premise: To trust yourself to be yourself so you can change the world.

What about you?

2. Question

Right now you have your premise. It is your deeper truth. It’s your overall core story. It’s the change you seek to make in the world. It’s the reason you’re reading this 3-part email series: To be remembered and loved!

Take a step back and ask yourself, what is the point of the work I’m doing?

You could do anything. You could go back to corporate and make a guaranteed salary with PTO and take a real vacation and not stress about the next sale.

So why does this matter so much to you?

What would be different about your life if you knew all this sooner?

What will change about the world if your work got out to 100 million people?

If this feels hard, keep going through the steps. The great thing about stories is, the more you tell, the more clarity you get.

3. Research

Pixar’s Rule Number 1 of Storytelling: We admire a character for trying more than their success. Remember we don’t connect to your one big story. We connect to the moments in between. (suggested reading: 6 Steps to Tell Unforgettable Stories)

Start digging in your memories for those moments.

What has happened in your life that kept you from this life for so long?

For guidance, look at your 3 core identities we identified last week.

I can start by looking back on my athlete identity: Where did I not trust myself during all those years of playing baseball? Maybe it was in the backyard having a catch with my brother? Maybe it was my first day at cross country practice? Why did I quit cross country after 1 year? I blame a broken foot but the truth is, I didn’t fit in. I got teased and was called “sucks at frisbee kid.” I shrunk at that. I couldn’t have fun with the teasing. I couldn’t own it. So I ran away.

I literally just thought of that as I wrote this newsletter. You’ll find something too when you slow down and give yourself space to think (and when that stops working, you’ll want to get out of your head by going for a long run, workout, cook, play an instrument or anything that you into your body).

You can also find stories that happened yesterday. I’m definitely not fully healed. I still struggle to fully trust myself. I still look for answers outside myself like scrolling through IG thinking I’ll learn some magic trick about marketing that will help me gain a million followers even though I know that’s not what’s actually going to help me.

Stories from yesterday tend to feel more vulnerable. But we’re here to be bold, remember?

Begin, by creating a list of stories that pop into your head. This is your story bank. We can pull from this at any time so you don’t have to try to remember all your stories.

4. Hypothesis

This is the most important part.

A scientist’s hypothesis is a proposed explanation using their current evidence.

That is what you’ll do with your story. Give it an explanation, or as I like to say, a purpose.

The purpose of telling one of the stories you uncovered in step 3 should support your premise so you can build a consistent brand message over time.

This is where the art and practice of storytelling comes in.

We have been unconsciously making up a stories our whole lives to help us make meaning of the world. Memories are not the truth. That means we get to create new meanings out of our stories and take our power back over them. This is what I mean when I say, “you get to take your story back.”

For example. I had a story in my head that my success is predicated on my popularity. This all started when a popular kid beat me in a storytelling competition in high school. Even though I lost, my teacher still gave me an A because he loved my story. I always disregarded that fact when I remembered that story. But it’s so important to the truth of what really happened!!

I recently took a look back on that story and realized I could rewrite the meaning of that story. That story actually proves that being less popular, not as cool or hot doesn’t matter when you trust yourself. When I trust myself, no matter the conditions, I will get A results. You can watch that reel here (link).

You will begin to see that lots of your stories can fit your premise. It’s why it became your premise, because it’s your truth.

It’s worth repeating because this is the entire purpose of this entire email. Practice making all your stories about your premise. They may not all be and that’s okay. Not all of mine are, but the more stories you tell the more stories you will uncover and the better you will get and positioning your stories around your premise

5. Experiment

Not every story has to be told.

Sometimes you will uncover a story and love it, but it doesn’t fit with the work or specific point you’re trying to make. Don’t throw it away, keep it for safe keeping. Usually a story is just a seed and hasn’t yet found the time to blossom. (I had a story for today’s newsletter and it just didn’t work. I’ll probably tell it in a few weeks. It’s so fucking good, but I couldn’t force it into this email)

Sometimes that story leads you to the next great story to be told. Don’t get frustrated you spent time on a story you can’t use, get excited because you are flexing your storytelling muscle and building an arsenal. Uncovering stories is never a waste of time.

There is no wrong way to tell a story. Have fun with it.

Some stories need to be told fast and loud. Some slow and quiet. Some require both.

Some stories start at the end and work their way back. Some bounce around the time line.

See if you can get your listeners on the edge of their seat. And when you have them there…. pause…. for dramatic effect.

Speaking of play, go get some inspiration. If you see something you like from another creator, steal like an artist (suggest reading: Steal Like an Artist)

6. Report

We differ a bit from the scientific method here.

We want to be remembered and loved for the change we wish to create (your premise). A story does no good sitting in your notebook or in your drafts. To learn how take one of these memories and tell the story, I’ll recommend this previous newsletter again: 6 Steps to Tell Unforgettable Stories

There are other massive benefits to sharing your story too.

The work is not complete until it’s shared and when it’s shared you more fully embody it’s truth. The whole reason we don’t share our truth is because it’s scary and we don’t want to get rejected and feel alone. Here’s a chance to heal those wounds by taking bold action.

7. Data & Feedback

1. The story has to resonate with you first. Now that it’s out in the world, how does it feel?

Our content holds the truth of our current energy. If we hate what we post, it won’t resonate. If we tell a story to appease others, you’ll never be satisfied. You have to believe in what you say. You want to lay in bed at night being proud of your work. Sure, you may wish to improve your videography skills because we always want to improve. Can you be proud with the story you told based on where you’re at today? Not compared to anyone else.

If yes, go to the next question.
If not, go back to step 3.

2. How was your story received?

There can be a lot of metrics to look at on social media. Some of them mean more than others. Sometimes the algorithm just doesn’t get the content in front of the right people. Having said that, you probably know what lands with your audience and doesn’t based on your typical engagement.

When a post resonates, people will comment and share. Despite this post only getting 44 likes, there are lots of comments and DM conversation. Compared to this post that got 3x the likes but way less comments. Notice what stories do well and lean into them. If you tell a story you love that didn’t resonate, try reworking it and tell it again.

8. Conclusion

As I mentioned, the more stories you tell the more you remember. As you continue to share stories with your audience, you want to continue to reflect.

Is this still my truth? Has my premise changed?

Mine has evolved over the years as I have evolved and grown as a person.

The more stories I told the more locked in and became certain of the truth of my premise. The same will be true for you.

If right now, you aren’t so sure. I’ve been there. Keep telling stories with intention. Keep being a scientist in your search for meaning.

In summary

The universe rewards the bold and consistent.

When you boldly speak your truth story after story, you will build a community of people who crave the change you seek to make because they resonate with your premise.

This is what it takes to be loved and remembered.

Thank you so much for reading.

1. I went hard on these last 3 emails. It probably took me 60 hours to write them. It would mean a lot to me if you replied and told me what was helpful so I can continue to write better emails for you. I am not asking as an algorithm hack. A reply to this email won’t make it go viral haha. Feedback helps me improve, so I can help you improve.

2. If you want support with storytelling so you can create an audience of true fans, I have a spot open for 1:1 coaching. Click here to apply.

With love,

Matt