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Tell me about your vision.

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Well, I mean, our vision is to tell stories that make the world a better place.

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And part of that vision, at a tactical level, is to work with 1,000 story partners to help

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tell their stories well and multiply their impact, their impact, their influence, and

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their income in that process.

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And at first glance, 1,000 doesn't seem like a lot until you realize the people we're working

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with are themselves reaching a lot of people.

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And so we see story builders kind of as a catalyst, as a force multiplier, if you will.

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If we work with 1,000 people and multiply their impact, I did the math once.

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I mean, just one of the people we work with has a reach of...

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His goal is to reach 100 million weekly, right?

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And so you do the math on that.

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You're reaching a whole lot of people, touching a lot of lives.

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And we do it through story because we believe every story matters.

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I love that.

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In fact, I'm gonna praise some of what I see on your website because we have some overlap

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and that overlap is worth noting.

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Those of you listening in, when Bill talks about telling stories, I think it's very important.

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One, I love your quote here.

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I know it's simple.

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I know people can downplay the value and importance of it, but the world needs to hear what you

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have to say.

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I couldn't agree more.

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There's so many people out there who don't have the environment or perhaps the courage

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or the support to be able to share their stories.

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And you're talking about the stories that really blessed people.

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I saw a picture of Lewis Howes on here.

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Sure.

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Here he is.

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Lewis Howes, who I was fortunate enough to be part of the team that ran his YouTube ads

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for his webinar.

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And Michael Hyatt.

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We also got to run YouTube ads for what he's up to, what he was up to.

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This was six years ago.

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These brands that it looks like, I take it you've worked with these individuals in these

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companies?

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Yeah, that's a few of them.

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Yeah, we've, yeah, some really great people.

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And we've worked with all kinds of names and high profile, John Maxwell, Kevin Harrington,

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all these different folks.

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That's all cool.

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But at the same time, as I said, every story matter.

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Of course.

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We don't look at it as, oh, Lewis is better than somebody else's story.

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No.

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In fact, I would argue- But it validates and creates a very important

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reality, Bill.

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And I've got to say that for the audience.

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I love the humility that you express.

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I love the reality that you realize that there's no better.

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We are all equals on this earth.

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And at the same time, it wouldn't, it's not because Lewis Howes, trust me, I've worked

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with some leaders who have hundreds of thousands, have breached the million mark, and I will

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never work with them again.

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They weren't the type of leader that was aligned with the way I view the world from an ethics

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standpoint.

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On the contrary, John Maxwell and what he's up to, getting behind the scenes on Lewis

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and calling Brittany his assistant and saying, he has to fix this ad, or it's going to destroy

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his reputation.

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Not because he was doing anything unethical or illegal, but because his opening line was,

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hey, you're watching this because you're an entrepreneur.

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But no, it was an interruptive ad.

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So people were going to say, no, I'm not watching this because I'm an entrepreneur.

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I'm watching it because you're getting in the way of what I want to watch.

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And she's like, Lewis is sick.

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But as soon as, you know, he can't record that.

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But as soon as I gave that context, she's like, okay, he's on it.

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We'll get it done right now.

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So I'm referring to leaders and I picked those ones out specifically because I've seen them

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walk the talk.

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There's a way to go about telling your story.

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So I'd love to know a little bit more about your vision regarding that.

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How do you help everybody share the story that they have, but also I so in on a story

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that does build hope and that does bring goodness to the world?

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Right.

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Yeah, I would suggest that some of those bigger names that we talked about that are those

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kind of leaders, what has helped, what has shaped their path is that they have been intentional

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about their story.

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They've been intentional about what story they're telling, what story they want to tell,

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how they're telling it.

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And it's always a delight to work with people like that who have this story awareness.

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We have something we call our storytelling structure that we use for creating any kind

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of content as a five step process that kind of guides us.

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That's kind of the science behind it, right?

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Creating good stories is both an art and a science and that's kind of some of the science

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behind it.

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It's just based on thousands of years of storytelling experience as humans.

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We pulled that together.

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So we use that in a lot of ways to come alongside people and it always begins with an ideation

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session, right?

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We call it a story strategy.

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How do you get your strategy together?

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What you want your story to be includes who you are really and being authentic to that,

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but who your audience is, right?

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And trying to bring those together and then walking through that process, figuring out

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what do they want?

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How do I present it the way they want?

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How do I talk about me?

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How do I talk about the solutions that I offer, the guidance I offer and then what action

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do I want them to take?

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Like through that whole structure is how you really begin to shape a lot of that and just

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being candid and honest about it, right?

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Because sometimes we do meet people.

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We talk to her like, Hey, your message isn't for us.

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It's not a right fit for us or a great idea, but you need to go away and do some work on

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it and come back later when you're at a stage when we could actually be of service to you.

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Yes, that's awesome.

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I'm grateful for that vetting process.

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It can feel in the world that there's not a lot of vetting that goes on when it comes

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to exchange of services.

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But if that's the case that you're facing and evaluating, I'm talking to you as listeners,

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if you're facing that reality, then it's on you to do more vetting and to figure out where

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can I go or how do I check references and figure out who I want to work with?

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Because there are lots of people out there like Bill who are willing to turn down contracts

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if it's not a good fit.

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And that's a really healthy, important reality.

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Does it make you bad?

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Does it make your story bad?

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Does it make you not valuable to the market?

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It just means that you finally met somebody who's not just willing to take your money,

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just take the money.

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So I would love to dive in to one more aspect with you.

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We got a little bit of time.

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So while you're doing that, let me just add to that.

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What we're really talking about is alignment.

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It doesn't matter what service you're doing, what you're trying to accomplish.

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You need people to partner with who are in alignment with you.

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It doesn't matter, they may be the most highly skilled.

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If the chemistry isn't there, if you're not on the same page in terms of the outlook and

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the message, all that, ultimately you're going to have friction and it's going to destroy

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itself.

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It's going to fall apart as you go forward.

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And so my suggestion for people, don't just get the most qualified credentialed people,

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though you want that, but don't make your decision based on that.

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You actually have to connect with the people in terms of their character, their chemistry,

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then you can get to competence and talk about that.

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You got to be in alignment, especially with projects that your story, they're so personal,

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whether you're creating a book or a digital course or workshop or whatever you're doing.

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You got to have people who are on the same page who align with where you're trying to

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go.

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Love it.

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Tribal leadership highlights that to tremendous capacity.

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The idea of alignment and how they actually juxtaposition it with harmony and how there's

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a difference between the two and how alignment, paraphrasing, but represents, we don't do

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the same things or think the exact same way, but we still coexist with an essence of harmony.

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But it's based on a shared reality that can be argued.

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And again, they do a great job of, that's one of those sections of that book that I'm

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really looking forward to go back to.

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And I saw them emulate that in the book where they decided to stall the publication of their

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book, because they proved their hypothesis wrong.

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And I didn't realize it until really late in the experience that it was a very hard

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decision to make, I'm sure from a budget and a strategic standpoint to pivot and I guess

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resolve the reality that they foresaw.

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So how did you get started, Bill, with story builders or storytelling?

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You mentioned thousands of years of storytelling.

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I mean, you've obviously a little bit of a history buff with that, but how did you get

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started with helping people tell their stories?

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Well I had always loved stories and storytelling.

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As a young kid, I was the one who was reading the cereal box five times every morning, just

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sucking up any word I could over breakfast.

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And so I always loved stories.

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I majored in English and history.

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What are the stories?

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How do you tell them?

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And then life happened.

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And I met a wonderful woman.

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We got married, kids started coming, had to pay the bills.

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I got involved in education.

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And so I was doing something that, you know, Stephen Pressfield talks about a shadow calling.

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I was doing something that was close, but not quite what I was really wired to do.

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And so helped start a school up in Ohio, led that for a dozen years.

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And then, but this felt this stirring within that I was supposed to be doing more, especially

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around writing and telling stories.

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And so eventually I stepped away from that school and stepped out into the unknown.

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We had six kids, one a year with no income as we engaged that.

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But I've never worked harder in my life, dove in, became a student of story.

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And just unpacking all that, began writing.

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And over the next few years began writing books, helping people bring those books to

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life and learning how that's done.

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And really seeing a need, a need for people who had, hey, I like that you showed on our

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website that who had a message the world needs to hear, but they, they weren't, they didn't

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have the skillset to say it well, or they didn't know how to say it well.

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Or maybe their, their skillset was as a speaker, not a writer, or they're trying to put all

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pieces and parts together.

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And they had so many pieces and parts and ideas that they just, you know, what I call

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a creativity conundrum, right?

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You get so many ideas that you're paralyzed and can't do any of them in that place.

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And so, you know, having that kind of, seeing that need began to coalesce this team of story

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builders who wanted to help bring these stories to life in a way that is high trust relationships.

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And so that's really where we focused.

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And that's how Storybuilders came to be.

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It actually started with a book.

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This book right here, in fact, by the name of Hugh Hewitt.

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Way back in 2003, I picked up this book and read it and it changed the trajectory of my

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life caused me to lean into seeing things actually led to a relationship with Hugh,

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which led to an opportunity to create a book, which would be any image at all.

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It all started with a book.

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And so it's not surprising that I spent a lot of time with books and all things books

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related, helping tell those stories, because that's really how the story began in the first

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place.

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Thank you for being here today.

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I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.

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This is going to get more and more fun, we'll have more and more engagement as well.

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We'll invite people to participate in the show.

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And thank you for giving us your time and attention.

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Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.