WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.040 Hey, I have Michael Haig here today. Michael, 00:00:02.080 --> 00:00:04.240 I'm excited to hear all about this. Would you 00:00:04.240 --> 00:00:06.360 introduce yourself and then tell us about your 00:00:06.360 --> 00:00:10.980 vision? Okay, so my name is Michael Haig and 00:00:10.980 --> 00:00:19.120 my vision is to help people transform other people 00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:24.600 by telling better stories. So my background is, 00:00:24.760 --> 00:00:28.920 my long background is I've been working in Hollywood 00:00:28.920 --> 00:00:34.340 for 40 years, maybe 40 plus. And I've always 00:00:34.340 --> 00:00:37.500 been involved in working with screenwriters, 00:00:37.719 --> 00:00:41.979 filmmakers, producers, studios, all to improve 00:00:41.979 --> 00:00:45.859 their screenplays so that they can either get 00:00:45.859 --> 00:00:49.500 a job or get representation or so the movie that 00:00:49.500 --> 00:00:52.159 they're in production with will be better. And 00:00:52.159 --> 00:00:55.939 better in Hollywood terms, the first thing about 00:00:55.939 --> 00:00:59.140 better is, is it drawing people? Are people drawn 00:00:59.140 --> 00:01:02.240 to the story and are they emotionally involved 00:01:02.240 --> 00:01:05.180 enough that they'll recommend it? And then about 00:01:05.180 --> 00:01:09.219 15 years ago, something like that, I started 00:01:09.219 --> 00:01:13.560 getting approached by entrepreneurs like marketers 00:01:13.560 --> 00:01:18.450 and public speakers. the sort of umbrella category 00:01:18.450 --> 00:01:21.090 of business people and they wanted to know well 00:01:21.090 --> 00:01:25.329 can you guide me with your storytelling methods 00:01:25.329 --> 00:01:29.269 and so on and i said sure because i love talking 00:01:29.269 --> 00:01:32.530 about story and uh one of the first people that 00:01:32.530 --> 00:01:34.810 did that a guy named matt base had called me 00:01:34.810 --> 00:01:37.989 up and he said i'm an internet marketer and i'd 00:01:37.989 --> 00:01:40.510 like you to guide me on this webinar i'm about 00:01:40.510 --> 00:01:45.040 to do and uh he said i'd like to fly to la where 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:47.959 i live and work with you so we can get the story 00:01:47.959 --> 00:01:52.120 on this webinar to be good and i said well that 00:01:52.120 --> 00:01:54.640 sounds fun because i figured if he's flying into 00:01:54.640 --> 00:01:57.239 la you know he's probably going to pay some money 00:01:57.239 --> 00:02:00.780 to do this and and so he came and he had this 00:02:00.780 --> 00:02:04.420 story about how he had been he never did find 00:02:04.420 --> 00:02:08.620 out why the irs was coming after him they would 00:02:08.620 --> 00:02:11.800 never say why eventually they dropped the thing 00:02:11.800 --> 00:02:14.319 and they never did but his lawyer said you've 00:02:14.319 --> 00:02:17.120 got to cut you've got to disband your business 00:02:17.120 --> 00:02:19.639 and he was already a very successful marketer 00:02:19.639 --> 00:02:23.039 and he wanted to tell the story in his webinar 00:02:23.039 --> 00:02:26.699 and i said well look i don't know what a webinar 00:02:26.699 --> 00:02:30.620 actually is this is a theory i don't know i've 00:02:30.620 --> 00:02:33.400 learned but anyway so he would tell me the story 00:02:33.400 --> 00:02:38.860 and i would say sort of repeatedly well I don't 00:02:38.860 --> 00:02:41.939 know how you do a webinar, but if this were a 00:02:41.939 --> 00:02:44.699 Hollywood movie, here's what I'd suggest. And 00:02:44.699 --> 00:02:47.180 then, well, if this were a movie, you need to 00:02:47.180 --> 00:02:49.280 have a scene at the beginning and we need to 00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:52.780 see the IRS agents come to your home and you 00:02:52.780 --> 00:02:55.120 need to tell me what exactly they said. So we 00:02:55.120 --> 00:02:58.740 could put in some dialogue and where was this 00:02:58.740 --> 00:03:02.020 taking place? Okay, so he liked that and he put 00:03:02.020 --> 00:03:06.110 it together and two things happened. Number one, 00:03:06.129 --> 00:03:09.629 this was a couple of years later. He voluntarily 00:03:09.629 --> 00:03:12.270 did a testimonial because I was going to be on 00:03:12.270 --> 00:03:16.009 somebody else's podcast. And he said something 00:03:16.009 --> 00:03:21.669 like, the story that came out of Michael Haig 00:03:21.669 --> 00:03:25.710 picking my brain, I've been using again and again. 00:03:25.810 --> 00:03:29.430 And I figure so far I've made about $10 million 00:03:29.430 --> 00:03:33.330 on that story. The two things I learned is, number 00:03:33.330 --> 00:03:38.960 one, charge more. Ask for a piece of the action. 00:03:39.199 --> 00:03:43.259 And the second is story, a story, a story. Because 00:03:43.259 --> 00:03:47.439 I haven't branched out beyond storytellers who 00:03:47.439 --> 00:03:50.479 get paid for their stories. I haven't branched 00:03:50.479 --> 00:03:54.020 yet into the realm of people who do not get paid 00:03:54.020 --> 00:03:57.740 for the story. They use the story to then earn 00:03:57.740 --> 00:04:01.319 money, moving the people in the audience to action. 00:04:01.789 --> 00:04:05.629 such as a public speaker who is a coach and they 00:04:05.629 --> 00:04:07.750 want to get people to sign up for their program 00:04:07.750 --> 00:04:13.150 or buy their online course or want to just inspire 00:04:13.150 --> 00:04:15.830 people by getting them to take certain steps 00:04:15.830 --> 00:04:18.490 that will improve their lives. And I started 00:04:18.490 --> 00:04:20.790 doing that. And now that's sort of a heavier 00:04:20.790 --> 00:04:25.269 portion of my work because I love doing that. 00:04:25.290 --> 00:04:28.250 I love doing it all. I just love two things. 00:04:28.670 --> 00:04:31.819 So this is part of my, this is. comes into that 00:04:31.819 --> 00:04:35.519 vision. I love coaching and guiding people with 00:04:35.519 --> 00:04:38.399 their stories. And I love talking about storytelling. 00:04:38.699 --> 00:04:41.319 As you can probably tell, because this one question 00:04:41.319 --> 00:04:44.459 I went on for about 10 minutes, I get excited 00:04:44.459 --> 00:04:47.939 about, you know, saying, this is when I learned 00:04:47.939 --> 00:04:51.660 that if you know Hollywood principles for storytelling, 00:04:51.939 --> 00:04:56.589 and you apply those to even a 60 -second thing 00:04:56.589 --> 00:05:00.350 on Instagram or an eight -minute speech if you're 00:05:00.350 --> 00:05:03.709 on the stage or to your webinar or your origin 00:05:03.709 --> 00:05:07.410 story on your website or whatever it might be. 00:05:07.610 --> 00:05:12.110 You can achieve the primary goal of storytelling 00:05:12.110 --> 00:05:15.089 and that is to elicit emotion, to give people 00:05:15.089 --> 00:05:17.649 an emotional experience. That's how you're going 00:05:17.649 --> 00:05:22.240 to persuade them. And the people who are masters 00:05:22.240 --> 00:05:25.660 at eliciting emotion is Hollywood, is movies 00:05:25.660 --> 00:05:29.579 and TV. So if you can do those principles, which 00:05:29.579 --> 00:05:32.240 I've been working with and developed my own sort 00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:36.360 of approach to, then I can pretty much guarantee 00:05:36.360 --> 00:05:41.139 you're going to get a stronger response from 00:05:41.139 --> 00:05:44.500 more people if you know how to do that. That's 00:05:44.500 --> 00:05:47.500 incredible. I love it. As a writer, I'm all about 00:05:47.500 --> 00:05:50.480 the stories too. So thank you for that contribution 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:54.160 to the world, getting better stories out there. 00:05:54.319 --> 00:05:56.740 Let me ask you this. I mean, you've had a successful 00:05:56.740 --> 00:05:58.920 career. You've been doing this for a long, long 00:05:58.920 --> 00:06:02.500 time, 40 plus years in Hollywood. Why are you 00:06:02.500 --> 00:06:05.399 still doing this? You could be out playing golf 00:06:05.399 --> 00:06:08.410 or... You know, doing anything you wanted. Well, 00:06:08.550 --> 00:06:11.250 I do play golf. And if you saw me play golf, 00:06:11.389 --> 00:06:13.709 you'd say, yeah, this guy needs to be doing something 00:06:13.709 --> 00:06:17.610 besides golf because I'm pretty bad. I sort of 00:06:17.610 --> 00:06:19.529 answered the question. It's really this simple. 00:06:19.649 --> 00:06:24.750 I just get a great deal of joy guiding people 00:06:24.750 --> 00:06:27.970 to be better storytellers and doing that either 00:06:27.970 --> 00:06:31.050 by making presentations, you know, on stage or 00:06:31.050 --> 00:06:35.759 more now on Zoom or, you know. seminars or webinars 00:06:35.759 --> 00:06:40.720 or things that I offer and so on. And so guiding 00:06:40.720 --> 00:06:43.040 people to tell better stories and teaching it 00:06:43.040 --> 00:06:48.959 or talking about stories. And it's always been 00:06:48.959 --> 00:06:52.259 that. I mean, until after I got to Hollywood 00:06:52.259 --> 00:06:56.800 and discovered the thing that I was best at when 00:06:56.800 --> 00:06:58.839 I went to this little film school and first came 00:06:58.839 --> 00:07:02.819 to Hollywood was... Reading screenplays and then 00:07:02.819 --> 00:07:06.720 being able to synopsize them in a page without 00:07:06.720 --> 00:07:10.279 losing any of the emotional content or the action. 00:07:10.879 --> 00:07:15.660 And I took that and I took other classes. You 00:07:15.660 --> 00:07:18.220 know, I took filmmaking where I made a film my 00:07:18.220 --> 00:07:20.680 own. Didn't want to do that. I didn't like directing 00:07:20.680 --> 00:07:23.959 and mastering. I like the thing that's more on 00:07:23.959 --> 00:07:28.079 your own. So I got good at that. And then I did. 00:07:28.670 --> 00:07:32.329 you know, like 50 cold calls until I found an 00:07:32.329 --> 00:07:35.050 agent who said, well, come on in. I don't care 00:07:35.050 --> 00:07:37.329 what your education is or what you've done. I'll 00:07:37.329 --> 00:07:39.430 give you a script. If you do a good job, I'll 00:07:39.430 --> 00:07:45.569 hire you as the reader. And so. So he did. He 00:07:45.569 --> 00:07:49.829 liked my synopsis. And so he said, okay, you're 00:07:49.829 --> 00:07:52.889 going to be one of my readers. And the job paid 00:07:52.889 --> 00:07:57.769 $10 per script to read a script and write a synopsis. 00:07:57.790 --> 00:08:03.290 And even back in the 70s, it was not possible 00:08:03.290 --> 00:08:08.149 to live in Los Angeles on $10 a day because that's 00:08:08.149 --> 00:08:11.449 how long it took to do one of the things. It 00:08:11.449 --> 00:08:13.769 got me in. And I was so excited because I thought, 00:08:13.850 --> 00:08:16.050 oh, my God, I've been talking about movies because 00:08:16.050 --> 00:08:18.649 I didn't go. It's not like I dreamed of going 00:08:18.649 --> 00:08:20.550 into the movie business and then headed right 00:08:20.550 --> 00:08:24.209 to L .A. I thought that was a stupid dream. That 00:08:24.209 --> 00:08:26.709 vision made no sense because nobody does that. 00:08:26.949 --> 00:08:30.970 So I got a master's degree in education. I taught 00:08:30.970 --> 00:08:34.889 Head Start for three years. And then I got another 00:08:34.889 --> 00:08:37.950 job that, you know, sort of apart from that, 00:08:37.970 --> 00:08:40.570 that a friend gave me just so we could. hang 00:08:40.570 --> 00:08:43.409 out together in Phoenix. And finally, I realized, 00:08:43.549 --> 00:08:47.190 well, if I'm going to do this, this pipe dream 00:08:47.190 --> 00:08:49.490 is going to come more than that. I better just 00:08:49.490 --> 00:08:54.289 go to LA. And so that's what I did. And I think 00:08:54.289 --> 00:08:57.649 my father, when I said, well, I know I've got 00:08:57.649 --> 00:09:00.470 a degree and I could probably make a decent living 00:09:00.470 --> 00:09:02.649 as a teacher the rest of my life, but I want 00:09:02.649 --> 00:09:04.970 to go be in the film business. And when he heard 00:09:04.970 --> 00:09:07.950 I was making $10 a day, just think how proud. 00:09:08.620 --> 00:09:11.200 He must have been. He was cool. He never said 00:09:11.200 --> 00:09:15.200 anything. He was very supportive. But as a result 00:09:15.200 --> 00:09:21.259 of reading a lot of scripts, I kept asking, why 00:09:21.259 --> 00:09:24.379 are these scripts so terrible? I mean, somebody 00:09:24.379 --> 00:09:29.159 went to all the movies and think about what they're 00:09:29.159 --> 00:09:33.360 doing and you have no idea. And so... It was 00:09:33.360 --> 00:09:36.159 asking that question, like, why are these so 00:09:36.159 --> 00:09:40.639 bad? And why are the movies that I see in theaters, 00:09:40.759 --> 00:09:42.759 they're not all good. Some of them are bad, too. 00:09:42.840 --> 00:09:45.500 But the movies I love, what's the difference? 00:09:45.899 --> 00:09:49.139 And so I started saying, what do those stories 00:09:49.139 --> 00:09:52.120 have that the scripts I'm reading don't have? 00:09:52.539 --> 00:09:57.720 And that's what led me to today, really, because 00:09:57.720 --> 00:10:01.730 it's. How do you do the things that great movies 00:10:01.730 --> 00:10:06.490 do instead of the things that the screenwriters 00:10:06.490 --> 00:10:09.570 who weren't able to get sold or represented or 00:10:09.570 --> 00:10:12.409 whatever were doing? And that's really it. I 00:10:12.409 --> 00:10:16.509 mean, most of what I do now when I coach people 00:10:16.509 --> 00:10:20.490 about story is built on what I learned, you know, 00:10:20.509 --> 00:10:23.600 40 years ago when I was a reader. Well, all those 00:10:23.600 --> 00:10:27.200 principles, they don't stop. I mean, it's an 00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:29.039 amazing thing. You were talking about the hero's 00:10:29.039 --> 00:10:31.820 journey. How long has that been around? For a 00:10:31.820 --> 00:10:35.100 long, long time, right? Well, the idea of the 00:10:35.100 --> 00:10:38.500 hero's journey, well, the actual principle is 00:10:38.500 --> 00:10:41.159 for eons. You know, it goes all the way back 00:10:41.159 --> 00:10:44.659 to the Greeks and before. Yeah, Ulysses. The 00:10:44.659 --> 00:10:47.960 phrase, the hero's journey was really coined 00:10:47.960 --> 00:10:52.409 by Joseph Campbell. He was, I think, a cultural 00:10:52.409 --> 00:10:55.269 anthropologist, I think it would be called. But 00:10:55.269 --> 00:10:59.490 he did this study of stories like fairy tales 00:10:59.490 --> 00:11:04.429 and myths and stories worldwide in all cultures. 00:11:04.610 --> 00:11:07.750 And his most famous book is The Hero with a Thousand 00:11:07.750 --> 00:11:11.389 Faces. And he found these beats that are included. 00:11:13.629 --> 00:11:18.370 that are present in almost all stories from all 00:11:18.370 --> 00:11:21.750 cultures. And so he sort of codified that, if 00:11:21.750 --> 00:11:24.110 that's what you'd say, or he laid out these 12 00:11:24.110 --> 00:11:29.970 elements or 12 beats to a story. And that's what's 00:11:29.970 --> 00:11:32.450 known as, that's what people are referring to 00:11:32.450 --> 00:11:34.649 really, whether they know about Joseph Campbell 00:11:34.649 --> 00:11:40.289 or not, is the hero's journey. What I did, there's 00:11:40.289 --> 00:11:43.669 a guy named Christopher Vogler is a consultant 00:11:43.669 --> 00:11:46.350 in Hollywood as well, wrote a great book called 00:11:46.350 --> 00:11:49.690 The Writer's Journey. And he's the one who sort 00:11:49.690 --> 00:11:52.929 of introduced Hollywood to the Joseph Campbell 00:11:52.929 --> 00:11:56.970 Hero's Journey method. And he and I spoke a lot 00:11:56.970 --> 00:11:59.230 of times. We were at conferences together. We 00:11:59.230 --> 00:12:01.289 got to be pals. And I said to him, well, we should 00:12:01.289 --> 00:12:04.370 do something together. And he said, sure. And 00:12:04.370 --> 00:12:06.450 I said, I've got this idea. Why don't we call 00:12:06.450 --> 00:12:09.110 it the hero's two journeys? You talk about the 00:12:09.110 --> 00:12:12.330 mythical journey. And I'm going to talk about 00:12:12.330 --> 00:12:15.129 what I call the inner journey. And that's the 00:12:15.129 --> 00:12:18.090 journey of transformation. Because the hero's 00:12:18.090 --> 00:12:20.169 journey is usually about accomplishing something. 00:12:20.610 --> 00:12:25.179 Slay the dragon, rescue the damsel. or in movie 00:12:25.179 --> 00:12:29.000 terms stop an alien invasion stop a serial killer 00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:32.779 win a contest win the love of someone else and 00:12:32.779 --> 00:12:36.799 what interested and interests me most is not 00:12:36.799 --> 00:12:40.580 the external obstacles but the way we stand in 00:12:40.580 --> 00:12:44.919 our own way the fears that hold us back from 00:12:44.919 --> 00:12:47.899 doing what we dream of doing or wanted to keep 00:12:47.899 --> 00:12:50.919 us from pursuing or achieving our vision really 00:12:51.789 --> 00:12:54.970 And the biggest obstacle usually we will encounter 00:12:54.970 --> 00:12:59.789 is our fear. But we don't really see it that 00:12:59.789 --> 00:13:02.149 way. We just think that we're not wired that 00:13:02.149 --> 00:13:05.389 way. And where does that fear come from? And 00:13:05.389 --> 00:13:09.669 how does one overcome that fear to find the courage 00:13:09.669 --> 00:13:15.009 to not only achieve their goal, but live in what 00:13:15.009 --> 00:13:18.490 I call their essence, to be fulfilled by what 00:13:18.490 --> 00:13:21.779 they do? That's so beautiful. I can see why entrepreneurs 00:13:21.779 --> 00:13:25.600 would be beating your door down because it's 00:13:25.600 --> 00:13:28.419 not only getting their story out, but it seems 00:13:28.419 --> 00:13:30.860 like it kind of ties the loose end, closes the 00:13:30.860 --> 00:13:33.600 loops, ties the loose ends. You know, they can 00:13:33.600 --> 00:13:36.120 see their story from a whole different set of 00:13:36.120 --> 00:13:39.779 eyes, which is really, really true. Well, it's 00:13:39.779 --> 00:13:44.960 it's yeah, it's valuable. It's also scary. because 00:13:44.960 --> 00:13:47.059 that's the thing i mean when i coach someone 00:13:47.059 --> 00:13:49.639 on their on their let's say they have a story 00:13:49.639 --> 00:13:53.440 in a book they're writing or or a story on stage 00:13:53.440 --> 00:13:57.480 or whatever it might be i i always work by asking 00:13:57.480 --> 00:14:01.700 a lot of questions and eventually in most first 00:14:01.700 --> 00:14:04.360 sessions i have somebody who'll say this is like 00:14:04.360 --> 00:14:07.279 therapy and that really wasn't what they were 00:14:07.279 --> 00:14:11.460 paying for and i said yeah because To tell your 00:14:11.460 --> 00:14:14.159 own story, for instance, your origin story, you 00:14:14.159 --> 00:14:18.059 have to make it really emotional and impact people 00:14:18.059 --> 00:14:20.559 and help them transform. You've got to be willing 00:14:20.559 --> 00:14:24.539 to actually look at what that fear was that you 00:14:24.539 --> 00:14:27.580 overcame and where it came from and how did you 00:14:27.580 --> 00:14:29.960 do that. And that's not generally a place we 00:14:29.960 --> 00:14:33.159 want to go. And if we don't want to go there 00:14:33.159 --> 00:14:36.740 at all. we're probably not going to achieve at 00:14:36.740 --> 00:14:39.259 least some element of our own transformation. 00:14:39.779 --> 00:14:43.299 And then to make it public, if you're putting 00:14:43.299 --> 00:14:47.460 it on stage or, you know, online or whatever, 00:14:47.659 --> 00:14:53.360 that's hard. But that is how the story, the storyteller 00:14:53.360 --> 00:14:56.179 gets transformed, as well as the people who are 00:14:56.179 --> 00:14:59.379 their audience or followers or customers or clients. 00:15:00.009 --> 00:15:02.250 That's so great. And, you know, they can draw 00:15:02.250 --> 00:15:04.190 some courage from you as they're going because 00:15:04.190 --> 00:15:06.309 you haven't, you know, it's not the first time 00:15:06.309 --> 00:15:08.370 somebody's been scared to tell their story. You 00:15:08.370 --> 00:15:11.409 can encourage them. They probably won't die. 00:15:12.169 --> 00:15:17.450 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I know. here's what i say 00:15:17.450 --> 00:15:20.549 they learn about courage from me and i can help 00:15:20.549 --> 00:15:23.950 them get to it to use me as a model of courage 00:15:23.950 --> 00:15:26.929 i would probably i would resist that as much 00:15:26.929 --> 00:15:29.769 as anyone else would it's just like no it's the 00:15:29.769 --> 00:15:32.490 same thing i mean we we always are going to be 00:15:32.490 --> 00:15:36.269 held back by fear it's not like there's no real 00:15:36.269 --> 00:15:38.909 end point real end point to the inner journey 00:15:38.909 --> 00:15:44.679 all we can do is overcome the obstacles we face 00:15:44.679 --> 00:15:47.259 externally and internally at a higher and higher 00:15:47.259 --> 00:15:50.139 level. But the fear is always going to be there. 00:15:50.299 --> 00:15:52.500 It's never a question of are you afraid or not? 00:15:52.919 --> 00:15:57.340 What I usually say is to become a hero, you have 00:15:57.340 --> 00:16:00.740 to stop asking the question, how can I not be 00:16:00.740 --> 00:16:03.860 afraid? And you have to ask yourself the much 00:16:03.860 --> 00:16:06.139 more powerful question, which is, am I willing 00:16:06.139 --> 00:16:12.090 to be afraid? So good. So good. Man, I can't 00:16:12.090 --> 00:16:13.870 wait to have you back. We got to continue this. 00:16:15.129 --> 00:16:18.330 I don't know. If I come back, I'll be out of 00:16:18.330 --> 00:16:21.830 stories of my own. I sort of just went to town. 00:16:21.970 --> 00:16:25.409 I didn't even know. You did great, man. Just 00:16:25.409 --> 00:16:29.590 a meet and greet. But I just, as you can tell, 00:16:29.710 --> 00:16:31.929 and if you're watching this or listening to this, 00:16:31.990 --> 00:16:35.370 you can tell, I just really love talking about 00:16:35.370 --> 00:16:38.250 this stuff. I just, you know, love this. This 00:16:38.250 --> 00:16:41.889 is, this is. you know well that's what i said 00:16:41.889 --> 00:16:45.370 at the beginning this is my vision this is this 00:16:45.370 --> 00:16:49.250 is my happy place even more than the golf course 00:16:49.250 --> 00:16:52.730 even more than the golf course Thank you for 00:16:52.730 --> 00:16:54.710 being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned 00:16:54.710 --> 00:16:57.029 in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to 00:16:57.029 --> 00:17:00.309 seeing your reactions as these episodes continue 00:17:00.309 --> 00:17:02.090 to move forward. This is going to get more and 00:17:02.090 --> 00:17:04.109 more fun. We'll have more and more engagement 00:17:04.109 --> 00:17:06.210 as well. We'll invite people to participate in 00:17:06.210 --> 00:17:08.390 the show and thank you for giving us your time 00:17:08.390 --> 00:17:10.690 and attention. Have an excellent time building 00:17:10.690 --> 00:17:12.990 out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.