Hey, I have Michael Haig here today. Michael,
I'm excited to hear all about this. Would you
introduce yourself and then tell us about your
vision? Okay, so my name is Michael Haig and
my vision is to help people transform other people
by telling better stories. So my background is,
my long background is I've been working in Hollywood
for 40 years, maybe 40 plus. And I've always
been involved in working with screenwriters,
filmmakers, producers, studios, all to improve
their screenplays so that they can either get
a job or get representation or so the movie that
they're in production with will be better. And
better in Hollywood terms, the first thing about
better is, is it drawing people? Are people drawn
to the story and are they emotionally involved
enough that they'll recommend it? And then about
15 years ago, something like that, I started
getting approached by entrepreneurs like marketers
and public speakers. the sort of umbrella category
of business people and they wanted to know well
can you guide me with your storytelling methods
and so on and i said sure because i love talking
about story and uh one of the first people that
did that a guy named matt base had called me
up and he said i'm an internet marketer and i'd
like you to guide me on this webinar i'm about
to do and uh he said i'd like to fly to la where
i live and work with you so we can get the story
on this webinar to be good and i said well that
sounds fun because i figured if he's flying into
la you know he's probably going to pay some money
to do this and and so he came and he had this
story about how he had been he never did find
out why the irs was coming after him they would
never say why eventually they dropped the thing
and they never did but his lawyer said you've
got to cut you've got to disband your business
and he was already a very successful marketer
and he wanted to tell the story in his webinar
and i said well look i don't know what a webinar
actually is this is a theory i don't know i've
learned but anyway so he would tell me the story
and i would say sort of repeatedly well I don't
know how you do a webinar, but if this were a
Hollywood movie, here's what I'd suggest. And
then, well, if this were a movie, you need to
have a scene at the beginning and we need to
see the IRS agents come to your home and you
need to tell me what exactly they said. So we
could put in some dialogue and where was this
taking place? Okay, so he liked that and he put
it together and two things happened. Number one,
this was a couple of years later. He voluntarily
did a testimonial because I was going to be on
somebody else's podcast. And he said something
like, the story that came out of Michael Haig
picking my brain, I've been using again and again.
And I figure so far I've made about $10 million
on that story. The two things I learned is, number
one, charge more. Ask for a piece of the action.
And the second is story, a story, a story. Because
I haven't branched out beyond storytellers who
get paid for their stories. I haven't branched
yet into the realm of people who do not get paid
for the story. They use the story to then earn
money, moving the people in the audience to action.
such as a public speaker who is a coach and they
want to get people to sign up for their program
or buy their online course or want to just inspire
people by getting them to take certain steps
that will improve their lives. And I started
doing that. And now that's sort of a heavier
portion of my work because I love doing that.
I love doing it all. I just love two things.
So this is part of my, this is. comes into that
vision. I love coaching and guiding people with
their stories. And I love talking about storytelling.
As you can probably tell, because this one question
I went on for about 10 minutes, I get excited
about, you know, saying, this is when I learned
that if you know Hollywood principles for storytelling,
and you apply those to even a 60 -second thing
on Instagram or an eight -minute speech if you're
on the stage or to your webinar or your origin
story on your website or whatever it might be.
You can achieve the primary goal of storytelling
and that is to elicit emotion, to give people
an emotional experience. That's how you're going
to persuade them. And the people who are masters
at eliciting emotion is Hollywood, is movies
and TV. So if you can do those principles, which
I've been working with and developed my own sort
of approach to, then I can pretty much guarantee
you're going to get a stronger response from
more people if you know how to do that. That's
incredible. I love it. As a writer, I'm all about
the stories too. So thank you for that contribution
to the world, getting better stories out there.
Let me ask you this. I mean, you've had a successful
career. You've been doing this for a long, long
time, 40 plus years in Hollywood. Why are you
still doing this? You could be out playing golf
or... You know, doing anything you wanted. Well,
I do play golf. And if you saw me play golf,
you'd say, yeah, this guy needs to be doing something
besides golf because I'm pretty bad. I sort of
answered the question. It's really this simple.
I just get a great deal of joy guiding people
to be better storytellers and doing that either
by making presentations, you know, on stage or
more now on Zoom or, you know. seminars or webinars
or things that I offer and so on. And so guiding
people to tell better stories and teaching it
or talking about stories. And it's always been
that. I mean, until after I got to Hollywood
and discovered the thing that I was best at when
I went to this little film school and first came
to Hollywood was... Reading screenplays and then
being able to synopsize them in a page without
losing any of the emotional content or the action.
And I took that and I took other classes. You
know, I took filmmaking where I made a film my
own. Didn't want to do that. I didn't like directing
and mastering. I like the thing that's more on
your own. So I got good at that. And then I did.
you know, like 50 cold calls until I found an
agent who said, well, come on in. I don't care
what your education is or what you've done. I'll
give you a script. If you do a good job, I'll
hire you as the reader. And so. So he did. He
liked my synopsis. And so he said, okay, you're
going to be one of my readers. And the job paid
$10 per script to read a script and write a synopsis.
And even back in the 70s, it was not possible
to live in Los Angeles on $10 a day because that's
how long it took to do one of the things. It
got me in. And I was so excited because I thought,
oh, my God, I've been talking about movies because
I didn't go. It's not like I dreamed of going
into the movie business and then headed right
to L .A. I thought that was a stupid dream. That
vision made no sense because nobody does that.
So I got a master's degree in education. I taught
Head Start for three years. And then I got another
job that, you know, sort of apart from that,
that a friend gave me just so we could. hang
out together in Phoenix. And finally, I realized,
well, if I'm going to do this, this pipe dream
is going to come more than that. I better just
go to LA. And so that's what I did. And I think
my father, when I said, well, I know I've got
a degree and I could probably make a decent living
as a teacher the rest of my life, but I want
to go be in the film business. And when he heard
I was making $10 a day, just think how proud.
He must have been. He was cool. He never said
anything. He was very supportive. But as a result
of reading a lot of scripts, I kept asking, why
are these scripts so terrible? I mean, somebody
went to all the movies and think about what they're
doing and you have no idea. And so... It was
asking that question, like, why are these so
bad? And why are the movies that I see in theaters,
they're not all good. Some of them are bad, too.
But the movies I love, what's the difference?
And so I started saying, what do those stories
have that the scripts I'm reading don't have?
And that's what led me to today, really, because
it's. How do you do the things that great movies
do instead of the things that the screenwriters
who weren't able to get sold or represented or
whatever were doing? And that's really it. I
mean, most of what I do now when I coach people
about story is built on what I learned, you know,
40 years ago when I was a reader. Well, all those
principles, they don't stop. I mean, it's an
amazing thing. You were talking about the hero's
journey. How long has that been around? For a
long, long time, right? Well, the idea of the
hero's journey, well, the actual principle is
for eons. You know, it goes all the way back
to the Greeks and before. Yeah, Ulysses. The
phrase, the hero's journey was really coined
by Joseph Campbell. He was, I think, a cultural
anthropologist, I think it would be called. But
he did this study of stories like fairy tales
and myths and stories worldwide in all cultures.
And his most famous book is The Hero with a Thousand
Faces. And he found these beats that are included.
that are present in almost all stories from all
cultures. And so he sort of codified that, if
that's what you'd say, or he laid out these 12
elements or 12 beats to a story. And that's what's
known as, that's what people are referring to
really, whether they know about Joseph Campbell
or not, is the hero's journey. What I did, there's
a guy named Christopher Vogler is a consultant
in Hollywood as well, wrote a great book called
The Writer's Journey. And he's the one who sort
of introduced Hollywood to the Joseph Campbell
Hero's Journey method. And he and I spoke a lot
of times. We were at conferences together. We
got to be pals. And I said to him, well, we should
do something together. And he said, sure. And
I said, I've got this idea. Why don't we call
it the hero's two journeys? You talk about the
mythical journey. And I'm going to talk about
what I call the inner journey. And that's the
journey of transformation. Because the hero's
journey is usually about accomplishing something.
Slay the dragon, rescue the damsel. or in movie
terms stop an alien invasion stop a serial killer
win a contest win the love of someone else and
what interested and interests me most is not
the external obstacles but the way we stand in
our own way the fears that hold us back from
doing what we dream of doing or wanted to keep
us from pursuing or achieving our vision really
And the biggest obstacle usually we will encounter
is our fear. But we don't really see it that
way. We just think that we're not wired that
way. And where does that fear come from? And
how does one overcome that fear to find the courage
to not only achieve their goal, but live in what
I call their essence, to be fulfilled by what
they do? That's so beautiful. I can see why entrepreneurs
would be beating your door down because it's
not only getting their story out, but it seems
like it kind of ties the loose end, closes the
loops, ties the loose ends. You know, they can
see their story from a whole different set of
eyes, which is really, really true. Well, it's
it's yeah, it's valuable. It's also scary. because
that's the thing i mean when i coach someone
on their on their let's say they have a story
in a book they're writing or or a story on stage
or whatever it might be i i always work by asking
a lot of questions and eventually in most first
sessions i have somebody who'll say this is like
therapy and that really wasn't what they were
paying for and i said yeah because To tell your
own story, for instance, your origin story, you
have to make it really emotional and impact people
and help them transform. You've got to be willing
to actually look at what that fear was that you
overcame and where it came from and how did you
do that. And that's not generally a place we
want to go. And if we don't want to go there
at all. we're probably not going to achieve at
least some element of our own transformation.
And then to make it public, if you're putting
it on stage or, you know, online or whatever,
that's hard. But that is how the story, the storyteller
gets transformed, as well as the people who are
their audience or followers or customers or clients.
That's so great. And, you know, they can draw
some courage from you as they're going because
you haven't, you know, it's not the first time
somebody's been scared to tell their story. You
can encourage them. They probably won't die.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I know. here's what i say
they learn about courage from me and i can help
them get to it to use me as a model of courage
i would probably i would resist that as much
as anyone else would it's just like no it's the
same thing i mean we we always are going to be
held back by fear it's not like there's no real
end point real end point to the inner journey
all we can do is overcome the obstacles we face
externally and internally at a higher and higher
level. But the fear is always going to be there.
It's never a question of are you afraid or not?
What I usually say is to become a hero, you have
to stop asking the question, how can I not be
afraid? And you have to ask yourself the much
more powerful question, which is, am I willing
to be afraid? So good. So good. Man, I can't
wait to have you back. We got to continue this.
I don't know. If I come back, I'll be out of
stories of my own. I sort of just went to town.
I didn't even know. You did great, man. Just
a meet and greet. But I just, as you can tell,
and if you're watching this or listening to this,
you can tell, I just really love talking about
this stuff. I just, you know, love this. This
is, this is. you know well that's what i said
at the beginning this is my vision this is this
is my happy place even more than the golf course
even more than the golf course Thank you for
being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned
in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to
seeing your reactions as these episodes continue
to move forward. This is going to get more and
more fun. We'll have more and more engagement
as well. We'll invite people to participate in
the show and thank you for giving us your time
and attention. Have an excellent time building
out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.