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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 Antonio Nunez. Antonio is a brand strategist corporate storyteller and author of eight books on storytelling. His clients include Novartis BBVA bank, HP PwC, and the World Bank. His online course and storytelling is one of the top sellers on the domestic platform with over 25,000 students. I used to think storytelling was a skill completely grounded in reality. But Antonia's work has taught me I'm very wrong, because now I know that storytellers should use magic of objects that are religion is narcissism. And our spiritual animal is a donkey with very large ears. Ladies and Gentlemen, Antonio Nunez. Antonio, welcome to the show.
Antonio Nunez 1:52
Hi, Francisco. I'm glad to be here. Thank you.
Francisco Mahfuz 1:55
So it's probably worth me explaining the donkey part and that I mentioned that the intro. So at the beginning of your domestic course, you talking about Rossin? Hunter? I don't know what the name of that of the donkey is in English, but that's the word that's the donkey from Donkey Hata. Right?
Antonio Nunez 2:15
That's correct. Yeah.
Francisco Mahfuz 2:17
And what is the story behind that? What Why do you have a little Rosinante on your desk.
Antonio Nunez 2:22
So Ed is something that I acquired, it's a craft that I acquired in Mexico during one of my of my travels, trips there. And it's it's part of, of traditional Mexican craft that I have on my desk all the time. And I also have two other crafts from Granada, Spain, that are precisely, Don Quixote and Sansho. But that one is said it's a donkey, that it's, it's an allegory, an allegory here, it is that technique, that craft technique in Mexico, it's beautiful, is colourful, and the whole idea it has a story behind it. It's a myth that basically, it's animals with impossible shapes, and combination of animals. So you can have a rabid hybrid with a dog or a whale. And they paint that and the story behind that was a craft man that he loves his his side and became blind and started to imagine and craft and shape all those animals from his soul. And he saw starting to produce those beautiful, impossible creatures. Yeah.
Francisco Mahfuz 3:44
Oh, I have two very young daughters. And I think it's probably fair to say that most of the most of the toys today could be called a libre hips because at least the the male toys they the shapes are not grounded in reality like with women, it's slightly less bad than perhaps it used to be in our in my childhood. Although to be fair, now I remember the Hitman and GI Joe toys and those are not particularly grounded in reality. But But anyway, that the narcissist narcissism quote, I believe it's from Woody Allen right? And he says his when he grew up, he stopped believing in Judaism and start becoming a believing in narcissism. And it's something I've talked about plenty of times, but I think a line you used in your course is that the the more personal it is, the more universal it is when it comes to stories.
Antonio Nunez 4:40
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is something that you know, most of my clients are corporate clients and hence people that are indicated interest trained in the idea that being professional means to be extremely dry and a sceptic and neutral when you're delivering your message and And and, you know, also most of I would say the biggest fight that I have when when I'm training or I'm working with projects like that is to convince people that they need to be more personal and that, that the more personal they are, the more universal and the better they will reach to their audiences. Yeah.
Francisco Mahfuz 5:24
Yeah, this is something that it seems counterintuitive to most people, which is that when you are talking about lots of people, particularly if it's hundreds of people, 1000s of people, I think our brain just really struggles to find one person and care about that one person. Whereas if it's one person you're talking about, that somehow represents everyone else, then it's easier, you know, we can cope with that. I've, I've used before when I when I was giving a keynote or, or putting videos on social media use the Where's Wally, or Where's Waldo metaphor in that super crowded page is is very difficult for our brain to latch on to like we don't, you just can't care about that. There's just too much noise, but identify one person or in this case, Wally, and then it becomes easy to say, okay, so that person, I can be like that person, or maybe I'm not like that person. So, yeah, that's, I think that's a pretty important one. And strangely, most people take a very long time to come to that. to that. Yeah.
Antonio Nunez 6:29
Well, we tend to think that it's especially executives, right that it happens is same thing, a universal versus personal with another one that is global versus local. And it happens is saying, the more local your story is, the more universal it becomes. And this is really counterintuitive, because you have the big filter of culture. And people say, Oh, I don't know, telling the story about my little village in the south of Spain, where we produce wine, etc, will not be universal. And and you know, the more specific and local you are, the more universal it becomes. Yeah,
Francisco Mahfuz 7:05
I think that might be because of how difficult it is to add details. When you're trying to be global, we're trying to zoom a little out of what actually happened. Because I think in your case, you're from Harris, and in you talk about how your family had a business and they worked with wine, and there's perhaps some expectation that you're going to follow into that business. Now, other places have families who have businesses who have people that are might be expected to follow into those businesses. And I think that's what people get confused that the part that is, you know, holidays and wine and whatever peculiarities of your region, those are just there to make it sound like a real place. Because if you say, in this village where there was a family, it was like, Okay, fine. This sounds like a fairy tale. This is not real. So maybe I shouldn't think of it as real and maybe respect whatever truth is coming out of that story is real, because it doesn't sound real. Sounds like a fairy tale.
Antonio Nunez 8:02
Yeah, yeah, fully agree. That's why I always says that there is a couple of details in your stories that are key to build credibility. And, you know, some some, again, part of, of a lot of corporate cultures is it's about remove all the details and go to the essence. And basically, I always joke that that is the risk is throwing the baby through the bathtub, right? Because you are trimming the key detail that will make your entire presentation or story, or Keynote or whatever credible to the people that are listening to you. Yeah, no, I
Francisco Mahfuz 8:39
agree. And in your Oh, actually, before I start getting to some of the specific elements that you teach, I wanted to ask, because I'm not sure I understood this correctly. What exactly do you call projective? Attention?
Antonio Nunez 8:52
Well, it's the one that is activated by storytelling and parts of our in our brain, that will that creates an identification is the idea that you are when you are in that mode at that attention mode. What you're going to do basically is to walk in the main character's shoes, and think what would I do if I was him or her? That's why when I'm gaining in corporate environments, I always says that, that any story should be understood as a case case study and our attention and our brain pays attention to that cultural case study, you pay attention to the story, because you want to learn okay, if I am confronted to that same situation, the situation that this character is confronting, what would I do What should I do? What is the cultural reward for that or the cultural punishment right. So, if I do this, I will be isolated. I will you know, have more taxes or you know, I will be promoted the opposite or I will be so you pay attention because of that, and you that projecting your individuality and your personality into the main character once.
Francisco Mahfuz 10:06
Yeah, I believe that the the Heath brothers from May to steak data, they talked about how one of the most important things that stories do is one of them is inspiration. And the other one is simulation. So is this idea to, to put ourselves in the character's shoes, and I had another guest on the podcast a while back, Jason read that he said, I think he called storytelling the original, the original virtual reality too.
Antonio Nunez 10:32
Yeah, I like that.
Francisco Mahfuz 10:34
Right. So one of the things that that you you talked about is when you're talking about structure is actually I think it's probably useful if I put down if I if I say here, what your definition of stories, that is the one I've come across in your course. And I believe it was that a story is a communication too structured in a second sequence of events that appeals to our senses and emotions. And when exposing conflict, it reveals a Truth brings meaning to our lives. I just want to pick some of these things apart as we go through, but I thought was worth having it in there. So one of the structures that you talked about that, that sounds very familiar to begin with, and then he did it was from Vladimir Propp. And if I if I remember it correctly, it was challenge, mentor, magical object learning, battle, and reward. If I got that, right, yeah, correct. Yeah. Okay, cool. So it sounds a bit like the hero's journey. But there are some parts of it that are not the hero's journey. And I think some of them are fairly clear, you know, challenge mentor, I think learning battle reward, they sort of they map out to other story structures that have come across the magical object was one that I don't think I had seen it that way. So I wanted to ask you about that. So how do you define the magic of object?
Antonio Nunez 12:01
I would say that it's anything that helps the main character to confront his or her own fears, and his lack of preparation, or research, or education, when it's when they are confronting the conflict, and they are confronted with what they have to overcome the challenge. And I think that it was designed by that, by stories, in general, to, and I'd say that it's magical, because sometimes they are not real things. I mean, if you are given, Excalibur is paid, of course, sword, sorry, it will, it will help you to fight, right, it's that is a very direct thing. But normally, they are magical, because they want to, to have a power or to transfer power to the, to the owner, that it's, it's not natural, it's it's something that it's amazingly powerful, because you probably are amazingly scared of confronting the your conflict. So, you know, I have a lot of examples of that. And that's why I do think that, that whenever stories are dealing with deep fears, and deep universal fears, there is that little help of that little object that can be an object, or it can be a specific karate technique, let's say Karate Kid, right? In the movie. And that is that is one example where the kid learns that there is one specific way to basically beat any, any, any kind of enemy, no matter if it weights, three times more your weight, you will be able to do it if you use that, or a more European example, Asterix and Obelix, where again, they have that magical potion that they drink, and the minute that they drink it, they they transform their bodies into amazing warrior bodies, no matter what if you're in shape or not, you will be able to beat the Romans. So So yeah, I think that it's a very smart way to empower anyone that has fears and insecurities to confront any any challenge.
Francisco Mahfuz 14:28
I think it's fair to say that the crane technique from the Karate Kid would never work in real life in will get your ass kicked mightily, if you draw. What I think is really interesting about a magical object, because it is that as you said, there are there are ones that are very clearly a magical object like a magical sword or something along those lines that are magical rings as indicated the Lord of the Rings, but how they when they're used as a representation, or even a plot device, but they don't Have the only meaning they have is metaphorical or is in the mind of the character. So the example that came to mind as you were describing it was the, from from Kung Fu Kung Fu Panda, there's that scroll that supposedly has magical powers and the scroll actually is blank. There's no nothing in this grow into this crow is just there as a sort of a token of what he needs the character needs to learn in and he had one example that I thought was incredible. And I would never have gone there necessarily, which was the wall that that America was going to build and Mexico was going to go into pay for. And that got me thinking. So when you when you talk to people in the corporate world about about storytelling, if you ever teach them that type of structure, would you recommend that they they find some sort of object where there can be a representation of something that shows a turning point in the story?
Antonio Nunez 15:59
Yeah, I always do that, that that is part of let's say, the recipe if I can apply that that recipe, and and I've worked with many politicians and many political parties, and you have examples of people that are really by the book, using that. I'm thinking, for example, Lula da Silva in Brazil, when he had that political programme that was called Bolsa Familia, that basically it was the aim was to remove people from poverty by giving a minimum amount of money to every single family. And and for several years it appeared to be working. And you know, international organisms and organisations were were sanctioning the validity of that strategy. And it was said that there was a specific amount of millions of Brazilian people that were not in poverty anymore, thanks to Bolsa Familia. And he's been his entire life in every single conversation going back to Bolsa Familia as as his magical object. So I think that it's a very, very powerful way to make one story tangible, especially if you can see that magical object in reality, so it can be a car, or it can be a political idea or programme. But if you have the opportunity of make something tangible, that is important, and we are seeing the same thing in advertising, right, and advertising campaigns, where sometimes they create something that was not tangible to represent an idea. I'm thinking, for example, one campaign that was targeting drivers. And the whole magical idea was to create a creature that a human being with a shape that would avoid or would overcome any kind of car crash, and they recreated that with a computer. And obviously, the shape of that human beings is horrible. And and it they even showcase and replicate that and exhibit that that human being, just to show us, hey, it's impossible that your body can overcome certain kinds of car crashed, therefore you need to drive more responsibly. Yeah,
Francisco Mahfuz 18:24
one one example that came to mind was from Sara Blakely, who is the founder of Spanx and she she uses her origin story on a regular basis. And she always talks about the actually you could argue as to magical objects because the whole origin story is about this white pants she bought. And she you know, she didn't have anything to wear underneath them, because the underwear would show through. So then she decided to wear some leggings and then you have to cut the leggings. It never worked. And then she eventually created the product that Spanx started selling the beginning which was this sort of legless leggings for women. Clearly, I don't know how these things are called undergarments for women. But she also talked about how she used to go and sales calls in she always had her lucky red backpack. And she talked about the red backpack over and over I think in in the regional website there was a red backpack that appeared somewhere and when she pretty gave presentations, she used the images she always talked about red bag, the red backpack, so it informed their their their visual branding. So I guess that would be an example of the of the magical object not necessarily only in the story, but used beyond beyond the story.
Antonio Nunez 19:41
Yeah, yeah, there are plenty of them. I love to analyse how they work. Another one that is one of my favourites eats pain that were used to sign very famous peace treaties or you know, again, political, political documents and an even there is a movie or contact Have a story as a storyteller, in a Brazilian movie, amazing movie. And there is an example where someone in the street is selling a very playing normal, sort of French big kind of pain very affordable for everyone. And he's selling as if that was the pen use to sign a very famous political 3d In, in, in Brazil. So I think that interchange in for example, depends Once you have signed by to political leaders. He's another ritual that, that that is very popular. So we have plenty of examples enough in all kinds of fields. Yeah,
Francisco Mahfuz 20:46
I feel slightly embarrassed now. Because I am Brazilian. And I don't think I've watched the storyteller which sort of the home forgivable given that I spend most of my time there. A couple of other things on the on the magical object, and then I'll move on. A friend of mine said that he started using that as as an exercise to try and get stories out of people. So when he's doing a workshop, he's gonna tell them, can you please bring an object that means something to you? I think we get into police, the police is behind. It's outside your door. Hopefully, they'll give us enough time to finish this. Yeah, so I started asking people bring an object that means something to you. And then people bring whatever object it is. And you say, Okay, well tell me the story behind that object? Or when did that start meaning something to you. And instead, then instead of just explaining why it means something, people go, Oh, yes, when I was five, my grandfather, whatever, and then then you get the story. And, and the other thing is to do with how people would use that, because I've seen a lot of storytellers, and this is an opinion, I mostly share being very much against props, for example, right, you're telling the stories in oral story, you're just telling it, they don't like the idea of a physical prop, because they say the moment the prop comes out, instead of you making a move inside my head, you're now a storyteller on a stage or whatever performing a story and that has sort of broken that broken that magic, do you tell people to if they can use the magical object as a physical object to use that or not really,
Antonio Nunez 22:24
I think that it depends on the personality and the kind of work sometimes my my work goes beyond the idea of helping people to design the story or helping corporation to the centre stories or helping their political candidate to, to, I help them to tell them once they have, they have created it, and everyone agrees in the organisation. So in those times is where you need to have an understand what is that person's personality and individuality. And you need to sort of put into consideration if you if that person will feel better by having that object in in his or her hands. Or, or you know, it will, it will trigger a more authentic, let's say, delivery, story delivery. So I don't have like a rule for that it is true. And I agree with you that that sometimes whenever imagine that we are projecting images in a PowerPoint or Keynote or whatever, software, some people use them very smartly. And you you pay attention to that image just for a second, and then you go back to the storyteller. And some others basically use him to, to, to be behind them and to sort of heal and, and not showing themselves. So So you I think that that, you know, I first need to know a little bit more about the person and try to predict the way that they are going to use that that object
Francisco Mahfuz 24:01
the way I tried to, they usually tell people what to do with with images and slides and physical objects is ideally use them for everything else, just not the story. So if the story is going to be two to three minutes in your presentation, or you know a few stories will be two or three minutes in a presentation that just tell the story. Don't have the slides showing what's happening in the story or anything like that. But then use images, images, not a whole bunch of text for pretty much everything else that you can like if you have a good image for whatever you're talking about have the image by all means, but don't say, you know when I grew up in heydays, my family right? You don't need a picture of it is a picture of wine. Like we know what wine is in our families we don't need
Antonio Nunez 24:44
okay. I'm so sorry. I'm living in New York. And you know, New York is sick. That constant noise in this, no matter no matter how
Francisco Mahfuz 24:58
well it happens. I have That's right. So another thing you said, and again, I don't think I've come across as before. So I wanted to send is a bit better. So you were talking about the meaning of stories in Spanish with a sentido. But I think meaning would be the most proper meaning or point would be the most appropriate translation. And then there was a, there was a line that said that the story is a tool of social cohesion, or of social social coercion. So can you just talk about that a bit?
Antonio Nunez 25:28
Yeah, that's why I always says that any story, if it's a good story, we'll have a sort of a sticker or a carrot right, which is it will teach you a cultural truth. Normally the good ones and the ones that are you know, touching is because they are telling you a cultural truth that is not true anymore. So the entire group or country or whatever or ethnicity, where that is Tory's resonating. It, it's it's shifting in the way that they understand a cultural truth. And let's say put it an example, to be more concrete here in the US, we will never have a black man as a as a President of the United States. That is a cultural truth that was true to a certain moment. So any story that revolves about that cracking truth, that truth that maybe is not easy starting not to be true in all kinds of situations that will have attached in the story, or reward, meaning the character confronts that main character confront that truth, and it's brave enough to challenge it. And then it will have the courage the benefit, maybe the social rewards of being an admirer person for the rest of his or her life, right. Or the opposite. You have this take and is if you challenge that, that cultural truth, and and is if you dare to do that, then you will be punished and maybe the punishment will be exactly the opposite, you will be ostracised you will be a second class citizen for the rest of your life, you will be removed for for any kind of privilege or ride, etc, or you will leave alone for the rest of your life. So, so that's why I say that the tool, it's his story, it's both cohesion tool to create a common ground, a common culture, a common language, common values and reinforce them all the time. Every time that we tell a story, we are reinforcing the validity of that cultural truth. Or the opposite is like, Hey, by the way, don't you dare challenge that idea? Because if you do listen, that it what happens to this or that or that or that person? That that they're to do that? And then it's where you have the cohesion? You are? You are you're part of the group, but you are obeying blinded the law. Yeah.
Francisco Mahfuz 28:00
And something else that that I don't believe this is you invented this, but But you definitely one of the first people that I've seen talk about this is the is the very defined types of conflict. So I think you talked about three different types of con of conflict and they are internal, external, and relational or relational. So interval, I don't know is obviously I mean, that's it. That's it, that's an obvious enough conflict. External I think it's essentially something that's happened in the world is not in it's not a feeling is not you know, it's an actual problem in the world. You know, the Avengers is mostly about external conflicts. Whereas most Pixar movies are probably more about internal conflict, then external at least, but the relationship type? Can you just talk a bit about that one?
Antonio Nunez 28:54
Yeah, that one, it's the kind of story and conflict that illustrates whenever you have to deal with someone else and that someone else can be a peer can be an enemy can be any it can be a different are or an enemy army. So it doesn't you don't need to it is not individual to individual, but it has to do with how do you deal with your with your relationships? How do you deal with your father or with your mom, once you are not a little kid anymore? You need to renegotiate the entire relationship and you have a lot of challenges by when when doing so. So so that that kind of conflict. It's extremely rich, because it's it's very social. And sometimes they're it's impossible to illustrate them without also illustrating what is the character internal conflict or conflicts because normally those those relationship conflicts they have to do with internal wounds of every single individual internal conflict,
Francisco Mahfuz 30:04
yeah, so if the if the if the relationship conflict or the relational conflict has to do with doesn't matter if it's one person or, you know, hundreds of 1000s from a different army, as per your example, would the external one be? For example, you know, you're trying to climb a mountain, that that's an external conflict in and I would have seen this, I don't think it was you, but someone I know, talking about how the external conflicts are the least interesting of the two, or at least powerful, at least,
Antonio Nunez 30:35
I ice I don't agree with that, I think I think that they can be as important. For example, you know, you have the environment, and you have nature and you have dealing with nature has been, you know, a human battle since since the beginning of time. And they can be extremely challenging and important, because it's your life, they're in the line. So, so, yeah, I think that they can, they can be as important when you move into the movies. reom people say, Okay, so basically, you're talking about action movies, right, as you were saying, you have to climb a mountain, or you have to fly here or there you have to, but
Francisco Mahfuz 31:25
there's always gonna have to be action, right? I think every every Erin Brockovich arguably would be, I think, an external conflict. And it's not it's a company or its, you know, it was kind of an environmental movie. But But yeah, I would have thought that there's an external conflict.
Antonio Nunez 31:40
Yeah. So So yeah, I mean, they're, they're equally important and equally powerful when you're creating your story.
Francisco Mahfuz 31:46
Yeah, yeah, I, so my feeling here, and feeling is a word that I just came out, I think appropriately, because I think my instinct is that the internal conflicts or the, or the relational conflicts, are more likely to make a story relatable than the external one. Because if the external one doesn't also trigger a relational conflict or internal conflict, you're either relating to that specific thing, or you have to relate to something very similar to that. So maybe you have fought some bigger power, like she was fighting, I remember what company exactly she was fighting against. But if you can do that, if you can find that connection in your life, the story might say, last to you. Whereas if you have a problem with your family, I mean, that's one of the most, the easiest things in the world to relate to, if it's you being afraid, you're being you being disappointed, or whatever it might be. Those are feelings we all have. Whereas the the external circumstance of the story might be slightly less common. I think that would be my instinct.
Antonio Nunez 32:56
Yeah, I agree. But then there is another factor that you have to take into consideration, which is sometimes Entire societies project their emotions, and conflicts into into those external conflict, or, or those and I always use the very clear example of King Kong, the movie, and it happened in a cultural moment. And in an economic moment, where everyone was extremely afraid of an economic crisis. And apparently, the movie people tells you that every single time that you have several months or years where the bloke boss busters are the main character, it's a big monster, they will tend to say that it is always related to a big fear that is going on in that society, and everyone is projecting the, that fear of conflict into that monster. So and you know, King Kong is something that would, it's completely fictional and impossible, but it works. Because maybe people are putting their and meaning that is not so literal. And it's more of metaphorical.
Francisco Mahfuz 34:18
Yeah. I wonder what it says about our society that King Kong Vs. Godzilla has come after this. He didn't have this as the pandemic or something else, but seems like an appropriate movie for a time and everybody's concerned about something.
Antonio Nunez 34:34
I thought in this in the same way, in the same fashion, I was thinking that it's amazing how Hollywood now it's basically remaking and remaking and remaking the classic superhero stories, and it's mostly mixing and matching and matching very traditional characters, or maybe injecting a little external thing here or there, but It's surprising how lethal and and copycats those movies are. And it's also surprising how massively successful they are. In this time,
Francisco Mahfuz 35:12
it's interesting with the whole superhero genre, because they finally marvel at least seems to have finally cracked how to do it. And now they have no shortage of material, you know, whereas, whereas this he has been forget giving us a Superman movie or a Batman movie every few years, Marvel has proven with like Black Panther that you can make a movie with a character that is not mainstream, that wasn't necessarily a particularly good character, to be honest, on the comics. And in you know, they have 50 years of characters that have relations between them that have a rich mythology that are always very symbolic. So it will be interesting to see how long they can keep milking a very profitable type of movie. Because, you know, it's been quite a while now, since the first ones came out that were really successful. And they don't seem to be stopping anytime soon. So it'll be interesting to see, when Marvel starts going back on the the, you know, doing a new Avengers movie, that rethinks the whole thing, that's when you sit, you figure it out. Okay, well, that I think it's about that now. But
Antonio Nunez 36:23
yeah, I think that what basically what they are doing is discovering that maybe what were what those characters that were extremely, you know, basic and very basic motivations, they are digging deeper into their internal conflicts. And then you have movies like Joker, right, where going deep into into the character's internal conflicts, suddenly illuminates one side of that of that icon. That was merely a facade. And suddenly it becomes humanised and even more interesting as a superhero. So it's the same thing with Cruella, that is the same Well, let's dig into this horrible character and see why she was like she was. And and it's, it is very successful, because that genre normally would touch that in a very superficial way, instead of you know, a deep dive into those internal conflicts. And I think that that is, that is what it's creating the kind of remake that I am more interested in. Yeah,
Francisco Mahfuz 37:31
yeah. And something else that I. So this is something that I don't know if you have a particularly strong opinion on. But it's something that I've seen a lot of people be very much against. And based on some of the stuff I've seen in your course, you don't seem to be. And it's the sort of debate about, if to get the benefits of a story, you need to actually tell a story or a sequence of connected events, you have a character, you have a conflict, you have all those things that you know, the grounded in time in place. Or if you can just use elements of a story. So if you pick those things out, but the way you telling them are not actually a moment in time, as a lot of stories are. And the reason I ask this is because you give a lot of examples of the types of common stories that most people need to tell. So you have the you know, who am I? Why am I here? The educational story, the visionary story, the values and action story and the I know what you're thinking story. But a lot of your examples are designers and people that are not necessarily you know, traditional storytellers, in when they're what they're doing, by a lot of people's conception of what a story is, is not an actual story. You know, Philippe Stark is one that most of the things he talks about the conflict in his life, but it's sort of floating in space, it's not grounded in when I compare to 100 in here in Korea to that there was a very specific story about us to sell Wags, and then by four in the morning, they were all sold, and that's how he paid for his film studies. So the question here is, do you think that to get the benefits of a story, it needs to actually be a story or as long as you using enough of those elements, you will get value out of communicating that way?
Antonio Nunez 39:24
Yeah, well in in the in the in the domestic Of course. It is targeted, it's targeting and and all those examples are from creative leaders. So it's it's very tough to find images of someone telling a full story. I mean, I did all a lot of hours of research for that.
Francisco Mahfuz 39:47
You're not obsessed by Philip Stark them? No, no,
Antonio Nunez 39:51
not at all. Not at all right. But, but basically, it came down to which which Which interviews were free, free of rights and I could use for for the course. And that's why they are not I agree with you. Some of them are not completely full stories. But I always say that if you don't tell the full, if your story doesn't have all the ingredients to be a truth, a true story, your message is, it's for sure gonna be benefit by injecting a couple of ingredients or three ingredients or whatever. So if you pay attention and your your message, your information has the right sequence of events, you're benefiting from that maybe you lack a conflict, and then you don't have a story. But what it is for sure is that if you have if you have paid attention to sequence of events, or having a magical object, or object or whatever, yeah, it will, it will be a better message. I agree with you that if you don't have all the ingredients is not truly a story, it can be an anecdote, it can be a joke, it can be a piece of message that it's resonating a bit more with. That's one, one part. And then the other is that most of my clients, our corporate clients are companies and they are a lot into sequential storytelling. So you know, you know, you, maybe you have to target your employees, and you have 547 emails to send about one single subject. And sometimes it's impossible to say, Okay, you're going to tell the full story here. And, you know, in movie terms, it's going to be a movie a full movie, or it's going to be more a kind of TV show where you have different episodes. And every single episodes maybe doesn't make sense, by itself, it needs to be completed by the meaning and the story ingredients that you are exposed in every in every single episode. So that's, that's why maybe, for me, most of my work is about sequential storytelling. And then you need, you know, that kind of, of storytelling structure and ingredients.
Francisco Mahfuz 42:14
Yeah, I think one example of the one example a couple of examples about the story elements versus stories, for example, story brand has made a name out of using story elements, essentially, to build websites. So you know, you have very clearly a conflict at the tagline. And then, you know, there's a character, there's a guide, and all of those things. But actually, there's not a story is just a template for building a website that follows more or less the hero's journey. And, and the other one is Steve Jobs, because in his presentations, and I've used as an example, when I'm trying to explain to people what a strategy story would look like. And Steve Jobs always had heroes and villains. But he also had the, you know, in the beginning, we only had one computer. So it was very easy to keep it to keep it updated. But then we had all the data, tablet, and iPad, and iPad and all these things and the cables and everything became a nightmare. We just never knew what was updated what wasn't. So we started thinking of a new solution. And this was the iCloud and now our life is a lot simpler. So it's not really a story, but is using very clearly a story structure to get that message across. So so yeah. But yeah, no, not now understanding that the creative choices somewhat imposed on you by what they were targeting in that in that particular course, it makes more sense why those would be some of the examples that you that you use there. Okay, listen, I would absolutely love to keep going into the weeds with you on this one. But, but I think that a child is about to be dropped in the middle of the street. If, if I don't, if I don't wrap this up. So if people want to see any of the work that you're that you're doing this day, so obviously I guess all your books would be on Amazon and everywhere books are found. But what is the best place to go find what you're up to?
Antonio Nunez 44:08
I have a website, it's Antonio nunez.com. And in Antonio nunez.com, I think that you can find also my social media handles, so you can find me at Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc, etc. So that is my go to Yeah, Antonio news.com.
Francisco Mahfuz 44:27
Okay, I'll put that on the show notes. If any, if anyone wants to see what Rosinante looks like, then they can they can go to the massacre. And buy buy your course. And there'll be plenty of the stuff we talked about today will be there, but Rosinante will be there, which is which is a very important fault. All right. Thanks again for your time, Antonio. It's been a pleasure.
Antonio Nunez 44:48
Thank you, Francisco. Thank you for having me. All right, everyone.
Francisco Mahfuz 44:51
Thanks for tuning in. Take care of yourselves and until next time I hope you enjoyed 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 the 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 us. 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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