Resonance Episode: From Heroes To Fables

In this conversation, Mike Ferrell, Steve Azar, and Randy Harrington explore the concept of the hero's journey and its relevance in storytelling, personal growth, and leadership. They discuss how stories shape our understanding of the world and how individuals can identify their own hero's journey through pivotal moments in their lives. The discussion also highlights the importance of mentorship and relationships in navigating challenges and achieving personal success. In this conversation, the speakers explore the themes of passion, storytelling, and the evolving nature of community and faith in a changing world. They discuss the importance of the hero's journey in both sports and life, the shift from linear to nonlinear narratives, and the rise of the anti-story in contemporary discourse. The conversation emphasizes the need for shared strategies and authentic engagement in storytelling, ultimately highlighting the personal growth that comes from discovering one's own narrative.

 Takeaways

The hero's journey is a universal narrative structure.

Storytelling is essential in understanding our world.

Everyone has their own hero's journey.

Pivotal moments can change the course of our lives.

Mentorship plays a crucial role in personal development.

Reality can become more vivid through storytelling experiences.

Identifying with the hero in stories helps us relate to our own lives.

The structure of stories is hardwired into our brains.

Failure can lead to new beginnings and self-discovery.

Relationships often open doors to new opportunities. Passion for activities can have a shelf life.

Sports provide valuable lessons for resilience in life.

The hero's journey is a universal narrative structure.

Strategies in business must be shared and understood.

The rise of the anti-story reflects societal changes.

Faith communities are experiencing significant shifts.

Engagement in storytelling should be authentic and participatory.

Nonlinear narratives challenge traditional storytelling methods.

Personal experiences shape individual truths and narratives.

The hero's journey is central to personal and professional growth.

Chapters

00:00 The Hero's Journey: An Introduction

03:07 Understanding the Structure of Stories

06:03 Personal Calls to Adventure

08:56 The Impact of Pivotal Moments

12:01 Mentorship and Relationships in Storytelling

14:50 Navigating Challenges and Self-Discovery

18:07 Reflections on Failure and Moving Forward

26:24 The Shelf Life of Passion

28:25 The Hero's Journey in Sports and Life

29:03 Shifting Strategies in a New World

32:32 The Rise of the Anti-Story

35:27 Navigating Faith and Community in Changing Times

38:20 The Nonlinear Hero's Journey

44:07 Engaging Audiences Through Discovery

47:14 Lessons from the Hero's Journey

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is Resonance, the podcast for leaders that unpacks the power of song, silence, and strategy.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

We believe the great leadership begins with deep listening, not just to others, but to the still small voice within.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

It's not just about being a successful leader, it's about being soulfully aligned as well.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

In a world moving fast, resonance invites you to pause and reconnect with purpose, people, and possibilities.

SPEAKER_03 0:33

We'll dive into some cool stories, celebrate with friends, and dig deep into the music too. Cause song has a way of saying what words cannot alone.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

So whether you're leading a business, a team, or just trying to lead your own life with more meaning, this is Resonance. Resonance, resonance. This is Mike the Monk by Farrell, and of course I'm with my compatriots Steve Azar and Randy the Professor Harrington. And we're going to really tap into that professor thing today because Randy's Randy's going to take us down a path, a hero's path, right, Randy? And so we're going to talk today about this idea that strategy and story come together. There's been a process of story building for many, many years, way back into the early nuns when Joseph Campbell came out with the whole concept of the hero's journey. And so we're going to talk a little bit about that and a way to look at that versus a maybe a different way to look at a story, especially in the world that we live in. In a previous podcast, we talked about this idea of a Bonnie world, brittle, anxious, nonlinear, and incomprehensible. It's the world that we live in today. And so let's start talking about how this story impacts us and how this world impacts the story. Randy.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Nicely said. So it was interesting to me that one of the things that I love about Azar's music is the implied story lines in every song. When you're when you're listening to Rainalaura, there's a story there that you just really want to make a movie scene out of. And there's you don't know what the whole story is and you don't know how it begins or ends, but there's a story somehow in there. And I think that this is how we understand our world. When we look at anything, we put ourselves into the story of that thing or place or that action. And this is nothing new. So yes, uh, Mike, you're exactly right. This is Joseph Campbell. This is the book that really uh triggered his career. Yeah, remember when this came out, I'm gonna say in the 40s, I think 40s, if I remember right.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Yeah, yeah. This is an old book, uh, but it's been reproduced a bazillion times. This is probably the ninth edition of it. Yeah. And uh The Hero with a Thousand Faces. And basically what Campbell realized was when we back look back through all of human anthropology, history, and literature, and we find this same story repeating itself again and again and again, and he ends up calling it the hero's journey. And the hero's journey is a very specific thing. And and for our listeners, there's a couple of things I want you to think about here. The first one is that this structure I'm about to throw at you is so consistent that it has been the source of virtually all literature and and mythmaking for sure, going back thousands of years. So, what I'm arguing is is this structure is kind of hardwired into our brains. The second thing I want you to think about is take two or three of these things that kind of catch your ear and then think about your own life during the day in regards to these. Here we go. So, what is the hero's journey? Well, it the hero we find out first, comes from the ordinary world. The hero, whoever the hero in the story is, is not some crazy out there thing. It's just a normal person. So we have to identify with the hero. That's the very first step. So it's usually the person in the village or the woman with the the well or whatever it is. They begin in an ordinary world and then they receive a call to adventure. And this is it, guess what? If we think about any any movie you've ever seen, particularly something like Star Wars or anything like that, this is you can map it exactly. When does Luke Skywalker get that call to adventure? You know, it happens. Then you cross a threshold into the unknown. Ooh, now we don't know what's happening. And now we're afraid and we're alone. We don't know what we're gonna do. But then guess what? A mentor appears or some kind of guy who can who can help us. But they're not gonna stay with us for the full distance. Then we face some big final trial when everything, the world hangs in a balance, then it gets resolved, and then we return home with whatever wisdom or gift that we bring. And if you watch any episode of NCIS or anything like that, you can map this journey sitting right on top of it. It just works. It's kind of shocking. It makes you think, oh my gosh, really? That's how hard it is to write? Yeah, just take the structure. You got yourself a hero's journey, make it happen.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

It's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Yeah, it is interesting. And so just take that idea. Okay, who's the ordinary hero? When did they get a call to adventure? Who's the person who's gonna help them? How do they get left behind? What's the big trial they face, and then how do they return home? That's it.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

And it's sounds like the music business to me now. And it's interesting also, it's it's not just in movies. Uh, there's a book called Story Brand, written by Donald Miller that walks businesses through a whole marketing process of creating the message, the story of your business, using that same model, using that same hero's journey model to create who you are as a as a business.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

I'm betting you've run at least one or two workshops based on your journey. I know I have. Yeah. You know, whole big team day thing around.

SPEAKER_03 5:52

This is what you guys do for a living, and what I do for a living is you know, obviously write songs and make music. This is exactly in line with how we did it. How we were mentored, how now I'm mentoring, how uh and how they show up for a moment in your life and pivotal moments in your life, multiple ones that you had to have to help you be able to become a better storyteller and to be able to tell that story that has to have that's uh that's uh honest and real and that's who you are, which eventually as an artist makes you impactful when you get to perform it and matter. That's a that's amazing that you guys bring that up. It's amazing it's spot on.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

It is, and and I can't claim anything for this. This is uh this is Joseph Campbell's work, but and he can't claim it either. So he's standing on the shoulders of giants who just who've been monitoring the same thing for years. And so it's reasonable for us to ask why is this such a power thought? Why is this so deeply rooted? And that's why this book is more than five pages long. There's a whole lot of analysis going on in here. Uh and what we begin to find is the the leadership in particular can get very, very, very caught up in here. Because one of the first mistakes we can make is to believe that the hero is the leader. Oh, the leader is not necessarily the hero. Don't don't believe that, you know, if you're thinking about the hero's journey with your company, that because you're the CEO or you're the boss, that you're the one, you may be, but that doesn't necessarily, I can guarantee you that the people working for you, that's probably not their hero's journey story. And this is the thing everybody is on a hero's journey. You are, and this is one of the things that Joseph Campbell said toward the end of his life, you are the hero in your own life journey. So you can map your own life according to this. And so I'm gonna pause and we're gonna, we're gonna, as as Steve likes to say, put him on the couch here for a minute or two. Mike, when did you get your first call to adventure?

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Oh, I think probably my first call to adventure was when I was in, I don't know, probably seventh or eighth grade when I figured out that I was a pretty, pretty good golfer. And I mean, you can go out and and I mean, Steve, you've been there too. We go out as kids and you know, we're playing golf. And I mean, when I was in, I think when I was in ninth and tenth grade, we lived on a golf course in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I'd play, you know, there were days where I'd play 45, 54 holes a day, you know, just constantly playing, because that's all you wanted to do was play golf, you know, and you'd stop and eat lunch, you might take a dip in the pool, and you'd go back and keep playing again. And so I I think that um as I became aware of the fact that I was actually a pretty good golfer, then I think I began you you began to start telling yourself the story of me becoming a professional golfer. And you know, we're standing, you know, as kids, you're standing on the green, and this is a putt to win the green jacket, and you know, this is a putt to win the U.S. Open and all of those guys, I've got to hit this shot to win the U.S. Open, and I can hear the crowd roaring in my ears. It's just into another story. Yeah. Exactly. You know, and so I think we've all been there, but I think that was probably my first time as I started thinking about, you know, what that first call to adventure was. And I think the other side of that is a lot of times we may hear that as kids, but we never follow it. And that's the other piece of it.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Yeah, having the discipline to pull it through. Azar, what about you? Call to adventure. When did it hit?

SPEAKER_03 9:21

Ten and a half. In my baseball uniform, behind my dad's liquor store, the first legal liquor store in Mississippi called the Jigger and Jug. And um, it was an interesting moment for me. I can still feel it. And Eugene Powell is the first thing you see when you walk in my house. I used to wear him on my on my necklace for many years live, and I just went and put it away because it was a stone, and I was worried it was, you know, not gonna last. And it was interesting. Uh there were there were postmen at the end of their work day sitting on Pepsi crates. I'll never forget the I can see everybody sitting there. I can see their faces, I can see them listening to Eugene, and I can remember looking like, what is happening? What's happening to me right now? He sounded like uh a six-piece band with his guitar, and uh he would go along go on to, you know, matter to me big time in my life. And uh and when I started having some success going back there to him and seeing it, it was uh pretty awesome. Did he go by the name Sonny Boy? Sonny Boy Nelson, Eugene Powell, both aka Sonny Boy Nelson, Megan Blues records in the late 30s. He was amazing. Uh very unique guy, and I sing about him in down at the liquor store in my sound. And you can pretty much know what he looks like and picture him, you know, that at that point in his life. And uh just a moment. I raced home on my bike. I can see me driving right now, racing home, and getting upstairs and starting to write my first words. And I wrote them in poem form, and then the next week begging my dad to get me a guitar and learning it as fast as I could. I'm thinking three or four months, and I had those words to to music. I was I was there. It wasn't it wasn't 30 minutes every three days. I was spending two and a half, three hours a day trying to figure it out. Kids can do that now these days, watching YouTube. It's insane. But we didn't have YouTube because I had a great teacher named Bo Ridgway, who's one of the greatest guitar players to this day I've ever seen, play live and all that, and ended up having him play with me down the line and never been so moved. It was crazy. But with all that said, a lot of surreal moments. That was the most pivotal moment of my entire being. And it's amazing how that moment had to happen, but yet it was so impactful to last my entire life. Mike, I I did exactly what Mike did play the 54 holes a day, jump in the pool in the middle of it. But that was a summer thing. Because I, you know, we we'd go to the next sport, to the next sport, to the next sport, envisioned ourselves making those putts, except I wasn't gonna do it for a living, like Mike wanted to do, but I still could envision myself doing that in every sport. You know, stepping up to plate, hitting the game winning, uh, you know, driving the game-winning run home to win a baseball game and uh hitting the last shots in the game and basketball. Uh, incidentally, my son, I did hit a couple, but my son Adrian hit a stack of game-winning shots. And I'm talking about on the move, 35 feet, da-da-da, wherever it was. This kid was hitting game winners from eighth grade all the way to his senior year, and it was like it was like every time, every year. You don't get it, you don't do that a lot, you know. So he sort of lived those moments in my mind. I don't even think he ever thought about it, but I thought about it all the time. So I really enjoyed watching him do that and and be able to.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

One of the experiences that you're you're hitting to is very interesting where you were sitting behind the liquor store there on the Pepsi crates, and Sunny Boy starts playing. And the way you described it, you could see all the details. It's like you were just there. And people often describe this experience that reality is more real than real. That there's this moment where the reality becomes more vivid. It it literally sort of steps on what your normal reality is, if to say, that's not reality. This is reality, this is the new reality. And people who go through religious awakenings often have that same experience of, oh, that's reality. That's what's going on here. And that's what's going on with the storytelling stuff, too.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

Well, let me just add I want to ask you, Randy, what when it happened for you, because I know your mind was churning at a young age, winning a national championship in debating in college at Omis, but I can say this. I feel like I can still see myself in that painting. I felt like it was a painting that I just lived in. I can see it. I mean, I'm in there, and uh it's a shame that I've never had the painting made that's in my mind. Yeah. I think I I just I feel like that it's enough because it, you know, as long as I can conjure that emotion, that moment up that mattered so much. What about you, Randy?

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Uh, you know, it's it's interesting. I also had some some leanings uh around 11 and a half, twelve. Um, I there's one moment I can describe when I had a big shift. I had two good friends. I grew up a good bit in Hawaii, so my dad was uh stationed at Hickham. So I had two friends, uh Stuart and Rocky Kember, and they asked me to go hiking in a place called the Halava Valley, which is behind our house, up off outside of Pearl Harbor. And think of it like a jungle, like just a valley off into the wilderness. And I had never done that before, but I was pleased that they invited me to go. That was kind of cool because these were kind of cool kids, and I got invited by the cool kids to go along. Well, I was in flip-flops and we're walking on these river rocks, and they're lava and river rocks, so they're sharp. And this is not going well for me. My feet are getting kind of smashed up, and they're they're just hopping along like you know, they know what they're doing. And I'm now fifty feet behind them. And the short guy, his name was uh Rocky, he turns around and he looks at me and he says, in there was a lot of profanity, I think, in what he said, but more or less, are you are you coming along? Are you gonna can you even do this? You know, it was a challenge. And I remembered thinking, I don't know about this, I don't know, I have my feet and I don't I don't think I didn't get permission to come out here. I was gonna get in trouble and uh having all these thoughts. And I took a moment and I reached down and I took my flip-flops off, and then I just started being smart and walking deftly on the rocks instead of stumbling along, expecting the rocks to conform to me. Sure. I had to adapt to them. And then it was like, oh, then you're welcome to be here. And that moment I have never forgotten, that moment changed everything for me because fear, I had so many fears. I had feared everything. I wanted their approval. I was worried about this, I was worried about being in trouble, I was worried about everything. And for one moment, I went, I don't have to live that way. I can be in control of this. And that one moment I go back to subconsciously a lot. Because if it had not happened, I'd still be the guy going, ow, ooh, ow, ow, ooh, ow, can't do this. I don't think I don't think I'm good enough.

SPEAKER_03 15:51

You know, and funny how exactly these moments are. And there are a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

It's really and I think the you know, the other interesting piece of this is how you guys have continued to live out those experiences. Steve, obviously, you know, you're still still doing what you were doing in a baseball uniform behind the the the liquor store. Randy, you're still thinking the way that you learned how to think in that particular situation. You know, I went on and played golf for a living and failed miserably. And you know, uh, but it but but it's interesting because I think some of those early experiences, we can think about it from a standpoint of do we follow our heart and keep doing it, or is it just a fantasy? Yeah. And and I think in in in my case, it really was more of a fantasy because I just I I wasn't quite there. I wasn't quite good enough to to get over the top and get there. I think that's then you then you start over, you figure out another uh another place, another key moment when you when you change, you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

It is so at some level we could say that it is your reaction to that awareness. Did you have the moment, Mike, when you went, yeah, I I'm just never gonna get that extra one-thousandth of a degree?

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Absolutely. I remember my I remember very clearly looking at myself in a hotel room mirror one morning and saying, I'm not gonna make this. I this isn't gonna work. And and if I keep doing this, I'm probably gonna drink myself to death. You know, so it's like it's it's time to go home.

SPEAKER_03 17:25

Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

You know, that's a big one.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

Emotionally, were you at that point, Mike, when you did go home and you said that's it? What was that like?

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Well, you know, I I mean it was there was there were mixed emotions. I mean, I I I I had felt like, okay, I gave it a shot. The other piece is that my dad wasn't all that thrilled that that's what I was doing, which which is pretty which is really pretty funny because several years later, then all he wanted me to do was play golf with his buddies and teach them how to play. So, you know, it came full circle. And and I my I used to joke with my dad about that, but it was really one of those things that it was a mix of emotions when you came back, and it was like, okay, now what the heck am I gonna do?

SPEAKER_03 18:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

And, you know, I you know, part of me said I failed, part of me said I gave it my best shot, and then probably another part of me said, All right, it's time to just move on and and you know, go get a real job.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Well, the same thing is true with you, Azar. I mean, you you had that moment in Nashville where you had to, you know, that was the big trial for you. You kind of stared that big old demon in the eye, and it was like, what's it gonna be?

SPEAKER_03 18:29

Well, for me, and you back up a little bit. I tried to get a record deal at 14, and I thought I had one. And then uh, and then I didn't. And then uh then I tried that was in Nashville, and then I ended up New York and LA at 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, almost getting signed there. And then somehow when I thought it was all said and done, it was I was on the golf course. And it was, it was the it was crazy. It was a game of golf that sent me all the way to Nashville. I really thought this was it. I was 27 years old. I was in sudden death with my partner, buddy, my dear friend Andrew Abide, and we were playing some great golf back then, and we were uh on the uh first hole of sudden death. The guy goes, our old friend Paul Michael, a wonderful man, goes, Steve, I got some friends in Nashville that I'd like to send you to go see. And so I missed, we missed, he made, he made it, they beat us. I said, Well, you're gonna have to tell me now, you know, because you beat us. Uh yeah, and that's not the you know. So anyway, that started getting my mind a little off the game of golf because I still loved it so much, you know. And and I was hurting, you know. And so I then then the next week I was at the country club pool because I paid for my dues by playing on Wednesdays at the pool after I played golf. And I was getting squashed by kids and all these kids ended up growing up, you know, and you know, some of them I'm just so proud of so many of them. Uh, but uh that was their moment. And then Jim Gallagher, who is uh a big pro golfer, dear friend of mine now, was strolling around the golf course and hears me singing and comes up to me and he goes, Hey, I got a friend in Nashville I want to send you to see. And I went, This is crazy, two weeks in a row, like within seven days. And then my dear friend Mickey Name, I got to tell the names because they matter so much to me, is president of a bank down here, and uh gave me a loan to build a house when nobody else, because he saw that I was making money in the music business enough to build a house, and he gambled on me. And he says, I got a friend in the music business that's head of the music lending division that he went to college with at Ole Miss. So all of this happened in 10 days, ended up going there, ended up getting offered a ton of public, you know, multiple publishing deals, took the one, and the and then then the game had started over again for me. So my heyday in college and how I met Gwen and and you know, having a band that was having attracting a lot of people traveling to see us, big college band, big bar band, big this band, and all that. Well, eventually that faded, and then I wrote songs about that. But with all that said, man, you just look back at it, and there were just so many moments where I just got to be. You know what the interesting thing is? All three of those people, the first one told me no. I sent stuff to him, music from the house, knocked on his door when I got there. I didn't have a meeting, and I said, and they go, yes. And I said, Well, I'm uh I I'm I'm Steve Azar. And they go, We know who you are. We we uh we already said no. And I said, Well, I just want to see if you'd let me have time. I want to see if you'd let me come. I have some meetings today. Would you let me come play for you? And he goes, Well, you don't look like your picture. I think I've showed you guys this, but maybe you don't sound like your song, sound like your tape you know what? I don't care. That's a kind I don't care. Whatever it takes to get me in this book. Let me started asking me to play songs that our first wrote back when I was a teenager. We talked about this. Won't go into that. But the other guy, uh R. C. Bannon, who was married to Louise Mandrell, I mean, we were. We were uh he he took me to lunch and said, We're looking for a hat at cause car. Brooks had become big, and here I am coming basically out of the blues rock scene, but with a country background, background, all of that. So I was trying to figure out who I was. But anyway, uh all of a sudden I'm playing him and everybody else at the Music City Golf Tournament six six months later after I'm there. And I I he's the one that's supposed to win, and I take him out. So I think I shot 70 that day. I think he shot like 72 or 73. He goes, We ought to start playing golf together. And we played golf for 10 years together. We beat everybody all over the map, win probably 40, 50 times. And as partners, we were like clockwork. And then we decided to write for the first time. And we write, I don't have to be me till Monday, which becomes my biggest hit of my life. I mean, that it's funny, you know, like you're going, how does this happen? And then Brian Williams, the banker, ends up, I ended up getting a publishing deal, the second publishing deal, next door to his office in the same building. And he was going, like, you're writing for who? And so he was so excited. And then when I finally had hits, he brought me his office, shut the door, and said, My God. And he's got platinum records of everybody on the wall. I was just another fick face that he helped along the way. But for some reason, he made me feel like, even with all those golden platinum records on the wall, that he had that I was the most important thing in his life. And uh, it was the most beautiful thing. It was so authentic. Like he was a proud papa. You talk about these mentors along the way, right? Right that you're talking about. All these guys ended up being very special in my life. But you look back at the route to it, it's crazy. But once again, the game of golf opened the door for me not to not to stop, opened the door for me to get build relationships. I think every really big deal I ever got in the music business was on the golf course at that point. Sure. So that's why I'm a believer in the game, Randy, that that that that we're talking about. I'm not nearly as good as I used to be. Nowhere nearly as good as I used to be. I quit practicing, quit doing this, wanted to move home to get to know my kids. And I've got all my friends going, what happened to you? But the bottom line is uh I right now I'd rather play with Gwen than play with anybody. And I just I just don't have that in me anymore right now. Right, right. So you I think Gwen gets upset at me. She goes, Why don't you have that in you? And I go, I you can't make me, you know, I loved football as long as I could play it, and then I didn't. I love baseball as long as I could play it, then I didn't. I love basketball as long as I you know I'm saying the bottom line is they sort of have a shelf life in your life. Absolutely. They do.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

I've certainly seen that. Yeah. I'm in the same boat. I'd like to be much rather Good, I'm sorry. I mean, I'd much rather play with Ann than than, you know, anybody else. And and now I just you know, but it but it took me a long time to get to that point. No, no, me too. Because when I when I got my amateur status back and when I began to play just for fun, it's hard to turn off that competitive component and then also realize that you know you can't hit it like you did when you were in your twenties, you know. And uh, you know, and now of course, you know, in my late 60s, I can't hit it out of my shadow.

SPEAKER_03 24:59

So it's you can just do listen, let me just say it's interesting when we draw back on on for me, for me, if it wasn't for sports, there's no way I survive the constant pounding and losing and striking out in the music business. There's no way because I knew in sports that one shining moment happened in every sport for me enough times. Yeah, I knew the difference and I knew what it felt like to lose and work hard and go, that shouldn't have happened, and or whatever it did happen, or I saw greatness, you know, on another athlete, whatever. I knew what those moments felt like, and I just felt like at some point I realized I was called to do this, and I couldn't let that calling down. I just couldn't.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

I believed in myself probably a lot sooner than I needed, that I that I was good enough, you know, and then eventually I think I got good enough to match my belief.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

And um and it's still I think that I think that that that that's the sport doesn't matter what the sport is, but I think sport is a great example of this hero's journey. Yeah, yeah because we can we can trace it all the way through each one of the stages of that hero's journey. Now, to shift it though, let's get back to that conversation shifting it back, we live in a different world now. And I know Randy, we've talked in previous episodes about this whole Bonnie world, and I know you read an article recently and have been studying this. How does this hero's journey maybe not work so well in this new world that we live in, this new body world that we live in?

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Yeah, so the the connect the first connecting piece that we have to lock these, the the engine and the the car to is the idea that you can have a strategy, but the strategy has to be shared. And this is this is a crazy thing. That wasn't necessarily the case in the 1980s. Strategy was often something that was held almost privately or secretly in a book. It was like something you didn't want other people to see. Now that just seems crazy. Like what in the heck were you? Well, because it was a command and control culture back in the day. You don't need to know why you're going to shell those peas, you're just going to shell those peas. You know, that's all there is to it. And now we begin to understand that when people understand the why behind what they're doing, they do a whole lot better job and they begin telling us things that we probably needed to know all the way around. So the first thing we need to do, though, is connect the idea of strategy with story. So you have a strategy, but the strategy shows up in a narrative. Sometimes that shows up in brand. If it's really good, the brand should have a certain gravitas. There was a guy I heard who said something to me, uh, I think he said it to me on a plane, and we were talking about, he said, he said, where are you gonna stay? I said, I think I'm gonna stay at the Hilton. And he goes, uh and I thought, well, Hilton's not terrible. And he goes, I don't know what Hilton is. Hilton, Hilton is beige in my mind. Hilton is everything that's absolutely normal. And I said, Oh, okay. And he said, Watch, I'll show you. Could Hilton, if I said we're gonna make Hilton tennis shoes, what would they look like? And I immediately got in my mind just what he said, little loafer things that you know very simple. He says, Now, yeah, what if I what if I was to say, could Nike make a hotel? Yeah. Yeah. Right? So that was that was a moment for me. It was like, okay, Nike is a brand because I could imagine a spaceship that's Nike, I could imagine a car that's Nike, I could imagine a hotel that's Nike, and it would all have all these characteristics to it that you know you go, whoa, okay. And so the narrative is it's not that it's not important, it's super important, but it is distinct from these other things. So here's what here's what's going on in the world we think, or at least this article is from a guy named David Snowden, author of a bunch of books. Brilliant guy. We could talk about him forever. We're not going to do it right now. The gist of what he's saying in this article, though, is that this dominant story of what it means to be an American, or what it means to be in business, or what it means to be a man, or what it means to be a Christian, or fill in the blank, what it means to be a fisherman. It doesn't matter. What it means to be a golfer is there's a story about that, right? And so, no, no, no, we're gonna carry that story. Well, there are a lot of people, you were we were talking about this during the break, where you were talking about the Tiger Woods golfer people, you know, they're strong and they're athletes and they're working on their fist pump and they're they're bringing some emotion to it. And then there are those that are just calm, collected, cool, nothing up, nothing down, right? Everything's going smooth, smooth. The people that are listening to the story, if the story matches their experience, they go, okay, this is helpful. If the story doesn't match their experience, so in other words, if the boss is saying, this is what it's like to work at Chick-fil-A, and then you go work at Chick-fil-A and you go, This ain't how it's supposed to work at Chick-fil-A. And interestingly, people that go to work at Chick-fil-A say, no, that is the way it works at Chick-fil-A, which is pretty cool. The story of working there, you know, they go, ah, this can be the hero in my in my day at Chick-fil-A. But if I go and there's a disagreement, what I won't do necessarily is try to fight against the main story. What I won't do is go and say, oh, that's crap, because it's like the emperor has no clothes. It's like, no, I'm everybody else thinks this is good, so I'm not going to be the one to wave my arms and go, no, not so much. But in the world of social media, I can't because I'm behind my phone or I'm behind the keyboard. I can attack mainstream thinking. Right. And so what's going on now is the rise of what Snowden calls the anti-story. There's we're hearing it more. It's coming out more. People going, that is not my story. That's not the story that I'm feeling. My story is a different hero, and you're certainly not the hero. So you're seeing this tension in the stories that have normally worked to kind of create alignment for us. I heard, you know, when I when I heard people be smirching Walter Cronkite the other day, I was like Walter was the man, the legend. He was loved Walter Cronkite. Come on. Come on. I mean, you know, and I'm hearing these journalist people yammering saying, Oh, Cronkite just made you believe that he was fair and neutral, but he was still manipulating things behind the scenes. And he was, and I was just like, oh my gosh, no man has ever worked harder to try and and right be truly fair and balanced. Anyway, this business of anti-story, I think, is important for a couple of reasons. It helps explain the world a little bit. So why is it why is everybody so bitter? Why is everybody yelling so much? What's what why is there so much hostility? Well, social media is, I think, driving most of that. But one of the reasons that may be forgotten is that social media is not just pushing back on whatever their issue of the day is, but they are pushing back on the dominant story of what it means to be a person of whatever. Particularly, and I think in terms of faith, you know, Christianity right now is it's kind of kinetic. It's interesting to me because certainly in from the Catholic side of things, there's a lot going on. There's a whole lot of wheels turning. And I don't know about I'm not a Catholic, but I I know 10, 15 years ago I didn't feel that way. I felt like it was the Catholic Church was much more kind of just a somberful thing, sort of chunking along. And now it's it's in there swinging. They're they're doing and it's changing. More people are coming to the Catholic Church than having a long, long time. Services are growing, or it's changing. I I guess I would say it's the demographics are shifting a lot. But everybody is going through this as the dominant stories are being challenged.

SPEAKER_03 32:46

Well, trust me, Mike and I will both tell you you can't even the word disappointed isn't close to how we felt when the church went through a period of uh some tough, rough, sad times, awful times, which questioned my loyalty. But then, you know, like Mike Gwen Gwen would say, this is not about them. This is about you and God and your relationship with Jesus. It's not about them. That they are all uh what's the word when you're you're not vulnerable. What's the word, Mike? When when people are um they're just human beings, they're just they're just men, they're just they're very there's a word that that I'll think of at the end. Yeah, I'm I'm struggling with you. They're fallible. They're fallible. Exactly. Fallible. That's exactly right. And so uh even though they're priests, they're still fallible. Uh with all that said, uh we don't want to go back to those times, but the bottom line is a lot of people were affected very in a harsh way. Kids and so we let's don't go there.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

It's it's it it it'll make me And there's all all but most of the denominations are going through some kind of division or split.

SPEAKER_03 33:50

Things get powerful enough and things get big enough, you're gonna have some troubles, trouble ones. Troublesome moments.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

And I you know, I think there's yeah, there's I mean, Pew Research does research on this all the time. And just looking at overall Christianity, the numbers are down. I mean, we we used to the United States used to be a predominantly Christian country. Yeah. And now there are more people than ever associating themselves with non-Christianity and even non-religious. You know, for the first time in the history of our country, we have more people that are associating with that than they are with a religion or Christianity. And so I think it's it's important to realize that this is a cultural thing that's happening. And so as we as we look at this from a story perspective, Randy, getting back to this whole idea of this Bonnie world, one of the one of those letters is nonlinear. The N stands for nonlinear. And a linear approach would be this hero story that we've constantly followed all along. And so now that the world is this nonlinear approach, how do we deal with that? Is there another way that we can begin to think about that? And I think, you know, you talked about that when we were on the break, Randy, that there is. There's a there's another way that we can think about that.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

So this is this is a bit of a bombshell, but I think it's it's uh helpful. So you said it so clearly and well, Mike, that this idea that the hero's journey is this chunkety chunk chunk linear, it's like railroad tracks. Once you're on that set of tracks, you're not able to deviate from that very much. You're gonna go through the, you've got to go through the shoot. And what the Snowden article basically says is that this is really problematic because in a world where people are debating the substance of truth, where concepts like fake news and that's not true, my truth is the real truth, though those statistics aren't the right statistics. That's not the way we're when all when that has happened, when we no longer have a shared agreement of what constitutes truth, then we begin to believe that the only way we can know it is if we experience it directly ourselves. If if we see it, touch it, smell it, and goes, yep, that's it. I had that experience, I can vouch for it. And so a big word, we're gonna call that phenomenological phenomena. The phenomena is being created in real time by your experience with it. That's all that we're saying here. And what what Snowden is saying is that because people are bringing this very St. Thomas kind of skepticism to everything that they see, they need to feel like they discover the truth. And it turns out that there is a narrative structure where that happens, and it's called a fable. So a fable, I loved fables, Aesop's fables as a kid.

SPEAKER_03 36:41

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

And they're very popular in Algeria and in Turkey. They're fables are the way to roll, man. That's the way, and fables are always their stories where you're not really sure what it's about, you know, and you have to kind of find out what the I remember the sour grapes uh Aesops fable. And I remember thinking as a child, sour grapes, what is that? Well, once you read it, then you find out what sour grapes are. Sour grapes are what happens when you feel bad or sad about somebody else doing well, you know, or that you, you know, so it's like they're complex feelings, but the fable allows you to discover it, to find it.

SPEAKER_03 37:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Uh one more quick thing, and I'm gonna shut up. So here we go. So if we're speaking, you're going and doing a keynote speech. One of the things you're gonna tell that keynote speaker is you need to engage the audience, you need to get these people involved, by God, you need to get them. And so what so what I hate more than anything else is what I would call fake engagement. Yeah. Where the speakers up there, we're gonna get you engaged, we're gonna get you everybody so stand up and turn around three times. Now rub your elbow, now do something else and sit down. Okay, now I'm gonna talk for now. That was not engagement. I don't know what that was. That was you demonstrating something else. And not only am I not engaged, but I'm now a little bit pissed off because I feel manipulated. Yeah, whatever else.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

You just made me do something I didn't want to do.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

I didn't want to do, and you didn't really earn that.

SPEAKER_03 38:02

Everybody, everybody in that audience knows you did, except for the guy that told you to engage the audience.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

That's right. Exactly. So I go and I hear a speaker at Nike, and his name will come to me in a minute. Uh, he's not there anymore. But anyway, I go in to see this keynote at Nike, and up on the screen are nine pictures, like uh 3333. And it's a picture of a seashell, and it's a picture of a basketball, it's a picture of a woman's scarf, blah, blah, blah. And the guy, his name was right there. Uh, anyway, he he walks up to the mic microphone, he goes, Hey, blah, blah, blah. I'm here. I'm in charge of brand here at Nike. What do you guys want to talk about? And somebody screams, what's the seashell? Okay. And he touches this thing and the seashell lights up, and then it takes up the full screen. And then he talks, he has about a 10-minute thing about the seashells. Coolest story you ever heard. And then it kind of goes back up to its corner. Now, what do you want to talk about? And somebody else, well, we only got to three things. He said, We're only going to get to three things. So we left two-thirds of it, we never got to talk about. And it killed me because it was also cool. But it was truly interactive. You know, so I left with this, oh wow, I left wanting more. Holy smokes. Isn't that amazing? But this is what happens when you allow people to be a part of the discovery experience. And this is what I'm really trying to underline in this conversation is that moving forward, your story has to have legitimate opportunities for people to engage with the story, and they have to be able to find the truth as directly as possible on their own. And then when they do, it'll stick, it'll be real. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

But if you don't, and and from a from a leadership perspective, the more you can realize that the linear story that you're trying to tell is now a more difficult proposition than it's ever been. And rather than leading people down that track, lead them down the track that says, let them discover what the story is. Let them discover from a leadership perspective, let them discover who I am as leader and why I'm taking them down this path. Rather than saying this is the path that we're going to run on, this hero's journey is the story we're going to tell. We're going to let you come to your own conclusion. Nice. Like a fable.

SPEAKER_03 40:13

You know, I had a just got to say what happened the other day last week when I was doing one of my shows for Viking, Steve Azar's Mississippi show, and the 400 folks come in from all over the world. Uh, you know, I've had a lot of moving moments in my life, but when I was I always like to say bye to everybody when uh when we get off stage and everybody's coming to the one door and they're going this way to do a little shopping and and experience the carousel and all that stuff. Anyway, I'm uh I'm saying bye, and this one guy comes up to me and immediately starts crying. He said, Oh, my wife was supposed to be with me. We've been married 45 years, she passed away at Valentine's, and she wanted me to wanted him to take this trip. Um, I didn't ask how and all that, but and he said, I've never I felt like when you were playing and you were telling the stories that seemed to have so much importance in your life with each and every word you sang and every thing you talked about. I felt like sh all of a sudden she was next to me the entire show. And he goes, and I mean and and he just was a ball of tears. He was on my shoulders, I started to cry. The person behind us getting ready to meet me, that guy started to cry. I mean, like I mean, like it was the most beautiful moment, and I had to share it with the team Viking. I sent it out, and they were immediately going, Oh my, but it was such a unique moment, you know. I get it all the time in different ways, but never that emotional. And raw, very raw. There was no way the next I mean, I mean, I meant it was just so special. It was raw. And it it's funny that you you go back to my childhood at 10 and a half, and Eugene is part of the story. All these stories that that I play because it's a lot of my Mississippi songs, mixed in with a few hits, so it's all about Mississippi, glued with my state song and all that stuff, so glued together the whole show. But it's amazing I tell those stories and they impact in that way and touch him that way. You don't know what the hero song's gonna be or the hero moment's gonna be, because to me, those songs and those stories are are they they go way beyond who I am. They take on their own version of how they impact. And it amazes me every time the narrative changes, the impact changes, the emotional response changes, and how can that work in people's so many different worlds and actually impact? So it was one of the most beautiful moments I've ever had in my musical career ever. And those are obviously moments that I'll cherish forever. And you know, you just are they ever gonna keep coming? You know what I mean? You wonder, and they then that uh just last week. So um very grateful for that moment. It's beautiful. I I love that man. I mean, he was the most beautiful soul ever, ever.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

Well, and he's his life changed.

SPEAKER_03 42:50

It was life changing to me. Yep, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

But he gave me Randy, bring us home. You bet. So Hero's Journey, lesson number one is just notice it. You're gonna hear it, you're gonna see it everywhere. And what is the hero's journey? Well, it's that call to action. It's uh going through some trials, it's finding a mentor, it's then having some big trial and then returning home. That's what it is. You're gonna see it in every everything you do. Next thing is story matters. And so how you're telling your story and allowing people to participate in the story legitimately, and also maybe not saying this is the truth, and now here's how we're gonna find it. Instead, go find the truth yourself, discover it yourself. I'm gonna give you the framework, the tools you need to go out and do this. So you really are the center of your own hero's journey. That's it. Joseph Campbell, cool dude, badass scholar for sure, and just very impressive. Steve Azar, song, this is what you do. This is you, this is the craft you have been doing your whole life. And all we're doing is putting another kind of dimension on it that you immediately go, Oh, yeah, I already knew that. And Mike Farrell, the Benedictine tradition, deeply rooted in the whole concept of the journey and the orientation to the journey. I'm so grateful for you guys. Everybody. I hope you guys have a great week. And where do we go to find uh residence?

SPEAKER_01 44:03

I can never remember residenceleader.com. You can find us there. Also, as we've mentioned in previous shows, you can bring us in live. We certainly would love to come in to your organization, your event, whatever. We've got a lot of different ways we can construct that. So if it's something that you're interested in, there's a button at residenceleader.com that says contact us, shoot us a message, and we'd love to have a conversation. So, with that, guys, another episode in the books, and we'll see you next time on Resonance. Thank you. Later, I'm not sure what you're doing.