Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Dr. AJ Minai: Supercharge Your Storytelling | Marketing | E20

Episode Date: March 6, 2019

Sell it with a story! We ‘ve told stories for as long as we’ve been human, since ancient times people have used stories to communicate, learn, and connect with one other. Today, storytelling has become a prominent trend in the business as organizations look to enhance brand awareness and loyalty by telling compelling stories about their products and services. Helping us uncover the value of storytelling is Dr. AJ Minai, a professional storyteller from Malaysia who has made his rounds as the chief marketing, innovation, and executive officer at several companies Now AJ is taking everything he knows about storytelling and sharing his knowledge at various conferences, as a TED speaker, and now here on YAP. Tune into the episode to understand why storytelling has become so popular in business, learn how to tell more effective stories, and hear real examples of businesses who do it right. Want to connect with other YAP listeners? Join the YAP Society on Slack: bit.ly/yapsociety Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com  

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Visit compasshq.com to learn more. You're listening to Yap, Young and Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. I'm Halitaha, and today we're Yapin about storytelling in business. We've told stories for as long as we've been human. Since ancient times, people have used stories to communicate, learn, and connect with one another. In modern days, storytelling has become a prominent trend in business,

as organizations look to enhance brand awareness and loyalty, by telling compelling stories about their products and services. Helping us uncover the value of storytelling is Dr. A.J. Manai. AJ is a professional storyteller who has made his rounds as the chief marketing, innovation, and executive officer at several companies, often managing many jobs at once. Now A.J. is taking everything he knows about storytelling and sharing his knowledge at various conferences as a TED speaker and now here on Yap. Hey, AJ, thanks for joining Young and Profiting Podcast.

Likewise. It's an amazing privilege to be here. I've heard so many good things about Halotaha and Young and Profiting on LinkedIn that it's really an honor being here. So thank you very much. Oh, thanks. That's sweet. Okay, so you describe yourself as a storyteller and a futurist. You've spoken at over 170 events since 2013. According to your LinkedIn, you're a CMO, a CEO, a CIO innovation officer. Right.

And for many startups. So how did you get here? Tell us about your journey and what you spend your time doing today. Okay. Let's start off with the easy part, which is my journey, as opposed to my day jobs. I started out essentially as a kid that was bully. I remember growing up in school from middle school all the way to high school was a pretty tough time for me. And I think as a result of being outcasted and being bullied, I think what happens is as a kid, you get to spend a lot more time with yourself.

Because if you're not and you happen to be the jock or you happen to be the popular kid school, the opposite happens. You've got a lot of distractions. You know what I mean? It's one after another. You're in spotlight. There's just so many things that distract you. But if you're like me and you just grew up in between the ages of 9, 16 as a kid that was just going through repeated bullying, As a kid who spent a lot of time on his own, I started building up a lot of my observational skills.

And I think that led to building up a certain amount of self-awareness much earlier on in my life than typically people would do normally, right? And I think I spent a lot more time dabbling in emotional intelligence without even knowing what emotional intelligence was actually at that point. I'd have a word for it, but that's what happened, right? And that's when it kicked off an entrepreneurial streak in me. So back in the day when I was a kid, I used to love. collecting comics and I grew up and a lot of these heroes painted my childhood and because I was so much

into comics and stuff I used to collect these cards and I used to sell them on the street and roll a profit out of them so I'd buy a hologram of Wolverine for like 40 bucks and I'd sell it for like 200 and sometimes get in trouble but therein began my journey of understanding profit and loss and being an entrepreneur just finding opportunities to survive to better my own lifestyle and so that's how my journey began as a kid. And there's a lot of stuff that happened after that, but I'm just going to fast forward to now, the present and what I do now. So the reason that I became a venture builder, you described it well, CMO, CIO, and these are all just titles. For me, the titles don't really matter. It's just being able to follow a passion in life that I've had since I was a kid,

which is I realized that at first I misconstrued it for being a very effective salesperson. So I think I made a huge mistake in the beginning of my career. I kind of thought my ability to sell ice to an Eskimo. And I'm not saying that from a boastful way. I'm not showing off about it. It's just that as a kid, when I started doing the MCU cards and I started selling them, and then one thing led to another, and I started getting into other small little ventures as a kid, as a teenager. And then even when I started working on my first job, I had these little side hustles. All of that kind of gave me this impression that sales is the way to go. And I should be a sales professional. And I found out almost seven, eight years later that I had picked the wrong profession altogether. I had completely misconstrued

what my body and my mind was telling me about my own skill sets. What I really wanted to do was storytelling. What I really wanted to do was empower others and inspire people with my voice, with my ability to so-called sell ice to Eskimos. It was not about getting a check or a commission out of someone, but it was about empowering people to see the best versions of themselves. and then from their understanding how to achieve that in their own lives, right? So when we talk about the titles, the CIO and the CEO and the CMO, those are just titles and we put them aside for one second, Hala. And if you think about it, I essentially do the same thing in all of these capacities.

So whether I'm the CEO of a fintech company or I'm the CMO of a branding agency, I've got asked this a lot of times, AJ, you've got a lot of different ventures you're involved in and you're the C-suite in all of them in different capacities, innovation, marketing, and everything. How do you manage doing all of that at the same time? And what I've realized is that it comes back to being able to understand that it's not about learning how to play very disparate goals in your capacity in all these ventures. It's about knowing that you have a particular skill set that you do fairly well and you're very confident doing and being able to deliver the impact of that.

skill set across all these ventures. So whether it's a CEO or a CMO, the title doesn't really matter. It's the skill set of being able to evangelize and storytell to build the brand and to build the business is what I do, irrespective of the title, right? So it doesn't matter whether it's a fintech or it's a branding agency or if it's an augmented reality venture that we're also involved in right now. All of that stuff really doesn't matter. It's just about understanding what are my strengths and my weaknesses. It all just began as a kid being bullied and having no choice but to build an emotional intelligence. Yeah, that's very inspiring. And I can't wait to unpack storytelling with you and get all your tips and tricks on how to be a good storyteller. But first, let's pay

attention to you because you have a very inspiring journey. You are a multitasker. You work at four different companies right now, all C-suite positions like we mentioned earlier. And, I had a time management expert on the show. Her name is Laura Vanderkamp. And she talked about how she tracks her time very closely in order to become more conscious of it and manage it better. And so we were wondering, what are your time management secrets balancing all of these workloads? I think the first secret is that I'm awful at it. I'm just kidding. No, no. All jokes aside, I'm totally of the view that there's no such thing as a work-life balance. if you're an entrepreneur, and I think sacrifices have to be made, and I think there are prices that

you have to pay. And if anybody says that there is a utopia to that aspect, and like, no, there is a secret formula to that. You can have everything. I think they're probably pulling a fast one. I personally feel that time management comes down to just understanding yourself really well. And I'm just going to use an example that's very relevant to my own life. Put it this way. If you've got to do four different things at four different companies, right, four. different skill sets at four different companies. It's logical for someone to know that, okay, if I'm doing four different skill sets, maybe I'm really good at one, but the other three, I'm kind of just mediocreing. You know what I mean? So people can't be good at all four things.

If you talk about mastery levels and you talk about multitasking, it's a known fact that I'm probably going to sound a little bit sexist and sorry guys, but it's a known fact that women are generally better multitaskers than men, right? And me understanding myself, I can tell you, you that in my case is definitely true. I don't think I'm multitask. What I think I do is I just do the same skill set over and over again fairly well because I've trained myself to do it. But if I were to go to four different ventures and take on four completely different skill sets, I think my time and everything else would just go out the window. You know what I mean? Yeah. So if you're doing four different skill sets every day, it's going to bog you down. And your time management, quite frankly,

pardon my French, it's going to be shit, right? But if you know exactly what your strengths and weaknesses are, and you know what you're good at, and you know that you want to bring that same value proposition to each of those four things. So if someone goes, hey, dude, you want to do my finance as a CIO, and you're like, no, finance isn't really my gig, dude. You know, you should talk to my buddy Ryan.

You should talk to my buddy Cage. They would know this better because that's their strength. But I'm the storyteller. If you want me to build the brand through storytelling, through inbound strategy, through understanding how to humanize the business, I'm your man, right? Got it. And if I do that across all four ventures, I'll do it faster and quicker than the guy who's trying to do four different things at four different ventures. You get what I mean? Yeah, that's really good advice. If you've optimized yourself and you know how to do that job very well,

very efficiently, and now you're able to apply it across different ventures. Right. And therefore, at the end of the day, from a time management point of view, the bottom line is I do it quickly and efficiently. And therefore, I have more time to spend on things that I might otherwise enjoy. All right. So let's get into your expertise. Let's share some of your insight that you've learned over the years. Something you talk about is storytelling. And this is what mankind has been doing since ancient times.

You give talks about so many different subjects from digital DNA, generational gaps, HR education. but your unifying theme is always storytelling. So when did you realize you were a storyteller? And why is storytelling so important in everyday life? You're going to laugh, right? I realized that I was a storyteller when I was about to be beat by a 16-year-old kid in the park here by house.

Long story short, I told you earlier about how I used to roll MCU cards, Marvel Comic Universe cards. They weren't playing cards. would just collector cards. And it actually was a true story. This is way before Hugh Jackman added any sex appeal to Wolverine. This is back when you Wolverine used to wear a yellow spandex with these really weird funky horns on his calcium. There was a Wolverine hologram and it cost me like 40 bucks and I went to the park that day and there was this kid and I'm not going to take his name because if he hears this, he's going to say, well, dude, why did you talk about

this story? So, long story show, there's an Argentinian kid who's probably about eight, nine years old than I was. And he saw the card and he was like, hey, I want to buy that card. And I said, yeah, sure, it's 200. And he was like, what? And I was like, yeah. And I came up with this very elaborate story around how it's 200. You know, I said, oh, you know, I went to the shop and I saw this in the window and I was like, hey, how much is this, sir? And he was like, oh, it's actually originally 300. But I haggled them. I talked about it and I traded some of my other cards. I made this elaborate story. It was a completely false. It was a completely false story. At that time, I didn't even know the value of authentic storytelling. I was a kid.

I mean, I was barely about eight, nine years old, right? You can't blame me. Give me a break. So it was a complete lie. But it was nonetheless a story. It was a fable that I made up. And he bought it. He bought it because I was so passionate while I was telling him this story, albeit a fake one, but I was so passionate about it. Subconsciously, I think, I started to realize that I could make up stories to capture people's imaginations. I could make up stories. I could make up stories for people to become part of me for a few seconds, to feel what I feel in that moment, right? And that's fundamentally why storytelling has become so important in branding and marketing today,

because the old marketing playbook is just dead, right? Brands have moved away from function to feeling. And then that's when I kind of started doing it more often. And in time, just for as a disclaimer for myself, so your audience doesn't think that I'm one of those fake storytellers. At one point when I got older, I realized the value of, the story itself being authentic and the value of humanizing it

with very real examples, with very real people and real characters, right? And if you really think about it, influencers today, an influencer marketing is built around authenticity. People truly feel that they can believe someone that they follow online. And that's why an emotional buying decision

comes into the picture. If someone who's crazy about Kim Kardashian sees her buy these shoes, they want to buy those same shoes, not because it's just Kim Kardashian, but also because she bought them and she's advocating them, she's endorsing them, right? It's not even about Kim herself.

It's also about the fact that it's Kim saying that you should do this because it's a great product. So people automatically trust it and they buy it as well, right? And whether it's authentic or not, that's another thing altogether. But that's really the pivot on influencer marketing at the end of the day too. Yeah. So like I mentioned before, it's a really old art form. It's as old as human language.

But what is the evolution of it? Why is it so popular today in marketing and sales? I think we just got really, really materialistic, really, really fast. I know that sounds like the politically incorrect answer, but I think we became materialistic way too fast. And I'll tell you why. I think why is storytelling so hot now? Because emotional intelligence, self-awareness,

and all these other aspects that come from articulate storytelling have become so hot, right? Because we're in a world where people are fed up of superficial. Like, superficial is super passe. Nobody wants to just deal with the surface anymore. People want to feel something. Like, it doesn't even matter whether it's a branding message or it's a relationship with your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your wife or your husband.

Anything, if you talk about it, we're so connected. We're so digital now. We're so attached to devices that when we finally do get to experience something that's raw, that's actually feeling-centric as opposed to just rational or our eyeballs on it, we just lap it up. We just go crazy about it, right? It's like receiving a hand-written letter to you now because you feel so ecstatic about the fact that someone wrote a letter to you

when you're so used to your head wiring you for emails and for WhatsApp messages, or for anything else. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's so eye-opening. You're basically saying the humanness element of it. The fact that we've been doing this since ancient times makes us feel like we're more human and we're just constantly bombarded by digital mathematics, preciseness. Yeah, and we've got such access to information all the time, right? If you think about it, like right now, you're probably looking at a screen right now. When you get up and you leave your office or wherever you're at, Hala, you're probably

going to see a digital billboard of signage. That's another screen. And you're walking, you're in the lift, you're probably going to turn around. There's probably an advertising banner in the lift. If you think about it all times and there's a message that beeps up, you pick up your phone, you're on a screen again. If you think about it, we're just being bombarded. We're consumers of data. We are data-centric beings now that are being consumed by so much of outside noise

that the intrinsic noise or the intrinsic or the internal has become so much more valuable now. It's so much more unknown, but it's also intriguing. So things like self-awareness, emotional intelligence, storytelling, all of a sudden have made a huge comeback. I take Gillette for an example. Gillette five, ten years ago, was doing ads where there were still on traditional advertising jingles. Like, you know, I don't know if you remember watching the old Gillette ad, but like, you know, the best demand can get from Gillette, you know? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, you know what I mean? And I was a dude with a washboard ad standing in front of a mirror. Like half the ad was just a 3D rendition of the shaver itself with how many blades, with all these features. and they were selling the shaver so hard, you know what I mean? It was a complete outbound strategy. And then now, 10 years later, you see Gillette ads and their stories. They hardly show the shaver. They show things like a young man growing up watching a father that he really admired.

And all of a sudden, how time changes that. And the father becomes a lot more frail and how that young man is turned into his guardian in many which ways, right? And how he's taking care of his dad. And that whole thing is just pivoted because the ad is so much more longer, but still people stay glued to it because they're so in love with that connection that that father and son have. And like for one second in that five-minute story, for one or two seconds, they show this roan man shaving his old father who can't shave anymore. And three-quarters into the ad, there's this really subtle Gillette the best a man can get. By that time it reaches that point where it shows that line, you're already cheering up.

thinking about your dad. You see what I mean? Yeah. Everything has changed. I'm touched and you only explained it. My point is, that's the power of storytelling. I can talk to you about it and you can connect with me. You can feel what I'm feeling just for a moment. But in that moment, if you can inspire someone with hope to do more, to be more, then, dude, you've done your job.

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We can all apply in our daily lives. In fact, a study from the scientific American reveal that personal stories and gossip make up 65% of our conversations. We do storytelling to make friends, convey ideas, seek empathy. So how do you suggest we improve our storytelling capabilities and what are the elements that make up a good story? Storytelling isn't just a tool to persuade for me. And it shouldn't be just a tool to persuade for anyone. Storytelling has an actual science behind it. It has finessellular. It has finessell has finesse to it. It has a prowess to it. You need to train yourself. Just like people train

themselves to pitch better, they need to train themselves to be more eloquent storytellers. And I always say that it comes down to A, authenticity. You need to understand that if you tell a story from the bottom of your heart and it's really authentic and you really, really love that story, when you tell it, whether it's your story or someone else's, but when you tell that story and you really love telling that story, the other people will feel it. They will feel it. But if you just want to cookie cutter their stories out and you want to churn them out merely just for the sake of persuasion, you want to impress the person, what are you going to do, it's not going to have half the impact that it would have in the latter. So let's talk about the elements. For me, I've actually studied this for the last three, four years. I've studied storytelling from an actual actionable point of view where organizations that cut coached and trained by me and sea level, particularly, can understand how to be building more humanized authentic stories to inspire their teams to perform better. And I'm not talking from a manipulated point of view.

I'm not saying become an awesome or an awesome speaker to do people into doing what you want them to do. No. Engage them so that they actually feel something so strongly and so vehemently that they themselves willingly want to come back to you. They want to be on your side. They want to be there. They don't show up to work because,

you've tricked them into it. They show up there because they love working there. You know what I mean? So let's talk about the elements. I feel like any effective storytelling technique has to have these key elements. Obviously, a story has to have a narrative. So you've got to have a strong narrative.

Two, I'm going to go back and reitrate this, but I'm only re-itring. This is so important. It has to be authentic. Three, you have to have a little bit of detail. It can't be so superficial that people don't get a chance to really sink in with it or connect with it momentarily. It has to be a little bit more detailed than just a peripheral story.

You know what I mean? And there has to be meaningful challenge in it. If you watch a movie in a cinema and then three years later, I'm like, hey, remember that movie? And you've forgotten the actor's name. You've forgotten everything. But for some reason when I say the name and I talk about the storyline, you're like, oh, yeah, you mean that one in which that happens and that happens? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, that one. And you're like, yeah, I love that movie, right?

But you've forgotten everything else. You've forgotten the actor's name. You've forgotten everything. But you don't forget the story. Why? Because it made you feel something. And every story that's worth remembering, typically, usually, in 90% of the cases, has meaningful challenges in it. It has like a story arc to it where there's an abruptness to the character development,

where things are good, then they go bad. Then they go bad from worse. And then from worse, it becomes really good. as a typical hero villain formula. But at the end of the day, I'm not talking about just a movie formula. I'm talking about how real life is all about the ups and downs. You know what I mean?

Yeah. So like a story also needs to be about it up and down. If it's a story that's perpetually good or perpetually negative, then that's a fable. That's not authentic and doesn't have any meaning to the challenges that are put forth in that story. And then finally, the last two areas that I think really need consideration, to be an effective storyteller,

is your story has to have a practical output to it. Let me explain this by example. My recent post on LinkedIn was about Optimus Prime. And I talked about how, as a kid growing up, Optimus was just a bunch of red and blue blocks, right? And it was really bad graphics, really corny soundtracks, really bad punchlines, and all that stuff. But despite the lack of CGI and before Michael Bigg gave him stripes and stuff,

as a kid, Optimus Prime had this huge impact on me because of his voice, because of his purpose. He just was this dude that you knew had a purpose bigger than himself. And even though he was a fictional character, what he stood for was very real in our lives. It's the ability of not giving up, not giving up on hope.

Having hope despite the circumstances. So there has to be a practicality to every story, no matter what the angle. And finally, there needs to be a dialogue. The best stories are ones that just keep continuing. They turn into a conversation. They grow. They're not just about a four or five line, you know, happily ever after.

In my opinion, the best stories are one that have dialogue, that grow, that evolve. Yeah. So yeah, those are the elements. That's very helpful. And thanks for giving examples. How about storytelling for sales professionals? How do we apply storytelling when we're trying to make a sale or when we're trying to build a brand? And what's your suggestion there?

To keep it as brief as possible, because this is actually a two-day workshop that I do. So storytelling for sales professionals is an actual two-day workshop that I do. And to cram two days into a couple of lines or a paragraph is difficult, but I'm just going to condense it to as much as I can. Yeah. It's just down to understanding that all the elements that I talked about earlier apply just as much in sales as they do in anything else in life. So those tips actually apply to sales professionals as well that I just talked about earlier, the elements. But I think one more focal point that people need to keep their eye on in sales is understanding that you're not telling stories to sell. You're telling stories to make them buy.

Right. So I'm just going to say that again. You're not telling stories to sell because that's basically just you pitching or you hard selling in your own career. You know what I mean? whether it's a product or a service that you're selling. If you're going to hard sell, you're going to pitch something. And don't get me wrong, pitching in certain context is still very valuable. If you're going to go to an investor and you're going to use certain storytelling techniques

and you're not going to pitch it, that can be very harmful. So don't get me wrong, storytelling can't be used in every single facet of the organization. There are some things that you don't want to be using storytelling for, and you just want to have a very blunt, direct, non-inbound sort of a conversation, right? that is a reality too. But coming back to sales professionals, storytelling is their key from being good to great. That's my opinion. There are probably a lot of technically oriented salespeople out there who are probably sitting there going, that's bullshit, AJ. I don't agree with that. You know, you just got to get straight to the point and tell people what you're selling and pitch it.

If they say no to it, you're quick in, quick out, move on to the next opportunity. Don't get me wrong. There are probably a lot of people out that too. But I personally feel that what differentiates an average, salesperson to someone who is absolutely epic like Steve Jobs. Yeah, he's known primarily as being one of the best marketers in the world's ever lived, but I kind of feel like he was an amazing salesperson as well because he has the ability to get up on stage and captivate a crowd, not by selling a product or a feature, but by selling them an idea, by showing them a better way to function and how that solves problems. So Steve actually technically never sold anything to anyone. He just made them buy Apple. You get what I mean? And that's what the power of storytelling.

Can you give an example of selling something technically versus selling something with a storytelling approach? Okay. This is a case study that I presented a couple of months ago at a conference here. I think the name of the brand was Red Wing Shoes. Basically what happened was these guys are a company that's been around for like 30 years, and they're based in the U.S. And they're very much so like a very state-centric sort of company, a company that was homebred, it's been its own state there. It's when it first started out, the town wasn't as enriched by its presence, but it's become a household name in that town and stuff, right?

In a nutshell, this brand sells really rugged construction boot type of stuff, right? So it sells boots for the rugged man, who's involved in the rail yards, and at construction sites and architects and all those guys who are doing all this heavy stuff, right? Women and men, both. So here we have this rugged boot selling company. And logically, what you think they would do is they would have, for example, their marketing and their collaterals and their videos all about pushing how awesome the shoes are and how tough they are or doing a video around a toughness test or doing a video.

about this guy who's ripped, who's walking without a shirt with a pair of boots on, his shirts open a bit, he's walking around, typical Marlboro man type of feel. You know what I mean? So logically, you'd think about a shoe company that sells these type of intense boots to be doing that. But what did they do instead? What they did instead was they created a video about a gentleman who had been working in their repair department for the last 10 years. So, get this. They're a company that sells brand new boots, okay? They sell brand new boots as a business. That's their main revenue stream. But instead of pushing that and making that into, okay, you know what, we've got this new model, just that this, blah, blah, blah, blah. The typical shoe

in your face buy these sort of ads and videos or getting like an influencer running in them and standing around in them. Instead of that, why on earth would they not do that and do almost like an infomercial about a guy who works in their repair department for the last 10 years. And, you know, this guy is an average Joe type of dude who is clocking, clocking out, coming into the repair side of the business, and getting old boots. It's not even their newest boots. It's not their latest models. It's these old boots that have been torn apart because they've been worn and torn. And he's getting them this video. And all they're doing throughout the video is showcasing how this guy does his day job, how he goes in the morning, what his opinion is of

the company, what his job is, how he loves fixing these things, how he gets it up and everything, and how he makes sure he's up early in the morning there, he's getting things done, he's leaving late and night because he really loves it. And it's just about his story as an employee. It doesn't even try to sell the shoes. And even if it did, it's positioning old shoes, old boots that are broken that are being repaired. So if you really think about it, the case study is doing the exact opposite of what logic dictates a company would be doing. Instead of trying to sell or hard sell their product and merchandise, they're humanizing it by talking about Mr. Average Joe, who works in their repair department, talking about the connection and the value that this brand has brought into his life, and how he never leave working these guys. You never leave with them.

You would never leave the company. He would never leave the town because he would never leave. loves his life and loves the fact that this company cares about old things too and repairs them for that guy who wants his boots. He doesn't want to buy new boots. And it sends a very subliminal message to the consumers and the people watching that this is a brand that isn't about pushing new products to me and building products that fail on purpose. So I come back and buy more. This is a brand that subliminally shows me that if I take back my old boots that I bought from them five years ago, they aren't going to hard sell me. They're going to repair them,

make them brand new, and keep servicing me because they're here. They're here no matter what. Young and profitors. I know there's so many people tuning in right now that end their workday wondering why certain tasks take forever, why they're procrastinating certain things, why they don't feel confident in their work, why they feel drained and frustrated and unfulfilled. But here's the thing you need to know. It's not a character of flaw that you're feeling this way. It's actually your natural wiring. And here's the thing. When it comes to burnout, it's really about the type of work that you're doing. Some work gives you energy and some work simply drains you. So it's key to understand your six types of working genius. The working genius assessment or the six types of

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threefold than doing the latter by hard selling it. Wow. So that's an example. Yeah. Storytelling is so powerful because if I remember correctly, you remember stories better than you remember logical facts. Totally. I think science has proven that. So that's such a great case study that we went over because I think that we'll all always remember that story. Red Wings all about maintenance and this and that.

Whereas if we were just given facts about Red Wing, I don't think we would remember them, you know, five years later. Totally. Cool. So we are just about out of time. My last question for you on storytelling before we go is how to use storytelling with our personal brands. This is something that's really popular right now. And, you know, many people call it humble bragging, basically telling a story as an excuse to kind of brag about yourself.

So can you give us some tips on how to use storytelling without coming off as conceded? And what are some best practices when it comes to using storytelling to enhance our personal brands? Sure, absolutely. We probably need to start up by saying that being any form of a storyteller is not about self-promotion, at least in my opinion as an authentic storyteller. I think at times everyone's human and I think we all humble brag. I think there's no use to lying about it. It really is the truth. And I'm probably going to be straight up about this. Some of the listeners may not agree with me. But I really feel like if someone says that they really are trying to go out of their way not to humble brag, most of the times I think they're lying to themselves and others. I think everyone

at one point in their life does intentionally or unintentionally humble brag. But what I'm saying is that storytelling as a tool or as a lifestyle of being a storyteller, and if you're really wanting to be authentic about it, it's not about self-promotion. It can never be about self-promotion. So it's not about the humble brag. It's about inspiring other people through your own mistakes or through your own experiences, whether there are successes or failures. But it's about inspiring others to become the best versions of themselves.

right and just to give you a relevant real-life example is maybe my recent post on LinkedIn about Optimus Prime that I talked about earlier on the show here to snow if you really think about it it can be risky for me as someone who does the amount of speaking engagement and assignments and consultancy work and all the stuff that I do in the market not just in Malaysia but across the region here in Asia if you really think about it a post like that can be dangerous. It can be very dangerous because picture this, a baby boomer CEO or a Gen X CEO, a lot of them might think like, wow, this guy's a big kid. It can have a very negative connotation to it. People can think, wow, this guy's such a dork. Because it's such a geek. But why did I

put myself out there? Like, why did I do it? There's a risk to any story that you tell, right? You're going to make a positive impact on some people, but people need to understand this. So a couple of posts to go on LinkedIn, I also talked about this. People need to understand that for your marketing to be awesome, you need to accept the fact that it's going to be positive in some people's eyes, but at the cost of being negative in some people's eyes, you can't please everyone. There's just no way of doing it. So it's just never going to happen that you'll become the perfect storyteller. Because you're always going to have people who are going to call you out on stuff. They're going to be, for lack of better words, dissing on you. And there's nothing you can do about that.

So if you know that reality, a lot of people can subjectively say that it's totally a humble. humble brag, right? If I objectively read my post on Optimus Prime, there's absolutely nothing that I'm showing off about in that post. I'm not showing off about anything. In fact, it's pretty much the opposite. I've actually gotten fairly vulnerable in that post, and I've talked about myself, and I've talked about myself as a kid and that journey and about how I really look up to the ideals of this fictional character. And I know they're fictional, but what they represented is so real and can be symbolized in our real lives. But if you talk about humble bragging, I don't see the humble brag in that post. You know what I mean? But you're right. You're right. It is a reality. We can't avoid it.

It's true that there are going to be days where you may, you, me or anybody might say things that comes across a bit of a humble brag. And that's not limited just to you and me. It's applicable to a lot of people. Let's call it spade a spade a spade. I've got friends who literally swear by Grand Cardone. They swear by him, right? They're like, this guy is sick. he's seriously dope. But I've got friends who cannot stand him. I've got friends who say this guy is obnoxious. He doesn't sit well with me. If you want to call a spade a spade of some of the stuff that Grant puts out there can be definitely construed as humble brag. You know what I mean? You look at his post, you look at the way he talks about stuff. You can definitely humble brag.

But is it in his own eyes? Is he really doing it for the sake of bragging? I'd argue you probably not. I'm willing to say, I'm probably fairly confident to say that if you were to talk to him, he probably he's doing it because he wants others to be inspired by his example. The same thing goes for Gary V. So Gary's been in Asia a few times here too. And I personally am a huge fan of Gary. I think Gary has this sense of self-awareness that he's brought to entrepreneurship as a spectrum, as a body of knowledge where he just speaks not to demographics, but to psychographics as he says. And I think that's an amazing thing because I think that makes him an amazing storyteller. That's why he gets up and he engages so many people because he just speaks the truth authentically about what he feels needs to be

talked about. Are there people who don't agree with Gary? Are there people who think that he's too blunt and he rubs you the wrong way? Yeah, I'm sure you know some people who think that way too, right? That doesn't mean that he's humble bragging. No. So I think it's so subjective that there is no answer to this particular question. How long? Your personal brand is what you make it. And do whatever you think you feel comes from the heart. I think the only, thing that I would give as cautionary piece of advice is if you're doing something out there, don't fake it. Just do what comes to you naturally. And that's going to be a risk in itself. Like, for example, that post on optimist that I talked about, that's a huge risk. It's a possibility

that some people will see that as childishness. Some people might see that as, wow, this guy's kind of way out there. What is he talking about on LinkedIn about this? You know what I mean? Yeah. But for me, I still did it because it felt like I wanted to share that story with people. Yeah. And it's real. It's true. It's authentic. Back to your, point on authenticity. It's almost like if you are authentic, you don't really have to worry about humble bragging. It's the truth. It's who you are. You told the story. Yeah. And if it happens to be something that people think that you're showing off about, then that probably is more so their fault than you are. Agreed. All right. So AJ, where can our listeners follow up with you, hear more about you

and find you online? I think at this point, LinkedIn is probably their best bet. I actually think right now LinkedIn is probably the most organically rewarding platform out of the entire plethora of stuff going out out there. Agreed. Without a doubt, I'm not even being biased or anything. If you look at the stats, you'll see it. LinkedIn is organically the most accessible platform out there right now in comparison to paying for stuff on other platforms.

And I feel like if I need to connect with anybody, the best place would be LinkedIn, because that's where I really enjoy spending the disciplined amount of time. I do engage on digital aspects of my own life. Awesome. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank you. It was a pleasure, hello. Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting Podcast.

If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to write us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the show. Follow Yap on Instagram at Young and Profiting and check us out at younginprofiting.com. And now you can chat live with us every single day on YAP Society on Slack. Check out our show notes or young and profiting.com

for the registration link. You can find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name, Hala Taha. Big thanks to the YAP team for another successful episode. This week, I'd like to give a special shout out to Stephanie and Shiv for their amazing contributions in research and pre-production. Until next time, this is Hala, signing off.